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Politics : Right Wing Extremist Thread
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To: Neocon who wrote (12358)7/24/2001 5:58:31 PM
From: TimF  Read Replies (1) of 59480
 
If the government is empowered to make certain arrangements conducive to the public good, then universal education is a legitimate right in a society that can support it.

I wouldn't call something a legitimate right just because it was supported by a majority or because it has some practical benefit.

More generally I think there may be as much semantic disagreement about the word right or rights as there is substantive disagreement in this discussion. I would break down rights in to natural or fundamental rights, and legal rights. In a constitutional system you can break legal rights down further into constitutional rights and just plain old regular legal rights. Legal rights themselves can be rights according to the actual law, or rights according to what the government decides to customarily do if it normally acts differently then the law.

When I use the word "rights" I normally am talking about natural rights. I would use "constitutional rights" for right under the constitution, and "legal rights" for rights under some statute or regulation. I suppose one could use "customary rights" or something similar for rights under customary practice but I have never actually seen this term or used myself.

I know this is kind of an old post but I stumbled on to this conversation (With some help, thanks Neocon) and found it interesting.

Tim
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