I've been arguing with one of my friends at school that is pretty much as Republican as you can get. He knows about the austrian school of economics. He knows about Hayek and he is an avid watcher of Glenn Beck. I've been getting into some arguments with him about what rights are. He was only arguing based about our rights based on positive conceptions of rights.
For instance, he was saying that the constitution doesn't grant us abortion or doesn't grant gay marriage because it isn't codified in the constitution. I recently brought up the concept of negative rights when I defended the idea that gay marriage is a right and that gay people can marry whom they want to. I believe I could also use that logic towards abortion.
My friend is still stuck in the mindset that if it isn't a fundamental basic right that is codified or that if you really don't need it to live than it's not a fundamental human right. I've been trying to explain to him the concepts of social freedom and religious freedoms and I've been having some success... but I want him to just stop thinking in only terms of the constitution.
Anyone here have any advice about how I could make my case for gay marriage and abortion and privacy and these other rights for being a negative right?
Cite the 9th amendment to the constitution. If the constitution is his basis for rights, the 9th clearly states that there are rights not expressly listed.
I already did that but he only believes that the 9th amendment guarantees fundamental rights. He doesn't view gay marriage or abortion (even though he's in favor of abortion) or these other things as fundamental rights.
These things in his mind are privileges. So, I'm trying to argue from more of an individualist approach.
Views of which rights are fundamental and which ones aren't is subjective. You can merely point this out. There is no way to prove that your subjective list of rights is better than his.
But in order to ban something, congress must have the power to ban it. Ask him to cite the part of the constitution that grants congress the power to ban gay marriage. He won't be able to. Bring a copy of the constitution to hang himself with.
Also ask him why the government is even involved in marriage and where in the constitution this power is authorized.
I know you want to get him away from the constitution, but in this case, it supports your position. So his slavishness to it can be an advantage.
Ah yes, the Constitution types. Just because it's a magical scroll doesn't automatically grant it some kind of special insight. From my experiences, these kinds of people think that somehow being born on soil that is subjectively declared as "the United States of America", they somehow owe it to George Washington to submit and worship the Constitution.
But I guess if you want to get him into being an an-cap, baby steps...Baby steps
My take on the Constitution has always been that it says what government isn't supposed to do. The 10th amendment clearly states that any powers not mentioned in the Constitution are relegated to the states. So anything involving financial regulation, religious worship (and the 1st amendment allows for States to declare their own State religion as far as I know), health care, drug legislation, etc. all go to the control of the individual states. Liberals have been using the "regulate commerce" bit in the Constitution to justify forcing Americans to buy health insurance, but this was put in the Constitution to avoid interstate trading wars like they saw in the New England states earlier, so it actually works in the favor of libertarians who want the state regulation of health cartels busted down. Of course, unfortunately, I think the general welfare clause has been the source of a lot of government expansion as well. So I don't think the Constitution does anything to limit government.
Tell him that if we ban abortion and gay marriage, the terrorists win.
Note that the Constitution is not the source of these rights, nor does it claim, or even imply, that it does. It merely restricts government from violating certain rights. The freedoms and right are presupposed to exist. The Constitution simply recognizes them. The First Amendment, for example, does not purport to grant us the right to free speech. Rather, it says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. The freedoms and right are presupposed to exist. The Constitution simply recognizes them.
Also, as was already pointed out, the idea that there are no rights other than those that are recognized specifically in the Constitution contradicts the Constitution itself:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Amendment 9 - Construction of Constitution. Ratified 12/15/1791.
Amendment 9 - Construction of Constitution. Ratified 12/15/1791.
faber est suae quisque fortunae
Right.Does this Republican friend care about the derivation or theory of rights? That they extend from or are innate in human beings, not from a document?
Dewaine McBride, he's one of those Republicans that cares more about economic liberty than personal liberty. He cares about personal liberty and individual liberty too but he's against granting gay marriage as a government contract because of economic reasons. If it weren't for the economic reasons he wouldn't care much about it. That's his argument against it. So he's not against the idea of it, but just the government supporting it.
Do you think I could argue against positive rights than to show that that's not at all what I want with the concept of negative liberty? I don't know what he thinks about rights too well. I just think that he has a narrow view about what rights are. He views the Patriot Act as unconstitutional... but he doesn't understand the concept of liberty quite yet.
He probably "believes in" democracy, as well. How else to explain that the law defines or delineates rights? The problem is that gays have no more a right to marry than heterosexuals do -- it is a social construct, a personal agreement, not a legal one, though it has been socialized into the tax code. Following this reasoning, the majority may define rights, and the majority may define Christianity as illegal -- in which case it really doesn't matter because the individual is not the source of rights, the majority-enforced law is the source of rights.
Ask him if he believes that marriage is between a man and a woman, or between a man, a woman, and the state.
There is no such thing as a distinction between positive and negative rights.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
All rights are privelages.
In States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it. ... In short, a law everywhere and for everything!
~Peter Kropotkin
Granted by whom?
I always like to say: If you are alone in the wilderness, would you claim you have rights granted to you by a government that's not around, or by a god that's just as distant as the government? Are you going to claim you have a right to anything that you can't provide yourself or receive through exchange, and are you going to claim someone else doesn't have a right to do various actions by said questionable authority?
No one would be able to make these claims if the government or some constitution wasn't in place already providing and blocking those "rights". People can claim free healthcare on the fact the government exist to do so, people can claim a ban on gay marriage by using the government to ban it, and then they say gays don't have that "right", and others claim they have a "right" to someone elses services.
Rights are generally enumerated in an abstract sense, and those enumerations are generally instantiated in practical applications of day to day actions. Keep this usage in mind while reading the rest of this post/article.
A right is nothing more or less than a chapter of morality. As long as actions outside the bounds of morality are taken, the harmony of nature (all those persons and things affected) is broken. Morality defines what must take place in order for there to be peace and harmony between individuals and communities. The law of morality states that you must acknowledge these rights enumerated within, and it enumerates the consequences of choosing to ignore those rights. These rights and consequences are not made up by man; they are absolutes that are discovered by man. This is what makes it a law of nature.
For example: A man may observe an interaction between two other individuals. He may observe that some part of the interaction caused a break in the harmony between these two individuals. He may deduce what caused this break. The cause of the break, he can then conclude, is the infringement of one of the individual’s rights, and the break is the consequence of that infringement.
You may be thinking this is very subjective – what if the exact same interactions are made between two other individuals and the break in harmony does not occur, or some similar situation? This does not mean that morality is any less absolute, it means that the observer has failed to accurately deduce what the right was and or what the consequence for infringement of that right was. No person is the perfect observer; we must be in constant pursuit of the discovery of our rights and the consequences of not acknowledging them.
Some rights are very well tested and established. These are rights that have been observed for a very long time, and rights, the definitions for, discrepancies are rarely or no longer ever observed. An example might be the right of self ownership. This has been a long established right. A recent discrepancy of this right could be, for example, the case of abortion. Does this right of self ownership apply to unborn children, and how? Does it conflict with the mother’s right of self ownership? If this question has never been asked before, it may be difficult to answer. For some it will be easy to answer based on their awareness of their conscience (I won’t go into the conscious at this time). Regardless, it is an observable circumstance. There are consequences as the rights of the unborn children are infringed. We can see these. We can watch it happen. We can observe these sets of actions and consequences, and derive from examination of them abstract statements that define what one should and shouldn’t do to another in order to maintain peace and harmony. We call these statements of truth rights, principles, and morals.
You cannot fabricate these rights or consequences, nor can a market. Regardless of the origin, be it God, gods, nature, whatever, they can be observed. The proof of existence of these rights is not subject to the proof of existence of their origin any more than proof of your existence rests on the proof of existence of your origin.
Rights are not privileges. A right is not subject to the approval or acceptance of others, nor is it subject to the enforceability of itself, by itself or anyone else. A right is something you absolutely have the authority to do, whether you have the power to do it or not. A privilege is something that you are given the authority to do, which you do not on your own, without being granted such authority, have the authority to do.
You can only give the privilege to do something that you yourself have the authority to do, be it in the form of right or privilege. For example: I cannot give you the privilege to kill, because I do not have that authority. Not to deviate from the point of all this, but a great example would be this: a group of voters cannot give the authority or privilege to tax me to the government, because none of those individuals has the right to tax me. I may have the power, and I may be able to give you the power, or you may be able to obtain the power on your own. Also, I, and possibly others, may not have the power to stop you. None of that changes whether or not you have the authority, be it right or privilege, to kill, or tax.
To say that rights are a good is not actually saying a right is a good, it’s to say that rights do not exist; only the power or ability to take certain actions provided through the market exists. You are not merely disagreeing on the enumeration of rights; you are disagreeing on the fundamental definition of what a right is in such a way that rights, using the commonly accepted meaning, you claim do not exist.
I'll summarize.
In response to Stranger - according to your post (assuming that is your blog) you are not actually saying that rights only exist when they are enforced, you are saying that rights do not ever exist, per the generally accepted meaning of "right". You are free to use words willy-nilly, but it is counter-productive to the spread of truth. The existence of a "right" cannot be subject to the enforceability of the right. If "its" existence is subject to the enforceability of "it", "it" is not a right. What you’re saying could be compared to me saying that gravity does not exist, only the power to claim gravity exists, which is provided through the market and subject to supply and demand. Though a right is not a physical object that can be held, the effects of morality can be fully observed. Gravity cannot be held and seen, although the effects of gravity can be thoroughly observed, and the existence of gravity cannot be logically defied even in the absence of the power to claim its existence.
In response to Epicurus ibn Kalhoun - You don't really offer an explanation as to the meaning of your statement, nor an argument to support it. When people say "privilege" they do not intend to communicate the same meaning as when they say "right". Nor is a right generally considered a subset of a privilege. So, unless you explain, your statement doesn't really contribute much.
Righteous government, or the righteous lack thereof, is not the producer of a righteous society, it is the product of one.
You can't have my guns, but I'd be glad to give you my bullets...
He cares about personal liberty and individual liberty too but he's against granting gay marriage as a government contract because of economic reasons. If it weren't for the economic reasons he wouldn't care much about it. That's his argument against it. So he's not against the idea of it, but just the government supporting it.
I'm with him there. I'll take it further, though, and say that the government should stay out of straight marriages, too.
If you make the case to not vote, the rest should fall into place. Marriage is between 2 people (and/or God), not government. Abortion will be much harder. Ask him if he should be liable for the death someone because he chose not to donate his $$$ to help the person.
Or just simply state it is legal killing. Morally and ethically I am heavily against it. Once conceived, the idea is to kill it before it becomes human. Convince him it's ok to be damn pisssed at it.