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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (20845)	7/2/2005 6:38:54 PM
From: Oeconomicus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

"The problem Oeconomicus is having stems from his failure to understand that these "inalienable rights" are circumscribed by definition. There is no absolute liberty, for instance. My freedom ends where it interferes with your freedom." What you fail to understand is that you err in claiming to speak for what I do and don't understand. Beyond that, you have said repeatedly that "inalienable rights" are just that - inalienable. Or inviolable, as you've also said. Or not subject to restriction or revocation by society or its rulers. To turn around now and say they are "circumscribed by definition" is, at best, inconsistent. The only way you could be consistent is if you are now saying that liberty is not an inalienable right. Is that it? Perhaps we have no inalienable rights after all. Is that your position now? What I have said is that liberty IS an "inalienable" right - I would prefer the term "natural right", BTW - but that when we come together in society, we make compromises in our rights where they might conflict with the rights of others. In other words, in society we make judgements about the precedence of conflicting rights. Gem and I were discussing a few examples just yesterday, in fact. You, on the other hand, insist that rights can't conflict - that any situation where they appear to conflict is an illusion because, in fact, one person's rights no longer (or never did) exist. Disappearing rights. Novel concept. And your punch-in-the-nose example is ludicrous. No one has suggested that unprovoked, unilateral infliction of physical harm on others is a right of any sort.