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Comment by zpeti | Hacker News Reader

This hijacking of the definition of human rights in the last 50 years is a catastrophy. A human right should only be a negative right, something that I cannot be forced to do. It is a human right that I can't be forced to do anything you want.

As soon as human rights become things that need work from someone else (healthcare, the internet), you are moving it into the realm of needing taxation and resource allocation by someone (government). You can't make healthcare or the internet a human right without taxing people to build it and provide it. Or in extreme cases, forcing people to work. But by doing that you are taking away the human rights of others to their own time and energy.

Human rights should only exist as long as they can't conflict with each other, otherwise they just become laws. But as soon as you create human rights to things that cost energy (money), you create a conflict between people's free choice to live their lives and providing that service to them for free.

How do you decide which human right to enforce when they conflict?

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Thats not very productive way to think about it. It could be stated as "No entity can prevent people from communicating electronically", and the market would adapt around it. The big tech's market dominance stems from a) exclusive rights to telecommunication bands and b) IP and copyright laws , and those are both granted by the state, i.e. the public. An alternative would be for people to decide to abolish those exclusive rights.

Yep. Also a right can't be guaranteed if there is a limited resource needed to provide it. If healthcare is a human right, and half the country dies due to some plague, who will provide the healthcare that is guaranteed.

This is just a semantic argument over the exact meaning of "right". It's not a moral discussion. It's fine to say everyone should get healthcare, just don't call it a right because words have definitions (or should).

> Human rights should only exist as long as they can't conflict with each other.

That's an empty set then. See trolley problem for why.

Why do you think the trolley problem applies here? As far as I understand the thought experiment, it is more about ethic than human rights.

True human rights are essentially very few specifically so they don't conflict with each other. There is a reason "freedom of expression" is a human right, but "not hearing things I don't like" is not for example.

Anyway, I'm genuinely curious about how the trolley problem applies here if you don't mind expanding a bit.

> Why do you think the trolley problem applies here?

Well, the right to live is usually considered a human right, and a trolley problem is a conflict between this right for 1 person and another. So if you want human rights that can't get into conflict you can't even get the most basic ones.

And you can create similar conflict for any particular right you can imagine, so if you want human rights that don't conflict - you will have no human rights at all.

Another example - siamese twins with 1 set of necessary organs. Threatened pregnancy depending on your views on abortion. Necessary self-defense. It's impossible to create non-conflicting rights.

As for freedom of expression - it gets into conflict each time 2 people try to speak at the same time in the same place.

Same with right to protest (what if 2 groups with opposite views want to organize protests at the same time and place - a common occurrence during LGBT parades in my country).

You're talking about the same human right creating conflicts between 2 individuals. I read the original comment as conflicts between 2 distinct human rights, ergo my brief example.

I still find the trolley problem like a bit of a reach, but the other ones make sense. Thanks.

If any particular right is self-conflicting then it makes no sense trying to avoid conflicts between different rights.

I disagree, and it would have been courteous to highlight the part that you edited after my reply. It now makes it look like I ignored almost half of your comment.

> Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

At least the Universal declaration of human rights sidesteps this issue. The slightly more concrete EU's declaration is mostly about how these rights should be protected by law and to what extent.

An international treaty to respect those rights and try not to make legislation that directly violates them seems like a reasonable approach to resolve most of he conflicts you named.

I'm curious what "negative rights" you have in mind that do not cost energy/money and do not create a conflict between people's free choice to live their lives?

Say I try to force you to do something. Who is to stop me doing that? It requires government and taxation to run a justice system. I.e. a ton of "energy".

Enforcing rights takes energy, but respecting them takes none.

Laws, and legally created rights, are far too complicated and numerous for mere respect to be enough. This is why corporate lawyers exist, and why trade unions can win things for employees without having to go as far as a strike.

Ignorance of the law must not be an excuse, but it definitely can be the actual cause.

Well in that case we can at least all agree to respect human rights in the broad sense. As doing so wouldn't cost any energy and so wouldn't be in conflict with the 'negative' right or anti-duty that OP is talking about.

> Who is to stop me doing that?

me.

... Batman?

It's a great exercise to see if you can come up with a system that can function to provide such safety in a voluntary manner. I would argue it's possible. Definitely not easy, though. But just because it's hard doesn't mean the answer is "government".

Well if we're talking hypotheticals then why not add a volunteer healthcare system? After all, if we can somehow manage a volunteer police force, judiciary, etc all without government then it should be possible to add healthcare to the mix.

In any case, my point was the distinction made in the OP is silly. Any "right" is only a right in so far as it can actually be put into practice and that costs someone, somewhere "energy".

Rights and responsibilities are always coupled. That’s why people don’t like giving other people rights.

TFA is pretty vague, and you could interpret in two (completely conflicting) ways:

1) The internet is a human right therefore it must be taxpayer-funded so that everybody can use it "free" of charge. That seems to be how you interpreted it, and in that case, I feel the same as you do - just because something is important doesn't mean it should be collectivized.

2) If you're going to provide internet services, you should work to make them as widely available as possible. This is the "Twitter and Facebook banning conservatives" concern. While I'm sympathetic to the "wait a minute, you can't force Twitter to let Donald Trump use their platform if they don't want", we did see this work farther down the stack when AWS banned Parler because Parler allowed Donald Trump to use it.

If the author is suggesting that a distinction should be made between platforms (Twitter) and infrastructure (AWS, ISPs, routers), and the infrastructure operators ought to choose to be as agnostic as possible, on the other hand, then I absolutely agree with him.

You seem to see individuals but don't want to see the society. All of us are social beings and live in the context of a group of other humans.

You seem to see everything as rights absent obligations. We have things that we need to allow or even duties to perform as members of the society.

It is laughable that in the last 50 years of neoliberalism the definition of human rights has been "highjacked." Quite the opposite, human rights have been eroded. This has happened because neoliberalism ignores social obligation in favor of profits, as if "the market" can somehow determine justice.

It’s literally called human rights. Not society rights.

A comment above is amazing, we should call these new human rights citizenship rights, because that’s what they are.

They’re not human rights which should be undisputable rights that every human has.

This is such a tired argument.

Every government program, every preservation of right, requires taxation and resource allocation. Unless you are advocating for the complete dissolution of government we are merely talking of degrees.

There is always a specific debate to be had around each degree of power and influence the government is granted. But if you refuse to acknowledge the reality that people are "forced" into compliance for all rights, including those you deem 'negative', it's impossible to even discuss.

You only get to exercise the right to free speech if everyone else knows there are consequences for disrupting it. (Fines, imprisonment, etc)

If no one is willing or able to act as the enforcement arm of the state, you only have that freedom so long as someone more powerful than you doesn't feel like taking it from you. That requires the 'forced' labor of police officers, prison guards, construction workers for the prisons, agricultural workers for the food, medical supplies manufacturers, medical staff members for prisons, electricians, plumbers, garbage, sanitation workers. I'm sure if I spent more than a minute I could think of more, but just understanding the scope of labor required to enforce one 'negative right' should help illustrate why this line of conversation is a complete waste of time.

I think, zpeti's point is that human rights should be privileges (or liberties) and not claims in the Hohfeldian system (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights/#FormRighHohfAnalS...).

There is a conflation between "correlatives" (a privilege means that no-one else has a claim to prevent you from exercising the privilege, whereas if you have a claim, then someone has the duty to fulfill it) and enforcement which requires state intervention.

But "Human Rights" are not intended to be "nice things that we could and should have in the current American society". They are intended to be the Universal Human Rights, valid everywhere and all the times. They logically pre-exist before any government, because they are the moral foundation on which you are entitled to resist/overthrow by force a government that violate the Human Rights of his citizens. If you say for example that free access to education is an Human Right and your government must provide it, you are not merely stating "free access to education is very important, and is a deal breaker when it comes to election". It’s saying that should your government fail to provide free education, that is a casus belli between the government and the citizens, and that you have the right and the duty of insurrection to fix the situation as soon as possible.

Human Rights are a kind of schelling points where we agree that "those roles are so Universal that as soon as we recognize a violation of them, we instantly recognize who is the Bad Guy (the one who is violating them) and who is the Good Guy and (the one who is denied his basic human rights) and EVERYTHING GOES to fix the situation". If you have to put a bullet in the head of the Bad Guy, so be it. If you say that "Housing is a Human Right", you are instantly obligated to donate all of your disposable income as soon as you encounter one homeless. If you don’t, well, any bystander is justified in taking it from you, by force if necessary.

By putting everything that sounds nice in "Human Rights", you cheapen the term. Let’s say that in 20 years Human Rights really means exactly that : housing, basic income, internet access, and so on. In the mind of everyone, Human Right violation is no big deal, like someone not having internet access. Then how do you communicate the horrors of innocent citizens getting arrested, tortured and murdered ? Are you really going to put those two realities in the same term, "Human Rights Violation" ?

Could you enumerate some rights that you consider true human rights? Because I have a hard time thinking of anything that isn't in some way limited or regularly violated by many governments all around the world, and I don't suppose you're currently overthrowing your own government?

Just because we don't get it perfect, doesn't mean we can't talk about the concept of human rights.

You are right. It’s a sliding scale. But that scale has tilted completely to one side in the last 50 years, as I said. Everything has moved towards more generalized human rights and not towards less.

I'd like to understand how you would rank competing human rights for example? What if my human right to healthcare conflicts with your human right to not be forced to work? What if my right to have somewhere to live (for travellers, actual legal case in the UK) conflicts with your human right to own property and not have it invaded? What if my human right to not cover my face conflicts with your human right to a "germ and virus free environment".

Do you create a hierarchy of rights? Once you do that, how are they different from laws? You've just created lots of laws at this point for different people and situations.

In my world those are not rights any more. They're bullshit. A right is something, theoretically, that everyone can have. Conflicting rights by definition destroy that.

I think you are asking about balancing tests: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balancing_test

Your rights stop when someone else's rights are infringed. But where exactly do you draw the line? This is a complex and time-dependent question with a case-by-case answer. Right now, the human right to live outweighs the human right to not cover your face. In the EU, the right to privacy prevails the right of companies to serve targeted ads -- although the discussion around legitimate interests is ongoing.

But those are not human rights under the old definition.

Human rights are stuff like the right to dignity, the right of to being compelled to work, the right of not being totured or wrongfully imprisoned.

Humans right are supposed to only include those where you do not need to weight opposing rights. If person A is being tortured that is always a violation of a human right and it is never a violation of a human right not to torture sombody.

Humans right are meant to be a baseline definition of what we must provide to every human on the planet in any situation, whether there is a surplus of food or a worldwide famine, whether we live is a super advance technocracy or a solar flare destroys all electronics.

There are many many rights that are deeply essential in our society that are not human rights

Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but your right to dignity is a violation of my right to free expression, specifically I cannot just call you things.

I could probably come up with a situation for each right that feels absolute.

The right to freedom of expression is actually about protected expressions as an extreme example artistic torture is not a protected form of expression.

I am also reclutant to include it as a human right, the corresponding human right would be "freedom not to be compelled to express" eg freedom not to be forced to profess beliefs you do not want to profess.

Personally I do not believe that screaming at people and relentlessly insulting them is a human right, nor that doing so is necessarily a damage to their dignity so I do not see a contraddiction.

Rights conflict even with themselves. This is even true for rights seen as "negative".

Consider property rights. I rent. My landlord has never stepped foot in the house. The state enforces his property rights. But the way it would do that is by violently evicting me from the property and making me homeless.

You don't have the right to live in someone else's home for free, and so no rights are conflicting.

Why is it somebody else's home when they might have never even seen it? Because the state says so. This is not a natural property of the universe that the state is keeping in place.

The state needs to actively physically move my body in order to protect the property that is owned by somebody else because they wrote a contract. Is that a negative right?

> Why is it somebody else's home when they might have never even seen it?

It’s their home because somebody bought the land, put in the effort to build the home, and then either decided to rent it out or decided to trade it to someone who earned the money to buy the home.

> The state needs to actively physically move my body in order to protect the property that is owned by somebody else because they wrote a contract

No, the state needs to actively physically move your body because you are breaking the contract that you signed by not vacating the home after your lease ends, and in doing so, you are violating the property rights of the homeowner.

This perspective taken to its natural conclusion would imply that homes are built on trees (pun intended, they are made of wood).

> It’s their home because somebody bought the land, put in the effort to build the home, and then either decided to rent it out or decided to trade it to someone who earned the money to buy the home.

Cool.

This then does not cleanly describe a negative right. The state is not preventing some action from being done, ensuring that people have access to the body and possessions as granted by the universe. Instead, it is taking action to change something about the world (I am currently possessing the house) based on an entirely human construct (a contract).

> it is taking action to change something about the world (I am currently possessing the house)

Living in someone's house against their will, and without their contractual agreement, does not a possessor make. The state is preventing theft, essentially. Claiming something that belongs to somebody else as your own is theft. It doesn't matter if what you're stealing is small enough that it fits in your hand, or big enough that you can walk inside it.

> ensuring that people have access to the body and possessions as granted by the universe

If you think it's the universe that built the house and that's why it should be free for anyone to take, that's the core of the problem as I mentioned above. It's like you believe houses grow on trees.

> This then does not cleanly describe a negative right.

The negative right here is that you are not entitled to property. You are not entitled to property, whether land or items, for free. You have to acquire it without breaking other people's right to their property. You have to trade for it (we've invented money as a means of doing this efficiently, so we can work and then trade the money to builders, or the person who previously owned it and hired the builders).

To sum it up: The right to property is a negative right, a "right to property" as a positive right would be government entitlement to some amount of land.

How is that a conflict of rights? You signed a contract that gave you access to the property on certain conditions, and if those conditions aren't met, you have no right to access that property.

Life is much messier than just negotiating rights, so please don't take my dismissal of your conflict of rights argument as a claim that life is a walk in the park.

But the issue that makes it messy is almost always not any conflict of negative rights, which outside of a tiny number of edge cases dealing with the limits of what defines a person's legitimate claims (e.g. the legitimacy of national sovereignty and the rights citizens inherit from that, the co-use of public property like roads and the rules that govern that, and the rules that assign private property rights over what is arguably public property, like private ownership over scarce natural resources) they are nowhere close to conflicting, and can be understood within a consistent moral framework adopted from thousands of years of theological evolution and moral philosophy, culminating in legal and moral principles like substantive due process, and the Golden Rule, respectively.

Under your own definition, everyone can have: - housing - education - health care

Unless you’re saying that somehow it’s impossible for a society like the UK or US to ensure everyone has access to the above?

Even for your “negative rights”, we today already have conflicts. For instance, a right to trial by a jury of your peers: this clearly conflicts with the jury’s right to work. They can’t work while they’re hearing your trial. As soon as you allow “we’ll just dismiss those for whom jury duty is an undue burden”, you’re acknowledging society is big enough to handle these conflicts without creating an undue burden on anyone.

Your right to representation and to a trial by jury are limits on government power, not positive rights. You do not have the right to a lawyer or jury whenever you want. These are the conditions required if the government wants to prosecute you. If these conditions cannot be met the government can just drop the charges against you. We've seen this happen recently during covid due to court backlogs.

> A right is something, theoretically, that everyone can have.

Under this definition, what would you consider a right?

A right of not being condemned without due process, a right to dignity, a rigth to your religious beliefs, a rigth not to be tortured or wronfully imprisoned, a right not to be compelled to work, a right not to be compelled to speak, a right not to be governed by tyrants and a few more.

This argument is based on the false premise that the state will 'force' the labor of a police officer (or others) to protect your rights. It does not.

See Lozito vs. NYC - an individual was attacked by a drug addict with a knife. In front of 2 cops. They did nothing until the victim subdued the attacker. They then did not try to render aid to the victim. When Lozito sued, the judge dismissed saying the police have no duty to protect anyone.

https://youtu.be/jAfUI_hETy0

Many marginalized communities realize the state is not there to help or serve them. If your experience is different - it is most likely that it is more of a happy coincidence that the state's interests and your personal interests are temporarily in alignment. There is no guarantees that this will continue for any length of time.

>That requires the 'forced' labor of police officers, prison guards, construction workers for the prisons, agricultural workers for the food, medical supplies manufacturers, medical staff members for prisons, electricians, plumbers, garbage, sanitation workers.

First, this is voluntary labor. The 'forced labor' is with the taxpayer that pays for this being done.

Second, a state enforcing rights is rather different from human rights. If the state doesn't enforce a human right then that doesn't mean it's not a human right anymore. You didn't forfeit your right to life just because Pol Pot came into power, did you?

The state enforcing a right is one way to resolve a conflict of somebody violating your rights, but it's not the only one. If somebody attacks you and intends to kill you, then you can defend yourself with deadly force. Society doesn't pursue you for violating the attacker's right to life. Society doesn't have to do any work in this case, but the violation was dealt with.

Also, the human right to free speech doesn't mean that anybody has to listen to you or to promote what you're saying. Nobody has to give you a platform. Now, you could have a separate right to free speech that's a right given by the state (a law) that forces a social media site to give you (anyone) a platform, but that would be separate from human rights.

If a human right requires somebody else's labor then you have an adequacy problem. At what point is the human right fulfilled? If the government treats only broken bones, then is the right being fulfilled? Do they have to give you that million dollar gene therapy? Is the government violating your human rights because it doesn't invest enough into healthcare research for future treatments?

> If somebody attacks you and intends to kill you, then you can defend yourself with deadly force. Society doesn't pursue you for violating the attacker's right to life. Society doesn't have to do any work in this case.

What if you fail to defend yourself?

Society has no duty to protect you either. See Lozito v. New York City.

On July 25, 2013, Judge Margaret Chan dismissed Lozito's suit, stating that while Lozito's account of the attack rang true and appeared "highly credible", Chan agreed that police had "no special duty" to protect Lozito.

(Edit: spelling)

Society/Government Enforcement as we have it structured now does not have a duty to prevent harm. It mostly acts as an enforcement/reaction arm to respond once harm has been done. In some ways the response acts as a deterrent to future by others being done, but the primary aim is to punish infringement of the structure put in place or to assist a citizen once harm has been done.

I'm not sure how this relates to the conversation about rights. To talk about the inclusion of Healthcare as a right for instance, no one would propose that the government prevent people from getting injured. Or to, while being injured, intervene and stop it. My understanding is that healthcare provided as a right would be healthcare provided in response to an injury a Citizen has experienced.

Somehow we're reducing rights down to "things I can get people to arbitrarily agree to or that I can claim by force", which doesn't much seem like rights to me.

Human rights are things that another person/entity violates through their actions.

Getting internet or health care is more of an expectation of citizenship.

Well then, if rights are only there to be pointed out when violated, and there is zero expectation that your rights should be defended except by your own exertion of force, what's the point of them? You can exert force however you want and if successful you can generate new rights at whim, and at failure lose rights.

Part of the point is that the "right to life" is actually a "right not to be wrongfully killed"; so that being hit by a meteor is not a human right violation from a space rock.

> If somebody attacks you and intends to kill you, then you can defend yourself with deadly force. Society doesn't pursue you for violating the attacker's right to life.

In the Netherlands you're legally only allowed to use enough the minimum amount of violence necessary in self defense. You're obligated to flee if possible. So if a frail lady in a wheelchair comes at you with a knife, you can't stand your ground and kick her bony ass.

> First, this is voluntary labor.

Indeed, so as long as we can agree that the government paying for labor does not constitute forced labor, we can dispel the false premise that the state employing medical care providers is somehow forced labor. I was working under that premise (phrasing framework?) to prove the point that even within that framework the logic does not hold, but I'm glad you acknowledge, and we can agree, it is not accurate.

> The 'forced labor' is with the taxpayer that pays for this being done.

(assuming you are a US citizen) No one forces you to pay taxes; I believe there are large quantities of homeless persons who do not own land and do not participate in labor compensated by currency and are also not subject to taxation. You and I would probably agree that a person should be able to buy land and provide for themselves without taxation (and that this is currently not possible to my knowledge under our current system) but that does not mean the existence of taxation equates to forced labor. It is just very close, and practically speaking how it ends up being for most people who wish to live lives interconnected to society.

> Second, a state enforcing rights is rather different from human rights. If the state doesn't enforce a human right then that doesn't mean it's not a human right anymore. You didn't forfeit your right to life just because Pol Pot came into power, did you?

Having a right which is incapable of being defended is in a practical sense identical to not having that right. What material changes in circumstance occur where one "Has a right but can't enforce it's expression" and where one "Doesn't have the right"? And if there is no material change in circumstance, is there some benefit beyond that which I am not considering?

>Also, the human right to free speech doesn't mean that anybody has to listen to you or to promote what you're saying. Nobody has to give you a platform. Now, you could have a separate right to free speech that's a right given by the state (a law) that forces a social media site to give you (anyone) a platform, but that would be separate from human rights.

If we have a divergence between human rights and rights "given to you by the state (a law)" then there is no point in discussing human rights. The only worthwhile rights are the ones the state is willing to give; legal rights which have an impact on your material circumstances while alive on this planet. Beyond the scope of the law you are free to determine which rights you think are/are not human rights and the rest of the population can either ignore them or accommodate based on how willing they believe you are to try and enforce them.

There is not purpose to having a broader discussion of human rights under your framework, as enforcement is not part of the equation. Why must we agree on what a human right is if there is no enforcement of one side or the other?

The purpose of discussion on human rights should be to determine the scope of enforcement once rights are agreed upon.

> If a human right requires somebody else's labor then you have an adequacy problem.

Correct, and we face this problem constantly in relation to all rights enforced by the government.

> At what point is the human right fulfilled? If the government treats only broken bones, then is the right being fulfilled?

Presumably yes if the citizens have agreed upon a Right to Mend Broken Bones.

> Do they have to give you that million dollar gene therapy?

Presumably yes if the citizens have agreed upon a Right to Million Dollar Gene Therapy.

> Is the government violating your human rights because it doesn't invest enough into healthcare research for future treatments?

Probably not, as we don't typically operate under the framework of the right to have something which does not exist. Future treatments do not exist in the present, and would be incapable of being provided as a right in the present.

I think it's a great idea for governments to invest in the development of future treatments, and when they are discovered perhaps then it would make sense to provide as a right, but not until they exist.

Nope. Some rights require active resources to infringe upon. If I'm worshipping Satan it takes 0 active effort to protect me from government (ignoring things like protecting me from neighbours, talking government only).

It takes active effort for the government to infringe in this case. It's actually quite tiresome, requiring people to round up the satanists, and root them out. Oppression can be pretty expensive.

Then you have things like safety, security, and prosperity. I share the view that these things aren't rights. I still view things like free speech and exercise of religion as "rights", and not things like food. That doesn't make them unimportant or mean the government shouldn't try to stop people from dying. Why does something have to be a right for the government to get involved. Why water down the concept of rights, by making them about access to resources? Using government isn't a two step process, where first something must be classified as a right, then the government can act.

The role of government in these cases is very different from the first example. There they simply needed to not use resources for oppression (it's not always THAT simple, but some things really do require active effort). Now they need to ensure everyone is getting adequate resources. It's fundamentally a different concept.

> You only get to exercise the right to free speech if everyone else knows there are consequences for disrupting it. (Fines, imprisonment, etc)... you only have that freedom so long as someone more powerful than you doesn't feel like taking it from you.

You're describing the government protecting you from a third party, which is not usually how first amendment laws are used in the USA (USA is just an example here). So no, active resources aren't necessarily needed to protect free speech infringement from government. Not in the same way as with resource allocation. Yeah, courts exist, but the health of a court system is not necessarily related to resources allocated. You could have a really well funded court that rubber stamps everything.

I actually think there's an interesting conversation here, regarding trade-offs between freedom/rights and prosperity/health. You could live in a totally free society with no food and health care, but what would be the point? Or you could live in an oppressive state, devoid of human dignity, but be perfectly healthy and safe. Maybe rights and freedom are a bit overrated.

> Every government program, every preservation of right, requires taxation and resource allocation.

How much does it cost to not arrest and try someone falsely?

There are situations where the injustice is the thing that requires taxes and government.

> You only get to exercise the right to free speech if everyone else knows there are consequences for disrupting it. (Fines, imprisonment, etc)

Consequences don't have to run through the criminal justice system. If some people are assaulted, they are allowed to defend themselves. The damage done to assailants in the process is tax-free.

EDIT: Besides, rights are rights whether they are enforced or not. Slavery is still a violation of rights even when it is legal.

> Consequences don't have to run through the criminal justice system. If some people are assaulted, they are allowed to defend themselves. The damage done to assailants in the process is tax-free.

But how about those who don't exist in this wild west cowboy world of duels at noon for honor? How do children defend themselves? How do the weak and infirm? Because they are incapable of enforcing their own rights they lose them? How do you stop mob justice? These don't sound like rights at all if you need to personally fight to ensure that you can keep them.

Parents/guardians should be defending children.

For everyone else, I believe the answer you are looking for is: guns. Everyone exists in this world, whether willingly or not. If someone is unwilling to defend their self, then that is their problem, and hopefully not the problem of others.

So what I'm hearing is you don't actually believe in any rights. If someone can do something and someone else is not able to stop them that's acceptable because it's a failure to defend themselves. You don't even actually need a right to a gun because if you get one then you can enforce that you have one. Might makes right(s).

Well you are hearing your own rambling imaginations and tangents then, because I have not said anything related to that conclusion you are drawing. You have completely misinterpreted and I don't believe this comment to be "in good faith", so I will refrain from further.

You're right that I was overly aggressive in my argument, and for that I apologize, but that questions were asked with genuine curiosity. Please explain the nuance to me - if the only way to enforce rights is "guns" and "If someone is unwilling to defend their self, then that is their problem, and hopefully not the problem of others." then people don't have rights, they have no guarantee, they only have what they can take or defend by force, and force is the only deciding factor. What am I misinterpreting there?

> How much does it cost to not arrest and try someone falsely?

At minimum enough to arbitrate claims of the opposite occurring.

You are correct in stating proper adherence to this right will not cost much (if there were ever a theoretical group of people who could agree on what "arrest falsely" meant every time) but merely acknowledging that some amount of resource must be spent should be enough to put to rest the idea that there are a special set of "negative rights" which require no resources to maintain and therefore are the only Real Rights while the others are the Made Up Rights.

> rights are rights whether they are enforced or not.

I think this may be where our primary disagreement exists. From my perspective a right is relatively useless to establish if enforcement does not accompany said right. You can inform the slave that he has a right to no longer live under subjugation, but if he has no mechanism by which to escape his slavery without loss of life his material conditions do not change.

If your argument is that rights exclusively provide the framework for a defense of violent revolution (as this is the only use I can imagine them having without accompanied enforcement) I would still argue for the inclusion of more rights as the capacity of the state expands, as that would be the primary tool by which Citizens can protect themselves against exploitation.

> You can inform the slave that he has a right to no longer live under subjugation, but if he has no mechanism by which to escape his slavery without loss of life his material conditions do not change.

There is value in people knowing a slave has intrinsic worth and deserves freedom. People deserve justice especially when it is out of reach.

> Besides, rights are rights whether they are enforced or not.

Then there is no reason to discuss rights at all since might makes right.

Rights show us when the mighty are wrong.

An all powerful despot can still be a rapist and murderer.

This "state" you're referring to that gives us our "freedom" is essentially that "more powerful" other entity you speak of that has come around and subjugated us. We are already living in an society where "warlords" have claimed land and "enslaved" us to give them part of our labor for the "generous" protection and "rights" they have given us. The fact that we have something like voting and relative physical freedom to go wherever and not have to be physically forced to do things (debatable) doesn't change the fact that we are subjugated to something we don't consent to.

While your "state" might not be perfect, are you truly "enslaved"? I mean, there are alternatives, but they aren't better:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Wild_(film)

The point he's getting at is that human rights don't stem from the government. You have them because you're human, not because an emperor in his divine mercy gave them to you. With or without government enforcement, you still have human rights.

And this is what Americans usually believe, Europeans not so much.

And as a European this makes me sad. I hate living somewhere where most people believe government allows them to do things rather than tells them what not to do. It’s a small difference but it’s important.

Not only Americans, but any nation that had to fight for its independence. Having a foreign power rule over you -- for whatever perception of "foreign" -- creates a culture of "us against the state", instead of "our state".

Anyone from the Balkans here? :)

As a European I find it shocking that there are people that believe that there is such a thing as rights that are independent of society.

If you have them, but they are taken from you at will by those with the means to do so, in practice you have nothing at all.

Agreed. Fundamentally, when you say you have a "human right" to, e.g., food, you are saying that you have the right to take, without compensation, the time and energy of farmers, ranchers, food packers, etc. When you say you have a "human right" to healthcare, you are saying that it is right to enslave doctors, nurses, etc., to your needs. This is all wrong.

Rights are freedoms, not entitlements. You're free to speak your mind. Free to gather with others. Free to bear arms. Free from unwarranted search and seizure. Free to seek work. Free to live.

> Rights are freedoms, not entitlements.

Then a starving man should have the freedom to take a loaf of bread from a grocery store without paying. It is only the government's (or the grocery store's) infringement of his rights (by fining, assaulting, or imprisoning him) that prevents him doing this.

By starting from the premise that private property is an inherent reality of the universe, rather than a legal fiction, you force a distinction between the "right" to free speech and the "entitlement" to food, when no such distinction exists. The real question is how best should a government administer the right to property such that people's right to food is also protected.

We should celebrate "right" is the only word ruined here. Wait till the word "human" means nothing.

You only say that because you already have access to food, water, health care, and security.

Your ideal society would break down into feudalism. The modern state is an effort, however flawed, to organize people away from feudalism.

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