Rights (READ OVER THE ORIGINAL POST BEFORE VOTING)

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What are rights? Do we have them? Should we have them? How do they work? When can they be trumped?

Views on rights:

Positive: Individuals have a right to health care, a certain standard of living, education, social security. Positive rights are derived from what it is believed individuals should have. They are different from negative rights in that they need actions of other individuals in order to have in the first place.

Negative: Individuals have a right to their labor and its fruits, to their speech, to their body and its usage and to the beliefs held by their minds. Now of course, this often means that property is allowed, and that prostitution and drugs are considered acceptable by individuals as they own their body, and that holocaust denial is something individuals have a right to do. These rights are often seen as existing in absence of outside intervention.

Rights do not exist: This view takes on the position that rights positive or negative are useless concepts. Instead of rights we should look at concepts such as maximizing human happiness, or human economic/technological growth, enforcing the truth on the witless masses, or something of that nature. Any reference to rights ultimately ends up being rhetoric.

Be sure to look over options before posting.

Good topic, awesomelyglorious.

The libertarian vision of rights suits me fine.

I have now.

I will vote 'negative' because I think, ultimately, over time, it could lead to the 3rd option. Most people will implement what makes them happy and go from there. Only they truely know where their interests lay.

I voted positive but this was before I read it. I wish I could change my answer though

I voted negative. My job and life experience don't fit too well with the 'positive' side. It is my opinion that that view is fundamentally flawed for one main reason. Those 'rights' often lead to government using the police power to either: a) redistribute income in the form of subsidies or b) force people to work for free basically. I earn my money. As a mechanic, I get paid a set amount per job. Period. If I can do 60 hours of work in 40 hours by busting my butt, why do I have to support someone I do not have a blood relation to? Why should I get punished for being industrious and productive just to be punished more by moving myself into brackets that have a higher tax rate.

The division between positive and negative rights was created by libertarians and is generally only used in libertarian propaganda. One of the problems with that division is that even so-called negative rights still require some form of third-party involvement if they are to be enforced. For example, it is all well and good to have the right not to be brutally beaten to death (a so-called negative right), but if there is no police force to support it then it is not a right in any practical sense. So, while it may be possible for certain rights to be negative in theory, for such rights to be effective in practice (that is, for such rights to be respected) they require the actions of enforcers and are therefore positive rights.

I think that what motivates libertarians for the most part is the desire to avoid paying tax (and I declare straight away that I have little sympathy for this position). In order to justify this position, they invent a division between those rights that can only be supported by state spending and therefore taxation and those rights which (in theory) do not require state spending. They then use this to mount an argument that the only true rights are negative rights and that taxation is somehow immoral.

I think that this argument is complete and utter rubbish. I believe that all people do, in fact, have the right to equitable access to medical treatment, to education, et cetera. I believe it is wrong for a person to be given or denied medical treatment just because of how much money they have. Furthermore, I believe that each member of society has a responsibility to all of the other members of society. Everyone (including libertarians) reaps the benefits of living in our society and with these benefits come responsibilities. Those who live within our society but refuse to pay tax are not being ethical and high-minded, even if they do not access services that are paid for by taxation - no, they are leeches. The only way that a person can justify not contributing to society is by leaving society. If libertarians really don't want to pay tax then they should go and live in a cave somewhere and withdraw from society completely.

Positive rights, or none at all.

'Rights" is a silly concept.

Sapieus sounds about right to me.

The division is emphasized by libertarians, however, in terms of classification it is somewhat useful as there are many groups that do prefer the libertarian view of negative rights usually libertarians and right wingers, while there are many who consider the positive rights to be true and that the division is false. Ultimately, I did do this for the purpose of classification, not to promote one view necessarily over the other. If you wish for me to change the division in order for the purposes of balance, please send me a private message on what aspects need to be emphasized.

Ultimately both sides consider the other to have illegitimate derivation and both are defended by intelligent individuals. Libertarians consider positive rights to be derived from wishes but not to legitimately be rights seeing the latter to be more derived from the ideas in classical liberalism. Liberals consider the seperation to be illegitimate as mentioned claiming that both need interventionist support as you stated.

Not all people consider the argument to be rubbish, you have to remember that there are a lot of people that lean more towards one side than the other and this tells given the rhetoric of politicians and even voting behavior of fellow aspies although it could be argued that I did not do a good job at reaching the center. Most libertarians and those who promote those rights do not argue for the abolishment of taxation but rather for minimization of taxation.

Anyway, I am just trying to keep things in balance here more than anything else.