The only real rights any of us have are those rights conferred by law.
Anything else is just fantasy, wishful thinking and hot air.
We only have a right not to be enslaved if the country we live in has a
law saying so. I suspect that countries which have adopted Sharia Law may
permit slavery in some circumstances.
Very few countries recognise animal rights (although I imagine many
Western countries do to some extent. Britain certainly has laws
forbidding cruelty to animals, although they do not seem to extend very
much to factory farming).
And it is certainly true that some of our law-given rights are removed if
we commit certain offences. The right to vote is taken away from
prisoners in this country (but not in some others). So sometimes rights
can be conditional on responsibilities.
But coming back to the main point; most of what some people claim to be
animal "rights" are no more than their own personal wishes concerning what
rights they would like animals to have. These are not "rights" at all.
To me, somebody who will injure a human being in support of a campaign on
behalf of animals has destroyed his argument before he has even started.
And it is such people that many people think of when they encounter the
term: "animal rights activist".
John
On Sun, 11 Dec 2005 21:14:15 -0000, graywolf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The only rights someone has are those he is willing and able to enforce
upon the government. Governments are all about control, if their only
choice is to allow you your rights or kill you. You win. Because the
government can not control the dead, so if they kill you they lose what
they are trying to maintain.
If you are not willing and able to force the government to concede your
rights, but they let you have them anyway, they are not rights but
privileges because they are at the whim of the government.
To quote Robert Heinlein in "The Puppet Masters": "The price of freedom
is the willingness to do sudden battle anywhere, anytime, and with utter
recklessness."
graywolf
http://www.graywolfphoto.com
"Idiot Proof" <==> "Expert Proof"
-----------------------------------
P. J. Alling wrote:
Most of us in fact accept that there is no right to freedom
I'm just taking your statement to the logical conclusion sir.
If you have no right to freedom then there is no freedom, sorry maybe
you meant something else?
Bob W wrote:
I can follow a logical argument. It's apparent that you still have
some way
to go before you can. For instance, I did not say that freedom does not
exist. If you can't make the effort even to read the other person's
statements correctly, or repeat them accurately, then there is no
point in
having a discussion with you.
-- Cheers,
Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: P. J. Alling [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 11
December 2005 17:00
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Update: The fur fellow's feet
Without responsibility rights are meaningless. I don't think you
even understand what freedom is if you "accept" it doesn't exist. I
think understand you much better than you will ever understand me,
but then you are already a slave.
Bob W wrote:
It is a lousy construction, but it was deliberate. The right
to freedom
is different from the right not to be enslaved. Most of us in fact
accept that there is no right to freedom - we accept that if
we break
certain laws we may be imprisoned. But we do not accept that
we can be
kidnapped arbitrarily, forced to act against our will without just
cause, or bought and sold in a marketplace. I'd be
interested to know
what responsibilities we could possibly neglect that would
justify our enslavement.
I say that rights have no entailments; I do not say that we have no
responsibilities - simply that rights and responsibilities are
separate, independent, and one does not imply the other.
Consider the situation of infants and small children. Most
of us accord
them certain rights, such as the right to be clothed, fed and cared
for. What responsibilities do infants have? If they fail to
live up to
their responsibilities, will you stop feeding them and
caring for them?
I say, and I'm sure most people agree, that infants have no
responsibilities, and there are no circumstances which could
justify taking away their rights.
--
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