RB
The opinions that you express are shared by many people. Never the less, IMO the logic used to arrive at your opinions is the reverse of a proof. By this I mean that IMO you start out with assumptions about what you believe to be true about rights.
Yes, of course rights are what "ought" to be. But our conception of rights has as its baseline assumptions what we as a society think "ought " to be. And as such, rights are a construct of our society rather than a reflection of anything necessarily pre-existing and transcendent. Our "right" to live is meaningless without society: there is no meaningful right to live if you are floating alone in shark infested waters.
"not a matter for debate, at least not if you desire to be a member of the society." The statement clearly assumes that the concept of rights is a specific social contract underlying an individual society. The fact that it is not a matter of debate within that society implies nothing regarding the pre-expedience or transcendental nature of rights.... only it implies certain "rights as comprising a fundamental part of the foundation of a particular society.
"So, yes, within this society, Individual Rights DO exist, are unalienable and invioable, if not strictly 'self-evident'." I agree that individual rights do exist ad a part of our society. But obviously, those rights are alienable if I should choose to violate the norms of the society... if I do not pay my taxes, I can lose my liberty.
"Thirdly, does the government create these rights?" I did not propose that government creates rights... I proposed that rights are a social agreement within which government operates. ... This is approximately what you also say in your next paragraph.
So in closing, it seems to me that you may misunderstand what I am saying. Mostly I do not disagree with what you are saying about rights. Rights do exist, but they are not pre-existent, they are a mater of our mutual social agreement.
