Galt's Gulch

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  • Posted by Zenphamy 7 years, 7 months ago
    Civil rights are not part of Objectivism, or the * Individual Rights* that originate from the identity and nature of existence as a human being. Civil rights are only those derived from membership in a society, community, or state and are granted through consensus or law. Individual Rights start with self ownership and are in no way determined, controlled, granted, or measured by others. Important differences.

    I only emphasize these differences because so much of today's discussions seem to completely confuse and conflate the two different sets of Rights leading to FDR's, the UN's, and the neo-modernists/progressives/socialists ideas of Human Rights of 'to each according to his needs, from each according to his means', including nonsense such as our current healthcare chaos and minimum incomes for all.
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      Posted by $ MikeMarotta 7 years, 7 months ago
      Not all civil rights are rooted in false premises. You earn the right to vote. In the past, you had to own property or show that you paid taxes. But in any case, you must be a citizen of a certain age, and not be otherwise prohibited from voting. Granted those limits, no one has the right to interfere with your right to vote. Similarly, while jury duty is largely compelled, in fact, no one has a right to stop you from serving when called.

      When teaching middle school, when kids act up and act out - my being prohibited from knocking their heads against the blackboard - I simply tell the rest of the class that the kid who is making noise is taking from them their right to an education. It is a civil right. We can argue pro and con and you and I can agree on the deeper truths there, but, I trust that you will agree that a classroom hooligan cannot be allowed to prevent others from enjoying the benefits of public education (such as they may be).
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      • Posted by Zenphamy 7 years, 7 months ago
        Mike; Again we see the confusion and conflation I referenced above. What you term civil rights are not Rights as described in Objectivist thinking. They are privileges.
        '
        You're discussing things that require the adjectives of had to, prohibited from, granted limits, interfere with, compelled, stop, taking, cannot be allowed, etc. Those are not Rights as properly thought of in Objectivism--what did Rand say; paraphrased 'It's not who's going to let me--it's who's going to stop me.'

        Edited: Emphasis added.
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        • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 7 years, 7 months ago
          You are right. As our discussion moves to the right margins in this thread, we might consider how right it would be to remind everyone to abandon ambiguous words. Right now, I offer the word "fast" which has at least three distinct meanings: rapid; secure;, go without food.

          You and I might start a meme to insist that there are no civil rights, only natural rights, making "natural rights" redundant and "civil rights" a contradiction. I am not sure everyone on the right would go along.
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          • Posted by Zenphamy 7 years, 7 months ago
            Whether they go along or not doesn't really matter. Allowing others to be involved in a discussion in which they define every word or identity as they wish, results in only gibberish. It only increases by painful degrees when we permit them to use the same gibberish in establishing laws and them attempting to comply with them.
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            • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 7 years, 7 months ago
              I agree that we seem to be between Skylla and Charybdis in having to define our terms and then being stuck arguing definitions with everyone's asserted "right" to their own definitions preventing any progress toward truth.

              See my comment below https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
              The two essays cited are the kinds of expositions needed to understand a complex subject. Our common education acculturated us to accepting (and demanding) pithy quotes, dictionary definitions, and "sound bites." I find it Orwellian.
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  • Posted by $ MikeMarotta 7 years, 7 months ago
    Zenphamy's comment notwithstanding, it remains that the government does have the right to force you to act against your wishes. For example, you can be compelled to appear in court as a defendant (of course), but also as a witness. And while some exceptions are allowed, basically, you can be compelled to serve on a jury.

    Also, in protection of those so-called "natural" rights that are inherent to you as a person, the government can act on your behalf when you are incapable of acting for yourself. That is why the government can act to protect children from their parents. Under an objective legal code, if an individual dies intestate (without a notarized last will), the courts can take control of that person's property and oversee its equitable distribution to any heirs (if they exist and can be found). In some states, such probate courts oversee all wills and testaments in order to avoid frauds.

    We have an interesting argument from the libertarian wing that while injuring other people should certainly be illegal, drunk driving should not be illegal prima facie as long as you do not actually hurt anyone else. I believe otherwise. Some actions are inherently dangerous to others. That is why, for instance, absent the compelling claim of self-defense, it is illegal to discharge a firearm in the city. You cannot have a firing range in your back yard, no matter how good of a shot you can prove that you are.
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