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Mad Rabbit wrote:
If you believe in basic human rights, they cannot be given or taken away.

No, that's not true on the face of it. There are all kinds of games that you can play with the definition of 'human' which would permit the denial of 'human rights' on grounds of lost or absent 'humanity'.

Mad Rabbit wrote:
I don't think anyone argues that human rights exist in a real way. Human rights are an ideal.

You're conflating existence and reality, which will cause you some confusion. Human rights most certainly exist, as many people believe that they do. They aren't real, because they don't exist independent of context in the sense that a rock does. That said, if human rights are only an ideal, then they most certainly can be given and taken away in the course of fluctuations with respect to belief.

dogma wrote:

Mad Rabbit wrote:
If you believe in basic human rights, they cannot be given or taken away.

No, that's not true on the face of it. There are all kinds of games that you can play with the definition of 'human' which would permit the denial of 'human rights' on grounds of lost or absent 'humanity'.

Mad Rabbit wrote:
I don't think anyone argues that human rights exist in a real way. Human rights are an ideal.

You're conflating existence and reality, which will cause you some confusion. Human rights most certainly exist, as many people believe that they do. They aren't real, because they don't exist independent of context in the sense that a rock does. That said, if human rights are only an ideal, then they most certainly can be given and taken away in the course of fluctuations with respect to belief.

Theres a different between human rights, and civil rights.

Human rights are essentially an ideal- a conceptual human norm of shared morality or values.

Civil rights are those granted by a 'civiliation' to its members- through out history these are often a priveledge and hence, can be taken away. Many current societies have come to take these for granted.

They both boil down to political concepts, and as such, are open to eternal debate as to whether or not they are right/wrong or good/bad.

Soylent Green for international emergency food drops? At last they could be contributing members to society instead of a cancer?

This is your brain: O
This is your brain on drugs: .

This is your donkey-cave: .
This is your donkey-cave in prison: O


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Donkey-cave is an imprecise translation of my actual words :S

Mistress of minis wrote:
Theres a different between human rights, and civil rights.

Human rights are essentially an ideal- a conceptual human norm of shared morality or values.

Civil rights are those granted by a 'civiliation' to its members- through out history these are often a priveledge and hence, can be taken away. Many current societies have come to take these for granted.

One of the most popular critiques of human (or inalienable) rights centers on the idea that they are actually derived from civil rights, rather than the inverse. The idea being that people reverse engineer their conception of the 'good life' from those rules which they believe should govern the interaction of people. After all, how many people seriously talk about human rights in the face of natural constraints like predation, disease, or disaster?

Mistress of minis wrote:
They both boil down to political concepts, and as such, are open to eternal debate as to whether or not they are right/wrong or good/bad.

Indicating that, as with any other human concept, human rights can be both given and taken away.

I mean, you could argue that there will always be a set of 'rights' which define what a human can be expected to pursue. But at that point the argument isn't especially distinct from the statement "humans are human".

Hmm, I wonder how much it would cost to simply put them in a coma for the duration of their stay as long as it was a sufficiently long time? Say 25 years. You could put them under then wake them up when the time comes for them to be released. That way they gain no knowledge, no new skills, and when they wake up are as weak as a newborn. Not to mention you just lost 10-25 years of your life.

As for human rights, Humans have no inherent rights. The easiest way to prove this is a person's right to life. Nature seems to have a pretty low standard of that thought, as she has managed to kill 100 billion + of us. The only Human Right that can truly be considered a right is the pursuit of happiness, because it can not be taken away. As long as you are capable of thinking and realising that you are you you are capable of pursuing happiness, doesn't mean you'll catch it, but no one can stop you.

A persons right to life has nothing to do with nature as a whole, thats too general. Its down to what we as humans define as acceptable in our tribal dynamic. We are primitive tribal beings chasing the same goals we had 50,000 years ago, just now we can do it in an environment we have greater control over. Humans have what ever rites we decide, and what we now class as laws are based on universal principals found in people all over the world. Those who jeopardize the well being of the tribe are punished. Chimps do the same thing, hell they even have wars lasting generations against other chimp tribes.

Ratbarf wrote:Hmm, I wonder how much it would cost to simply put them in a coma for the duration of their stay as long as it was a sufficiently long time? Say 25 years. You could put them under then wake them up when the time comes for them to be released. That way they gain no knowledge, no new skills, and when they wake up are as weak as a newborn. Not to mention you just lost 10-25 years of your life.

As for human rights, Humans have no inherent rights. The easiest way to prove this is a person's right to life. Nature seems to have a pretty low standard of that thought, as she has managed to kill 100 billion + of us. The only Human Right that can truly be considered a right is the pursuit of happiness, because it can not be taken away. As long as you are capable of thinking and realising that you are you you are capable of pursuing happiness, doesn't mean you'll catch it, but no one can stop you.

You know what else nature doesn't have? Skyscrapers, space programs, and weapons capable of killing everything on the planet. Sometimes arguments by nature are pretty stupid, especially when you're talking about a concept that requires laws and a civil society to even exist.

cpt_fishcakes wrote:We are primitive tribal beings...

Not so much. The word 'tribal' has a specific meaning. Some people behave in a tribal manner, and others do not. Simply waving your hand and declaring all social interaction to be tribal in nature ignores that meaning, and devalues the term.

Similarly, the word primitive has a specific meaning. A meaning which also happens to lack force out of context. We are not primitive compared to our forbears and, as they don't yet exist, we cannot use future generations as a reference. Given that, I don't see how the adjective apply, collectively, to the present.

cpt_fishcakes wrote:
...and what we now class as laws are based on universal principals found in people all over the world.

That's highly unlikely to be true because universal consensus is nearly impossible to achieve.

I'll throw my vote behind Dogma's point of view right here, there is not universal ideal thought of human or civil rights. Examples on this for the US range from the speed limit on the highway to a persons leagal BAC to gun control and abortion I don't mean to high-jack the thread with these played to death arguments so I will leave it at that.

Having established that point though defining a criminal becomes almost impossible, if you agree with the laws that were cut into stone behind closed doors before most of us were born, then some would call you good citizens, and others would call you sheep. Having read this thread most of you would consider me a criminal. Yet I don't do any form of narcotics\drugs not prescribed to me, nor do I sell them, I don't drive at all (life chioce), I am gainfully employeed and I pay my taxes, my girlfriend is about 8 months younger then me (23), I don't traffic humans, I don't steal or even pirate music off the internet. I know I'm leaving a few thing out but you should get the idea. So as a thought excersise how could I have averaged four felonies a week since I was about 16? Could I be doing anything that any of you would put me away for 20+ yrs + $X0,000 fine?

Stealing things besides music? Assaulting/killing people? Nigerian email scams? Pimpin'?

This was just a thought excersise to illustrate that there is no universal thought on what should put people in prison and that we put usually under qualified and quickly jaded people in seats of power to decide what happens and to who.

No Orkeosaurus I do none of those things, although the Nigerian E mail scam was kind of funny, I got a good laugh out of that memory.