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Are There Natural Human Rights?
New York Times ^ | May, 29, 2011 | MICHAEL BOYLAN

Posted on 05/30/2011 3:16:52 AM PDT by 1010RD

This has been a year of uprisings. The series of popular revolts, struggles and crackdowns by governments, which continue to this day...

But whether or not every person on earth has certain rights just by virtue of being a person alive on the planet — a concept I will refer to here as natural human rights — is a question of some controversy. In these times, when new questions of rights, complaints and subsequent conflicts seem to arise anew each week, it’s worth knowing where we stand on the matter.

Philosophers and legal scholars have intensely debated this issue over the past few decades. One important starting point for this discussion is H.L.A. Hart’s controversial 1955 article, “Are There Any Natural Rights?” The article argued that natural rights (what we typically call human rights) were an invention of the European Enlightenment, mere social constructions...

There are two avenues by which to address the truth of the natural basis of human rights: (a) whether authors argued for human rights before the European Enlightenment, and (b) whether there is a logical basis for human rights that would demonstrate its applicability to all people regardless of when it was recognized to be correct.

(Excerpt) Read more at opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Front Page News; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: gagdadbob; naturalrights; natureslaw; onecosmosblog
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To: 1010RD; TigersEye; LucyT; Beckwith; Fred Nerks
Are There Natural Human Rights? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Of course not.The world is a place full of predators. Humans who want to be free need to secure Human Rights consensually, and then enforce them.One must begin with a tabula rassa. Thats why we have a Constitution and an included Bill of Rights.

This idea of Natural Human Rights is a New World Order idea.An excuse for totalitarian government.It is a favorite meme of liberal fascists, who want to say that we are born with Natural Human Rights, and need do nothing ourselves to secure them, we just hang out and let the nanny state tell us what they are.Any right has to be cosensually agreed upon and then secured.The left wants to ram new rights down our throats and tax us to death in order to apply them to "all." Even to those who have no interest in either defining or securing such rights, who in fact want to destroy the consensual democratic process in order to create Utopia. Its a New World Order Crock of Crap.

41 posted on 05/30/2011 7:05:24 AM PDT by Candor7 (Obama . fascist info..http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html)
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To: Candor7

“Are There Natural Human Rights? Of course not. ....This idea of Natural Human Rights is a New World Order idea.” ~ Candor7

Talk about “confusion”! Of the first order, too.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2727048/posts?page=37#37


42 posted on 05/30/2011 7:19:43 AM PDT by Matchett-PI (In the latter times the man of virtue appears vile. --Tao Te Ching)
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To: BillGunn
This short piece takes a look at the that most fundamental right of all - the right to live. It also states that we simply cannot live with those who believe otherwise.
43 posted on 05/30/2011 7:38:49 AM PDT by Noumenon ("One man with courage is a majority." - Thomas Jefferson)
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To: 1010RD

Boylan’s arguments are at root, monstrous. For the corollary of his assumptions is that the right to your own life is a state-granted privilege.

We all know how that turns out.


44 posted on 05/30/2011 7:41:20 AM PDT by Noumenon ("One man with courage is a majority." - Thomas Jefferson)
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To: DH
Yes. Locke called them

LIFE, LIBERTY, PROPERTY

Property being the fundament of Liberty; Liberty being the basis of Life.

Personally, I like to think of natural rights as "things that will get you into a fight with a bear". Not a bear mauling you to eat you; but things that a bear will fight to the death to defend: His food, his territory, his cave, his life, his freedom. And, in the case of a mama-bear, her cubs.

45 posted on 05/30/2011 8:20:01 AM PDT by PENANCE
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To: 1010RD
But whether or not every person on earth has certain rights is a question of some controversy.

Except when it come to "health care". Then it's a given.

46 posted on 05/30/2011 1:52:49 PM PDT by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: PENANCE

Amen.


47 posted on 05/30/2011 4:56:27 PM PDT by GenXteacher (He that hath no stomach for this fight, let him depart!)
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To: 1010RD

Are there natural Human rights? No. Bluntly.


48 posted on 05/30/2011 5:57:11 PM PDT by Vanders9
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To: 1010RD
the author is trying to do is take God out of the equation and find some logical, objective, concrete reason why humans have rights.

Yep, and doing that doesn't work very well.

49 posted on 05/30/2011 7:37:26 PM PDT by DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis (Want to make $$$? It's easy! Use FR as a platform to pimp your blog for hits!!!)
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To: Pontiac

“because each group: Jews (...) wanted to dominate and set the agenda.”

And for good reasons: it was their own friggin’ city. Medina is an hebrew word meaning “city”. What that “constitution” did was to take it from them.


50 posted on 05/30/2011 8:07:04 PM PDT by Moose Burger
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To: BillGunn

Wikipedia says that human rights are “entitlements” that “can exist as shared norms of actual human moralities, as justified moral norms or natural rights supported by strong reasons, or as legal rights either at a national level or within international law.”

Note that this definition includes “Natural rights” but throws in the qualification that they have to be “supported by strong reasons”. Worse yet, Human Rights include “legal rights” and “international law”.

In other words, “Human Rights” are anything that the “right people” say is a human right.

Maybe I’m dreaming, but I think I remember a news article last year about the the European Union proposing that everyone has has a Human Right to a free annual vacation. Anyone remember that?


51 posted on 05/30/2011 8:16:14 PM PDT by haroldeveryman
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To: 1010RD

Read Blackstone.

Natural rights are the anchor on which our Constitution rests. Enumerated powers are the ONLY things the Federal Government can do.

Natural Law, and Blackstone have been replaced by case law. Man has become god.


52 posted on 05/30/2011 8:16:33 PM PDT by DariusBane (People are like sheep and have two speeds: grazing and stampede)
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To: 1010RD

The purpose of the article is deconstruction.

Next comes Hegel, conflict resolution.

But, there’s a problem…

My freedom will eventually infringe upon your freedom making you a slave; as your freedom will eventually infringe upon my freedom making me a slave; so we must all be slaves to the ever growing system (government) which mitigate away freedoms, so that we might be free.

Basically we must resolve all convict, but there is always more conflict to pursue, the conflict increase exponentially in the never ending pursuit of minutia.

But don‘t dwell on the paradox, it’s time to quickly introduce Marxist theory.

~ THE END ~


53 posted on 05/30/2011 9:44:09 PM PDT by Fitzy_888 ("ownership society")
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To: 1010RD

Natural Rights do NOT include the right to something that costs something.

For example Food, Housing, Schooling, Medical Care.

Those are not “basic human rights.” They are PRIVILEGES.

If they were basic human rights, how is it that some societies can’t provide those “rights?”

And of those who do, those rights enslave others to provide those goods/services for the unwashed masses.


54 posted on 05/30/2011 11:03:50 PM PDT by AlanGreenSpam (Obama: The First 'American IDOL' President - sponsored by Chicago NeoCom Thugs)
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To: hellbender

“The Founders believed that all men are endowed with rights by the Creator, but they also needed a long, brutal war against an imperial power to secure those rights. Rights are just a fantasy if there is not the will to fight and die for them.”

My sentiments exactly. I had to go through 29 comments to find one that saw the true nature of “rights”.

You have only the “rights” that you are willing and able to defend. Every other explanation is crap.

Same thing goes for what you own - it is yours only to the extend that you’re willing and able to defend it.

Behind the veneer of a “civil society” survival of the fittest (in it’s broadest sense) is still the dominant rule - whether you find that palatable or not.


55 posted on 05/30/2011 11:23:30 PM PDT by aquila48
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To: 1010RD

The Brits began with the Magna Carta in 1215.

The Parliament was partly derived from the Nordic “Thing.”

Preceding that time, influences would be derived from Greek, Roman, Hebrew and Catholic church input.

The Reformation and Renaissance furthered philosophic thinking later, too.

If the author bothered to study much at all, he could discover these influnces.


56 posted on 05/30/2011 11:52:18 PM PDT by truth_seeker
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To: Pontiac
Yep this guy is a moron.

The discussion of the Constitution of Medina was to define it and its implications.

While the author may indeed be an idiot, he did not state he agreed with those implications.

57 posted on 05/31/2011 3:54:37 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: Moose Burger
Medina is an hebrew word meaning “city”.

It is also an Arabic word meaning "city." Two Semitic languages and all that. Tend to have similar words for a lot of things. Just like Spanish and Italian.

Medina was renamed "city of the Prophet" by Mohammed himself. Previously it was known as Yathrib.

Yathrib was controlled by Jews in its early history, but they lost control to a couple of Arab tribes a long time before Mo showed up.

58 posted on 05/31/2011 4:03:38 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
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To: 1010RD

We have the same “Natural Rights” as any other natural creature. God given rights are given to those made in Gods image.


59 posted on 05/31/2011 6:02:03 AM PDT by Mike Darancette (Pelosi: Obamacare indulgences for sale.)
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To: 1010RD
"Yep. Check the article. What the author is trying to do is take God out of the equation and find some logical, objective, concrete reason why humans have rights."

Yes, you are correct. He believes in natural rights (which is good), however he does not want to attribute that to a gift from our creator as Jefferson and our founders did. It's the missing thread that will forever make his logical avenues to his end weak and able to be attacked.

Yet, we have people on our own side who want to take those social God type issues out of the public square of discussion during the election campaign (ala the Mitch Daniels wing)
60 posted on 05/31/2011 6:33:10 AM PDT by Old Teufel Hunden
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