On Saturday 16 July 2005 09:27 am, Todd Walton wrote: > On 7/13/05, boblq <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > It is not "rights" that are involved. It is power. > > I don't believe you. You can call me naive, if you must, but I don't > believe that any modern intelligent person can base their political > philosophy on power. It's self-defeating; its futility has been > proven by countless philosophers and at least 200 years of real world > experience. Rights are real, and the word doesn't belong in scare > quotes. Rights are something inherent to humans, and ignoring them in > a quest for power will get you what ignoring the real world always > gets you. Planes don't fly without obeying the laws of aerodynamics, > information isn't transferred without understanding the protocol, and > societies don't live unless their members' rights are recognized and > respected. > > -todd
Pretty good argument, todd. Some rights are arguable though and power is needed to enforce them. The powerful, be they individuals or organizations rarely give rights to other individuals or organizations without a fight. The history of workers rights certainly as was noted by DJA is a good example of that. But societies have lived for very long periods of time, far longer than our modern experiment in the USA with very different conceptions of rights than those that you and I might have. Take a look at the history of China or India, or Russia. boblq -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
