Posted on 04/27/2022 10:59:54 PM PDT by libertasbella
“I respect your right to be wrong.”
Thank you, that’s very helpful.
Sure thing, those articles are on other parts of my site:
https://blog.libertasbella.com/glossary/negative-rights/
https://blog.libertasbella.com/negative-vs-positive-rights/
Your "core" statements:
A negative right forbids someone from committing and action against your rights.
A positive right obligates someone to act in accordance with your rights.
The distinction is purely academic! In the real world, there is no significant distinction!
The free exercise of negative rights (as you define them) presupposes the existence of a protective force / outside power to protect them; they are thus "covertly" positive rights.
To take your example: My negative right (as you define it) to go to a store and purchase food (as long as I have the money) assumes that 1) the store does not refuse to sell to me because of, e.g., my race; and 2) no third party attempts to block my access to the store (e.g., by means of a picket line).
Now, you could get technical and say that case #2 is not an infringement of my negative right to purchase food but instead a violation of my positive right to walk on a sidewalk or enter a store - but the distinction is trivial!
Regards,
libertasbella makes it clear that it's all sophistry, and that there is no REAL difference between positive and negative rights.
Namely: Both presuppose the existence of a police force to protect their exercise.
Regards,
Isaiah Berlin: “If negative liberty is concerned with the freedom to pursue one’s interests according to one’s own free will and without interference from external bodies, then positive liberty takes up the degree to which individuals or groups are able to act autonomously in the first place.”
What he’s saying here is, where does a positive right end and a negative right begin? What creates a negative limitation about how we may not act?
Berlin is talking about negative and positive liberties, yet libertasbella claims he is talking about negative and positive rights which are different things.
What Berlin means by Positive Liberty is the ability of the person to do what he wants given his internal rather than external limitations. For example, if a person wants to be able to run a mile in under four minutes then he will have to train, go on a proper diet, have a proper exercise regimen, etc. Failing that he will be unable to be free to run a four minute mile. There is nothing in Berlin's description involving second parties.
Berlin goes on to say that societies which value Positive Liberties can move toward totalitarianism, but this is not about requiring second parties to do things, but instead requiring citizens to "get with the program" in order to supposedly better themselves and the society as a whole. This is the ideology behind the "Soviet Man" or Mao's "Cultural Revolution" or some would say the ecofascists claims we must all start eating bugs and living in pods for our sakes and the sake of our planet.
Most people on FR are sympathetic to libertarianism as our local, state, and federal governments have all grown far beyond anything justified by the Constitution.
However libertarianism is a muddled pipe dream. At least anarcho-capitalism is a clear pipe dream. It won't work, but at least we know what it is that won't work.
Libertarianism is a muddle that was criticized even by one of the heroes of libertarians, namely Ayn Rand. And libertarianism is just as much a pipe dream as anarcho-capitalism. There just aren't a sufficient number of young, healthy, entrepreneurial people in any population to offset the hoards of rent seekers and free riders.
At least communists have the advantage with regard to feasibility of implementing a phase called the "dictatorship of the proletariat" where they hope to train the populace into being capable of living in an anarcho-syndicalist world. Libertarianism by its very nature couldn't stomach a dictatorial phase to train the populace to be good entrepreneurs. Regardless, trained or untrained, anarcho-anything is a no go for humans who developed to value both individuality and community and for better or worse are creating larger and larger communities in order to keep pace with the larger and larger complications associated with grand civilizations.
I concur! And I have yet to understand the distinction between "positive" and "negative" rights as libertasbella defines them. In a REAL society, police powers would be necessary to defend BOTH of them - overshadowing any possible (and purely semantic) distinction between them.
Berlin goes on to say that societies which value Positive Liberties can move toward totalitarianism, but this is not about requiring second parties to do things, but instead requiring citizens to "get with the program" in order to supposedly better themselves and the society as a whole. This is the ideology behind the "Soviet Man" or Mao's "Cultural Revolution" or some would say the ecofascists claims we must all start eating bugs and living in pods for our sakes and the sake of our planet.
Berlin is, of course, free to do that - and his observation might be relevant and useful in some discussions. But in modern America, the BIGGER threat is from government expropriation of the fruits of our labor for the purpose of "redistribution."
This wasn't such a big deal in Stalin's Soviet Union or Mao's Red China - because there wasn't that much to "redistribute" to begin with. Both societies were dirt poor.
But America is rich!
There is puh-lenty of bounty booty to be "divvied up" in modern-day America.
This explains the very different character (outward expression) of leftism in the U.S. as opposed to in the erstwhile Soviet Union and Red China.
And libertarianism is just as much a pipe dream as anarcho-capitalism. There just aren't a sufficient number of young, healthy, entrepreneurial people in any population to offset the hoards of rent seekers and free riders.
I dispute that! 19th-century America had an ample number of such entrepreneurial people! And we would (again) have ample numbers of such people today if dark forces (incl. the educational system, 3rd-wave Feminazism, etc.) hadn't corrupted our society.
Regards,
“I recommend that you all go there and read what libertasbella has to say.”
Ok, I did so.
I find it largely questionable. “Questionable” is addressed in part further down, if you get that far.
Also the concepts seem to be dependent on a society organized to accommodate them, and all societies throughout history and the present may not be so organized.
And I think the issues could be better addressed in terms of violation of rights and conflict of rights. (I addressed the definition of a right in post 19.)
I’ll let “violation of rights” stand on its own.
A conflict of rights arises when, say two, parties claim a right and each is prevented from exercising it by the other parties claim to a right. For instance:
It has been said the “Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.”
It can also be said “Your right to locate your nose ends where my fist begins”.
Put simply, this presents a conflict between one person’s right to swing a fist and another person’s right to locate their nose. Again put simply, a person has no right to swing their fist into the other’s nose and should exercise restraint, or care under crowded conditions, while a person has no right to locate their nose where another is swinging their fist as when shadow boxing, exercising, or stretching while yawning.
We settle this and other conflicts of rights peacefully through laws, rules, societal norms, and courtesy. Or sometimes non-peacefully through superior force.
On questionable:
https://blog.libertasbella.com/glossary/negative-rights/
“To define negative rights in the simplest manner, it’s one person’s right not to have another person interfere with their own liberties.”
Is the author equating the word “liberties” with the word “rights”?
But this could be a conflict of rights, not an interference, where each person claims his rights or liberties are being interfered with by the other.
“Many people view positive rights as a violation of negative rights. “
It’s possible that there is a conflict of rights between people rather than a violation of one person’s rights by another.
“For example, everyone has the right to a public defender if they get arrested.”
What is meant by “public defender”? I believe it goes this way: “You have the right to an attorney. If YOU CANNOT AFFORD ONE, one will be provided for you.” In other words, if you can afford to hire a “defender” you do it yourself and if you can’t afford to do so the public will provide one, but you have no right to a defender at public expense if you can afford it yourself.
“Another example of a negative right is the right for someone to vote without interference or persuasion.”
Which candidates don’t try to persuade people to vote for them? Does this mean a candidate does not have the free speech right to persuade people?
https://blog.libertasbella.com/negative-vs-positive-rights/
“The difference between negative vs positive rights is that one requires action while the other requires inaction. Negative rights are the requirements of someone else not to interfere in your ability to obtain something. Positive rights are a requirement of someone else to provide you with something.
Ok, I think maybe that’s relatively clearer but only relatively. But what’s with “to obtain something” and “to provide….something”? Does that include the right to free speech and the right to life, and if so, how?
“You may hear negative rights referred to as “liberties,”…”
I suppose that answers a question I had above.
“…and that’s because they are basic human and civil rights…”
I disagree that civil rights are basic unless this means they are basic to a particular organized society which differentiates them from basic human rights which are basic by virtue of being human. Or does this mean “human rights” in the sense that the UN does”?
“…stating that no one can interfere with our right to obtain something through trade or bartering.”
That implies all this is just related to property, which is not clear to me from the rest of it.
“A negative right forbids someone from committing and action against your rights.”
Doesn’t this mean that, in other words, they are obligated to act in accordance with your rights?
“A positive right obligates someone to act in accordance with your rights.”
Doesn’t this mean that, in other words they are forbidden from committing an action against your rights.?
I’m not going to go on.
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