Reply #33: a right is what a society decides is a right

[iverglas]

It's a simple as that. They really don't fall from the sky on stone tablets, y'know? And the people who wrote on those parchments of yours 200+ years ago really were just members of a society, not prophets or immortals.

Btw, that "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" isn't actually "defined under the constitution for the united States of America", you know? It's in your Declaration of Independence. I find that a lot of my southern neighbours get confused on this point.

http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/index.htm

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Maybe they believed that -- that they were "endowed by their Creator" with rights. A lot of us think it's nonsense babble, these days.


... Oh, oops. I should have kept reading your post.

Rights are endowed by the creator, not the government.

Well, all I can say is: sez you. Being an agnostic atheist, I don't know about that creator stuff, but I don't believe it. Even if I did, it still wouldn't make a stitch of sense to say that it endowed me with rights. Eyes, ears and feet, yeah. Rights, that's just really dumb.


No, health care is not a right since it requires that another surrender their right to self-government to attend to that care.

That's some mighty fine jargon you got there. I think I recognize it.