[QUOTE="-Sun_Tzu-"]
You're just creating one big straw man and are really just arguing semantics. Absolutely no one who believed (believes) in the concept of inalienable rights used the term "inalienable" in the sense that these rights literally could not be infringed upon. Not Locke, not Paine, not Jefferson. Two thirds of the Declaration of Independence is literally just a list of different ways the British government infringed on the inalienable rights of the colonies. I'm not applying "a wishful definition" upon the word inalienable. I'm merely stating the context in which the word is being used. It is not used in the sense that these rights cannot be infringed upon, it is used in the sense that they ought not be infringed upon, and if they are infringed upon, those who have had their rights infringed ought to do something about it. All they are are theoretical rights that are non-negotiable when it comes to the formulation of just civil law.
tycoonmike
And again, you prove me right. I may bearguing semantics, but you, and indeed the people who wrote the declaration and the constitution, are applying a definition to a word that does not fit it or the context in which its used. What you named, and what they named, are not rights. I have proven that. If you die, whether naturally or otherwise,youdo not have a right to live or else you would be saved. If youwillfully enslave yourselfto an idea you do not have a right to liberty or else you would be liberated. If youfind misery,you albeit temporarily do not have a right to pursue happiness or else you would have found happiness rather than misery.
THEORETICAL rights!!! The entire point I've been making! Humanity, in THEORY, has these rights but, in practice, fully half the world does not have these rights by any degree. How can we consider these "rights" inalienable if half the world doesn't have them? And don't say to me that those people can fight for them but don't. Look at almost all of Africa, for instance. In order to think of rights one must think of one's basic needs, food, water, shelter, etc. If the right to life is inalienable, then everyone should be able to live fruitful lives with enough food, amendities, and comfort. If the right to liberty is inalienable, then everyone should be able to live as they so choose. If the right to pursue happiness is inalienable, then we would all be able to find it. We can debate these things because our biological needs are met. We have the privilege of worrying about such things as the nature of rights, unlike the poor souls born in countrieswhere you worry every day if you'regoing to have a meal or at the very least a cup of fresh drinking water. Why are we the privileged ones who have our needs met? Is that our rights in action or is that because we have enough resources that we can worry about rights and privileges?
In either case, this is my last and final word on the subject: if these things are rights, every single person on the planet ought to have them, but the reality is that fully half the people on this planet live under authoritarian regimes or cultures, etching out a shaky existence based on the misery of inadequate food and water supplies. That, above all else, should prove these things are privileges backed up by a government willing to give them to the people they rule over: rights asa function of might.
Okay, so then all you are claiming is that philosophers have been using a misnomer vis-a-vis inalienable rights. That's utterly pointless, and proves absolutely nothing except that you can't get passed the literal meaning of a word and are unable to figure out the context. So if I call them "moral rights" would that be better? Because moral rights are the same exact thing as inalienable rights.And did you not read my last sentence in its entirety? I said they are theoretical rights that are non-neogtioable when it comes to the formulation of just civil law. Can civil law be just if the law infringes on life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness?
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