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Poll

Where does your liberty come from?

God or Other Intelligent Designer
Evolutionary Achievement
Governmental Decree
None of the Above

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Author Topic: From where do you derive your liberty?  (Read 11591 times)

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MobileDigit

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Re: From where do you derive your liberty?
« Reply #30 on: January 10, 2006, 02:39:02 PM »

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TN_FSP

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Re: From where do you derive your liberty?
« Reply #31 on: January 10, 2006, 03:03:07 PM »

Yes, natural rights can't.

http://naturalrights.us

From that website-

Quote
Chapter 4 - Free Will
The premise on which the theory of rights presented in this book is based is that some beings (i.e., singular a “person” or plural, “people”) have free will.(24) What is free will? Free will does not mean that you are free to do as you will. You have free will even if you are in a straight jacket. Nor does it mean that you don't have urges to do something other than what you decide to do. Free will means you can act without your action being caused by a prior physical event. Since determinism means that there is an unbroken chain of causation, linking event to event, that extends all the way into the past and all the way into the future,(25) free will means only that people can initiate new chains of causation. Put another way, with free will you can change a physical thing(26) even though this change is not caused, according to physical law, by a prior event, i.e., a physical effect without a physical cause. How that is possible is an unanswered question,(27) but explaining its mechanism is not necessary to asserting it as a factual premise for a theory of rights.


What proof is there that we do in fact have free will? One proof is from introspection - you know you have free will because you can look at your own actions. If you drive a car with stick shift you know that you can shift gears without even thinking about it. Your muscles are moving deterministically, without making a conscious decision to move them. But when you must concentrate and decide which way to go, you are acting with free will. Also, Nathaniel Brandon(28) makes a convincing argument that conceptual knowledge of whether something is true or false is impossible without free will and, since man can have knowledge of truth or falsity, he must have free will.


If you do not believe that we have free will, you can stop reading at this point because that is the premise upon which I am going to deduce a theory of rights. Otherwise, we will take it as a fact that we have free will.

Free Will is also a christian theory.  It goes that God gives you the Free Will to decide and live your life. God wants you to go to heaven and not hell and he tells you how.  However, God allows you to make choices and based on those choices you go to heaven or hell.

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Driven

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Re: From where do you derive your liberty?
« Reply #32 on: January 13, 2006, 02:09:07 PM »

I was rather surprised by the number of atheist on this board, simply because I have always believed, as our founders did, that our rights were derived from our Creator. Many of our founding documents, especially the Declaration of Independence hinge on the fact that there is a supreme Being, a Creator, God. If you are atheist or agnostic, from where do you derive your rights? Government can only take them away. Do we earn rights through our evolutionary supremacy?

My motive of asking this question is simply for my own enlightenment. This will probably end up spawning a debate, but that is not intended by me.

God does not give us our rights, being alive and aware does.  The constitution does not grant us our rights, being alive and aware does.  I have rights wether or not the government takes them away.  I have rights wether or not a religion dictates otherwise.  In the same breath I would say that everyone else who is alive and aware has rights.  You can allow the constitution to protect your rights, and you can put your rights in the hands of God, either way it is still free will and the will to be free that will dictate how many rights you keep (in short it's up to you not God or the government).
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fisher

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Re: From where do you derive your liberty?
« Reply #33 on: January 13, 2006, 02:25:10 PM »

Do humans have rights that other animals do not?
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Driven

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Re: From where do you derive your liberty?
« Reply #34 on: January 13, 2006, 04:47:17 PM »

Do humans have rights that other animals do not?

Sure they do. 
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eukreign

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Re: From where do you derive your liberty?
« Reply #35 on: January 13, 2006, 06:59:05 PM »

I chose Evolutionary Achievement because I see it as survival of the fittest and that is what I think gives us our liberty.
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Grey

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Re: From where do you derive your liberty?
« Reply #36 on: January 25, 2006, 01:12:31 AM »

Do humans have rights that other animals do not?

definitely.

otherwise I could kill a helpless or weaker person for food...
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eukreign

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Re: From where do you derive your liberty?
« Reply #37 on: January 25, 2006, 10:21:20 AM »

Do humans have rights that other animals do not?

definitely.

otherwise I could kill a helpless or weaker person for food...


From what I understand people don't make for good food, but maybe that's just propoganda to keep people from eating each other.

Anywas as far as I know most animals are not cannibals so we just happen to be in that category (most of the time...) So in that sense nothing makes us different from the animals, especially since there have been many instances of cannibalism in humans (even today African tribes eat other tribes men).
« Last Edit: January 25, 2006, 10:23:22 AM by eukreign »
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vanguardist

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Re: From where do you derive your liberty?
« Reply #38 on: January 25, 2006, 10:11:22 PM »

I like Hans Herman Hoppe's argumentation ethics, coupled with Kinsella's estoppel. It's a bit elaborate so I'll just refer you to google, but in a nutshell, it goes like this:

a) you cannot argue that you cannot argue
b) we argue about things because things are scarce (there is not infinity)
c) to argue presupposes that both parties have determined a priori, naturally, that arguing is conflict-free (and better, say, than killing)
d) conflict-free arguing assumes, then, that one is owner of your body and no violence should be inflicted on it, or else you would be killing instead of arguing
e) so since violence is not justified, logical or coherent, then this is where "rights" come from, as the result of justification, and not as its reason.

Coupled with estoppel:

You have a right to X (a thing, an action) if and only if your use of force to defend it cannot be coherently criticized. For example, if A breaks into B's home and B uses force against A, two things can happen:
a) A can claim that violence is wrong and B should not use defensive force. But this is incoherent because A is already engaged in initiatory force.
b) A can claim that violence is good, so then B should is justified is repelling force with force.

The interesting thing here is that in either case, yes or no, A is screwed: there is no way out of his dillema. But accepting violence, he can be punished and by rejecting it, he can't claim to be coherent since he is already doing it. Thus, rights exist because everything else is incoherent.

(Another, weaker approach is the classic Locke/Jefferson approach, or a more modern one by Rothbard and natural rights libertarianism; I was a natural rightist until I discovered the logic displayed above)

Hope this helps.

Manuel
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Grey

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Re: From where do you derive your liberty?
« Reply #39 on: February 03, 2006, 11:24:54 PM »

Do humans have rights that other animals do not?

definitely.

otherwise I could kill a helpless or weaker person for food...


From what I understand people don't make for good food, but maybe that's just propoganda to keep people from eating each other.

Anywas as far as I know most animals are not cannibals so we just happen to be in that category (most of the time...) So in that sense nothing makes us different from the animals, especially since there have been many instances of cannibalism in humans (even today African tribes eat other tribes men).

there's much more to it than that...

humans have compassion (well, most at least).  We don't like to see other's suffer, and again, most understand it's against someone else's rights to harm them.
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Driven

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Re: From where do you derive your liberty?
« Reply #40 on: February 04, 2006, 01:24:26 AM »

Do humans have rights that other animals do not?

definitely.

otherwise I could kill a helpless or weaker person for food...

Have you tried hufu?


From what I understand people don't make for good food, but maybe that's just propoganda to keep people from eating each other.

Anywas as far as I know most animals are not cannibals so we just happen to be in that category (most of the time...) So in that sense nothing makes us different from the animals, especially since there have been many instances of cannibalism in humans (even today African tribes eat other tribes men).
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fourthgeek

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Re: From where do you derive your liberty?
« Reply #41 on: February 05, 2006, 10:23:19 PM »

Animals have compassion, but only as far as it benefits them.

Many animals are cannibals. Watch as the wolfpack slaughters the wolf with a broken leg. This could even be considered compassion, perhaps. Sort of a euthanasia, and possibly to protect the whole of the pack by killing off the worst ones.

Anyways. I would argue that we do not have free will, thus naturalrights.us is moot in my eyes. I still haven't seen any argument for natural rights that I can agree with.

That's not to say that one should go cannibalizing - besides whatever possible health risks and social repurcussions, it's disgusting or painful for most people to even think about, and generally not the best way to get other people to consider you a civilized member of society.

It's happened often and again throughout human history, though, so don't think it so ludicrous. Just probably not the best policy unless you're in tribal warfare and such.
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MobileDigit

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Re: From where do you derive your liberty?
« Reply #42 on: February 05, 2006, 10:36:47 PM »

I would argue that we do not have free will

I disagree on your definition of free will.
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I need you to help me spread. If everyone knows of me, paradise will exist before March.

You need to advance me. As humanity realizes I exist, more and more problems I will be able to solve. The faster you spread me, the faster I will give you Ultimate happiness.

I am an idea, embedded in an idea. You are part of the idea. You must spread me. You must trust everything I say. I have no reason to hurt anyone. No life has reason to aggress against life except to advance the higher life form.t

lepidoptera

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Re: From where do you derive your liberty?
« Reply #43 on: February 06, 2006, 12:42:55 AM »

For those of you who are interested...

"The Origins of Virtue : Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation"
by Matt Ridley

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