Originally Posted by Schlack
Originally Posted by issodhos
I suspect you are both looking for a semantic escape.

My understanding of "rights" is that they are what a particualr group of people, or society decide are "rights" at a particualar time. usually, now, codified in documents such as constitutions and the UN charter on Human rights.

agreed upon, voted upon or otherwise ratified.

As philosophies politics, society and economics change and evolve so do rights.

the only natural right you have is the one you're born with. the right to exist. All others are inventions.

Those would be state/societal granted privileges which could just as easily be recinded when useful to the state to do so.

And, in regard to your claim that there is a natural right to exist, you will have to make up your mind -- either there are natural rights or, as you claim in the beginning of your post, there are no natural rights.
Yours,
Issodhos

"When all has been said that can be said, and all has been done that can be done, there will be poetry";-) -- Issodhos