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What are Inalienable Rights?

Evilroddy said:
TDGonDP:

The notion of individual rights was a concept born out of the the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment and the rise of humanism which began furtively in the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe but gained real political traction in the mid to late 18th Century. The source of these "natural rights" was a difficult case to make as they were supposed to reside in each human being naturally but some folks were considered to be more human and deserving of rights than others. Thus kings claimed divine rights to rule absolutely over their subjects, derived directly from God while subjects claimed natural rights of freedom in opposition to the divinely endowed rights of their absolute kings and their burdensome aristocracies. But how to match the legitimacy of divinely endowed rights? The answer was if you can't beat them, then join them. Thus the humanists of the Age of Reason and the desists of the Enlightenment turned to God as the source of their rights and claimed divine provenance for their demands to the rights they craved and thus pinned their justification to poor, overworked God's collar.

The champions of natural rights then claimed that these natural rights were universal, but that universality wasn't as all-encompassing as it is assumed to be today. These rights largely excluded non-European indigenous peoples who were either exterminated or who were forcefully compelled to struggle under the yolk of imperialism in order to make empires profitable. These natural rights did not extend to slaves or indentured workers who remained in perpetual or temporary bondage to their masters. These universal rights did not apply to those branded by society as criminals or undesirables such as debtors or freehold farmers during the Enclosure movements which periodically gripped Europe. These universal natural rights did not apply to women or children who were excluded from some or all of these rights because they were deemed to be unable to defend themselves and were thus the chattel (property) of men (men with property that is). So the universality was as much a sham as the claims by ardent humanists that God was the source of these natural and universal rights.

The notion that these natural rights were unalienable/inalienable is also born out of the divine provenance claimed by the champions of natural rights like Rousseau, Locke, Mills, Paine and many others. If these rights were bestowed upon human men of property by "God himself", then no man or corporation of men such as a state could remove them without going against God's will. To go against God's will was at best taboo and at worst highly illegal and would therefore discredit any corporation or state from exercising such power over men of means, thus allowing propertied men to legitimately rise in arms against such tyranny and remove such corporations and states from power in order to stop such abuses against God's will.

So what is the difference between an inalienable right and a regular right? God's will. This divine will as claimed by those with sufficient means to arm themselves and revolt/rebel against any corporation which attempts to remove such rights from men of means was a convenient justification which could challenge the hierarchy of aristocracy and the divine right of kings. But it was really window-dressing for one corporation of armed men (rebels/revolutionaries) to challenge another corporation of armed men (the state) to a bloody contest of wills in order to determine who won the power to exert coercive force and thus control over other weaker members of their society. Lip-stick on pigs who aspired to be George Orwell's Napoleon in the novel Animal Farm by replacing absolute monarchy with absolute oligarchy or plutocracy. Dressing up armed rebellion to make it look more legit, public relations really.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
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I have been on DP since September. This has been the best response to any of my posts. Thank you for taking the time to craft it.

It reminded me of my maternal grandfather who emmigranted from Bukovina, Ukraine in the mid 1920s. He saw the transition from the Habsburgs to the Czars to the Communists. Each time the rulers and their minions changed out, the peasants really didn't have a better life; one group of governing thugs just replaced another. When Grandpa saw an ad for settlers to come to Canada, that is where he placed his hope.

Can I copy this response and put it into Writerbeat.com?
 
Rich2018 said:
Right to life?
Really - then why do some states in the USA reserve the right to execute people
Why is abortion legal - even when there is no physical risk to the mother ?

Expression?
Did not the Constitution allow for slavery ?


Right to Self Defense?
Tell that the the survivors of Wounded Knee and Sand Creek
Some countries will lock you up if you fight back when being attacked or raped.


Rights are what a small band of people (otherwise known as the Supreme Court) say you can do....and how...and under what circumstances.
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Hush, you'll make some folks heads explode.
 
Those are the rights that can be overturned by the supreme court or by banishing an amendment with a majority in congress.

We have become a country of meaningless slogans.
 
TDGonDP said:
I have been on DP since September. This has been the best response to any of my posts. Thank you for taking the time to craft it.

It reminded me of my maternal grandfather who emmigranted from Bukovina, Ukraine in the mid 1920s. He saw the transition from the Habsburgs to the Czars to the Communists. Each time the rulers and their minions changed out, the peasants really didn't have a better life; one group of governing thugs just replaced another. When Grandpa saw an ad for settlers to come to Canada, that is where he placed his hope.

Can I copy this response and put it into Writerbeat.com?
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TDGonDP:

You're welcome and it was a pleasure to respond to your thoughtful article. You may certainly copy it as you see fit. Please however correct the spell-checker error which I missed in the first paragraph which replaced the word "deists" with "desists" in order to make it more comprehensible.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
ecofarm said:
A violation of a right does not constitute its obliteration. Just because someone commits murder does not mean the victim lost their right to life - it was violated not rendered non existent.
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The victim can rest easy, then.......:lol:
 
jet57 said:
Rights obtained through a social contract that cannot be rescinded vs something like the right to vote unless convicted of a felony.
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Remind me again, why shouldn't convicted felons be allowed to vote ?


If they've served their sentence and paid their dues, why shouldn't they be allowed to vote ?
 
Rich2018 said:
Remind me again, why shouldn't convicted felons be allowed to vote ?


If they've served their sentence and paid their dues, why shouldn't they be allowed to vote ?
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And that has exactly - what - to do with the topic?
 
jet57 said:
And that has exactly - what - to do with the topic?
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I dunno, someone said that people have inalienable rights...like the right to vote I guess.

Except they don't if, in their past, they committed a felony.
 
Rich2018 said:
I dunno, someone said that people have inalienable rights...like the right to vote I guess.

Except they don't if, in their past, they committed a felony.
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Well... they don't have the right to vote until they're 18 no do they. So the felony example fits perfectly doesn't it. The founders said 21 and you had to male and you had to be a property owner. So again, the example was correct.
 
jet57 said:
Well... they don't have the right to vote until they're 18 no do they. So the felony example fits perfectly doesn't it. The founders said 21 and you had to male and you had to be a property owner. So again, the example was correct.
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Why 18 ?

Why not 16 ?


No, the felony example does not fit. If the right to vote is an "inalienable right" who has the right to deny it to ex-cons ?


Who cares what the founders said? They are 230 years out of date now.
 
Rich2018 said:
Why 18 ?

Why not 16 ?


No, the felony example does not fit. If the right to vote is an "inalienable right" who has the right to deny it to ex-cons ?


Who cares what the founders said? They are 230 years out of date now.
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I never said it was an inalienable right.
 
The enumeration of certain rights in the Constitution shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

An exhaustive listing of the rights of man is impossible, thus the Ninth Amendment.

Liberty grants power, not power grants liberty. We The People created the government. Other than certain procedural rights, the government does not grant our rights.
 
Evilroddy said:
TDGonDP:

You're welcome and it was a pleasure to respond to your thoughtful article. You may certainly copy it as you see fit. Please however correct the spell-checker error which I missed in the first paragraph which replaced the word "deists" with "desists" in order to make it more comprehensible.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
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If you read the works of Thomas Paine you will see how the ideas of the time were used by Paine to inflame the colonists to revolt. Of all the men of that era, Paine to me was the most influential and progressive. His writings on religion and God are especially interesting.
 
Vadinho said:
If you read the works of Thomas Paine you will see how the ideas of the time were used by Paine to inflame the colonists to revolt. Of all the men of that era, Paine to me was the most influential and progressive. His writings on religion and God are especially interesting.
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Vadhino:

Yes, Paine was so influential that the British wanted to lock him up. I have read Common Sense and The Rights of Man. Unfortunately he was too uncompromising for the founding fathers so his influence on the Republic and the US Constitution was limited to an indirect one.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
What are Inalienable Rights?
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  • The right to live without having one's life ended directly by the hand of another. This right includes one's right to secure nourishment.
  • The right to freely express oneself, provided one's willing to accept the consequences of doing so.
  • The right to control the limited quantity of land area one might call home.
  • The right to exploit one's strengths to obtain and maintain each of the objects of the above noted rights.
 
Xelor said:
  • The right to live without having one's life ended directly by the hand of another. This right includes one's right to secure nourishment.
  • The right to freely express oneself, provided one's willing to accept the consequences of doing so.
  • The right to control the limited quantity of land area one might call home.
  • The right to exploit one's strengths to obtain and maintain each of the objects of the above noted rights.
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And where are any of those "rights" stated ?
 
Xelor said:
  • The right to live without having one's life ended directly by the hand of another. This right includes one's right to secure nourishment.
  • The right to freely express oneself, provided one's willing to accept the consequences of doing so.
  • The right to control the limited quantity of land area one might call home.
  • The right to exploit one's strengths to obtain and maintain each of the objects of the above noted rights.

Rich2018 said:
And where are any of those "rights" stated ?
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??? - A point of the rights I noted being inalienable is that their indelibility and verity thus doesn't need to be stated. It's like water's wetness; nobody with any sense whatsoever needs to be told that water is wet. The wetness of water is endogenously existential to the nature of water. So it is with the inalienability of the rights I mentioned.
 
Xelor said:
...their indelibility and verity thus doesn't need to be stated...
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So why does the DoI and US Constitution state them ?


If they don't need to be stated, why don't all governments in the world recognize them ?
 
Rich2018 said:
So why does the DoI and US Constitution state them ?


If they don't need to be stated, why don't all governments in the world recognize them ?
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DoI -- Rhetorical flourish
Constitution
  • Last I looked, the Constitution says nothing about the inalienability of rights, nor does it declare as inalienable any right.
 
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