Posted on 05/16/2013 3:42:29 PM PDT by d_focil
One of the problems with positive rights though, which conservatives and libertarians tend to point out, is that in order for them to mean anything in practice, someone else will inherently have to provide the means by which they are given. For example, if you have the right to health-care, then a doctor or nurse will have to at some point, render that care. Either the medical practitioner will have to be paid for his or her rendering of care, or he or she will have to be compelled to render it. This is manifestly different from a negative right such as the right to be free from unwarranted search and seizure, where all that is needed for the right to be in effect, is for the government not to search you without a warrant.
From a social contract point of view, all government is established in order to save people from having to protect each and every right themselves through their own wills, wills that if met with superior force, would likely be unable to stop private assaults upon their liberty. Yet it is plausible that in extending this social contract beyond the most basic of rights, we run into complications that are not easy to resolve.
(Excerpt) Read more at shadowreview.blogspot.com ...
Postive rights, as defined by the Left, require a third party to be enslaved.
You can’t have a right to housing, food, or medicine, without a carpenter, farmer, or doctoer having no right to refuse their services.
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Indeed. Or a “right” to have everyone else agree with you and do everything you want them to do. Positive “rights” are no rights at all for anyone except the state.
The “Rights” guaranteed by the Constitution-—predate the Constitution—they are Natural Rights from God.....(comes from Natural Law Theory which originated in Ancient Greece.)
Most “Rights” that the Democrats are for, are Satanic Rights-—ones that are unconstitutional-—for they come from Satan, not God.....the right to contraception, to sodomize others, to steal food and property from others through government (welfare). These are not “Rights”-—in fact, they are unconstitutional for they make slaves of others or promote Vice-—which is Unjust Laws.
All Just Laws have to be Reasoned-—all the laws Democrats posit are arbitrary—(unequal) and unconstitutional. You can’t have arbitrary laws be Just Law. As St. Thomas stated (and Founders/John Jay agreed) all Laws that cease to be Just are not laws.
US Constitutional rights are RECOGNIZED to have been endowed to all people, upon birth, by our Creator
as such, i woukd have all my rights ... while alone on a desert island
it’s tough to have rights that require the force capitulation of others... when there are no others.
progressive concept fails basic test
Right: 10. Just claim; immunity; privilege. All men have a right to the secure enjoyment of life, personal safety, liberty and property. We deem the right of trial by jury invaluable, particularly in the case of crimes. Rights are natural, civil, political, religious, personal, and public.
“You can’t have a right to housing, food, or medicine, without a carpenter, farmer, or doctoer having no right to refuse their services.”
You could provide housing, food and medicine your own self.
Amen.
“US Constitutional rights are RECOGNIZED to have been endowed to all people, upon birth, by our Creator.”
Is this the exception that proves the rule: “...the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed...”?
how would you commit a crime... alone on a desert island?
Of course, which is why we should all have the freedom to work and the right not to be forced to provide goods and services to others.
“Negative Rights” are things that people cannot do to you, or cannot stop you from doing.
“Positive Rights” are things someone has give to you when you want them.
If you are living in a country with “positive rights” you are living in an authoritarian or totalitarian society, because the labor and property of others are being seized to provide these “rights.”
You could try but you might run head on into construction unions, building codes, zoning regulations, building inspectors, the food and drug administration. There are relatively few federal laws in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of federal regulations that impinge on virtually every facet of your life. These regulations are written by faceless bureaucrats, away from the glare of public scrutiny and debate. They are unelected and show no responsibility to the people whose lives they impact. There is not realistic way to evade the federal regulatory zombies. They are tireless and will continue to hunt you down lest you actually create something of value to yourself and others.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
― C.S. Lewis
Regards,
GtG
“how would you commit a crime... alone on a desert island?”
Trespassing if the desert island is private property.
Illegal immigration if the desert island is within the territory of some nation.
And of course murder, if you murdered everyone who arrived on the desert island with you and that’s why you’re alone.
the ‘alone on a desert island’ hypothetical means you’re the only person around. no one owns the property and the assumption was you didn’t kill everyone.. you spontaneously appeared fully grown on the island on a barren planet
Then “...the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed...” wouldn't exist. There is no state, there is no district, there is no crime, there is no public, there is not trial.
And that makes it hard to justify that:
US Constitutional rights are RECOGNIZED to have been endowed to all people, upon birth, by our Creator
as such, i woukd have all my rights ... while alone on a desert island
the US Constitution recognizes your rights were bestowed upon you, by your Creator... long before any civil govt existed
courts and trials are used by man to sort out issues between the citizens.
Agreed. And courts and trials are established by man as part of civil government which governments are established by man.
That makes it hard to understand how the US Constitution can recognize your right "...to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed...” as having been bestowed upon you, by your Creator... long before any civil govt existed to establish courts and trials to be used by man to sort out issues between the citizens.
The the right to a speedy and fair trail is an extension of the fundamental right to life, and the right not to be deprived of it, along with your other basic rights. The constitution recognizes this but does so within the specific context of the common law tradition where jury trials evolved over time as the preferred method of settling disputes fairly.
This is the same with many aspects of our form of government, where tradition outlines the specific way in which a fundamental right is to be protected.
The topic is interesting, because Edmund Burke argued that all our rights are essentially traditional in nature and that it makes little sense for a country with no history of respecting them and enshrining them in law, to have a revolution and all of a sudden have liberty.
This is why he simultaneously rejected the validity of the French revolution while accepting the American one.
http://voices.yahoo.com/the-political-philosophy-edmund-burke-267253.html?cat=37
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