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Re: Question: When rights conflict with one another, is there a primacy of rights?
i think, that you are thinking extremely to hard.
our founders state rights are inherent in man, they come from his humanity.
we all have many many many rights not just what is listed in the bill of rights, it is something which does not infringe on the rights of others.
one thing you had to observe about rights,....... is for something to be a right, it cannot lay a burden on another person and this is key in determining what a right is.
we exercise rights all day long in our life's, rights which have not been the subject of the courts/ the bill of rights, becuase in that exercise........as i said it not placing a burden on those we interact with every day so there is no need for it to come into question.
you dont accept my right, and i dont accept your right to take a walk,......... i have a right to take a walk using my right of freedom and becuase that activity that i am engaging in, is not placing a burden on you, ......it does not affect you.
you are making this extremely more complicated then it needs to be.
THE CONCEPT OF "RIGHTS" is the real starting point. My handy paperback dictionary has quite a few definitions for the word "right", but these two seem relevant:
"in accordance with truth, justice, or propriety" (a bit less relevant)
"that to which one has a moral or legal claim" (the most relevant)
The actual most important key word is "claim". Rights basically exist because some people claim them, and others let them get away with it. (There's more to it than just that, so please hold off for a minute, on any knee-jerk reaction.)
Like I said, "rights" are a human invention.
There is this Grand Thing sometimes called "The Social Contract". It is a thing that each society creates as it experiments with various "social mores" and discovers what works to benefit that society, and what doesn't work. A lot of human cultures have concluded that something very workable involves getting everyone in the culture to agree on various statements like this one: "I will accept your claim that you have a right to life, provided you do the same for me." (See? Every individual can make the claim, and everyone else lets him or her get away with it! ) Obviously rights to Liberty and Property and other things can begin to exist in that culture via extremely similar statements. In one respect the US Constitution is our Nation's Social Contract; surely you must have encountered statements such as, "If you don't like our rules, you are free to move to some other country." --there is an assumption that everyone raised in the USA will automatically accept the Constitution (and everyone who immigrates to become a citizen is required to accept it). That assumption is probably a mistake, because even though most born citizens do accept it, there are always a few who don't, and make trouble.
Anyway, the Logic here is, because the Constitution (plus Amendments) spells out various rights, and because the People accept that overall document, therefore do those rights exist in the USA. No other rationale need apply!
i think, that you are thinking extremely to hard.
our founders state rights are inherent in man, they come from his humanity.
we all have many many many rights not just what is listed in the bill of rights, it is something which does not infringe on the rights of others.
one thing you had to observe about rights,....... is for something to be a right, it cannot lay a burden on another person and this is key in determining what a right is.
we exercise rights all day long in our life's, rights which have not been the subject of the courts/ the bill of rights, becuase in that exercise........as i said it not placing a burden on those we interact with every day so there is no need for it to come into question.
you dont accept my right, and i dont accept your right to take a walk,......... i have a right to take a walk using my right of freedom and becuase that activity that i am engaging in, is not placing a burden on you, ......it does not affect you.
you are making this extremely more complicated then it needs to be.