Obamacare Questions

[Heebie Jeebie]

Since any right can be eradicated or supressed, by this principle, there are no rights. Everyone ought to be perfectly happy with a completely totalitarian government, on such a view. I think most people will simply find that preposterous.

What a stupid view. We have the right to free speech precisely because we do not want a totalitarian government and we have a Constitution to guarantee it. You may be happy without that right guaranteed in law. Please do include me in your fantasy.

 

[ashurbanipal]

It doesn't miss the mark at all. You claim that even if we didn't have the Constitution protecting free speech we would still have that right. That is patently absurd.

How so?

None of the countries I listed have any legal protection for free speech and the people there do not have the right to it.

Sure they do, if free speech is a right at all (which it is). It's exactly similar to other abstract objects like the Pythagorean Theorem. If some country tried to keep people from learning or using the Pythagorean Theorem, it would still exist. If some country had no law against murder, murder would still be wrong. The laws that people write do not change the nature of abstract objects.

Just because you were born into a place that currently guarantees it there are plenty of place that do not have it. The only reason we have it is the Constitution.

No, we have it because it is a right, and even if the Constitution did not guarantee it, we would still have it. Even if we got shot for speaking our minds, we would still have the right to free speech. Even if our mouths were sewn shut at birth and all capacity to communicate via language were somehow eradicated, we would have the right to free speech. It's impossible to destroy an abstract object, which in this case is a principle about how governments and other powerful institutions ought to handle speech acts by common people.

We have the right to free speech precisely because we do not want a totalitarian government and we have a Constitution to guarantee it. You may be happy without that right guaranteed in law. Please do include me in your fantasy.

I'm not even sure how this is a reply to what I wrote.

 

[Heebie Jeebie]

How so?

If it was denied what would you base your argument on?

 

[Heebie Jeebie]

Sure they do, if free speech is a right at all (which it is). It's exactly similar to other abstract objects like the Pythagorean Theorem. If some country tried to keep people from learning or using the Pythagorean Theorem, it would still exist. If some country had no law against murder, murder would still be wrong. The laws that people write do not change the nature of abstract objects.

Going to jail for speaking is not an abstract thing. Being put to death for speaking isn't abstract. A right is only worth something if you have the ability to exercise it. Without a law to base your exercise of a right on you have nothing. You can call anything a right, that doesn't make it so.

 

[ashurbanipal]

If it was denied what would you base your argument on?

The same thing I would if it weren't. Principles exist. Rights are principles that should guide laws.

Going to jail for speaking is not an abstract thing. Being put to death for speaking isn't abstract.

Sure. But why does that matter? Mathematics is abstract, but we apply it to all kinds of non-abstract things. Perhaps a specific example will help:

Look at any tall building you like. In order to make sure it would stay up and not collapse, the architect(s) used all kinds of fancy equations--abstract objects--to make a proper set of plans. But only the building is a concrete thing. We should not conclude from that fact that the building is all that exists within the situation. The fact that the equations were necessary to see that the building survived shows that they exist in some manner. We may find that manner myterious, but then again, all existence is mysterious, including that of the building.

Similarly, rights exist. They are principles that guide how laws should be properly made. And while their success level isn't quite the same as that of equations, we shouldn't expect them to be. The material to which they apply isn't as nomic as steel and concrete. But despite this, they do some real work in societies, and those societies which do not acknowledge them are the worse for it.

As a right, health care was acknowleged by human societies long before such rights as the right to privacy or the right to free speech. It's only relatively recently, and in a fairly small portion of the overall population of planet earth, that the contrary idea has come up.

A right is only worth something if you have the ability to exercise it.

What do you mean by "worth" here?

Without a law to base your exercise of a right on you have nothing.

No, you still have the right.

 

[Heebie Jeebie]

The same thing I would if it weren't. Principles exist. Rights are principles that should guide laws.

Right are things guaranteed by law, in our case the Constitution. Without a law allowing for the exercising of those rights you have nothing.

 

[Heebie Jeebie]

What do you mean by "worth" here?

You just can't call anything you like a 'right' without the means to exercise it. A right you cannot use is worthless.

 

[Heebie Jeebie]

No, you still have the right.

Go tell that to the people in places where it is not a 'right'. Let me know how the prison conditions are if you ever get out.

 

[ashurbanipal]

Right are things guaranteed by law, in our case the Constitution.

It seems to me that laws are supposed to guarantee that you won't be harrassed for the exercise of a right, not the existence of the right. But let me try a different tack: of course, rights can be supressed even when there is a law on the books that is supposed to guarantee it. And some instances of that supression go unpunished and unremunerated. So in those instances, even when the right is described in law, by your reasoning, the right shouldn't exist. No?

Your claim here is analogous to the claim that math textbooks are what guarantee the existence of numbers.

Without a law allowing for the exercising of those rights you have nothing.

Why do you think so?

You just can't call anything you like a 'right' without the means to exercise it. A right you cannot use is worthless.

This seems false to me. The fact is that people fight for rights that are taken away from them.

Go tell that to the people in places where it is not a 'right'. Let me know how the prison conditions are if you ever get out.

There are no such places. A right is a right everywhere in the universe. If I will be imprisoned, it will be because a powerful entity is thwarting my exercise of the right, not because the right doesn't exist.

 

[Heebie Jeebie]

It seems to me that laws guarantee that you won't be harrassed for the exercise of a right, not the existence of the right.

No the laws establish the right and give it backing so that you can exercise it.

You could say that everyone has a 'right' to food. That would be a principled thing to do correct? Yet without a law extending, and guaranteeing you can exercise I that right if you just take food you are stealing not exercising a right, as there are laws against stealing.

You can claim freedom of speech is a universal right everywhere but there are many countries in the world that disprove your claim. it is just the way it is not the way you wish was or theorize it should be.

 

[Heebie Jeebie]

This seems false to me. The fact is that people fight for rights that are taken away from them.

Your rights are set out in law and protected by law. Apparently you have not been to many places in the world. Go to other countries and see how well you 'right' to free speech is guaranteed. Go to Saudi Arabia and insult the ruling family or Islam. Go to Singapore and spout revolutionary ideas. Go to North Korea and just speak.

People fight for their rights because they are no guaranteed or they are denied in their country. If they were guaranteed there would be no need to fight. By the same token some people fight to deny people rights they already are given under law. Just because you have rights doesn't mean they cannot be taken away from you.

 

[ashurbanipal]

No the laws establish the right and give it backing so that you can exercise it.

You could say that everyone has a 'right' to food. That would be a principled thing to do correct? Yet without a law extending, and guaranteeing you can exercise I that right if you just take food you are stealing not exercising a right, as there are laws against stealing.

You can claim freedom of speech is a universal right everywhere but there are many countries in the world that disprove your claim. it is just the way it is not the way you wish was or theorize it should be.

Your rights are set out in law and protected by law. Apparently you have not been to many places in the world. Go to other countries and see how well you 'right' to free speech is guaranteed. Go to Saudi Arabia and insult the ruling family or Islam. Go to Singapore and spout revolutionary ideas. Go to North Korea and just speak.

People fight for their rights because they are no guaranteed or they are denied in their country. If they were guaranteed there would be no need to fight. By the same token some people fight to deny people rights they already are given under law. Just because you have rights doesn't mean they cannot be taken away from you.

I'm not sure I understand why anything here is an argument against what I've said. In other words, I can agree with everything you've said and consistently believe what I've said as well.

 

[Heebie Jeebie]

I'm not sure I understand why anything here is an argument against what I've said. In other words, I can agree with everything you've said and consistently believe what I've said as well.

You claim a right always just exists, like awareness, and just because you can't exercise it that doesn't change anything. That is just not so. Rights are not great universal truths.

A right is spelled out and backed by something, a law, a dictators edict, something. Thankfully our rights here are backed by the Constitution so they are not easily taken away. In other places not so. If you live in a country where you do not have freedom of speech then that right does not exist for you. Whether it exists for anyone else is immaterial.

 

[ashurbanipal]

You claim a right always just exists, like awareness, and just because you can't exercise it that doesn't change anything. That is just not so. Rights are not great universal truths.

The point is that nothing you've said so far is an argument against the position that rights are abstract truths. I acknowledge that people's rights are trampled on all over the world. I acknowledge that people have been killed for speaking freely, and jailed for practicing some religion or other. It would be absurd not to do so. But this doesn't meant that those people's rights did not or do not exist. Quite the contrary, the fact that we often talk about rights being trampled suggests that rights do exist as abstract objects.

A right is spelled out and backed by something, a law, a dictators edict, something. Thankfully our rights here are backed by the Constitution so they are not easily taken away. In other places not so.

If the above are your premises, and this:

If you live in a country where you do not have freedom of speech then that right does not exist for you. Whether it exists for anyone else is immaterial.

your conclusion, then your argument is a bad one--technically, it's invalid. It's possible for your premises all to be true, and your conclusion false. You are not distinguishing between two cases:

1) Your case, which is that rights are legal inventions that can be removed by some exercise of force

2) My case, which is that rights exist as abstract objects, but can be thwarted in their exercise.

If 2 is the case, your premises are all true, but your conclusion false. So, you're not arguing against my position, and I'm not sure why you think otherwise. Now, if you can post an argument that distinguishes the two cases, and then shows why 1 must be correct and 2 incorrect, then you've got something.

But how do I do the same, you may ask. This is a sword that obviously cuts both ways. But I have actually posted three arguments for why 2 is the case, and 1 is not, and you have not addressed those. Here they are:

One: Most people intuit that rights exist as abtract objects, and they cannot be taken away by any force, only thwarted in their exercise. They are similar to other principles which guide laws (like "murder is wrong") which are taken to be abstract objects, and universal in their application. Murder is just as wrong in North Korea and the Democratic Republic of Congo as anywhere else. Rights are principles of just the same sort, and they also exist in the same way.

Two: Societies which recognize rights tend to do better than those who do not. This suggests that rights have an effect similar to the effect that an equation has on an engineering problem. The equation is abstract, but it tells us how to engineer correctly. Because of its efficacy, we say the equation exists as an abstract object.

Three: (This is more of a plausibility argument). Other abstract objects exist pretty uncontroversially. Numbers, logical concepts, geometrical constructs, etc. All of those can be thwarted in their practice. So rights can also be thought of in the same way.

 

[Heebie Jeebie]

The point is that nothing you've said so far is an argument against the position that rights are abstract truths.

They are not abstract truths, they are your opinions. There is a difference you know.