<quote name="Charles Curley" date="Sat, 28 Jun 2008 at 15:36 -0600"> > On Sat, Jun 28, 2008 at 02:50:03PM -0600, Andy Bradford wrote: > > 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: > > Has it occured to either of you that you might both be right?
Sure, all the more reason to come up with common language that makes sense. Levi was gracious enough to point out that his use of "rights" wasn't limited to natural rights, but it's still dang confusing. > Today the term "right" has been stretched to include the concept of > privilege, e.g. the "right" to a social security check. So we have > several classes of rights, and one should be careful to which class > one is referring. > > * Natural rights, protected (not granted) by Bills of Rights, other > legislation, and court decisions. Right to keep & bear arms. DC > v. Heller > > * Statutory rights. These are grants of privileges, such as the right > to request documents from government officials. FOIA > > * Regulatory rights. These are similar to statutory rights, but appear > in government regulations. > > As for why the language might have evolved so, I think George Orwell > has a few good points in his "Politics and the English Language", > http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/site/work/essays/language.html That's great. Maybe we should all start prefixing right with one of the above. I still think transferrence of wealth is neither necessary, prudent, right, or moral, whether or not it is a statutory right. Von Fugal
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