Lisa Jones wrote on Jan 9^th, 2023 at 11:24am:


Education is a (civil or natural?) right, by law. 

And the state can provide it for free because education is merely the transfer of knowledge from teacher to student; the resources consumed (once the education infrastructure is built), are the mental energy and time of the participants.

.....Free, if the participants are willing to expend the required mental energy and time.   

Bias_2012 wrote on Jan 9^th, 2023 at 1:13pm:


"permanent rights"...which are ?.... based on?...

How about this as a starting point: 

Article 1. "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. (Humans) are endowed with reason and conscience...."

thegreatdivide wrote on Jan 9^th, 2023 at 1:33pm:


You won't find much dignity in our public hospitals or agecare homes, patients get treated like objects ... so we need permanent rights enshrined to let staff and carers know they are treating other humans, and get punished if they consider other humans as sub-humans. Since the advent of multiculturalism, this is what happens, an Asian carer will hate a whitie patient, and so on

thegreatdivide wrote on Jan 9^th, 2023 at 11:58am:


The idea of natural law is an ancient Greek one. The concept of natural rights comes from the New Testament ('thought and written in Greek)  - God created human beings equal. Medieval philosophers,  the Angelic Doctor in particular, articulated it. Enlightenment philosophers like Hobbes,  Locke, Rousseau refined.
The concept is has animated the Right of Man by Thomas Paine, the Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen de 1789 and the American declaration of independence and constitution as well the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, and philosophical and political discussions of all sorts.
It has a history of 2500 years of discussion, refinement, argumentation, it has influenced every aspect of life, p ol optics, philosophy, art. It is not reducible to lazy slogans like 'job guarantee, evil freedom ideology, print mo's money for common prosperity'.

Frank wrote on Jan 9^th, 2023 at 4:36pm:


You haven't really addressed the issue of what are "fundamental human rights"', you have only said they have existed, and been discussed for a long time.

I have drawn attention to a stumbling block at the start of the 18th century US Declaration of Rights: "(it is self-evident) we are all created equal" (in the sight of God); which has been correctly updated at the start of the 1946 UN Charter: "We are born equal (ie born of humans, not created by the Creator who was responsible for the original big bang, but did not create you or me. 

That change in meaning is important: it means fundamental rights exist because we - being born human -  are endowed with reason and conscience, and such consequential 'fundamental rights' (ie following on from reason and conscience)  exist for all. Hence the 1948 UN UNIVERSAL DHR.

As to the video re the "madness of total equality", I haven't watched it, because "common prosperity" does NOT propose economic equality, only the eradication of poverty. 

mothra wrote on Jan 9^th, 2023 at 5:41pm:


You just extended natural rights by adding civil rights if your own society as if they were the same and held in every kind of society at all times.
I explained the difference, I can't make you understand it.

Try to extend the natural rights by adding Aboriginal or Red Indian civil rights you listed for Western societies - you will immediately see how parochial your 'thinking' is.

Aborigines and Red Indians have the same civil rights as everyone - it's all in the way those rights are exercised by them and by others with whom they come in contact - for which there are remedies for any abuse.

A 'treaty' with the Aborigines, however, will confer different 'rights' and is thus not only illegal but also plainly divisive and will be the cause of endless strife.  The only treaty available has already been exercised - unconditional surrender.

Which civil rights do you feel are being denied to Aborigines here?  You can't compare them with Red Indians.