Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Do individual rights exist?

that “rights are integral to the human mind” which is to say they are integral to man. They are essential to the completeness of man and reflect the nature of man, not nature in general, not ‘natural’ man, but the nature of man.

Yours,
Issodhos

...But simply naming the standard as immutable does not change it's fundamental character. No matter which words you use to describe that immutable standard, the fact remains that it is a political/social agreement that has established the standard. And being a political social agreement... the standard is inherently subject to the potential corruptions inherent built into it's fundamental nature.

Thus, if one chooses to regard our rights as nothing more than a mutually agreed-upon set of do/do not at some freeze-frame moment in our history, then we have absolutely no moral basis to criticize any age or any society's denial of life and liberty to anyone for any reason whatsoever.

I also wrote that rights are integral to the human mind; which is to say they are integral to man. They are essential to the completeness of man and reflect the nature of man, not nature in general, not ; man, but the nature of man.

Yours,
Issodhos

The error seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body, are subject to the coercion of the laws. But our rulers can have no authority over such natural rights, only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. If it be said, his testimony in a court of justice cannot be relied on, reject it then, and be the stigma on him. Constraint may make him worse. by making him a hypocrite, but it will never make him a truer man. It may fix him obstinately in his errors, but will not cure them. Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.

Thomas Jefferson, "Notes on Virginia"
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Memorial Edition (Library)
Andrew A. Lipscomb, Editor in Chief, Albert Ellery Bergh, Managing Editor
Volume II - page 221

Here's a definition of Natural Rights that you might find acceptable:

Natural Rights are the liberties which The Nation's Founders believed could never be surrendered up to the state, and its citizens remain free.

It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it, but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It' would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself ; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine ; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Isaac Mcpherson, August 13, 1813
Jefferson, Thomas, Andrew Adgate Lipscomb, and Albert Ellery Bergh. 1903. The writings of Thomas Jefferson. Washington, D.C.: Issued under the auspices of the Thomas Jefferson memorial Association of the United States.
Volume XIII - pp 326-338

It had become an universal and almost uncontroverted position in the several States, that the purposes of society do not require a surrender of all our rights to our ordinary governors; that there are certain portions of right not necessary to enable them to carry on an effective government, and which experience has nevertheless proved they will be constantly encroaching on, if submitted to them; that there are also certain fences which experience has proved peculiarly efficacious against wrong, and rarely obstructive of right, which yet the governing powers have ever shown a disposition to weaken and remove. Of the first kind, for instance, is freedom of religion; of the second, trial by jury, habeas corpus laws, free presses. These were the settled opinions of all the States, - of that of Virginia, of which I was writing, as well as of the others.

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Noah Webster, December 4, 1790.
Jefferson, Thomas, Andrew Adgate Lipscomb, and Albert Ellery Bergh. 1903. The writings of Thomas Jefferson. Washington, D.C.: Issued under the auspices of the Thomas Jefferson memorial Association of the United States.
Volume VIII. - pp 111-115

I observe that when babies are born, they have no capability to communicate in the manner that you describe above. From that fact, would we conclude that babies do not have the natural right that you describe?

So it is not a right if exercising the "right" would conflict with another person's similar exercising of his right?

And further, there seems some assumption that there are some fundamental rights which will never be in conflict. But it seems to me that claims to "rights" would have inevitable conflicts. In the case of the proposed natural right to communicate ideas, there are innumerable potential problems. For instance, when one person is speaking, the other person cannot speak. And maybe speaking second is less advantageous. So who has the right to speak first? If someone has a right to communicate his ideas, does that obligate others to listen? What if someone conspires to keep people from hearing my free expression... without actually stifling my free expression... have my rights been violated?

As a concept, rights only seem to apply between men... which by definition would require society. Am I correct on this point?

Also, could you clarify the following issue please. It appears from scientific evidence that humans evolved over a long period of time from more primitive creatures. You have separately indicated that rights do not apply to other creatures. So it appears that at some point in the past men were not sufficiently human to have rights... but then they developed sufficiently so that they did have rights. Could you please clarify the evolutionary point at which rights first adhered to man.

As I wrote earlier, the concept of rights arose from the study of the nature of man.