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To: general_re
"Again, that's why Libertarians hinge their principles on something more objective than the Constitution -- as useful as a good Constitution can be."

Well, yes and no. You can claim any right you like, and even assert its objective existence, but the trick is getting the rest of society to recognize and respect that right. Otherwise, objective rights are objectively useless - what good is a "right" that nobody else accepts as valid? And that's where the Constitution comes into play. Appeal to objective rights or natural law or whatever all you want, but at the end of the day, it's what's actually in the contract itself that matters.

Well, I sort of agree. You identify rights in the abstract, but you enable them by mutual agreement. A Constitution or other mutual defense agreement ENABLES the protection of abstractly identified rights.

I'm not opposed to Constitutions -- they certainly have some longetivity. What I am saying is that rights are determined in some other way than whatever the Constitution says.

37 posted on 12/06/2002 11:34:45 AM PST by jlogajan
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To: jlogajan
I'm not opposed to Constitutions -- they certainly have some longetivity. What I am saying is that rights are determined in some other way than whatever the Constitution says.

Fair enough. Although the Constitution doesn't really speak to where rights are derived from, or how they are determined. The Declaration of Independence does, but IIRC, you probably don't agree with that formulation of where rights come from ;)

40 posted on 12/06/2002 12:20:07 PM PST by general_re
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