ttp://www.libertylounge.net/forums/29072-gay-straight-roommates-com-can-t-6.html
Could you elaborate upon what exactly we are supposed to be responding to/explaining?
The difference between natural rights and the government recognizing those rights.
Natural rights are legally enforceable moral claims that others have against your obligation not to treat them in a certain way (i.e., by threat or use of initiatory physical force). They signify oughts. Whether anyone, including governments, recognizes, respects, and/or protects these rights does not affect their existence.
If you’re looking for more, I’m afraid you’ll have to clarify what specifically you’re looking for.
You can’t prove that torturing and burning young children is a violation of rights; it’s just a common sense thing that some leftists will fail to recognize. Bringing that up helps to point out the truly scummish people (the people who deserve to be tortured/burned), and it can really make leftists look bad in front of others.
Why should ‘common sense’ matter? Realize that by abdicating morality you abdicate any right to criticize another’s moral behaviour.
Why would society want it that way?
I don’t follow that, Inquisitor.
If there is a way to “prove” natural rights exist, I haven’t found it. In addition, it really doesn’t matter whether they exist or not; humans must still choose to defend them.
If someone insists that torturing children is totally fine, or insists that taxes are totally fine, or insists that individuals don’t have self-ownership, you can’t whip out an equation and prove them wrong. You can simply prove to the rest of the world who they really are.
To which I shall retort, ‘so what?’ That will not be sufficient in justifying their punishment, no more than an angry mob persecuting a man who is guilty in their eyes is justice.
You say you haven’t found it, but where have you looked?
You don’t need to justify their punishment beyond their violation of an individual’s self-ownership.
Do leftists justify their punishment of all us whenever they tax? No. In the end, does it matter? No, we still get taxed.
To answer your question, I apparently haven’t looked where you found it. Do you have a link?
EDIT: so many typos
I agree to an extent, Ego. If someone doesn’t believe objectively in such things as right and wrong, you can’t prove their existence. But if they do believe in those things, you can prove the necessity for rational ethics, and the necessity for non-contradiction within those ethics, and finally the rational consistency of non-aggression.
Ego, why should violating one’s self-ownership be punished in the first place? Obviously, if one punishes they think they are justified in doing so, But why? What will such a person answer, and why can their answer not be subjected to logical scrutiny?
Macfall, you can prove their existence; one merely may decide not to accept the proof (just as one can reject any other proof.) It is no strike against morals in particular, given how widespread a phenomenon this is.
I’d begin with Henry Veatch’s Rational Man, and move on to The Norms of Liberty by Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas den Uyl.
Why does it need to be justified? The fact that they act like they own others is reason enough. We don’t need cosmic justification.
Yes you can prove it’s a violation of rights. All rights derive from property. If the children own themselves, they have the right to control their property (their bodies). So, if someone burns them without their consent (i.e. controls their property), it is a violation of their right to control their body.
BTW, why are you ragging so hard on leftists? Don’t forget those pesky rightists![:D]
I guess I didn’t mean you couldn’t prove it. I wasn’t referring to everyone who believes in subjective values. I’d say a staunch Benthamite will probably know that murder is wrong when faced with the raw question - even if they won’t admit it. But there are people who literally do not believe in any such a thing as right and wrong. The ones who would say “If there were nobody around to say otherwise, and I were to kill you for no good reason, I would be doing nothing wrong”.
That’s a verbatim quote from a conversation I had the other day…
It’s not a question of why does it need to be justified - it is a question of what is the justification offered by the agents in question. In other words, why should I take action against one who aggresses me? Why should I feel anger toward them? And so on.
If someone insists that individuals don’t own themselves, that’s where the problem lies.
And I blame leftists because they, generally, are more collectivist.
That could be interpreted in two ways - i.e., he could be saying that there is such a thing as right and wrong and that it’s determined by popular vote or something (but then ask him on what basis the votes are cast). And do the people who say that actually believe it - do they act as if it were true?
If someone insists that the moon is made of cheese, that doesn’t affect the moon in any way; it only means he’s not really engaging in the argument. If someone insists that individuals don’t own themselves, he’s acting as if he owns himself (or, if he’s taking orders from someone else, as if the person giving the orders owns himself…)
I’m not saying that I agree with that statement! I have encountered leftists who insist that it’s dangerous if individuals are considered to own themselves. They claim it’s ok to force individuals to do something if it contributes towards the common good. I’m serious!
I can’t prove to these leftists that they don’t own other people, so all I can do is make them agree to more and more ridiculous statements (like torturing and burning children) in order to make them look as bad as possible to whomever is listening. [:)]