Some people attribute man's life as 'given' by God. This does NOT change the fact that man exists. Similarly, some people attribute man's right to life as 'given' by God.
Rights -- natural rights -- are inherent in man's being. This is not unlike his having opposable thumbs, for instance. If you wish to claim that God gave you opposable thumbs OR that a rock gave them to you ... it simply does not change the reality that man has opposable thumbs.
The CENTRAL premise is that every man has a right to life; his own life; self-ownership. I man had no right to his life, he would be a slave.
Legitimate Government, then, SECURES that right to life (and its legitimate corollaries) <period>.
Regard$,
--MJ
From all which it is evident, that though the things of Nature are given in common, man (by being master of himself, and proprietor of his own person, and the actions or labour of it) had still in himself the great foundation of property; and that which made up the great part of what he applied to the support or comfort of his being, when invention and arts had improved the conveniences of life, was perfectly his own, and did not belong in common to others. -- John Locke
At 08:28 AM 9/10/2012, you wrote:
MJ: There has been a lot of discussion, lately, about "rights" coming
from God, not from government. It seems to me that the Founding
Fathers' mention of God as being the fountainhead of our rights is a
short synonym for "the moral consensus'. Moral consensus certainly
trumps government power, including the treasonous dictatorial power of
Obama and his unconstitutional czars. There is a very neurotic
tendency of a large percentage of the population (but not the
majority) to see "God" as the giver of all good things. Those same
people all too willingly excuse God for the bad things that happen,
like killer storms. They feel "highly connected" by supposing they
are being "favored" by God, because of their ritualistic devotion. My
own definition of God is: "The personification of all of the Natural
Laws in the Universe, which have always existed and which will always
exist."
It is a very bad thing, indeed, when neurotic people like Mike
Huckabee, lambaste those Democrats who had desired that their platform
be secular. The "mentioning" of God in any political context is a
movement to allow (a) religion, with all of its head-buried-in-the-
sand blindness, to ultimately control our government in much the way
that Muslims want religion to control theirs. There is this not too
flattering attitude among the Bible Thumpers that they are better than
others because they "worship" the law of probability that allows them
to have (thus far) gotten good things from the "laws of nature".
Being 'addicted' to one's religion doesn't bode too well for such
people being very deep and self-determining thinkers. But those who
are so addicted aren't necessarily bad people, just naïve ones. — J.
A. Armistead —
On Sep 4, 10:52 pm, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> EVERY Individual has a (natural) right to life; their own life; self-ownership. EVERY other (natural) right is a corollary of this ideal. EVERY other (natural) right is NEGATIVE -- it requires no one to provide for it.
> Government -- LEGITIMATE Government -- secures (natural) rights <period>.
> EVERY action a Government does CONTRARY to securing (natural) rights NECESSARILY provides advantage to some at the expense of everyone else. Said government NECESSARILY violates (natural) rights.
> What is a 'logical, agreed-upon' amount of theft?
> I say it is ZERO and do not agree upon *ANY* amount greater. Therefore, it is not 'agree-upon'. No what?
> You want a Government that does MORE? Fund it VOLUNTARILY rather than by theft. What better measure of 'want'? What better application of 'democracy'?
> Regard$,
> --MJ
> "If the government can take a man's money without his consent, there is no limit to the additional tyranny it may practise upon him; for, with his money, it can hire soldiers to stand over him, keep him in subjection, plunder him at discretion, and kill him if he resists." -- Lysander SpoonerAt 05:38 AM 9/3/2012, you wrote:MJ: Many of the 'natural rights' regard what one does with their own
> time and money, not what gets done by governments after some logical,
> agreed-upon portion of one's taxes get allocated to be spent by
> governments. Most of these philosophical issues are ballooning out of
> control, lately, because too many people see governments as the cure
> for every ailment. You and I don't think that way, do we.
> Personally, I'm unhappy with having so much of our money being spent
> to fight largely un winnable wars. I'm with Ron Paul on what the
> scope of governments need to be: smaller!
> It offends my logic, greatly, that so many of the right-to-lifers
> value the "innocent" blue-print-only early dividing cells following
> conception more than they value the lives of grown men and women with
> families who are getting killed and maimed in wars. I believe the
> unborn have rights, but not beginning at conception. An aircraft
> taking off on a runway will pass what is known as the point-of-no-
> return—meaning that its ground speed is too great to allow slamming-on-
> the-brakes and returning to the terminal. For me, I would place the
> "pro-choice" time limit at 2.5 to 3 months. After that time, the
> rights of the unborn should begin to take precedence. I'm offended,
> even more so, by those people, including many say-anything-to-win
> politicians, who think they are being pious-next-to-God for putting
> diapers on a speck of cells too small to be seen without a magnifying
> glass. Those same pious, mental lightweights think they are being
> 'closer to God' to suppose that the Universe was constructed in just
> six days, and that any scientist who thinks otherwise is an
> underling. Religions, taken as a whole, are divisive and hurtful
> institutions offering little assurance that the various members will
> be getting a favored route to heaven. When the Founding Fathers
> wanted our government to be secular, they surely knew what they were
> doing! Those who get mad at symbols, like the 9/11 cross in the
> debris, simply need to be minding their own business, NOT trying to
> tell others how to mind theirs. — J. A. Armistead —
> On Aug 19, 5:37 pm, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> > I truly do not know WHY ....At 01:23 AM 8/19/2012, you wrote:The pending lawsuit is unconstitutional, because having no belief
> > isn t a protected religion. Even if it were, the mere paying of some
> > of one s taxes to construct the 9/11 museum would not empower Atheists
> > to dictate anything to anyone. Yes, every right can have a
> > corresponding opposing right so long as the latter isn t a crime or
> > isn t disallowed by the present Constitution.Natural rights are negative -- they require nothing on the part of others.
> > Rights have NOTHING to do with what some group decides is a 'crime' NOR what the Constitution allows/disallows.
> > All legitimate (natural) rights are derived from an Individual's right to life; his own life; self-ownership.
> > It is certainly IMMORAL as well as a violation of one's rights to have their money forcibly taken.
> > Legitimate Government SECURES (natural) rights <period>. A Government that does *anything* beyond such necessarily violates rights and is immoral -- no different from any other gang.
> > Regard$,
> > --MJ
> > There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him. -- Robert Heinlein
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