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To: Junior
You still have to defend your rights.

Why should you have to if your rights are inherent?

Your right to life exists simply because you are alive;

That's a statement of belief not evidence of rights being inherent.

The universe is under no obligation to respect any rights you will not defend.

Then rights are not inherent.

2,547 posted on 01/03/2003 12:54:19 PM PST by Tribune7
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To: Tribune7; Junior
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

2,551 posted on 01/03/2003 1:08:27 PM PST by balrog666
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To: Tribune7
There is no such thing as an uninfringible right. Even the rights enumerated in the Consititution can be infringed -- hence the wording of many of the Amendments. No definition of "right" includes the proviso "uninfringible." Indeed, rights can simply be distilled into something enjoyed by one that does not impose an obligation upon another. One does not need an outside source to bestow such.

By your logic, rights cannot be God-given, as man (and nature) regularly infringes upon such rights as life and liberty; how can the profane infringe upon the divine?

Rights are inherent with the individual -- however, he may enjoy only those rights he is willing to defend. You are alive only as long as you defend your life; you are free only as long as you defend your freedom. If rights come from a source external to the individual (God, the State), that source can opt to rescind those rights. However, an organism's very escence rebels against being deprived of these fundamentals -- we fight to our last breath to live, we rail against being caged. No, I believe it is self-evident that rights are inherent in the organism.

2,560 posted on 01/03/2003 1:24:56 PM PST by Junior
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