Natural Rights
Natural Rights are self evident.
Yes. They are. The right of self defense is an excellent example.
They should. The US constitution is based on natural rights with Biblical underpinnings. Thou shalt not murder is Biblical. Murdering also violates the most basic of human rights..the right to life.
Whether the laws of a particular nation protect what the citizens believe are their rights, depends on a lot of things.
Most importantly, does the state apparatus -- the judges who interpret the law, and the police who are supposed to enforce obedience to them -- believe in these laws, or not. There are many countries with constitutions which are not bad, but which are ignored by the state apparatus, and/or are interpreted in such a way that they are effectively nullified. For a long time -- and maybe still -- this was the case in most Latin American countries. Nice constitutions, but if the military didn't like a particular elected leader, he was ousted and a military dictator took office.
In a country like the United States, with a long democratic tradition, the opinion of the governing elite is critical, in the long term, to how the courts rule. This opinion will not be in sharp conflict with popular opinion for a very long time.
You can see this if you look at Supreme Court rulings. Racial segregation was ruled Constitutional at one point, and Unconstitutional at another. Abortion was not protected by the Constitution at one point, and then was protected by it at another. The Courts who made these conflicting rulings did not make them because one Court was better versed in the Constitution than another -- rather, they were reflecting elite opinion.
Of course, popular opinion plays a role too, especially in a highly-polarized society like ours, because Federal judges are appointed by elected politicians. So, get a majority in an election, get your people into office, let them appoint judges who reflect the opinion of the majority ... and your right to whatever it is the majority wants will be protected.
Consistent liberal/Left victories in elections will, over time, give us a liberal/Left Supreme Court, which will rule that there is no individual right to own a firearm -- i.e that the Second Amendment refers only to state-government organized official militias. On the other hand, or at the other extreme, consistent political victories for people who believe that the Second Amendment protects the right of individual ownership of nuclear weapons, or private anthrax labs, will eventually produce a Supreme Court who will rule that this is indeed what the Founders intended.
In short: 'rights' are human inventions, reflecting the perceived interests of politically-potent groups of people. If you want to defend yours, get organized!
Natural Rights were understood to be self evident to our founders. Such as the right to self defense. The desire To defend ourselves is self evident because when atacked almost all ppl defend themselves.
Yes, of course. It's not so much a 'right' as a 'reflex'.
All people get hungry, and need to eat. From that fact, some people derive the 'right to food'. And almost everyone, except psychopaths, responds to images of mass starvation with the impulse to help the starving. But this doesn't mean -- in the eyes of many people, anyway -- that we should embody 'the right to eat' into the Constitution.
What we find in the Constitution -- understandable given the context of the times, when almost all government everywhere on earth was some sort of inherited power of a particular small group of families, 'monarchy' -- is restrictions on government's power to prevent us from defending ourselves, or from feeding ourselves, or expressing our opinions.
One philosopher put it this way: there are 'negative rights': the right to do something -- to speak or write what you want, to own a firearm -- without government interference. And then there are 'positive rights', most famously, the right to be educated to a minimum standard, or the right to vote. Whereas 'negative rights' require government to refrain from acting, 'positive rights' require it to act.
As society has become more and more complex, there has been more and more pressure to implement 'positive rights' -- for the government to do things that 200 years ago, was left to family and/or church. Thus Social Security, and Medicare. Many conservatives have never accepted these particular positive rights in theory, while acknowledging, that, in practice, they are here to stay.
If you believe that conservatism is economic (but not social) libertarianism, then of course you will be unhappy about the 'positive rights' represented by Social Security and Medicare. (And I have even encountered people -- consistent libertarians --- who oppose compulsory education, or at least any government involvement in procuring it -- and who want to sell off the National Parks.)
However, I believe that it's perfectly valid to call someone a 'conservative' who accepts -- and not reluctantly -- the existence of such 'positive rights' as paid-for-by-the-state education, Social Security, Medicare, Minimum Wage, etc.
Of course, every single one of these extensions of government power can be abused: education can include political indoctrination, while Social Security and Medicare can be paid for by onerous taxation of the productive part of society, and/or by borrowing -- forcing our grandchildren to pay for our consumption. But the alternative to these extensions of government power may be such immiseration of the majority, that the end result is revolution, and a far worse extension of government power.
- Natural Rights
if you asked persons do you thin YOU should have a right to speak your mind? Answer is almost yes.
defend yourself against rape? Yes
property Rights. Should I be able to take Your home? Toothbrush. No!!
do you think the government should be able to do to you.....
its intresting to see what the founders wrote.
self evident... nearly every one believes they ThemSelves should have those rights. Within reason...