[merid]

It doesn't matter what country you are from, do you think there are rights that you deserve? For instance, should you have the right to own a gun? Should you pay lower tax because those in unemployment are not doing enough to find a job, therefore why should you support them?

Alternatively, do you think there are rights that you don't deserve/need?

[md21017md]

I think there are some basic human rights regardless of where you live

The right to breath
The right to eat (what you grow, catch or pay for)
The right to provide for yourself and family
The right to defend yourself and your family
The right to reproduce
The right not to be abused

The gist, I think is you should have the right to exist as a human on this planet, and provide for, and defend your family. Beyond that, I think has to be up to individual soceities.

[merid]

However how would you determine the scope of those rights?

If you have the right to provide for your family, would it not be better to be taxed less and therefore more able to afford luxuries for your family, rather than paying a high level of tax that goes to other people who are not as self-sufficient?

[SardonicSarcasm]

I tend to agree with Alcatraz Rule #5, "You are entitled to food, clothing, shelter and medical attention. Anything else that you get is a privilege." Therefore, as a privilege, one needs to work for, fight for, and earn what they desire.

[Malotis]

The right to do whatever I'd like so long as it does not infringe the rights of someone else.

[Serket]

Rights should be earned, and come with responisbilities.
Oh no, I sound like my mother.

[ClockwiseSpark]

I'm going to go with Bastiat on this one.

We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life - physical, intellectual, and moral life. But life cannot maintain itself alone. The creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural resources we convert them into products, and use them. This process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course. Life, faculties, production - in other words, individuality, liberty, property - this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.

[Rowan]

Rights are a social construct forged and won by certain interest groups against other interest groups – segments of the electorate against the Government, corporations or other segments of the electorate. The notion of entitlement seems to suggest that they are more; God given or axiomatic facts, perhaps? So a really pedantic answer to your question would be ‘none’. We are not ‘entitled’ to any rights per se. However, there are a lot of rights I believe facilitate a society more compatible with my values; privacy, life, etc. Importantly I think we need a good balance of Berlinian negative and positive rights to assure a stable state, with a slightly greater emphasis, in my view, on negative rights.

[Pnutslayer]

Every thing covered by the constitution in its original form and spirit with he addition of the 13th amendment.

The right to express your religion in public places. (covered by the constitution but misinterpreted by some)

The right for every non-criminal to have whatever small arm he/she wants (also covered by the constitution but misinterpreted by some)

The right to discipline your children the way you want as long as it is not abusive.

The right to express your religion in public places. (covered by the constitution but misinterpreted by some)

The right to assisted suicide.

As well as the right to hit slow walking people in front of you with a noodle noodle to make the go faster.

There are more that I am not thinking of at the moment.

[Antares]

-The right to live
-The right to security and safety
-The right to property
-The right to speak my mind. There seems to be a taboo on wearing atheistic shirts or criticizing religion. I want that right too.
-The right to privacy
-The right to be respected and not talked down to
-The right to abortion. Yes, I said it.
-The right to disregard your feelings. I don't have to be ladylike even if that violates anyone's values; I don't have to love you, mom, no matter how much that hurts you.
-The right to be with whomever I choose. Yes, that's pro-gay, you conservatives.
-The right to individuality. No, you can't make me an obedient little sheep.

[Ool]

I take the pragmatic approach of having a right to be provided by others whatever is easy to provide, or otherwise I’d be more trouble than I’m worth.

In an industrialized society that means food, shelter, internet access, and relative safety from mischief by others, lest I become desperate, vengeful, and mischievous myself…

[stasis]

Absolute self-ownership. Many of the concepts that others have listed above are essentially consequent. And at the same time, perhaps due to a fit of decadence, I don't usually care to agitate for it. Exercising my derivative right to laziness.

[zoophilia]

All of them that could ever be.

[PHS Philip]

Freedom of:
speech
peaceful assembly
press
petition
access to information
religion (this includes from)
sexual orientation
thought
abortion (for females, obviously)
movement

Other rights:
Right to earn a living
Right to (basic) medical care (IE if you need emergency treatment, you get it regardless of ability to pay)
Fair trial (which, sadly, does not always mean by jury)
Due process
voting
privacy
safety
life (kinda obvious?)
suicide, and just about whatever else you want to do if it's only going to harm you and not others
education

Pretty much anything that won't infringe upon the rights of others.

[Doppelbock]

I think I should have:
- the right to do WHATEVER I WANT
- as long as I DON"T INTERFERE WITH THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS
And the "right to not be offended" is not among yours, or my, rights.

[Homini Lupus]

I've the right to enjoy whatever the current elites think are useful for mantaining their power and dealing with their conscience. Everything else is not granted. And changing country the rights I'm entitled to may change. If I want more I must obtain it in other ways (ignoring the law, changing the law or put my effort on something wich is not defined by the law)

[Antares]

	Originally Posted by Doppelbock To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I think I should have: - the right to do WHATEVER I WANT - as long as I DON"T INTERFERE WITH THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS And the "right to not be offended" is not among yours, or my, rights.

Well, you still can't do what you want even if they don't interfere with the rights of others. You can't kill all the other animals of the planets; they don't have rights; you won't be interfering with any rights. Rights are awarded to us as a social construct. Animals obviously don't have the right to live, or we wouldn't kill them so readily. Nor property; nor pursuit of happiness; nor bear arms, nor have abortion etc etc.

[Doppelbock]

Originally Posted by Antares To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Well, you still can't do what you want even if they don't interfere with the rights of others. You can't kill all the other animals of the planets; they don't have rights; you won't be interfering with any rights. Rights are awarded to us as a social construct. Animals obviously don't have the right to live, or we wouldn't kill them so readily. Nor property; nor pursuit of happiness; nor bear arms, nor have abortion etc etc.

Perhaps I should have made clear that I was speaking from a standpoint of natural rights.

Arguably, killing all the animals on the planet would be interfering with the rights of others, in a natural rights sense, because we all have a natural right to the resources of the planet -- no one should hog it all to him/herself (by, e.g., killing all the animals).

Also, in a natural rights sense, rights are NOT awarded to us as a social construct; rights are something we have naturally by virtue of being human. Any social construct should infringe upon those natural rights only to the minimum extent necessary to have a common government, laws, etc.

See
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for a good primer on natural rights. This is what I meant. Really makes good sense to me.

[Lights]

The right to make fun of people who end thread titles with prepositions.
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But seriously, I think life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are fairly decent rights.

[Henry]

	Originally Posted by merid To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Should you pay lower tax because those in unemployment are not doing enough to find a job, therefore why should you support them?

Its called "structural unemployment" or "necessary reduction in aggregate demand to reduce inflationary pressures". ie about 5% of the workforce must be unemployed to keep the economy from overheating. Or, to put it as plainly as possible, "The federal reserve will destroy jobs and create unemployment to contain inflation."

Draw the logical conclusion from there - if the government takes your job from you, it probably at least owes you a few hundred bucks a month while you find a new one.

[Beery Swine]

One thing I don't really care about is privacy, so long as I don't know that someone's peeping. If, hypothetically, some government organization wants to watch me doing the mundane things I do for no other reason than because they like to, I don't care. The problem is that's not all they want to do.

Basic rights I'm fairly libertarian about, but then I see some people and I think "except for them," and fascism starts to look good.

I think I deserve free health care, and every industrialized country in the world agrees, with the exception of America. I think I deserve the right to eat whatever I want without some people trying to ban certain food products that violated noone's humanity in their production. I think I also deserve the right to know all the side affects of consuming those products that warrant people trying to ban them. I deserve to grow up free of indoctrination of any kind, even though I didn't. I deserve the right to end my life however I see fit, so long as that end doesn't deprive anyone else of their rights. I deserve to live forever, along with everyone else. I deserve a proper education. This is starting to get cathartic, so I'll just stop.

[Neuro]

	Originally Posted by Serket To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Rights should be earned, and come with responisbilities. Oh no, I sound like my mother.

Your mom sounds pretty cool.

I would feel pretty ashamed claiming 'entitlement' to anything. This is not to say I wouldn't be upset if someone tried to harm me in some way, I just don't put any stock in these abstract rules. Laws can, will and must change as time goes on and the challenges we face as a society change. I try and plan ahead to protect my own interests (and those I care about including those with similar values and culture) and if that involves breaking the rules or violating the rights of others I really don't care.

See you in hell! :P

Also:

	Originally Posted by Homini Lupus To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I've the right to enjoy whatever the current elites think are useful for mantaining their power and dealing with their conscience. Everything else is not granted. And changing country the rights I'm entitled to may change. If I want more I must obtain it in other ways (ignoring the law, changing the law or put my effort on something wich is not defined by the law)

Awesome.

[blueback]

Well, I think that the social contract is a good way to look at rights. In the state of war that is nature everyone has a right to everything, including each other. Because, and this is important, a right is anything which you are not forbidden to do. So, in the state of war (nature) no one is forbidden from doing anything so they have the right to do everything.

However, everyone is much more likely to live if they cooperate with each other, which means giving up certain rights like the right to kill your neighbor. To do that everyone must give up the same rights at the same time. The problem is that they can't give up the rights to each other. They need a soverign, a government, something more powerful than either of them to maintain the stockpile of surrendered rights.

That is why rights are ALWAYS simply the things that a more powerful force allows a less powerful force to do.

So I think that we should have "the right" to do anything as long as it doesn't conflict with the rights of other members of the social contract. For example, the inequality in the legal system is a contradiction because we are all equal members (theoretically) of the social contract but those of us with more money can manipulate the system to avoid repercussions for illegal actions. Rich people shouldn't have any rights that poor people don't have. Having more toys than poor people is one thing, having more rights is another.

I like the American system of government because we turned Hobbe's "soverign" concept around on itself. We set up the federal government as the soverign to which the people give up their rights but we set up the people as the soverign to which the federal government gives up its rights. It has a beautiful balance. Of course we're doing our best to screw it up, but the construct itself is very good.

[Valiyn]

The right of anything I'm willing to fight and die for.

No government can ever force you do something you don't want to. And if you die doing it, then it isn't much more a concern of yours now is it? The right to live togeather with a loved one, for example, not because the government doesn't have permission from the people to not allow that...but because if a government did, people would fight to get around it ((peacefully as well as violently)).

I have an interesting perspective, being in a TPE relationship with my INTP wife. Towards anyone else, she's very independent and the most stubborn person you will ever meet. Towards me, I can tell her to hope up and down on one foot naked just for my amusement durring a commercial break. Why? Because she trust me with everything. No different from a droggy, half alseep husband asking his loving wife for a cup of water and she gets up out of bed to get it. Governments can be seen in a similar example ((although vague similarities)) that they can get away with whatever the people trust them to get away with. If the population trust them enough to wire tap, it's perfectly alright. If not, then they've gone too far. The people give the governments rights by how much they trust them, the government gives people rights by how much they trust them. Rights really are all about trust. My wife absolutely loves me and trust me, so I can get away with anything...literally. I can do anything forbid her from clothing around the house to ending an argument right then and there. It's my "right" as her "master" and husband, but only because she trust me enough to abide by what I ask of her. Likewise, she can ask anything of me and I do it for her. It is a balancing act and muteral serving of others. To lead anyone, to have any sort of control over them, you have to serve them. Me and my wife enjoy the TPE relationship because we have found equality there. With a government, just because they are incharge doesn't mean they are above the people. In fact, they serve the people. And the people serve the government. Each gives the other rights.

[blueback]

Except that there are things the government can't tell us to do and things we can't tell the government to do. In your example (what does TPE stand for) I'm sure that one of the ground rules is that you can't tell your wife to not tell you to do something, cuz that would negate the point of doing anything she told you to do.

There are always ground rules. As long as everyone respects the ground rules everything works out, but people being people they never respect the ground rules for long. That is why they need a soverign that is more powerful than all of them to enforce the ground rules.