Anarchism

[Arkolon]

Natural rights are hard to describe. They are rights one is born with. I could give you Lindsay's paragraph, but you've probably heard it all too often by now. Perhaps I was wrong in saying that nature meant human social nature, seeing as it created more misunderstandings than it did remove. Ultimately, there is no concise definition to Lockean natural rights I can give you. All I know is the context in which they are (and are to be) correctly used.

I've never seen Lindsay's paragraph.

If there's no concise definition of natural rights, you shouldn't be surprised when people are critical of the concept and the terminology. It's hard to persuade people to support something you can't define.

"Rights are those things, which already exist and belong to each individual in equal measure. They are unalienable. That is, they cannot be transferred, taken, or given away. They can be violated; but they cannot be provided because they already exist. Further, if one assumes that rights may be given by the state (or granted by law), then that is also to assume that they may be taken away by the state. In which case, they were never rights at all but were at most, legal privileges. No state needs to exist to give me permission to live. I live already. My right to live was not granted to me by law, nor can the law justly deny me the right to live." (Samantha Lindsay, ''What is Just Law'')

[Zottistan]

I've never seen Lindsay's paragraph.

If there's no concise definition of natural rights, you shouldn't be surprised when people are critical of the concept and the terminology. It's hard to persuade people to support something you can't define.

"Rights are those things, which already exist and belong to each individual in equal measure. They are unalienable. That is, they cannot be transferred, taken, or given away. They can be violated; but they cannot be provided because they already exist. Further, if one assumes that rights may be given by the state (or granted by law), then that is also to assume that they may be taken away by the state. In which case, they were never rights at all but were at most, legal privileges. No state needs to exist to give me permission to live. I live already. My right to live was not granted to me by law, nor can the law justly deny me the right to live." (Samantha Lindsay, ''What is Just Law'')

None of that actually gives any reasoning or evidence to suggest these rights exist, where they come from or what rights a person has by virtue of being born. It just says that they are.

[Conscentia]

That means that Locke and Nozick are wrong, not that neurology is wrong.

Locke and Nozick were wrong because, for you, nature (science) = nature (political philosophy)?

What's "nature (political philosophy)"?!

I asked you what you meant when you mean by the "natural" in "natural law", you said it refers to natural human social behaviour, I pointed out that that social behaviour is biogenic.

[Liberaxia]

I've never seen Lindsay's paragraph.

If there's no concise definition of natural rights, you shouldn't be surprised when people are critical of the concept and the terminology. It's hard to persuade people to support something you can't define.

"Rights are those things, which already exist and belong to each individual in equal measure. They are unalienable. That is, they cannot be transferred, taken, or given away. They can be violated; but they cannot be provided because they already exist. Further, if one assumes that rights may be given by the state (or granted by law), then that is also to assume that they may be taken away by the state. In which case, they were never rights at all but were at most, legal privileges. No state needs to exist to give me permission to live. I live already. My right to live was not granted to me by law, nor can the law justly deny me the right to live." (Samantha Lindsay, ''What is Just Law'')

[Tea Party Separation of America]

Now, im a Tea partier that supports personal liberty, limited government, ETC. But when people bring up TOTAL anarchy, i just tell them to watch The Purge.

You claim to support personal liberty, but oppose drug legalisation, freedom of love, freedom of expression, and liberalism? How does that work?

I support free speech.

[Conscentia]

You claim to support personal liberty, but oppose drug legalisation, freedom of love, freedom of expression, and liberalism? How does that work?

I support free speech.

But not free action?

[Conscentia]

I've never seen Lindsay's paragraph.
If there's no concise definition of natural rights, you shouldn't be surprised when people are critical of the concept and the terminology. It's hard to persuade people to support something you can't define.

"Rights are those things, which already exist and belong to each individual in equal measure. They are unalienable. That is, they cannot be transferred, taken, or given away. They can be violated; but they cannot be provided because they already exist. Further, if one assumes that rights may be given by the state (or granted by law), then that is also to assume that they may be taken away by the state. In which case, they were never rights at all but were at most, legal privileges. No state needs to exist to give me permission to live. I live already. My right to live was not granted to me by law, nor can the law justly deny me the right to live." (Samantha Lindsay, ''What is Just Law'')

People do not have inherent entitlements. She does not have a right to live because she lives. That's absurd.
Rights are a class of legal privilege. They exist under law, and cannot legally be transferred, taken, or given away. To establish rights is to create law - if not formal law then informal law.

[Sociobiology]

I've never seen Lindsay's paragraph.

If there's no concise definition of natural rights, you shouldn't be surprised when people are critical of the concept and the terminology. It's hard to persuade people to support something you can't define.

"Rights are those things, which already exist and belong to each individual in equal measure. They are unalienable. That is, they cannot be transferred, taken, or given away. They can be violated; but they cannot be provided because they already exist. Further, if one assumes that rights may be given by the state (or granted by law), then that is also to assume that they may be taken away by the state. In which case, they were never rights at all but were at most, legal privileges. No state needs to exist to give me permission to live. I live already. My right to live was not granted to me by law, nor can the law justly deny me the right to live." (Samantha Lindsay, ''What is Just Law'')

well she's wrong, the law can justly take the right to live away from murderers and enemy combatants. the very fact that people disagree about this means these things are not automatic but things granted by society. you may believe in heart of hearts that your way is how things ought to be but that has not impact on what actually is.
rights are those things society will defend, the things they create by enforcement, that is what rights are, you do not have a right to life because your alive, your alive because your alive, you have a right to life because society will defend your life. slaves under slavery did not have a right to freedom, they should have, but they didn't.
if you can't figure out what is true you will never be able to devise what ought to be true.

[Sociobiology]

1. nature is not exclusive to biology, ALL science deals with the natural world and natural law.
2. either these things (natural rights) exist independent of human beliefs in which case a society has to have them and you can take them as an assumption AND the fall within scientific law , Or they don't exist indeoendently and you need to justify why the society would have them, and in this case what the society would to to maintain them as well.
Since you fail to justify them, I must assume you incorrectly believe "natural law and/or natural rights" fall in the former category.

Natural law, as you sue the term, does not exist.

1. OK? I gave an example of a science.
2. Rights are a social construct that individuals are born with because they are individuals.

which you take as both your assumption and conclusion, thus circular logic, you have no evidence that people are born with rights outside those granted boy society.

You're submitting a dichotomy that has no correct answer.

if they are a social construct, then they are granted by society, you are not born with them unless society chooses to give them to you.
consider it from the opposite angle, can rights be taken away, yes, therefor they are not inherent.

telling me to choose one of either wrong choice. You're the one who came in here with no knowledge of natural rights, remember?

and you can in with no knowledge of anything else, you took their existence as a given, and when asked to justify it you can't, so a resort to circular logic and quotes, classic cognitive dissonance.

[MERIZoC]

You claim to support personal liberty, but oppose drug legalisation, freedom of love, freedom of expression, and liberalism? How does that work?

I support free speech.

That's all well and good, but there's no use in free speech if you don't have many other freedoms.

[Sociobiology]

Hang on a second. You said that this statement: " The mind is what the brain does. Societies are what minds do together. Therefore, our social behaviour is ultimately biogenic." wouldn't make sense if Conscentia was familiar with the works of Locke and Nozick. I don't see what that has to do with definition. They're arguing that social nature and biological nature are different levels of the same thing, which they are. Social nature has its roots in physical science, regardless of however Locke and Nozick defined their terms.

Natural rights are hard to describe. They are rights one is born with. I could give you Lindsay's paragraph, but you've probably heard it all too often by now. Perhaps I was wrong in saying that nature meant human social nature, seeing as it created more misunderstandings than it did remove. Ultimately, there is no concise definition to Lockean natural rights I can give you. All I know is the context in which they are (and are to be) correctly used.

so you don't know what it is but your sure it exists, sounds like religion to me.

[Sociobiology]

which exists nowhere on earth, almost as if it can't.
thats like me saying magic can exist, just look at harry potter.

Magic is not possible. Anarcho-capitalism is. It's actually like me saying this invention is possible, look at this prototype.

except you have no prototype, if magic confuses you try the statement "perpetual motion machines can exist just look at my drawing of a battery that turns a motor that turns a generator which charges the battery!"

[Sociobiology]

which also don't exist.

Say, do rights not exist at all in your opinion?

yes, rights are the personal privileges society will defend, these of course vary from society to society. they can be given and they can be taken away, they are not inherent.

which is itself a subjective philosophy. thus not a given for a society.

Natural law is the logical conclusion of natural rights.

then it really matters if they exist doesn't it.

Once you quit disagreeing almost just because you can re: natural rights, you'll see the logic behind natural law.

see logic circular, if your argument depends on natural rights then you need some evidence for natural rights, no baseless assumptions please.

[Sociobiology]

I support free speech.

That's all well and good, but there's no use in free speech if you don't have many other freedoms.

all freedoms have limits, freedom without limits is just a word.

[Sociobiology]

human social nature is part of their biological nature, therefor you were taught wrong.

It's more looking at how and which social constructs form, as well as why. Not sure what that has to do with the digestive system or natural (science) instincts, but OK.

the implication that humans social nature is not part of their biological nature is wrong. and if you don't know that biological instincts have a lot to do with how and why social constructs form you don't know enough about human behavior to everything about discussing human society.
you might as well say you don't know what physics has to do with space travel.

[Casita]

Am I mistaken or is seperating behavior from biology becoming a popular way to debate in this thread?

[Genivaria]

If there's one thing in this thread that makes me cringe, it's Genivaria's posts in the last four pages.

I feel like half of the actual argument is defining what anarchism is. Anarchism does not have a Weberian state, specifically a state that has a coercive monopoly on violence. Anarchism can, and often does, have a governing body. Absolute equality without a hierarchy is impossible, unless we're talking about small tribes. A government (governing body) needn't be a state. The rest of your arguments are distortions of definitions, misunderstandings, and sensationalist hyperboles.

government (governing body) needn't be a state

It is not my fault that you cannot demonstrate this assertion.

[Jello Biafra]

No fair. I was dragged back into the debate six days ago (as a counter-argument against anarchism, to an anarcho-capitalist) but now the debate has moved on.

[Jello Biafra]

government (governing body) needn't be a state

It is not my fault that you cannot demonstrate this assertion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Commonwealth
Not the best source, and not exactly what (most) anarchists mean when talking about anarchism, but it's close enough.

[Liberaxia]

It is not my fault that you cannot demonstrate this assertion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Commonwealth
Not the best source, and not exactly what (most) anarchists mean when talking about anarchism, but it's close enough.

Not anarchist.

[Jello Biafra]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Commonwealth
Not the best source, and not exactly what (most) anarchists mean when talking about anarchism, but it's close enough.

Not anarchist.

Perhaps. In what way(s) do you mean?

[Sociobiology]

Not anarchist.

Perhaps. In what way(s) do you mean?

a state aristocracy with inherited positions , and you have trouble with why that doesn't fit any definition of anarchy.
its basically feudalism.

[Arkolon]

"Rights are those things, which already exist and belong to each individual in equal measure. They are unalienable. That is, they cannot be transferred, taken, or given away. They can be violated; but they cannot be provided because they already exist. Further, if one assumes that rights may be given by the state (or granted by law), then that is also to assume that they may be taken away by the state. In which case, they were never rights at all but were at most, legal privileges. No state needs to exist to give me permission to live. I live already. My right to live was not granted to me by law, nor can the law justly deny me the right to live." (Samantha Lindsay, ''What is Just Law'')

None of that actually gives any reasoning or evidence to suggest these rights exist, where they come from or what rights a person has by virtue of being born. It just says that they are.

There is a right to yourself. Individual sovereignty is a natural right. It is not the only natural right, but all other negative rights link back, in one way or another, to individual sovereignty. The case for self-ownership is an easy one to make; the only way you can argue against it is to argue that there is a supreme being, a deity, that owns us all, or that no human can act invidually and that everything must be reported back to one another ("everyone belongs to everyone else"). This is what I mean by natural rights. A legal, state apparatus cannot grant you such a right, and neither can it take such away from you. Self-ownership is the very basis of natural rights, which are the very basis of natural law, which is the very basis of libertarian/individualist philosophy.

[Arkolon]

Locke and Nozick were wrong because, for you, nature (science) = nature (political philosophy)?

What's "nature (political philosophy)"?!

I asked you what you meant when you mean by the "natural" in "natural law", you said it refers to natural human social behaviour, I pointed out that that social behaviour is biogenic.

I said it was the way social constructs form, not why social constructs form, which relies on natural human instincts. Natural means in accordance with natural law, as Zott pointed out to you. If you want to use a different adjective for this type of rights, NST suggested "individual rights" and "individual law", which may create fewer impediments to the progression of the thread.

[Arkolon]

"Rights are those things, which already exist and belong to each individual in equal measure. They are unalienable. That is, they cannot be transferred, taken, or given away. They can be violated; but they cannot be provided because they already exist. Further, if one assumes that rights may be given by the state (or granted by law), then that is also to assume that they may be taken away by the state. In which case, they were never rights at all but were at most, legal privileges. No state needs to exist to give me permission to live. I live already. My right to live was not granted to me by law, nor can the law justly deny me the right to live." (Samantha Lindsay, ''What is Just Law'')

People do not have inherent entitlements. She does not have a right to live because she lives. That's absurd.
Rights are a class of legal privilege. They exist under law, and cannot legally be transferred, taken, or given away. To establish rights is to create law - if not formal law then informal law.

Positive rights are a class of legal privilege. Negative/individual rights are not. No one can grant you natural individual rights. Your assumption would have to logically conclude that, without a state or legal apparatus, one does not have any rights (as there is no legality in which to enforce the privilege). Consider a micro-society with two, maybe three to five, individuals. Do these individuals have rights? Do these individuals own themselves? There is no state or legal construct between them. It is a form of micro-anarchy, if you will.