The Glade 4.0

I guess to me it's evident by viewing the world and all it's aspects: animal, vegetable and mineral, that "rights" are complished by force. The tree is able to grow there, because it was able to force it's way out of the ground, extract nutrients out of the ground, rain and sun and resist attempts to dislodge it. It doesn't have any right to live or grow, it has whatever it's able to get away with. Other trees don't attempt to help the tree grow, or keep the beavers away.

The concept of rights came into being when humans became sentient and able to think beyond the now and their own selfishness.

I'm not sure that years of conditioned response is "falling into a trap". That said, if you could be more clear in your post by stating something like, "I'm trying to understand your position, do you mean "might makes rights"?" then you'll find that you get a very different response from me. That said, I'm sorry I miss interpreted your intent.


I don't think it's a very complex question at all, personally. Of course any person is the owner of their actions and decisions. However, self ownership doesn't imply that someone necessarily has a right to live. It just means they have the ability (if they choose to exercise it) to decide their fate within the confines they are put in.

@Khross.

"In good faith"? This is hellfire dammit, I expect to be stabbed at a moments notice. Whats this "good faith" garbage your going on about?

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

For some strange reason you seem to think that having a philosophy and having force are mutually exclusive. I've rarely seen that be the case. As I said and you continue to ignore; philosophy is the motive behind action and that makes it superior to the action.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Honest question... Is that REALLY protecting their loved ones or is it simply extracting vengeance?

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

Why should one be so opposed to Socratic learning or having his "argument picked apart"? All that means is your argument had some sort of flaw and you are afraid of being wrong. If you are not wrong, you have a defensible position and should therefore have no hesitation to engage anyone in any arena.

How can you say that man makes rights yet express disgust over so labeled apalling acts such as slavery, oppression, poverty, etc? If it is law, it is defined as a right since we are assuming man makes rights and does so through law (might). And what of that law itself? If I break your neck, the law didn't stop me from doing so and therefore it must not actually delineate a right by definition. I took the right to do what I pleased through my own law (rights/might) and the laws (other rights/might) be damned. Revolution would be the ultimate incarnation of this position. It is the resolution of which rights are Right.

Essentially, Aizle, your position amounts to "there are no rights except those which you take unto yourself."

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Say it was a stalker going after your wife and you were the first step in elimination? Obvious answer.

Say that its the distributed effect of making everyone (including your loved one) some small percent safer because one less person willing to do harm is out there. Reasonable answer.

Say its the effect of disincentive they will realize in all future interactions the rest of their life. Moot answer.

So, I would say - yes it is but it can also be about vengeance (depends on the person or people in question) or it could only be about vengeance (the person/people in question don't care about the ancillary effects).

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

This is a strange response. Nowhere have I argued what you imply. In the US there are rights because there is enough force. My argument is that the source of those rights is irrelevant without the force needed. So X philosophizes that rights come from "here" and Y philosophizes that rights come from "there" and it doesn't make a hill of beans worth of difference where they came from. Without "might makes right" - the ability to use might to secure whatever right you believe you have- rights mean nothing and their source does not matter.

I can decide that I have a right to a sirloin steak for dinner every night. If I have enough force to enforce that decision, then I have that right and there's nothing you can do about it.

And, from that one can infer than you could also have chicken... and then you could campaign that having chicken is a right and even throw in a pot along with it... and then it could become an entrenched entitlement program, because, after all, it's a right.

Which is why you shouldn't consider it as a right, because one has an obligation to society to insist that we provide for ourselves.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Because it's pedantic and insulting when you're trying to have a conversation and share opinions on things. It's especially annoying because of the tendency for several posters here to use it as a dodge in actually forwarding their own views and opinions on things. In general it's used here as a method to try and appear smart, and I'm done with humoring anyone with it.



You're confusing "rights" with "morality" the two are not the same. People absolutely can decide to create and support immoral rights. A perfect example would be the Taliban where men had the right to beat women for not wearing a burka or any number of other stupid things. They created that "right", however I still find it morally reprehensable. We're also as a larger world community working to try and influence their decision to change and revoke those kinds of "rights".

And you are correct, Revolution is the ultimate expression of my position. The US is a perfect example of it too. Because we revolted and (this is the important part) had the force to be able to back up our revolution, we created a new set of rights. They did not exist at all before the Declaration of Independance, but further didn't exist in reality until we had won the Revolution. Had we lost the war and remained a colony, those rights would have evaporated most likely or at a minimum changed greatly.

Your morality is irrelevant to the Taliban, based upon your own theory.

You cannot argue objective morality at the same time as arguing relative rights. They are not compatible.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

I'm not arguing objective morality. There is no objective morality, it is also created by man and is subjective. And obviously my morality is irrelevant to the Taliban, except for where I (usually by way of my country) exert pressure on the Taliban.

Then you need to clarify your argument, because the two underlined sentences stem from something being objectively "wrong." If they are not objectively "wrong," you have no basis for calling them such other than the desire to force your will on other people.

Now, if it is your desire to force your will on other people, that's fine, but most people would consider that to be immoral.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

I submit that you need to get our of your libertarian box and understand how the world works. Any cursory review of History will show that humans have been forcing their will on other people and things since the beginning of time. It is the way that societies work. Indeed it is the way that the world works.

And no, the two underlined sentences do not stem from something being objectively "wrong". They stem from those societies and people (the ones I happen to belong to) believing that their viewpoints are correct and should be adopted by others.

I further submit that the highly arrogant claims of objective morality and objective rights are merely an attempt to rationalize the forcing of peoples viewpoints on others.

It's the perfect result to the claim that "rights don't matter, only force matters". If only force matters than how that force is determined must matter and that decision is decided by philosophy - rights being a philosophy and one that has specifically engaged the use of force several times seems to verify this - thus rights must matter even if the only thing you respect is force.


As to the steak; you wouldn't be talking about rights, you'd be talking about ability or privelege.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

You aren't paying attention, for crying out loud. If I have enough force to enforce my decision , I can declare anything I want to be my right, your philosophy or arguments be damned. With enough force, I don't have to "campaign" for anything. And that's the point. With enough force, philosophy of someone else is utterly useless, where they believe their rights come from matters not in the least.

In other words "I shall call you names and narrow minded because I cannot resolve my logical contradictions. I also forget the difference between discussing a moral imperative and reality whenever it is convient for me to do so."


Where has RD been with the decent discourse?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I see you've changed your goal posts from "philosophy is useless" to "philosophy without the means to assert it" is pointless.

Good, we are getting closer to where this community was 5 years ago instead of 8.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Actually it's more that I believe that his and your Libertarian Fundamentalism is clouding your objectivity. I have no logical contradictions in my posts.

You second sentence there doesn't make any sense.

Philosophy, in the face of a force it cannot counter, is useless, except as a means of "feel-good" about yourself as you're being steamrolled.

It's not. Do you forget I arrived at libertarianism by forcing myself to be objective?

And my second sentence makes sense to the people who understand it and are objective.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

And again you assume philosophy and force are mutually exclusive and they are actually inseperable.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

You don't arrive at libertarianism by being objective.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Why am I having this conversation with you? You are only reading what you want to read. I feel like I have to explain this to a 3 year old.

"Philosophy, in the face of a force it cannot counter" does not state that the one with philosophy has no force at its disposal, it simply states that the force it is facing is greater than the force at its disposal. Sort of like having philosophy and a BB gun while facing an army division. In that scenario, philosophy is useless.

Nowhere am I arguing that philosophy and force are mutually exclusive, and even the simplest of reading ability would tell you that.

I suppose you might be correct since I cannot arrive any place I already am.

However what you meant to say is that I didn't. How entirely arrogant of you to assume you know how I arrived anywhere. Self-appointed authority over my own past? No thanks but thank you for pointing out how irrational you are by making such a statement.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville