Who believes in more rights – Conservatives or Progressives?

Discussion in 'Opinion POLLS' started by Anders Hoveland, Feb 1, 2015.

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Who believes more in individual rights?

  1. Conservatives

    16 vote(s)
    59.3%
  2. Progressives

    8 vote(s)
    29.6%
  3. hard to say

    3 vote(s)
    11.1%
  1. Anders Hoveland

    Anders Hoveland Banned

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    Which side believes more in individual rights?
    One could say that each side tends to believe in different types of rights, but overall which one do you think believes in rights more?

    It can be hard to define exactly what a "right" is, because it involves just as much of what the government does to defend that right as what the government does not do. And of course, we don't all agree exactly on what things are rights, or how much individual rights should be sacrificed for the overall good of society, when it comes to different things.
     
  2. TRFjr

    TRFjr Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    lets put it this way conservatives believe in the rights of the individual progressives believe rights of the collective
    I will give you an example conservatives believe in a individuals right to be able to drink a 20oz soda if he wants progressive believe it is the right of the collective for public health reasons to restrict a person from drinking that 20oz soda
     
  3. Anders Hoveland

    Anders Hoveland Banned

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    How can there truly be rights for the collective when rights for the individual are not upheld?

    I have always wondered why there couldn't be some type of Libertarian-Socialist state hybrid, where maximum individual rights are recognized, but the government also tries to help people. Are these two really inherently incompatible? (I am asking this question)
     
  4. TRFjr

    TRFjr Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    yes they are incompatible for socialism to work the needs of the collective trumps the rights of the individual
     
  5. ballantine

    ballantine Banned

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    "Rights" of the collectives?

    There's no such thing.
     
  6. ballantine

    ballantine Banned

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    The only "collective" in our Constitution is the concept of the State.

    In our Constitution, States don't have "rights", they have guarantees.

    Not privileges, not immunities, but guarantees from the federal government.

    States have no specific "rights" under our Constitution, except as federal rights devolve and trickle downwards. The States themselves can construct particular rights for themselves, but that's not the same as FedGov recognizing the rights of the collective. And finally as a matter of scope the states can "claim" any right not covered by the federal umbrella (or they can try anyway, subject to Supreme Court blessing).
     
  7. AlpinLuke

    AlpinLuke Well-Known Member

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    This is an interesting matter to discuss from the perspective of political science.

    In continental Europe there is a school of thought which sustains that rights have to be considered bipartisan [nor conservative neither progressive as for their nature]. Once they have been generally applied by our modern societies [we should remind that some revolutions were necessary to impose to the "ancient regime" to enlarge the field of application of rights which were recognized only to the high classes] the difference is no more in the right themselves.

    The example of the soda is a good one to point out that probably we tend to make confusion between a right [to drink what you want] and a general interest [I tend to think that the "community" hasn't got proper rights, but general interests to endorse ...let's think to imprisonment: that's not the exercise of the public right to kidnap and to enslave persons, it's the result of the defense of a general interest related to social order and security].
     
  8. Anders Hoveland

    Anders Hoveland Banned

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    Progressives tend to be more supportive of rights for the poor– whether it's in the form of higher wages, food, adequate housing– at least ideologically (we can debate how much they actually care in practice).
    Without money, many of the other rights start to become rather immaterial (which explains why during the economic difficulties in europe before the second world war the population turned to fascism).

    Progressives also generally tend to be more sympathetic to prisoners– though of course they were the ones who passed many of the laws that put the prisoners there in the first place, in many instances, with all the overregulation, permits, and licensing. Progressives can be very vindictive when it comes to imposing punishment for things they are ideologically opposed to (gun possession and 'hate crimes' come to mind, oh, and 'violence' against women). So are they somewhat hypocrites? Do they only care about the plight of prisoners unless the defendant did something that was offensive to their ideological values?

    Progressives often talk of human rights, but it almost seems they are more concerned with the benevolent general wellbeing, than actual rights.
     
  9. kreo

    kreo Well-Known Member

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    The answer is simple, if individual activity of a person does not affect other people then right is individual, if it does then right is collective.
    Some people however have trouble to understand such a simple concept. That is why we have all the problems.
     
  10. CJtheModerate

    CJtheModerate New Member

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    I voted for "hard to say", since both ideologies support massive government intrusion in the lives of citizens.
     
  11. Anders Hoveland

    Anders Hoveland Banned

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    On the Conservative side, there is the whole hard-line "war on drugs", which has led to a huge expansion of police intrusion amongst the populace. But on the Progressive side, there is an excessive crusade on drunk driving, leading all sorts of people to get caught up in long-lasting legal troubles. Any time police raid someone's house, or pull someone's car over on the side of the road, that is to some extent antagonistic to individual rights. Pass more laws, and the police will be making more raids and pulling over more cars, looking for possible crimes. And let's not forget, there are plenty of innocent people who get caught up in all this, more than most people think.

    And the general pro-war sentiment on the Conservative side has often not been very positive on individual freedoms, the most extreme example of this was the draft during the involvement in Vietnam. Though it can of course be debated whether the ends justify the means, in terms of maintaining individual freedom.
     
  12. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    The War on drugs was started by a progressive Republican--Nixon.
     
  13. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    Is it an important question when both are ultimately pro-big government, albeit in different flavors?
     
  14. yguy

    yguy Well-Known Member

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    This is different from the question in the thread title. That aside, the salient point of conflict here is that conservatives see rights as rights and wrongs as wrongs, whereas leftists see wrongs as rights and vice versa.

    Not really. Unalienable rights don't depend on anything government does or doesn't do.

    Perhaps you'd like to expalin why We the People do not constitute a collective.

    The substantive difference being...?

    Constitutional guarantees are from the People, not the federal government.

    If you don't think states have the right to equal suffrage in the Senate under the Constitution, then you don't think too good.
     
  15. sunnyside

    sunnyside Well-Known Member

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    I went with conservative, and note that based on typical voting habits and cross group stuff most US libertarians seem to feel the same way.

    I think the idea is that both groups want to restrict or allow and disallow certain things they consider rights. Guns vs. Drugs and all that. It might be hard to define which side "believes in more."

    However when it comes to things like property rights or anything business or money related the conservatives pull way ahead.

    Actually on the other side of the pond "libertarian" means something else entirely and is closer to communism than anarcho-capitalism. The idea is still maximizing liberty/rights and not having to have a government to do it (so not really what is meant by socialist).
     
  16. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    There isn't a simple answer to this because at least in the US, conservatives and liberals think of rights differently. Liberals think of rights as goods or services. They can run down a pretty big list of things they regard as rights. Conservatives view rights more in terms of individual autonomy.
     
  17. Ronstar

    Ronstar Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Conservatives believe in banning abortion, banning all drug use, banning doctor-assisted suicide for the terminally ill, banning gay marriage, banning the practise of Islam.
     
  18. Anders Hoveland

    Anders Hoveland Banned

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    That part of the original Constitution was greatly curtailed by the seventeenth Amendment.
     
  19. reallybigjohnson

    reallybigjohnson Banned

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    As has been mentioned both sides have different opinions on what constitutes a right. We only have three inalienable rights listed in the Constitution, they are life, liberty and property. Then we have rights under the Constitution such as the Bill of Rights which are not considered granted from a higher authority but are written in the Constitution itself so are difficult if not impossible to remove. We did see this with prohibition and the eventual repeal of prohibition so its not unheard of.

    There are far to many people that simply throw around the term right to mean anything. There is no right to healthcare anymore than there is a right to food, clothing or shelter. One thing is for certain you cannot claim that a finite resource is a right or you will be forced to ration and redistribute it at some point. Only concepts and ideas can be given the status of a right as they don't have predetermined limits and can be used infinitely. There is a right to property but that is saying that you have a right to own your own property, not that you automatically get property. Even then, if you have a penny you picked up off the street you have property and thus in a sense that right is also infinite.
     
  20. yguy

    yguy Well-Known Member

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    That would make that amendment unconstitutional.
     
  21. Phoebe Bump

    Phoebe Bump New Member

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    Nah, not really. But that's what they profess. Those people would put video cameras into uteri if they could.
     
  22. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    Progressive believe in all kinds of actual real rights to do real things many people might want to. The right to marry who you love, control you bodily functions, live wherever you wish to and can afford, etc, etc.

    Conservatives believe in all kinds of silly "rights" no one in their right mind would ever want to do. The "right" to fail, the "right" to be cheated, the "right" to be discriminated against etc. Others express the nonsensical idea that true freedom is the right to oppress others, and at least one on here has tried to defend slavery as a property right

    This is when conservatives believe in rights. Those without libertarian delusions are often flat out authoritarians, not really believing anyone has a right to disagree with their religion, politics or just general bigotries at all.

    In any case I find that progressive believe in actual and existing rights far more than conservatives, to whom rights are generally a cruel joke, though they seem incapable of comprehending that.
     
  23. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    unless it the right to plant herbs in your own garden, then republicans want you to go to prison...
     
  24. yguy

    yguy Well-Known Member

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    You think free speech and free exercise are not unalienable rights?

    Other than 14A, where else do you see life, liberty and property listed save in the BoR?

    You think their being constitutionally enumerated means they're not a grant from a higher authority?
     
  25. ArmySoldier

    ArmySoldier Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Hard to say, we'd have to have a concrete definition of "rights".
     

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