freediver wrote on Sep 22^nd, 2023 at 8:15am:

see #17

thegreatdivide wrote on Sep 22^nd, 2023 at 10:57am:

Me: 'If a right is an instinctive compulsion, then who naturally says to themselves'.
Agreed that it's a false idea, which is why I argue against it. The argument is that complex UN statements can't be a natural human notion. The detail of the the statements is not my point.

Frank wrote on Sep 22^nd, 2023 at 2:02pm:

That's an external interaction. It's not giving an internal projection of self-enterprise that compels behaviour to be accepted.  If gravity stopped, a body wouldn't even have the right to stand on the ground.

A 'human right' contrasts with 'aspiration. value. protection'.
These 'rights' are self-evident, said the Yanks, which makes Basil's need to argue for them seem strange. A long laundry-list of 'rights' in bureaucratic PR talk is also strange. Certainly laws can declare what is a Good Idea (no tax without parliament votes) but a permanent, objective right within a human is gilding the lily. We can't even choose constipation or diahrrea, although freediver tries to stop it.

If democracy was a 'human right', like breathing, then everyone would have it in all past history.

chimera wrote on Sep 22^nd, 2023 at 9:05pm:

Neither democracy nor breathing are human rights.


Somewhere along life's journey  you must have been given a severe bollocking that you are now grappling with, still. 

What was it?

My bollocking. That's a perceptive insight. There were ancestors who battled in the Reformation with some relatives being hanged in south Scotland in the 1600s on the issue of the principles of the rights in government. There was bollocking also with Vietnam conscription, backed by a bullet fired in front of my feet. 
Frank wrote on Sep 22^nd, 2023 at 9:19pm:

The body obviously is built to breathe, even asleep, so the right is structured as our mechanism.

A 'right to democracy' is claimed, stated to be inbuilt by Nature.
US Declaration: ' the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, .
.. self-evident, . endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, .--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,'

The US self-justification for shooting the Poms was projected onto the world, not as an ideal or working theory but a 'right'.
UN  'Article 21:
Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections'.

The issue is the attempt to assert a truth in the human condition by misusing a false concept. This makes that truth become untruthful.  Another form of it is misusing the Second Amendment for personal gun rights.  Also, signing the UN charter and acting opposite to it.

chimera wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2023 at 3:35am:


So what you are saying is, freedom of speech is fundamentally different from a gall bladder?