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To: Michael81Dus
You personally attack me. It is not me getting personal here!

Please point out where exactly I attacked you personally (post # and which sentence). I didn't mean to; IF it turns out I did, I will apologize. But first please show me what to apologize for.

What´s wrong with balancing individual rights with the needs of the society? All free countries have to do so. If they don´t, they aren´t free, because they either [...] or they´d ignore the need of protection of individuals in conflicts of individuals (e.g. no police). [...] The needs of society are the rights of the others combined

If needs of society = rights of individuals, then there cannot be any conflict between the needs of society and the rights of individuals (how can something conflict with itself?), therefore no need to balance anything. The government's job is to protect all the rights of all innocent individuals all the time. Of course, it isn't possible to do this job perfectly--sometimes the police will come too late etc.--but the government is there to do its best at it.

Noone can claim that his rights count more than the rights of all others.

The underlying assumption being that there are conflicts among the rights of individuals. Well, that is what happens when you invent rights like "the right to a silent night." A right can only be a right as long as it doesn't violate the equal rights of any other individual. Period. If any action encroaches on any of my rights, then no one can rightfully perform that action. To say otherwise would be a contradiction.

And that means that individuals have a right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness--and that's it. No "right to social justice," no "right to a silent night," no "right to listen to music" etc. And no "needs of society."

75 posted on 12/09/2003 9:03:02 AM PST by Smile-n-Win (Let the Right do what's right, and the Left will be left behind.)
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To: Smile-n-Win
# 71: I´d be tarnishing my dignity, arguing not rational. This is a personal attack.

In fact, by these words you were in no way arguing reasonable.

The needs of society are the rights/needs of all citizen. That naturally can get in conflict with the needs of the individual citizen. This conflict must be solved by balancing, the need/right which weights the most is winning. I posted examples.

So if there´s no right to a silent night, what will happen to people in Hungary when you´d go on the streets in Budapest and shout all the time? The police will come and make you being silent, that´s what will happen. The conflict between your right to speak and the rights of the others to have silence at night will be solved one-sided against you. The police can justify this by saying you that you can shout on a lonely field, or after sunrise.
The same balance takes place when we decide about the penalties for criminals. The society needs protection and the criminal generally has a right to be free. We solve it by shortest-possible imprisonment terms.

We have many more rights than the four mentioned, just look at the German constitution.
76 posted on 12/09/2003 10:48:11 AM PST by Michael81Dus
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