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Rights in a Nutshell: Walter Williams

Posted by $ blarman 9 years ago to Philosophy
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Excellent primer.

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  • Posted by strugatsky 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    The government can (and should) interfere if the mob attempts to use force against the speaker. It becomes a different issue - protecting one from the violence of others. As to the speech itself, the government should have no involvement at all.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Your last line no longere applies it's one of the civil rights that went away when the congress by a majority and the president did away with probable cause and inserted 'suspicion of'.'

    Mot of the rights they think the government have granted didn't exist in the Constitution and were not powers graned to the government. many of the others weren't granted by anyone in either direction. Government can grant no rights without permission of the people under the old system.

    Now it's what ever Comrade Obama decides when he wakes up in the morning or goes tango dancing in the afternoon.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years ago
    We have or have had posted here several times meaning four to seven a list of the most common rigthts that don't exist and other urban myths. They number over one hundred.

    If they are found in he Federalist or Anti Federalist papers and not int he Constitution they are not a legal right.

    If they are found in the Declaration of Independence including that really stupid charge of it's being forged by adding a comma and not in the Consitutiton they are not a legal right.

    If they are in any number of other writings but not in the Constitution they are not a legal right.

    They may be a natural right and thee is some in fact a lot of weight to using the powers not specifically granted (9th and 10th amendment) and which explicity denies the government sticking it's nose in the anything that is not specifically granted - but the preponderance is on the the other side.

    The American public en masse has shown countgless times they are in favor of these depradations simply by continuing to vote the law breaker back into office.

    but historically speaking and since one of those depredations, most recently re-inforced- was the new operating rules of the patriot act - which doesn't deserve capitals - that did away with all the civil rights features without any protest whatsoever.

    That; was; when we had a Constituion not a dictatorship acting under the might makes right rules favored by all totalitarian fascists.

    Walter Williams is quite correct but it only serves to make a ;nice foot note on a piece written to astound and amaze future workers of the State when they ask Dad and Mom why did you vote us into slavery.

    Their wishes are in fact our marching orders.
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  • Posted by jabuttrick 9 years ago
    Another misuse of the term "rights" comes from the legal profession where young lawyers are taught that "rights" can be and are granted by statute, e.g. "rights" of the handicapped to have handicap accessible entrances of all buildings open to the public, the "rights" of smokers to have a non-smoking environment in restaurants, "rights" to a minimum wage, and on and on. This use of the word is ubiquitous in the law and bleeds into common usage. People say "I know my rights" when what they mean is "I know what favors the government has enacted into law to benefit me." Note that has become commonplace in such contexts as the Miranda warnings. "You have the right to a lawyer and if you cannot afford one, one will be appointed for you" at government expense. Reversing this misuse of terminology will take a monumental effort over a long period of time.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    " I think the obligation lies not with others to restrain the mob, but on the mob to restrain itself."
    That's a good point. In the counter-argument scenario there is a bad actor who must be stopped. If you carry this to its conclusion, you could say all rights are at risk of bad actors taking them away. If that risk and the need to do work to protect them makes them not really rights, then there are no rights. So the counter-argument falls apart.

    The "right" to food is different, though, because it would require other people to work even if there were no bad actors.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    "How does listening to something unpopular obligate another?"
    If we guarantee the right to free speech, it obligates us to protect speakers from a mob that would try to silence them.
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 9 years ago
    Natural Rights are free where as Government adorned rights cost your freedom.

    In progressivism, socialism, marxism and communism...government assumes it's your God and decides your rights.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    I would phrase it differently, I agree. I think the obligation lies not with others to restrain the mob, but on the mob to restrain itself.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    I truly agree with him, but I wondered when I saw this line. I wonder how to answer the counter argument that free speech imposes an obligation on others to protect those who say unpopular things from mobs.

    I don't think this counter-argument is right, but I don't know how to refute it.
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    Posted by $ blarman 9 years ago in reply to this comment.
    "a right imposes no obligation on another" is the key Williams highlights succinctly and precisely.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years ago
    I completely agree. This use of "rights" cheapens the word.
    "There are rights to decent housing, good food and a decent job, and for senior citizens, there’s a right to prescription drugs."
    I don't think it's nitpicking to say the word "rights" should be kept sacrosanct and not expanded to include things that the person talking thinks it's important for the government to spend money on.
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