- cross-posted to:
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- [email protected]
- atheism
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- atheism
Republicans in Ohio want to undermine the will of voters who approved a measure enshrining reproductive freedom into the state’s constitution
God doesn’t give out rights or authority in a secular republic, the people do. When you use the authority delegated by the people to take away some of those people’s rights and tell them God gives you that right, it’s called bullshitting.
That’s always the weakness of a democracy/republic; it’s when charlatans convince people to consent to give up their power that they fail into autocracies
Ronny thinks so: https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2019/01/08/ron-desantis-becomes-floridas-newest-governor-our-rights-are-endowed-by-god-not-government/
Maybe he does, or maybe he thinks if he says so enough, voters will vote to actually give him authority as if it was God-given.
Rights aren’t actually given out by anyone, you’re born with them. They’re inherent to your existence as a human being.
Rights don’t really exist in a meaningful way outside of like humans agreeing on them. They’re not like mass that you can measure. If everyone decided “Blue eyed people don’t have the right to own property” well then that’s the world. Compare with if everyone said “Gravity on earth accelerates at 5 m/s^2”
Rights are agreements. They are aspirational. But they don’t just automatically exist in any meaningful way.
That’s not true. Just because they’re immaterial doesn’t mean they don’t exist – best practices in terms of social interaction aren’t limited to humans, and most of what makes life what it is – our thoughts, dreams, imaginations, even our religions – are immaterial and unfalsifiable. Other species even have self-awareness and theory of mind, so you can’t argue rights don’t exist.
Your reasoning is a blatant bandwagon fallacy and therefore invalid. If everyone else in the world decided blue-eyed people didn’t have rights, those blue-eyed people would still have them. You all simply decided to violate them collectively, and the revenge and war your actions would bear would be ones you rightfully deserve. Rights aren’t about who can do what. They’re about your existence on this earth and what it is you should prioritize and choose to fight. They are the spiritual essence of self-worth.
They exist regardless of whether other people agree to them or not. That’s the whole point of rights.
You’re clearly looking for a way to either dismiss rights or dismiss me, so let’s make it easier for you: That’s just lame ass authoritarian tripe you were told to convince you to submit to the lockdowns and other covid restrictions. You’re one of those types. The type who watched everyone collectively ignore and reject respect for human rights and decided, “Well, if rights truly existed, how could we have gotten away with bullying everyone else to being put on house arrest for three years and all the other cruel shit we did to them?”. And you’re just an idiot blowhard for thinking that way.
Now prove my point by completely derailing the debate with meaningless pro-lockdown talking points, come on. 🙄
Please show your work proving that rights exist beyond things people agree to.
They’re aspirational but they’re also made up. They change based on culture and context. We can say people have a right to a fair trial, but that is created, not discovered.
You can say you have the right to do whatever but that’s just something you said. It’s not enforced by anything unless people agree. Rights are just customs and laws with better branding.
I have no idea why you’re talking about the pandemic, either.
Says so pretty fucking explicitly in the founding document of your own nation.
But you’re just some wack-ass authoritarian so what little can we really expect of you than to go full mask-off? Burn in hell, fascist
You think I’m a fascist? You clearly don’t know me.
Furthermore! Just because it says something in an old document, that doesn’t prove anything. Lots of old documents say lots of things. And additionally, the declaration of independence doesn’t even have legal weight. It’s not the constitution. And even furthermore, even if it did have legal weight, the important part would be the laws and their enforcement, not some nebulous axiomatic “”“rights”“”*
Wait, do you think I’m anti-abortion or siding with the republicans here?
Sure, you’re born with them, but only if you’re born to the right parents, in the right place on a map, at the right time. They’re not holy writ, not natural law- they are an expression of a social contract, whereby you get them by upholding and respecting them in others.
That not everybody has the same rights should be a bright signal that they aren’t God-given, they’re granted by people, and if they’re not actively upheld and protected, they’re just nice words somewhere that will mean nothing when someone violates them
The reason I’m going to the effort to argue that our rights arise in the social contract is not to pretend they don’t exist, it is rather to point out that unless people participate in protecting and upholding them, they can be taken away. My concern with the ‘they are God-given’ crowd is that they seem to want people to be passive about rights, and that’s how they can be taken away.
See my response to the other guy