Thus said Levi Pearson on Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:35:51 MDT: > > Then call them priviledges so we don't all get confused. > > How about you learn to use the long-established legal terms, eh? You > don't get to redefine the legal vocabulary just because you feel like > stepping a few hundred years into the past.
Fair enough. The law is all about certainty of definition. Here it is straight from the foremost authority on legal definitions, Black's Law Dictionary: ``A particular and peculiar benefit or advantage enjoyed by a person, company or class beyond the common advantages of other citizens. An exceptional or extraordinary power or exemption. A right, power, franchise or immunity held by a person or class, against or beyond the course of the law.'' Let's see, if I only allow some of my neighbors to cross my land on the way to the store, are they not enjoying an advantage not afforded to other people? Or how about those benefits ``given'' to us by government that some enjoy but others do not. Sounds pretty much like my narrow definition to me. And what about a right: ``A power, privilege, faculty, or demand, inherent in one person and incident upon another ... the powers of free action.'' Again, this seems to fit my narrow definition quite well. I believe you mentioned that the passing of the Social Security Act somehow created new rights? This is wrong. It created new privileges, but certainly not any kind of new rights. Rights do not come from government, they are inherent in a person. And what is the privilege? The privilege is to take from some group of people and give to another (transfer program). This kind of thing can never be a right, if it could, I could just as easily take from my neighbor and give it to my poor and needy grandparents and it would be lawful to do so. Andy -- [-----------[system uptime]--------------------------------------------] 2:49pm up 40 min, 1 user, load average: 1.00, 1.00, 0.93 /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
