ROTHBRD

[Brant Gaede]

Driving my van home late yesterday afternoon on Tucson's westside, I was passed by a late model, off-white car with plenty of zip. My eyes were drawn to the specialty plate, "ROTHBRD". "WTF!", I thought, and speeded up to see if if could see WTF that was about. As I drew closer there was the head and shoulder's picture of a man lecturing etched on the rear window and below that 5 or 6 lines of text under which was the signature, "Murray Rothbard." After half a mile the vehicle turned off and I declined to follow what was obviously a dangerous anarchist armed with the righteousness of economics but not Objectivism beyond its ad hoc utility.

These are dangerous times. I'm sure if I had approached this person declaiming "I know George H. Smith," it wouldn't have saved me from a gun-toting looney thinking I might be one myself. That's what can happen in this city.

--Brant

gotta buy a Glock; the anarchists are getting closer

[PDS]

Why buy a Glock when you have your natural rights to protect you?

[BaalChatzaf]

Why buy a Glock when you have your natural rights to protect you?

May I inscribe that in a granite table of stone? That is so choice.

[Brant Gaede]

Why buy a Glock when you have your natural rights to protect you?

No such thing as "natural rights." Human rights are based on human nature but are also a human invention. Basically they are artificial, like all inventions. The materials that go into them aren't.

--Brant

[Darrell Hougen]

Why buy a Glock when you have your natural rights to protect you?

No such thing as "natural rights." Human rights are based on human nature but are also a human invention. Basically they are artificial, like all inventions. The materials that go into them aren't.

--Brant

Brant,

I dislike the distinction that you're trying to draw. "Rights" are based on what is right or correct or proper vs. what is wrong or incorrect or improper. Property ownership is a right because because owning property is right for human survival. But, what is right or wrong is not a matter of choice. It is an objective fact of existence just like gravity. The recognition of gravity or the understanding of gravity is not the same as the "invention" of gravity. Nor, is the recognition that certain claims are rights equivalent to the "invention" of rights.

Darrell

[caroljane]

Driving my van home late yesterday afternoon on Tucson's westside, I was passed by a late model, off-white car with plenty of zip. My eyes were drawn to the specialty plate, "ROTHBRD". "WTF!", I thought, and speeded up to see if if could see WTF that was about. As I drew closer there was the head and shoulder's picture of a man lecturing etched on the rear window and below that 5 or 6 lines of text under which was the signature, "Murray Rothbard." After half a mile the vehicle turned off and I declined to follow what was obviously a dangerous anarchist armed with the righteousness of economics but not Objectivism beyond its ad hoc utility.

These are dangerous times. I'm sure if I had approached this person declaiming "I know George H. Smith," it wouldn't have saved me from a gun-toting looney thinking I might be one myself. That's what can happen in this city.

--Brant

gotta buy a Glock; the anarchists are getting closer

Brant, you wimp! That could have been Dominique's granddaughter!

[Brant Gaede]

Why buy a Glock when you have your natural rights to protect you?

No such thing as "natural rights." Human rights are based on human nature but are also a human invention. Basically they are artificial, like all inventions. The materials that go into them aren't.

--Brant

Brant,

I dislike the distinction that you're trying to draw. "Rights" are based on what is right or correct or proper vs. what is wrong or incorrect or improper. Property ownership is a right because because owning property is right for human survival. But, what is right or wrong is not a matter of choice. It is an objective fact of existence just like gravity. The recognition of gravity or the understanding of gravity is not the same as the "invention" of gravity. Nor, is the recognition that certain claims are rights equivalent to the "invention" of rights.

Darrell

Well, you can call rights "natural rights" if by that you are referring to human needs qua human organism given the thinking, conceptual state of same. I was referring to philosophical identification and legal codification and enforcement, but there is not one right as such within any human being, only the need for rights. Doing it your way or the highway means we will start talking about the right to life of the fetus and if not banning of birth control the banning of almost all abortions including the first trimester and the morning after pill. Rand stated that a right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning freedom of action in a social context so she never addressed when human life began, only human rights.

Your way for you and Rand's for me? How do you come down on Rand's formulation and expositions? What is your view on abortion in the first tri-mester? Right to life for the fetus or unborn child?

--Brant

I don't agree with your gravity analogy; gravity is not a need or human creation and production, just a fact--try clothes; people need clothes, not having much fur, and people need rights--I certainly agree with the moral foundation of rights

[PDS]

Why buy a Glock when you have your natural rights to protect you?

No such thing as "natural rights." Human rights are based on human nature but are also a human invention. Basically they are artificial, like all inventions. The materials that go into them aren't.

--Brant

John Locke and, inter alia, the drafters of the Alaska Constitution would beg to differ with you, Mr. Branthem...

[Mikee]

I agree with you Brant, but there must be a way to convince people that an objective definition of rights is not just a passing fad, or only invented just to advantage "selfish" people. I know, let's call them "intrinsic"... That way when a large asteroid crashes into earth and destroys all life (because we haven't developed the means to avoid it) we can call Nature evil and mean spirited.

[anthony]

Why buy a Glock when you have your natural rights to protect you?

No such thing as "natural rights." Human rights are based on human nature but are also a human invention. Basically they are artificial, like all inventions. The materials that go into them aren't.

--Brant

Brant,

I dislike the distinction that you're trying to draw. "Rights" are based on what is right or correct or proper vs. what is wrong or incorrect or improper. Property ownership is a right because because owning property is right for human survival. But, what is right or wrong is not a matter of choice. It is an objective fact of existence just like gravity. The recognition of gravity or the understanding of gravity is not the same as the "invention" of gravity. Nor, is the recognition that certain claims are rights equivalent to the "invention" of rights.

Darrell

Well, you can call rights "natural rights" if by that you are referring to human needs qua human organism given the thinking, conceptual state of same. I was referring to philosophical identification and legal codification and enforcement, but there is not one right as such within any human being, only the need for rights. Doing it your way or the highway means we will start talking about the right to life of the fetus and if not banning of birth control the banning of almost all abortions including the first trimester and the morning after pill. Rand stated that a right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning freedom of action in a social context so she never addressed when human life began, only human rights.

Your way for you and Rand's for me? How do you come down on Rand's formulation and expositions? What is your view on abortion in the first tri-mester? Right to life for the fetus or unborn child?

--Brant

I don't agree with your gravity analogy; gravity is not a need or human creation and production, just a fact--try clothes; people need clothes, not having much fur, and people need rights--I certainly agree with the moral foundation of rights

There's only one 'positive' right, the right to life, which is the right to act as one chooses.

You 'is', so therefore you 'ought'.

All 'negative' rights protect this one positive, and also protect others from your acts.

I think you are both correct. Possessing life is a given, needing nobody's permission - but there must be the invention of individual rights to defend the given.

[PDS]

There's only one 'positive' right, the right to life, which is the right to act as one chooses.

You 'is', so therefore you 'ought'.

All 'negative' rights protect this one positive, and also protect others from your acts.

I think you are both correct. Possessing life is a given, needing nobody's permission - but there must be the invention of individual rights to defend the given.

Invention, or recognition? This is a key distinction. My guess is that Rand would say she "invented" nothing.

[Darrell Hougen]

There's only one 'positive' right, the right to life, which is the right to act as one chooses.

You 'is', so therefore you 'ought'.

All 'negative' rights protect this one positive, and also protect others from your acts.

I think you are both correct. Possessing life is a given, needing nobody's permission - but there must be the invention of individual rights to defend the given.

Actually, the right to life, properly understood, is also a negative right. The right to life means the right to live. That is, it means the right to live by your own effort. A positive right means a right to receive something at the expense of someone else. A person doesn't have a right to live at the expense of someone else. But, he does have the right to not have his freedom to pursue his life infringed by anyone else --- a negative right.

Darrell

[Darrell Hougen]

Why buy a Glock when you have your natural rights to protect you?

No such thing as "natural rights." Human rights are based on human nature but are also a human invention. Basically they are artificial, like all inventions. The materials that go into them aren't.

--Brant

Brant,

I dislike the distinction that you're trying to draw. "Rights" are based on what is right or correct or proper vs. what is wrong or incorrect or improper. Property ownership is a right because because owning property is right for human survival. But, what is right or wrong is not a matter of choice. It is an objective fact of existence just like gravity. The recognition of gravity or the understanding of gravity is not the same as the "invention" of gravity. Nor, is the recognition that certain claims are rights equivalent to the "invention" of rights.

Darrell

Well, you can call rights "natural rights" if by that you are referring to human needs qua human organism given the thinking, conceptual state of same. I was referring to philosophical identification and legal codification and enforcement, but there is not one right as such within any human being, only the need for rights. Doing it your way or the highway means we will start talking about the right to life of the fetus and if not banning of birth control the banning of almost all abortions including the first trimester and the morning after pill. Rand stated that a right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning freedom of action in a social context so she never addressed when human life began, only human rights.

Your way for you and Rand's for me? How do you come down on Rand's formulation and expositions? What is your view on abortion in the first tri-mester? Right to life for the fetus or unborn child?

--Brant

I don't agree with your gravity analogy; gravity is not a need or human creation and production, just a fact--try clothes; people need clothes, not having much fur, and people need rights--I certainly agree with the moral foundation of rights

Humans have a "need for rights." That is true. But there is more to it than that. It is morally proper (and therefore, right) that humans respect the freedoms of others. Right in the natural rights sense, is a moral concept, not to be confused with the legal concept. For example, driving is a right according to the natural law, but a privilege under the codified law.

None of the above has anything to do with the issue of abortion. An adult human has certain rights because of his nature and his relationship to other humans. Similarly, children have rights that are appropriate to them and fetuses have rights that are proper for them. For example, a small child has a right to life --- the right not to be killed --- but doesn't have many of the freedoms that adults enjoy. A toddler doesn't have a right to play in traffic. His mother has a right and obligation to forcibly remove him from the street by picking him up and taking him in the house. The nature of a small child is that he is dependent upon his parents. He cannot live independently and therefore does not have the same rights as an adult.

The rights of fetuses are still a matter of strenuous debate. However, in my view, a fetus has the right to not be treated with cruelty. Therefore, if a woman doesn't want to have a child, she should have an early term abortion. That is consistent with her right to choose. A woman has a right to choose whether to have a child or not, but must exercise that right responsibly. She should exercise it in a manner that is not cruel to the fetus. If, after a reasonable time, she has chosen to keep the fetus, she has an obligation to stick with her decision unless she later discovers that there is something wrong with the fetus or with herself that would be a reasonable justification for having an abortion.

Darrell

[anthony]

There's only one 'positive' right, the right to life, which is the right to act as one chooses.

You 'is', so therefore you 'ought'.

All 'negative' rights protect this one positive, and also protect others from your acts.

I think you are both correct. Possessing life is a given, needing nobody's permission - but there must be the invention of individual rights to defend the given.

Invention, or recognition? This is a key distinction. My guess is that Rand would say she "invented" nothing.

The "right" to life is so self-evident (recognized) it's almost a redundancy. However, its corollary, the right to act volitionally for one's life, isn't quite so self-evident to many.

A moral man automatically recognises others' right to life and action without being told.

Against all the other men we need the construct of individual rights.

I suggest then that it's both: recognition and invention. (Given and man-made.)

(When I get back to Rand, I'll probably find I'm way off )

[anthony]

There's only one 'positive' right, the right to life, which is the right to act as one chooses.

You 'is', so therefore you 'ought'.

All 'negative' rights protect this one positive, and also protect others from your acts.

I think you are both correct. Possessing life is a given, needing nobody's permission - but there must be the invention of individual rights to defend the given.

Actually, the right to life, properly understood, is also a negative right. The right to life means the right to live. That is, it means the right to live by your own effort. A positive right means a right to receive something at the expense of someone else. A person doesn't have a right to live at the expense of someone else. But, he does have the right to not have his freedom to pursue his life infringed by anyone else --- a negative right.

Darrell

Yes, such is the accepted use of 'positive rights'. A pity, when we are talking about men affirming their right to life and positive action. To NOT be interfered with contains a negative, but it's a moral positive after all. I'd considered using 'active rights' instead to avoid that connotation.

[Darrell Hougen]

There's only one 'positive' right, the right to life, which is the right to act as one chooses.

You 'is', so therefore you 'ought'.

All 'negative' rights protect this one positive, and also protect others from your acts.

I think you are both correct. Possessing life is a given, needing nobody's permission - but there must be the invention of individual rights to defend the given.

Actually, the right to life, properly understood, is also a negative right. The right to life means the right to live. That is, it means the right to live by your own effort. A positive right means a right to receive something at the expense of someone else. A person doesn't have a right to live at the expense of someone else. But, he does have the right to not have his freedom to pursue his life infringed by anyone else --- a negative right.

Darrell

Yes, such is the accepted use of 'positive rights'. A pity, when we are talking about men affirming their right to life and positive action. To NOT be interfered with contains a negative, but it's a moral positive after all. I'd considered using 'active rights' instead to avoid that connotation.

I do find the use of negatives and double negatives annoying, so I try to cast things in a positive light. For example, I like to say that all human interactions should be voluntary. That's a positive way of saying that people have a right to do anything that does not infringe other's rights and avoids the circularity of defining rights in terms of rights.

To be more precise, every person has the right to engage in any activity in which all of the parties involved are acting voluntarily.

The principle of voluntary action, the principle of first action (first-come-first-served), and the principle of property ownership are --- as far as I can tell ---- the three principles necessary and sufficient to form a basis for the natural law.

Darrell

[Brant Gaede]

Why buy a Glock when you have your natural rights to protect you?

No such thing as "natural rights." Human rights are based on human nature but are also a human invention. Basically they are artificial, like all inventions. The materials that go into them aren't.

--Brant

John Locke and, inter alia, the drafters of the Alaska Constitution would beg to differ with you, Mr. Branthem...

I didn't say anything about rights being " nonsense on stilts." Jeremy was wrong.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Driving my van home late yesterday afternoon on Tucson's westside, I was passed by a late model, off-white car with plenty of zip. My eyes were drawn to the specialty plate, "ROTHBRD". "WTF!", I thought, and speeded up to see if if could see WTF that was about. As I drew closer there was the head and shoulder's picture of a man lecturing etched on the rear window and below that 5 or 6 lines of text under which was the signature, "Murray Rothbard." After half a mile the vehicle turned off and I declined to follow what was obviously a dangerous anarchist armed with the righteousness of economics but not Objectivism beyond its ad hoc utility.

These are dangerous times. I'm sure if I had approached this person declaiming "I know George H. Smith," it wouldn't have saved me from a gun-toting looney thinking I might be one myself. That's what can happen in this city.

--Brant

gotta buy a Glock; the anarchists are getting closer

Brant, you wimp! That could have been Dominique's granddaughter!

Shouda followed her home and raped her?

--Brant

but only by "engraved invitation."

(afraid my raping days are over; by the time the Viagra kicks in the cops are there--besides, who wants to get their ass kicked by an 18 yo girl!)

[Brant Gaede]

There's only one 'positive' right, the right to life, which is the right to act as one chooses.

You 'is', so therefore you 'ought'.

All 'negative' rights protect this one positive, and also protect others from your acts.

I think you are both correct. Possessing life is a given, needing nobody's permission - but there must be the invention of individual rights to defend the given.

The right to life is not a positive right. It is a shorthand way of saying you have the right to what you already have--your life--and that you are entitled to pursue such things as serve that life in ways you deem best as long as you don't initiate force against another person.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

There's only one 'positive' right, the right to life, which is the right to act as one chooses.

You 'is', so therefore you 'ought'.

All 'negative' rights protect this one positive, and also protect others from your acts.

I think you are both correct. Possessing life is a given, needing nobody's permission - but there must be the invention of individual rights to defend the given.

Invention, or recognition? This is a key distinction. My guess is that Rand would say she "invented" nothing.

It didn't begin with Ayn Rand.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Why buy a Glock when you have your natural rights to protect you?

No such thing as "natural rights." Human rights are based on human nature but are also a human invention. Basically they are artificial, like all inventions. The materials that go into them aren't.

--Brant

Brant,

I dislike the distinction that you're trying to draw. "Rights" are based on what is right or correct or proper vs. what is wrong or incorrect or improper. Property ownership is a right because because owning property is right for human survival. But, what is right or wrong is not a matter of choice. It is an objective fact of existence just like gravity. The recognition of gravity or the understanding of gravity is not the same as the "invention" of gravity. Nor, is the recognition that certain claims are rights equivalent to the "invention" of rights.

Darrell

Well, you can call rights "natural rights" if by that you are referring to human needs qua human organism given the thinking, conceptual state of same. I was referring to philosophical identification and legal codification and enforcement, but there is not one right as such within any human being, only the need for rights. Doing it your way or the highway means we will start talking about the right to life of the fetus and if not banning of birth control the banning of almost all abortions including the first trimester and the morning after pill. Rand stated that a right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning freedom of action in a social context so she never addressed when human life began, only human rights.

Your way for you and Rand's for me? How do you come down on Rand's formulation and expositions? What is your view on abortion in the first tri-mester? Right to life for the fetus or unborn child?

--Brant

I don't agree with your gravity analogy; gravity is not a need or human creation and production, just a fact--try clothes; people need clothes, not having much fur, and people need rights--I certainly agree with the moral foundation of rights

Humans have a "need for rights." That is true. But there is more to it than that. It is morally proper (and therefore, right) that humans respect the freedoms of others. Right in the natural rights sense, is a moral concept, not to be confused with the legal concept. For example, driving is a right according to the natural law, but a privilege under the codified law.

Darrell

It's a privilege on public roadways. (Public here can refer both to public and private roads, the later being ones you do not own.)

What is and is not morally proper is a philosophical identification-invention following the identification of rights as such. You are trying to turn cultural-intellectual normative artifacts into facts of nature for the sake of your position when, in fact, you can simply argue from facts as they are--the nature of human nature--to moral invention consonant with our shared, basic and needed attributes. Just as men build skyscrapers they build philosophies including moralities. Are they true and valid, is the question? There are no rights and moralities marching down the street in irrefutable existence. There are consequences from what people do and do not do respecting morality and philosophy. Might really does make rights right in that the rights' protectors get a hold of government and keep a hold of it and kick the violators out and hold governance to rights' protection only sinning for you in the imperfection of it all for they will violate someone's rights some ways. It's evil, I know.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

There or no moral facts of nature. Morality is a product of human invention and is in now way derived from physical laws.

[Darrell Hougen]

Why buy a Glock when you have your natural rights to protect you?

No such thing as "natural rights." Human rights are based on human nature but are also a human invention. Basically they are artificial, like all inventions. The materials that go into them aren't.

--Brant

Brant,

I dislike the distinction that you're trying to draw. "Rights" are based on what is right or correct or proper vs. what is wrong or incorrect or improper. Property ownership is a right because because owning property is right for human survival. But, what is right or wrong is not a matter of choice. It is an objective fact of existence just like gravity. The recognition of gravity or the understanding of gravity is not the same as the "invention" of gravity. Nor, is the recognition that certain claims are rights equivalent to the "invention" of rights.

Darrell

Well, you can call rights "natural rights" if by that you are referring to human needs qua human organism given the thinking, conceptual state of same. I was referring to philosophical identification and legal codification and enforcement, but there is not one right as such within any human being, only the need for rights. Doing it your way or the highway means we will start talking about the right to life of the fetus and if not banning of birth control the banning of almost all abortions including the first trimester and the morning after pill. Rand stated that a right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning freedom of action in a social context so she never addressed when human life began, only human rights.

Your way for you and Rand's for me? How do you come down on Rand's formulation and expositions? What is your view on abortion in the first tri-mester? Right to life for the fetus or unborn child?

--Brant

I don't agree with your gravity analogy; gravity is not a need or human creation and production, just a fact--try clothes; people need clothes, not having much fur, and people need rights--I certainly agree with the moral foundation of rights

Humans have a "need for rights." That is true. But there is more to it than that. It is morally proper (and therefore, right) that humans respect the freedoms of others. Right in the natural rights sense, is a moral concept, not to be confused with the legal concept. For example, driving is a right according to the natural law, but a privilege under the codified law.

Darrell

It's a privilege on public roadways. (Public here can refer both to public and private roads, the later being ones you do not own.)

What is and is not morally proper is a philosophical identification-invention following the identification of rights as such. You are trying to turn cultural-intellectual normative artifacts into facts of nature for the sake of your position when, in fact, you can simply argue from facts as they are--the nature of human nature--to moral invention consonant with our shared, basic and needed attributes. Just as men build skyscrapers they build philosophies including moralities. Are they true and valid, is the question? There are no rights and moralities marching down the street in irrefutable existence. There are consequences from what people do and do not do respecting morality and philosophy. Might really does make rights right in that the rights' protectors get a hold of government and keep a hold of it and kick the violators out and hold governance to rights' protection only sinning for you in the imperfection of it all for they will violate someone's rights some ways. It's evil, I know.

--Brant

Let's say, hypothetically, that I and my family and my relatives and half the people in the town had long used a pathway to drive our horse-drawn carts, ride our bikes, etc., for generations. Then, along came some private citizen and paved it over and called it a road and said we couldn't use it any more. Do you see a problem with that?

If one private person bought up all the land surrounding another person's house and told the other person he couldn't leave, would you see a problem with that?

Property rights don't give a person carte blanche to do whatever he wants. If other people had a prior claim to the use of a piece of land, even if it were just to use as a pathway to get somewhere, another person could not just come along and deprive them of that right. Similarly, the government cannot just come along, claim a piece of land for the public, build a road on it and prevent people it doesn't like from using it. Use of the public roadways is not a privilege. People have a basic right to liberty and a prior claim to the use of pathways and roadways to get around, at least if they were freely used in the past.

Might doesn't make right. You say, "It's evil, I know." Well, how can that which is evil be right? How can that which is evil be moral? How can that which is evil be good? Unless you're going to argue that black is white and up is down you can't argue that might is evil and might makes right.

Darrell

[Darrell Hougen]

There or no moral facts of nature. Morality is a product of human invention and is in now way derived from physical laws.

Do you believe there are economic laws? Or, at least, economic principles? If so, what are the facts of reality that support them?

Darrell

[Dglgmut]

A moral man automatically recognises others' right to life and action without being told.

Does he? Why?

What is rational about that?