The delusions of Western "natural rights".

Your point still seems unclear to me; I could see it going two very different ways. Most likely, I think you are suggesting that things which society as a whole considers as "rights," are more valid (more objective), than what any individual may consider his rights, or what he is due.

Yet, you could just as well be saying that all laws cannot be assumed to be protecting "true" rights, since different types of people-- or people who may have been exhibiting a more selfish, or a darker side of human nature, at the time (which is how you seem to prefer to think of it)-- have been involved in the creation of different laws. How can one know, that a legislator's reasoning had not been subjective, rather than for the "abstract," good of all?

Yes, this was your first point. But you seem to be arguing that this invention is derived from a practical and logical basis-- with which I would agree more than disagree-- and also that there should be, some international standard, applying to all. Am a I mistaken, about that?

Again, as I've already pointed out to you, there are international conventions, though these clearly do not cover but certain things. Do you feel they should be more broadly applied? If so, what would be the enforcement mechanism(s)? Would this make national borders, an unnecessary thing of the past, so that all "national" leaders and governments would be essentially only vassals, of the international authority?

Of course, you might stipulate that those governments be all part of that central authority-- but then you get a system, like the U.N., which we already have, and which is limited in its effectiveness, due to a lack of international agreement on what is the ideal, "objective" good, among other things.

IOW, an example of what you would envisage as a model of that, to which we should strive, would be very helpful.

 

You mention sovereignty...

 

Anarchy is the state of lawlessness.
Ultimately the last person standing.
That is not a way to develop a society or a Civilisation. In fact it is the end of both.
So most people know that and have devised a few basic laws/agreements to avoid the death of the human race.
Some in history have ignored them. We agree they are human pariahs and ultimately evil.

Instinctually as relatively intelligent animals, we devise structures which organise ourselves into social beings. They are called laws. They protect the future of our species.
I hope the USA supports this. In fact the USA helped to create many of those laws.

 

Democratically decided by a free and fair vote at relevant levels of government.
It is called federalism.

 

An = "without"
Archy = "Rulers"

Fine, then I'll use the word "voluntaryism". No one has the objectively legitimate right to violently control another person, no matter how fervently you believe.

The natural order of human life is voluntary, consensual relationships. There is nothing consensual about the state.

Right. And, the state is not the sole source, or even the best source of law. It is an organization that is "devised' to control and own you for the benefit of a small elite. Now they have you convinced that you can't live without them and that you are better off as their slave than what might happen if you were actually free.

 

Do you take responsibility for your actions and the actions of those to whom you delegate your authority through the ritual of voting, or do you believe that you are not responsible for what your rulers do when it's something you don't like such that you only take credit when they do something that you like?

Democracy is the illusion that 50%+1 can turn right into wrong and wrong into right and that the voter has no responsibility for the outcome, even though they are very good at blaming everyone else for it. It's all part of the religion of statism.

 

Might makes right. So how do you know when a wrong is done if those who control say it is right?

 

I don't believe in magic, but you pretty much described how money is created.
If one doesn't believe in magic, then how's money created?

So money doesn't have to be earned, because it's created to begin with.
By magic, according to you?
Do you believe in magic?

 

Why?
Why does logic need to be involved? If it's natural, there's nothing involved except life itself.

If one needs logic to determine something, then man is inventing it.

Natural = occurs in nature naturally. No logic needed for that.

 

No, might enforces right.

 

sovereignty is not part of any hieracrchy.

 

Which rights are self evident?
Will all of nature agree on those that are "self evident"?

 

Easiest form is for society to set up a law system and punitive actions. If something is deemed wrong.

 

Whatever is at the top is sovereign over everything else whatever is not gets eaten.

 

The thing about logic is that you can use it and misattribute your conclusions to something else (e.g. "god spoke to me"). Really, we should be thankful that they were philosophical and forward-thinking.

That was as good a defense of natural rights as I've seen elsewhere. I would point out, as I do in abortion debates, that's it's not merely "life" but a particular kind of life that has moral value. Life that is composed of a mind, a person, a being that has an immense intrinsic value. That's the only thing that is fundamental and assumed by both natural rights and my thinking. And that was where natural rights was revolutionary, as in contrast to theocracy and divine right where infidels were treated as vermin rather than persons, and lower classed persons were disposable. So it was an improvement, but not the pinnacle of logical morality. One place where natural rights fails is that it ignores context and assumes a sort of static social universe that simply isn't how things are. If we start with the common ground of the right for persons to live, what that implies is going to change by the situation. What technology is capable of. What hazards can be anticipated. What we can and cannot control as a society. The founding fathers understood courts - their necessity but also the peril they impose upon individual rights when somebody is mistakenly or falsely accused. That's why the bill of rights talks about protections for the accused under the law. And again, healthcare wasn't such a great thing back then, but now that it is, the context of protecting people's right to live has changed.

 

Lol...every country on earth outlaws crime, but it still exists.
How will you enforce your law against war?
Your focus is on the wrong end of the problem.
A teacher gave each of her students a map of the world all cut up into puzzle pieces and told them to put the world together correctly.
Each student struggled trying to piece together all of the shapes because they were very different.
But one student raised her hand and said she was already done.
The teacher was surprised and asked how she did it so quickly.
The student said, "It was easy. There was a picture of a man on the back of the map and when I put the man together, the world came together."

 

Yes, individuals behave badly. Punishment is the sanction for bad behaviour.

Nations aren't individuals, and won't need to be sanctioned if the UNSC guarantees security.

Individual behaviour can't be predicted: a nation's 'behaviour' - dedicated to implementing the prosperity of its citizens - can be observed, under a scenario of guaranteed national security, under Interntional law.

In fact a nation's security can be guaranteed under international law, even if an individual's security cannot be guaranteed under national law.



As for focus: how is the Ukraine war going to end? And what of the lives lost before it ends?

When the mythology of 'sovereign rights' is exposed, and replaced with laws acknowledging the universal desire for life, liberty and justice (to be defined), the world will come together.

 

Can you rewrite that so that it makes sense?

Anyway, being top of the food chain has nothing to do with (individual or national) 'sovereignty', which - like 'inherent rights' - are inventions of the human intellect.

 

Wrong again. Anarchy means absence of LAW - which is established by the state.

Errors abound in that statement, you excel in being wrong.

1. You said "No one has the objectively legitimate right" : whereas 'logical rights' of individual don't exist, only subjective desires of individuals.

2. .."to violently control another person": back to front as usual - it's the violent self-interested behaviour of the individual, which the law is required to sanction.

3. Belief of the individual, belief not universally shared, is a source of violence.

The delusional Libertarian creed.

"voluntary, consensual relationships" would only be 'natural' if humans had a co-operative instinct alone; the ego's competitive nature is a stumbling block.

That they don't, is the reason we need the state to implement law, to adjudicate 'justice' (defined by the law).

If there is more than one individual in the world, eg Cain and Abel (and we know how that turned out) , who will adjudicate the law, if not the state?

No; for the benefit of the security of all.

We know we can't live without law.

 

'Sovereignty' of the individual (or nation) is a human invention.
Sovereignty of law, another human invention, is required to adjudicate (the delusions of) individual and national sovereignty.

 

The delusion is and remains the idea that there is an individual or individuals smart enough to run this entire planet from an office somewhere or the other.

 

Correct, based on the existence (via the evolved cortex brain) of the human conscience, capacity to reason, and sense of justice, which in the aggregate can surely add up to universally accepted - "valid" - (and objective) 'rights'.

Hopefully a majority vote of the learned justices of an International Court of Justice (ICJ), dedicated to defending 'universal justice' as defined eg, in the UN UDHR , will overcome the self-interested (subjective) legislator's reasoning.

Correct, as outlined above.

Yes to all those questions ...except for the issue of enforcement, which I later covered fully in # 142, and except for the terminology "vassals"....

So the status of national governments will become more like that of state governments in a federation, with the "federal government's" powers (ie the international authority) clearly defined.

What is lacking in the UN is an international court - guided by the principles of the UNUDHR - backed by a UNSC whose members are NOT armed with the power of veto.

(Imagine the state of affairs in the US if the SCOTUS justices each had a veto. But a problem with the SCOTUS is there is no agreed definition of 'justice' for the people of the US, eg the meaning of "the common welfare", surely vital; whereas it is spelt out in article 23: "above poverty employment for all" in the UNUDHR).

So we have the present anarchy eg not knowing if Putin will be 'forced' to use nukes, to save his own life....while he is crushed by the superior productive capacity (in conventional-weapons) of the US/NATO.

Quite apart from the loss of Ukrainians lives - civilian and combatants, and Russian soldiers - and $trillions in property damage in a proxy war between the US and Russia...you know: 'business as usual', in international affairs.

Outlined above: not 'vassal states' but states of a UN federation.

 

All explained in #147.

 

Do you really think nations will be able to agree to an alternative that they will always be willing to abide by?
When you try to think what exactly that alternative might be, that is where you run into some problems.

Many countries (such as China and Russia) do not function entirely democratically, so simple rule of the world majority could often be too problematic. Or do you expect a country with a smaller population to always have to do what its neighbor with a larger population says?

Think about it. Government uses a low level form of war against its own citizens to enforce law; that is just how things are; why then do you think it would end up different when the dispute is between two sovereign governments?

 

All explained in #147, and #142.

China and Russia would remain members of the proposed reformed UNSC (without veto power held by individual members).
including Japan and Germany plus 1 more permanent, and 1 more rotating member, for a UNSC consisting of 9 of the world's most powerful and populous economies.

Advised by an ICJ.