What are people entitled to?

[Kendo 2]

It's really a shame.

 

At any cost, right guys?

[marharth]

Just to point something out...

 

Just because a intelligent famous person said something 200 years ago, does not instantly make it fact. That just makes it the opinion of a intelligent famous person from 200 years ago, nothing more or less.

[Ghogiel]

You can quote anyone you like, and any document you like, but, I would point out, those people/documents were generally written by, or in order to, people in government/set up a government. I find it especially funny to see folks talking about how "all men are free", but, back at home, they have a collection of slaves, that are decidedly NOT free.

Quite hilarious that. We could stop taking what they said out of context and perverting it to our own ends, and argue these rights as actually envisioned..

 

Kendo

@Ghogiel

haven't seen anything for you yet either.

 

It's called logic. Something I haven't seen from you. try it. You debunked your entire argument on logical fallacies. You keep asserting you are stating facts. lol

 

So, no?

 

Ok, well, lets look at it:

 

ALL men are created equal.

 

Maybe they were created that way, but they sure as shootin' didn't STAY that way..... or is that the caveat? Or were there varying degrees of "equal"? some were more equal than others??

 

Then we have:

 

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

 

but, they left off the caveat: unless of course, you are of a race which we deem inferior, in which case, you aren't really "men" anyway.

 

Pretty much...imo It speaks volumes for in the case against these being divinely inspired writings. And puts them nicely in context to popular opinion and current moral values of the time.

[Ghogiel]

It's really a shame.

 

At any cost, right guys?

Just state your argument in a logical manner.

[draconix]

At any cost, right guys?

That's right, at any cost I must seek the truth, even if that means leaving he comforts of the guise of stability. I wonder if that makes me a libertarian nihilist.:turned:

[Nintii]

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are the organic rights listed in the Declaration of Independence. The organic rights enumerated in the Declaration are comparable to the fundamental rights enumerated by the French: liberty, equality, and fraternity. These are the three unalienable rights of man, and they are more expansive than the fetishism of extreme liberals.

 

Appeal to authority and a bandwagon argument? This is the platform upon which you will construct your arguments? And then later on you made a special pleading that these men were divinely inspired when writing these laws? Unfortunately they weren't quite divinely inspired enough to free their slaves. Rather, I think they were inspired by philisophers who were in turn inspired by the Native Americans who already held the values of liberty, equality and fraternity. Whether those Natives were divinely inspired may be up for grabs.

 

Personally I would state that if such things as natural rights exist, they could only exist in nature, because laws and rules that come with a society interfere with whatever those rights might have granted. Rather than saying that the rights we are currently afforded are the natural and inalienable, we may be more accurate in stating that these are the rights that we have left.

 

Edit: I do have to say however that the idea of inalienable rights is comforting, but sadly, just wishful thinking.

 

Perhaps if you decide to check your history books, you'd discover that in the first Continental Congress held on the 5th Sept 1774 it was decided that;

 

"The Southern members of the first Continental Congress were disturbed by the clause in the American Association, then adopted, by which they determined "wholly to discontinue the slave-trade "; and the paragraph in the Declaration of Independence in which Jefferson denounced the slave-trade and slavery was rejected by the Congress of 1776, in deference to the people of South Carolina and Georgia. A few days after the amended declaration was adopted, in the first debates on a plan for a confederation of the States, there appeared much antagonism of feeling between the representatives of the Northern and Southern States, had the immediate abolition of the slave-trade been insisted upon. Soon after the arrival of Gerard, the first French minister, at Philadelphia, he wrote (1778) to Vergennes : " The States of the South and of the North, under existing subjects of estrangement and division, are two distinct parties, which, at present, count but few deserters. The division is attributed to moral and philosophical causes."

 

So as you can see, those who were "divinely inspired" when writing those laws did indeed want an end to slavery, and plenty of steps were taken by many to end it but unfortunately as is always the case others did not, nevertheless many did.

 

And again, I suggest you check out your history, the Native American Indians were not so innocent as you suggest, as a matter of fact I doubt they had any "divine inspiration" themselves at all, please read the following;

 

"Native American slavery[edit]

 

Traditions of Native American slaveryMany Native American tribes did practice some form of slavery before the European introduction of African slavery into North America; but none exploited slave labor on a large scale.[1]

 

Native American groups frequently enslaved war captives whom they primarily used for small-scale labor.[1] Some, however, were used in ritual sacrifice.[1] Although not much is known about them, there is little evidence that these slaves were considered racially inferior to the Native Americans who held power over them.[1] Nor did Native Americans buy and sell captives in the pre-colonial era, although they sometimes exchanged enslaved individuals with other tribes in peace gestures or in exchange for their own members.[1] In fact, the word "slave" may not even accurately apply to these captive people.[1] Most of these so-called Native American slaves tended to live on the fringes of Native American society and were slowly integrated into the tribe.[1]

 

Until European settlers arrived, these slaves were other tribesmen.[1] The situation of these enslaved Native Americans varied among the tribes. In many cases, enslaved captives were adopted into the new tribes to replace warriors killed during a raid.[1] Enslaved warriors sometimes endured mutilation or torture that could end in death as part of a grief ritual for relatives slain in battle.[1] Some Native Americans would cut off one foot of their captives to keep them from running away. Others allowed enslaved captives to marry the widows of slain husbands.[1] The Creek, who engaged in this practice, treated children born of slaves and tribal members as full members of the tribe rather than as enslaved offspring.[1] Several tribes held captives as hostages for payment.[1] Various tribes also practiced debt slavery or imposed slavery on tribal members who had committed crimes; full tribal status would be restored as the enslaved worked off their obligations to the tribal society.[1] Other such slave-owning tribes of North America included Comanche of Texas, Creek of Georgia, the fishing societies, such as the Yurok, that lived along the coast from what is now Alaska to California, the Pawnee, and Klamath.[2]

 

When the Europeans “discovered” the Native Americans they began to participate in the slave trade.[3] Native Americans, in their initial encounters with the Europeans, attempted to use their captives from other tribes as a “method of playing one tribe against another” in an unsuccessful game of divide and conquer.[3]

 

The Haida and Tlingit who lived along southeast Alaska's coast were traditionally known as fierce warriors and slave-traders, raiding as far as California.[4][5] In their society, slavery was hereditary after slaves were taken as prisoners of war.[4][5] Among some Pacific Northwest tribes, as many as one-fourth of the population were slaves.[4][5]

 

As far as "nature" is concerned, all it has to offer is the law of the jungle, the survival of the fittest, kill or be killed ... that's it, "nature" is brutal, violent and unforgiving, there is no such thing as live or let live ... ... the animal kingdom has no morality, only survival instincts.

Mankind, Humankind whatever you want to call it (bothers me none), is a completely different and distinct species from that of any other creature with the capacity of reason and choice over-riding that of instinct and that's what differentiates us and seperates us from following after "nature" or at least it should, unless you want to follow after it's rudimentary primitive ways.

 

That's the "documentation" that nature has to offer, if you want to look at it that way ... rather mankind has survived on laws which he on many occasions has claimed to be divinely inspired.

But then again that seems to be the underlying focus of your arguement ... weith your preference being "nature".

 

Now as to whether or not you agree with the source of your Founding Fathers , that is your decision ...

Nevertheless, the laws penned by your American Fathers have led your nation to pre-eminence in the world as "... the Land of the free ..." and it's those same laws that entitle you to this day, and "keep" you propped/held up to this day.

[draconix]

(Too long to re-quote)

That's just fine, I'm an atheist, so I didn't really think the Natives were divinely inspired, so their use of slavery doesn't really matter to me or affect my argument against the divine inspiration of the declaration of independence. It is interesting though that Thomas Jefferson knew (or well, thought,) well and good that his ownership of slaves was immoral. I'm sure his internal struggle was great. However, I must say that the fact that he owned slaves doesn't mean he was unwise. It just means that if nothing else he was a hypocrite.

Edited September 17, 2011 by draconix

[Aurielius]

Appeal to authority and a bandwagon argument? This is the platform upon which you will construct your arguments?

YES. Yes it is. Founded on the FACTUAL statements of our founding fathers. It is my opinion based on solid and verifiable and well-documented facts.

Okay, I just wanted to be clear on that. The founding fathers were just people, and people can be wrong. Their statements regarding the truth of natural rights is not factual because of who they are, nor does the fact that they founded this country prove that what they thought was factual. However, these arbitrarily chosen rights aren't good enough for me. These rights are good, but not granted by nature inalienably. If you have other evidence to support your claim that these rights are natural and inalienable, please feel free to bring it to the table.

The founding fathers never said a word about natural rights they used the phrase inalienable rights which means if you check, a right that is "unable to be taken away from or given away by the possessor." so the phrase " granted by nature inalienably" is a conjunction of terms that is your own making not one ever used by the Constitutional Congress or the Declaration of Independence framers.

Edited September 17, 2011 by Aurielius

[kvnchrist]

You might want to look at the definition of truism and then you might understand why I put it in quotation, as it pertains to your post. And I've already said this once but I'll say it again. The FACT that the Founding Fathers were indeed slave owners in no way invalidates what they accomplished or what they desired for all free men. And once again you are taking what I'm posting out of context because you didn't bother checking the source. IF you had, you wouldn't have typed what you did.

 

 

It does devalue the reasons they did what they did. It wasn't as high and mighty as some claim. Many of the ideas they espoused were from other writers and what they did was not for all men. I seem to remember the first draft of the document stated the pursuit of property instead of happiness.

 

What they did was great, but it wasn't divine and I don't wave the flag for them. I wave it for the country.

[draconix]

The founding fathers never said a word about natural rights they used the phrase inalienable rights which means if you check, a right that is "unable to be taken away from or given away by the possessor."

That seems somewhat silly. Life can easily be taken away. Liberty can also be taken away as well, and has been in the past. o_O