The delusions of Western "natural rights".

You can't make such an argument successfully to me. Sounds like a great way to cut the U.S. down to size. We already have the United Nations. Do you want a version of that with teeth? I don't even want the toothless one.

 

Humans have a different moral accountability that animals do.

Fake news. Had they not been recognized in law, the States would have never formed the Federal Government of The United States.

Your problem is that you yearn for global tyranny, which you apparently figure that your faction will run.

 

Wrong.

Natural Rights are Natural, and they can be affirmed by law, but they don't have to be affirmed to exist. We affirm them to assert and reserve them before government. As for being "born free", that's a questionable claim, but the part about being "created equal" has to do with our standing before the Law (and God).

The right Locke asserted is the right to the ownership of private property, in contrast to Morelly, Babeuf and their collectivist/communist/socialist progeny who incorrectly claimed individuals had no such right.

And of course, the right to private property ownership is an extension of the fundamental right of self-proprietorship that was asserted by the likes of Richard Overton and the English Levellers (see my signature) long before Locke wrote his Two Treatises.

Rights are not created by men, they are inherent in men and perhaps asserted, affirmed and defended by men. What men create are privileges and positive laws, not rights.

Your comment makes no sense. There is no such thing as created rights.

Actually, you've failed to make that argument.

Sovereignty is derived from the individual, not some global hegemon that doesn't exist. From the consenting individual governments derive their sovereignty and legitimacy, and of course, there is no global government.

 

OK, more accurately they are meaningless for Americans since the U.S. doesn't subscribe to the international laws.

 

All rights are created.

 

Nope.

 

Then how come different country's have different rights?

 

...because humans have a relatively developed cortex brain, allowing for self-awareness and consideration of oncepts like 'fairness' and 'morality'.

You side-stepped the point, which is men make laws according to their own choices, not to affirm the existance of 'natual individual rights' which don't exist.

I certainly believe men have the creativity to implerment universal well-being and security, as outlined in the UNUDHR. Your problem is you believe your personal freedom and personal choices trumps the well-being of others, hence the endless wars and entrenched poverty in our world.

"Deplorable".

 

Note: 1646 - when men were still struggling against primitive concepts like 'Divine Right of Kings" as the basis of Law.

Hence the need to establish some other basis for Law.

But statements like “To every individual in nature is given an individual property by nature, not to be invaded or usurped by any...." are open to interpretation, eg ..to every individual is given freedom of thought and action, which however must be adjudicated under rule Law, necessary to avoid anarchy between self-interested individuals (who have "property" ie the ability to self-actualize).

ah ha: "propriety" is a more accurate description than "property"; but given individuals' observed widely differing abilities, levels of greed, and egotistical tendencies, individual "propriety" needs to be adjudicated by Rule of Law, to achieve a well-ordered society.

 

No. Those structures simply allow for these concepts to be expressed in the physical world.

Our Constitution would not have been ratified without the expressed recognition of some of our natural rights.

How come Utopians so often turn out to be murderers?

If you want to voluntarily give up your rights, you are free to do so. Amazing how quickly your utopianism twisted into personal attack and slander at the slightest refusal.

 

Prove they existed before recognition.

 

3/4 of which are suicides.

 

True, but the Levellers also struggled against Oliver Cromwell and his lackeys in the Rump Parliament, which was widely ridiculed and lampooned for its various pretenses...



( Note: The text in the lithograph above refers to the Rump Parliament/dregs of the House of Commons who were allowed to retain their seats after Pride's Purge in 1648 )

What's important and relevant here is what the Levellers fought for - the inherent natural rights of the individual - which had already been affirmed to some extent in Magna Carta , the Petition of Right ( 1628 ), etc., and bound the English/British government to uphold those rights. It's all part of the great Western and Anglo-American rights tradition.

Something along the lines of the basis of our own Law and Government:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Law and Government instituted to secure the inherent, inalienable natural rights of the individual, not the privileges of some absolute monarch, dictator or illegitimate body of men.

As Thomas Jefferson admitted, this wasn't an original idea, and it didn't originate with Locke, either. You can find elements of Locke's social contract theory in William of Ockham's Dialogus which was written 300 years before Locke was born.

I disagree. The statement is clear and unambiguous in my eyes and mind - every individual possesses the right to self-proprietorship, which is not to be invaded or usurped by any individual or government. It's an assertion or affirmation of right. Where the rule of law and government comes in I discuss below.

If you are arguing, as the Levellers, Radical Whigs (Locke, Sydney, et al) and our Founders did, that the rule of law is necessary to secure the inherent rights of the individual, I would agree with you.

A well-ordered, civilized society requires the rule of law - even the Ancient Greeks and Romans understood that when they demanded that law be put into writing, as was done with Draco's Code (c. 620 BC) and the Twelve Tables (c. 450 BC).

If you are arguing that individual rights are not absolute, e.g., we have the right to express ourselves and our opinions, but we do not have a right to maliciously and dishonestly defame others, I think we're all in agreement there. As the old saying goes, one man's rights ends where another man's rights begin, so the role of the rule of law is to define where those lines are drawn and to ensure that they are respected.