tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419523342218712818.post7430133845214275309..comments2024-03-15T02:04:18.672-05:00Comments on My Pants: On Dexter and the (im)morality(?) of homicidebullethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12649812197402491992noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419523342218712818.post-43619918443213394052007-11-29T02:36:00.000-06:002007-11-29T02:36:00.000-06:00Not debating anything you've said above, but somet...Not debating anything you've said above, but something struck me.<BR/><BR/>"...I’ve always sooner thought of rights as a personal possession, something that is mine and with me wherever I go. To put them in terms of rules I then have to circle out to somebody else’s point of view on my own rights which are then in turn rules for them to abide by."<BR/><BR/>This statement coming from you, particularly, strengthens my belief that the majority of Americans have ceased to comprehend rights in a concrete sense except in a personal context. It's my right to call you an asshole, but if you say one more thing about my mother I'll kill you.bullethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12649812197402491992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419523342218712818.post-4073374903704119372007-11-17T02:29:00.000-06:002007-11-17T02:29:00.000-06:00Rights as human rules…Dropping the idea of rights ...Rights as human rules…<BR/><BR/>Dropping the idea of rights as rules into the framework of competing for resources verses sharing efforts to obtain greater resources is a much more convincing construct. You’ve made me think here. It makes both human sense and a clear picture of the right to wrong pendulum. “If I murder you than the village won’t have as much gnu tenderloin to eat.” Good show!<BR/><BR/>I have to admit that I’ve never thought of rights as rules. Though it’s obvious that we cannot violate somebody’s rights because that is “against the rules,” (at least not without a condom and a safety word), I’ve always sooner thought of rights as a personal possession, something that is mine and with me wherever I go. To put them in terms of rules I then have to circle out to somebody else’s point of view on my own rights which are then in turn rules for them to abide by. I’ve never considered somebody else’s rights as rules that I stringently needed to follow because I never quite took aim to relieve them of their own rights. That’s a lovin’ mouthful! <BR/><BR/>My own repetitive words here, I think, are pinpointing what I’ve instead felt is the hair of difference between a right and a rule. A right is simple. It’s an axiom. “You shouldn’t murder me,” is a right. “Don’t murder me unless you fear that I am going to murder you and you have no escape route and I am in your personal home uninvited unless I am an officer of the law, when and only when I have identified myself as an officer of the law, and have presented a proper warrant to be on your premises unless I have reason to believe a crime is immediately in progress on said premises, all only under circumstances in which any reasonable person could see that I am neither abusing nor otherwise overstepping the bounds of my authority,” is a rule. There is that shred of difference, of clarification as you put it. Rights and rules are not the same. But defining rights in terms of rules at the figurative beginning of civilization makes a strong point.<BR/><BR/>I will not go so far as to say rights as rules wins the “this is why murder is bad” debate. However, I have to concede that the onset of rights as ideas, at least partially, is tied to the onset of human cooperation. Cooperation, a physically provable act, might well be the “linchpin something” that happens to the idea of rights to make them concrete.Pocketshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15848521756656735185noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419523342218712818.post-68872216280463092462007-11-17T01:55:00.000-06:002007-11-17T01:55:00.000-06:00The RIGHT to play Quidditch...While I think we are...The RIGHT to play Quidditch...<BR/><BR/>While I think we are, in a sense, agreeing as to the construct of rights, you stating they come from our "power to conceive them," me having asserted that they are "mental constructs," I would not necessarily agree that the construct of rights is synonymous with where rights come from. Claiming that rights originate and therefore exist "from our power to conceive them" is little different than arguing that Harry Potter exists because of our power to conceive of him. Similarly, if the construct of something is, by default, synonymous with where it comes from then Swedes are made of Sweden, meteors are made of space, and shit is made out of my ass. Truths and flying broomsticks just aren't that clean.<BR/><BR/>Hence, I agree that the building blocks of rights are ideas alone. However, the contention that there is a living power enough within us to lend these ideas more weight than any other idea, weight enough to be the deciding factor between universal right and wrong, good and evil, and life and death, that pans out to be a non-argument. Murder cannot be wrong ONLY because it robs a person of her/his rights. If rights live ONLY within us, then our rights die when we die and therefore murder would not be evil based on the elimination of the victim’s rights. It would be a non-argument.<BR/><BR/>There has to be something else, something that happens to this unalienable idea to codify it as more important than a figment, as uncontestabley real. Something has to affect the idea of a right that would make it more material. I have no clue what that something might be. It’s seems to be our opinions. It is our opinion that freedom from tyranny is more real than the wand up Hermione’s bum. It is our opinion that the rights of survivorship are more real than Bertie Bott’s secret hatred of children. Opinions are ideas themselves. They cannot be that linchpin something. Such would be defining an idea in terms of another idea the way we always have to define time by reusing the word time. This circular logic screams non-argument. No, until I figure out what that something is that makes a loss of rights a crucial argument as to the evil of murder, I will have to contend that murder is wrong for some OTHER reason. I maintain, that at least one such reason is its status as an inherently unnatural act.Pocketshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15848521756656735185noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419523342218712818.post-60685642276079180962007-11-16T15:05:00.000-06:002007-11-16T15:05:00.000-06:00On "natural" and "unnatural"...I think it's safe t...On "natural" and "unnatural"...<BR/><BR/>I think it's safe to say that two creatures competing for limited resources is natural. While wild animals use tooth and claw, man has no such natural weapons. Man's only true natural weapon is his mind and any weapon he can conceive in order to further his basic interests and the survival of his DNA would, to me, be a natural result of competiton.<BR/><BR/>Once man begins to live in groups larger than family, the dynamic changes. Members of the group are no longer competing directly with one another but sharing the benefit of pooled skills and resources. (I'm not going to touch on the nuances of indirect competition here. It will only muddy the issue.) The removal of the need to fight each other for survival leaves an opening for other rules of behavior to be developed. Man has come up with many sets of rules and those that are based on the inherent rights of man are the current leaders.<BR/><BR/>More later.bullethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12649812197402491992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419523342218712818.post-57328415644613241912007-11-16T15:04:00.000-06:002007-11-16T15:04:00.000-06:00Putting "natural" and "unnatural" aside for a mome...Putting "natural" and "unnatural" aside for a moment...<BR/><BR/>The origin of our rights comes from our power to conceive them. The Golden Rule is golden not because it supposedly came from the mouth of Christ, but because it is a simple rational construct defining what civilized society should be. Everything else (Magna Carta, Constitution, etc.) is only definition and clarification. We require neither God nor the law to grant us our rights. They live within us.bullethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12649812197402491992noreply@blogger.com