Subject:
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Re: Goodness of Man? (was: Re: Merry Christmas from the Libertarian Party
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 6 Jan 2000 04:53:37 GMT
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Reply-To:
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{mattdm@}saynotospam{mattdm.org}
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Viewed:
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1838 times
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Larry Pieniazek <lar@voyager.net> wrote:
> > > The US Constitution and Bill of Rights, coined by the founding fathers,
> > > all rights are God given.
> Insert an "under" in front and you should be able to parse it, although
> it may still be on shaky grammatical ground.
Not to mention on shaky accuracy ground! The Constitution doesn't speak of
either god or rights. And the first ten amendments don't attribute the rights
they speak of to any specific external source.
The Declaration of Independence mentions that certain rights are given by a
"Creator". [1] But that's not the constitution, let alone a definitive
philosophical bible, and shouldn't be taken as such!
>
> > Ok. So if they're good ideas in a perfect world, is there a problem with
> > saying that those are things we want to strive for as a
> > society/cuture/nation/people?
>
> Yes, there is. One can certainly say that we'd like everyone to have an
> education, good health care, and a secure retirement. Laudable goals, and
> ones that I share. But there is a big leap from stating that as a desired
> attribute of society, to stating that everyone has a RIGHT to those things.
What's the difference?
> For, once you say that, you have to say where these free goods come
> from.
There aren't any free goods coming from anywhere. Deciding that something is
a right is very different from implementing or trying to implement a system
to realize that right. Furthermore, rights vary in relative strength -- the
canonical example being that I may have a free-speech right to yell "fire"
wherever I please, but that the right to watch movies in peace is far
stronger. :)
If we decide as a society that universal minimal health care is a right,
what that means is that we agree that something's wrong when people aren't
able to get it. The _solution_ is a seperate issue. It might be something we
want government to do. It might be something we think private enterprise can
handle better. We might even decide that, tragic as it may be, there's a
higher right-to-not-care-about-your-neighbor that supercedes this right in
many cases.
[1] Note that Jefferson disagrees with Locke and Larry about the property
thing. *grin*
--
Matthew Miller ---> mattdm@mattdm.org
Quotes 'R' Us ---> http://quotes-r-us.org/
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