NationStates Jolt Archive

Category: Moral Decency
Strength: Mild

Description:

Aware that recently, many United Nations resolutions have passed or failed according to the Religious upholding of "Rights" (hereafter simply referred to as Right/-s) of an individual to civil liberties, military action, national policies or moral code;

Concerned that many individuals who uphold such views are of the belief that these Rights are entirely owed to them by their Legal system despite whatever situation they might find themselves in;

Noting that Mankind has displayed countless times that it posesses the possibility and tendency to cause great harm as a result of its own self-interests;

Further aware that very few nations or their organising bodies place any emphasis on holding a right as a responsibility of the individual;

Alarmed by the fact that citizens of some nations can be allowed to uphold the right to opinion as an excuse for racially or nationality-motivated verbal attacks;

Horrified that, to the best of this writer's knowledge, No nation has attempted to highlight the fact that one person's Rights come at the expense of another's.

1) Requests that a firm definition of a Right be decided and agreed upon by all members of the United Nations;

2) Suggests that this definition be "A legal permission by a governing body onto its citizenry";

3) Firmly implores all Member States to remind their populace that Rights are a granted privilege rather than an unshakeable law of existence;

4) Also implores Member States to cease Deifying the right of a human being to do what they please;

5) Insists that all Member States retract the Civil right of an individual to infract on the Civil Liberties of their fellow citizens if they haven't previously done so;

6) Reminds all states that although they are in a position to grant whatever rights on their citizenry that they please, creating a populace of complete self-orientation works to no-one's benefit;

7) Further reminds all Member states that the degree to which they grant civil liberties has been and will continue to be examined in other United Nations resolutions.

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Whether or not you want to support this proposal is entirely up to you. The reasons for its submission are simple. Firstly, our delegation is irritated to no end by the stance of many Nations on the issue of Civil Rights, in that a belief has arisen that the Human race has the inherant allowance to do whatever they want. Time has shown that if each person was allowed to do anything they felt like, many would instinctively strive to cause intentional harm to others, and the end result would be anarchical chaos. We do not want to create a species of a solely self-serving Humanity, now, do we?

More than that, we don't believe that an actual definition of the concept that so many national leaders have based their arguments upon has ever been officially outlined, or indeed that many of our world's top figures have even given it much thought. Even if this proposal is rejected, the possibility of bringing the issue to the minds of the world's delegates would be a decent step forward towards a healthily analytical Governatorial system within the United Nations.

Consider it, if nothing else. Thank you for your time.

Whilst Catholic Europe vies this proposal as a good idea, we believe that because of the huge difference of opinions, within the UN, it would be very hard to create such a list of rights.

Governemnts are a social contract between people. Individuals are sovereign over their governments since they enter into such a compact. It is true that rights are not an unshakeable fact of existence and that they arise out of such a compact, but when this compact does not guarentee the sovereignity of hte individual over his life and his property, it becomes illegitimate. When a compact becomes sufficiently illegitimate, it is the right and obligation of its individual members to overthrow such a compact, by force if necessary.

In other words, rights may be a social construct, but society exists to uphold them. That's why we have society.

Governemnts are a social contract between people. Individuals are sovereign over their governments since they enter into such a compact. It is true that rights are not an unshakeable fact of existence and that they arise out of such a compact, but when this compact does not guarentee the sovereignity of hte individual over his life and his property, it becomes illegitimate. When a compact becomes sufficiently illegitimate, it is the right and obligation of its individual members to overthrow such a compact, by force if necessary.

In other words, rights may be a social construct, but society exists to uphold them. That's why we have society.

While I can certainly see where you're coming from (That people create and uphold Government, therefore Government has no authority to tell people what they cannot do), that mind-set implies that the entire system of Law is under the same principles; As the law is laid down by humanity, whenever a human is threatened by it, he is entirely justified in breaking it. We both know that sort of system would be ineffective.

Both Government and Law have evolved beyond their existence as mere social contracts into entities in themselves. They exist to settle disputes, yes, but more importantly they should exist to maintain security and order. The power rests with them to perform necessary measures to safeguard their people, thus outlining what may or may not be done. Judging by my current perspective, a Right is explaining what Can be done, while a Law explains what cannot be done in order to maintain stability.

Without that Government in place, Society would collapse; anarchy, a total state of liberty, would reign, and people would abuse their position to their own benefit. Society does not exist to uphold people's rights, outlining what they can do; rather, it exists as a result of Laws, restricting what they cannot do to maintain coexistence.

At least, that is my own, possibly very flawed, understanding. In any case, the key clauses in this proposal are the Definition of Rights and the withdrawal of the right to infract the rights of another. I am more than willing to accept possible amendments for a future resubmittion, should this prove at all useful.

If you insist, though, let me be the first to define 'rights'. This was created as part of a Committee (okay, it was just me and three other people) which I was a member of last year. Yes, I am the primary author:

I. The individual human is the sentient entity on this Earth. As a sentient entity, he, and he alone, is his own sovereign. He, and he alone, has an absolute RIGHT TO LIFE, that cannot be infringed by others except in self-defense or, in a civil society, with ample due process of the law.

II. But in the State of Nature, such a right is not protected, and the individual is vulnerable to the abuses of others. Thus, individuals form a society, and a governing body, through the creation of a SOCIAL CONTRACT. Such a contract is designed with the purpose of protecting the rights of the individual, and thus government must uphold these rights.

III. That, in accordance with common-law, an absolute right denotes ownership. As a sovereign, the individual is the owner of his life, and the ultimate master of his fate. To secure the right to life, it follows that the individual must have the direct biological means to secure life, namely that of his own body and mind. As such, the individual is sovereign, not only over his life, but over his body and his mind. His body and his mind are his alone, and no other human or society itself has the right to enslave them. This is referred to as the RIGHT TO LIBERTY.

IV. That, further in accordance with the rules of common-law, the ownership of an asset also confers ownership of the products thereof. Given that the individual is owner of his body and mind, he should have control of the products thereof. Hence, individuals are endowed with a RIGHT TO PROPERTY. However, in cases of dire necessity, such a right may be abridged, as is the case with taxation, as infringement is only an indirect interference, not a direct interference, with the essential sovereignty of the individual. The right to property, however, is nonetheless essential towards upholding the right to life, and thus a legitimate government refrains from taxation and other means of appropriating private property whenever at all possible.

V. As established earlier, the individual is his own sovereign. He controls and molds his own destiny. A free man, and not a slave, has no other reason to live than for his own sake. Individuals thus possess a RIGHT TO PURSUE HAPPINESS. We do not guarantee that an individual will find happiness; merely that he will have the right to try.

VI. Although such rights are social constructs, so is the government itself. The government, and society at large, may only violate these rights given ample DUE PROCESS OF LAW. Laws, we realize, are necessary for the protection of rights, and as such, common law is codified into written law. The law must be the highest authority in a society if rights are to be protected. No one, including the government, should be above the law. As such, we call for an independent and viable judiciary.

VII. Pragmatically speaking, such laws are not always an effective recourse against government abuses. When a government becomes so abusive, and the law so weak, that more of the above listed rights are violated under government than would be in the State of Nature, individuals can, and of right ought to, throw off their current government, and establish a NEW GOVERNMENT that is better able to fulfill the nature of the social contract and uphold individual rights.

VIII. However, more often than not, a revolution disrupts rather than improves individual rights. Thus, it should be noted that physical force ought not to be used to dethrone long-established governments over light and transient abuses, that the right to armed resistance and violent revolution ought to be used only in the most dire circumstances, as a LAST RESORT, when the government becomes destructive to its own ends, and individuals feel, with ample and sufficient reason, that their rights would be better upheld under the State of Nature and under the natural condition of man.

IX. The social contract between individuals and governments is merely the highest contract of society. A society itself is built on the foundation of common law contracts between individuals. Competent individuals thus have the RIGHT TO CONTRACT with other individuals, which may, at times, including the waiver of rights, as a witness temporarily waives his right to liberty when he takes an oath not to lie in open court.

EDIT: Double Post

The Rogue Nation of Greenspoint would disagree with points 2) and 3) of the proposal.

We do not believe that Rights are granted by the governing body of a nation to its citizens, but rather Rights are those things to which a citizen is due by benefit of being. It's the government's position to protect the rights of its citizens, and can only take away those rights through Due Process.

We also wish to point out that where rights exist, so do responsibilities. It is a part of Due Process to show that a citizen has not fulfilled his responsibility towards a certain right before that right can be removed.

Governemnts are a social contract between people. Individuals are sovereign over their governments since they enter into such a compact. It is true that rights are not an unshakeable fact of existence and that they arise out of such a compact, but when this compact does not guarentee the sovereignity of hte individual over his life and his property, it becomes illegitimate. When a compact becomes sufficiently illegitimate, it is the right and obligation of its individual members to overthrow such a compact, by force if necessary.

In other words, rights may be a social construct, but society exists to uphold them. That's why we have society.

While I can certainly see where you're coming from (That people create and uphold Government, therefore Government has no authority to tell people what they cannot do), that mind-set implies that the entire system of Law is under the same principles; As the law is laid down by humanity, whenever a human is threatened by it, he is entirely justified in breaking it. We both know that sort of system would be ineffective.

Both Government and Law have evolved beyond their existence as mere social contracts into entities in themselves. They exist to settle disputes, yes, but more importantly they should exist to maintain security and order. The power rests with them to perform necessary measures to safeguard their people, thus outlining what may or may not be done. Judging by my current perspective, a Right is explaining what Can be done, while a Law explains what cannot be done in order to maintain stability.

Without that Government in place, Society would collapse; anarchy, a total state of liberty, would reign, and people would abuse their position to their own benefit. Society does not exist to uphold people's rights, outlining what they can do; rather, it exists as a result of Laws, restricting what they cannot do to maintain coexistence.

At least, that is my own, possibly very flawed, understanding. In any case, the key clauses in this proposal are the Definition of Rights and the withdrawal of the right to infract the rights of another. I am more than willing to accept possible amendments for a future resubmittion, should this prove at all useful.

Humans have the right to do what they want with their lives. They do NOT have the right to infringe on the right of others to do the same.

An unjust law is a law that infringes on the liberty of individuals when the liberties of other individuals are not clearly at stake. In this case, an individual is perfectly justified in breaking the said law.

Freedom is the right to do whatever you want. Liberty is the right to do whatever you want so long as you do not infringe on the rights of others in the process. Governments uphold liberty. Anarchy is not a state of liberty; anarchy is a state of freedom.

Laws are simply codified rights. A right to life, for example, has a corresponding law that you may not murder and that the government may not kill you without due process. In this case, both the right and the law restrict freedom--killing people--to secure liberty--the right to life. Do you see where I'm getting at?

However, oppressive governments are goverenments that go beyond that. They restrict liberty itself. When there are sufficient oppressive laws, the government, and not the individual, is the entity that is violating the most rights. And in this case, society is actually better off in the state of nature (anarchy, if you will). Thus, in this extreme scenario, a revolution, peaceful if possible, violent if necessary, is perfectly justified.

NOTE: I do believe in peaceful revolution. In fact, I believe that in this day in age, peaceful revolution is much more likely than violent revolution. In the 1980s and 1990s, at least in rich countries, change was brought along by public and economic pressure, not by force. Berlin '89, which I consider the archetype of the successful modern revolution, occured with no bloodshed at all. A bunch of college kids went to protest, people started demanding American products, and the state collapsed on its own intiative. A cynical West German painted this memorable graffiti line on the Berlin Wall: "They came. They saw. They did a little shopping."

That said, when a government makes peaceful revolution impossible--which I can't imagine most government doings simply because of the new reality of globalization--it makes violent revolution inevitable.

Governemnts are a social contract between people. Individuals are sovereign over their governments since they enter into such a compact. It is true that rights are not an unshakeable fact of existence and that they arise out of such a compact, but when this compact does not guarentee the sovereignity of hte individual over his life and his property, it becomes illegitimate. When a compact becomes sufficiently illegitimate, it is the right and obligation of its individual members to overthrow such a compact, by force if necessary.

In other words, rights may be a social construct, but society exists to uphold them. That's why we have society.

While I can certainly see where you're coming from (That people create and uphold Government, therefore Government has no authority to tell people what they cannot do), that mind-set implies that the entire system of Law is under the same principles; As the law is laid down by humanity, whenever a human is threatened by it, he is entirely justified in breaking it. We both know that sort of system would be ineffective.

Both Government and Law have evolved beyond their existence as mere social contracts into entities in themselves. They exist to settle disputes, yes, but more importantly they should exist to maintain security and order. The power rests with them to perform necessary measures to safeguard their people, thus outlining what may or may not be done. Judging by my current perspective, a Right is explaining what Can be done, while a Law explains what cannot be done in order to maintain stability.

Without that Government in place, Society would collapse; anarchy, a total state of liberty, would reign, and people would abuse their position to their own benefit. Society does not exist to uphold people's rights, outlining what they can do; rather, it exists as a result of Laws, restricting what they cannot do to maintain coexistence.

At least, that is my own, possibly very flawed, understanding. In any case, the key clauses in this proposal are the Definition of Rights and the withdrawal of the right to infract the rights of another. I am more than willing to accept possible amendments for a future resubmittion, should this prove at all useful.

Humans have the right to do what they want with their lives. They do NOT have the right to infringe on the right of others to do the same.

An unjust law is a law that infringes on the liberty of individuals when the liberties of other individuals are not clearly at stake. In this case, an individual is perfectly justified in breaking the said law.

Freedom is the right to do whatever you want. Liberty is the right to do whatever you want so long as you do not infringe on the rights of others in the process. Governments uphold liberty. Anarchy is not a state of liberty; anarchy is a state of freedom.

Laws are simply codified rights. A right to life, for example, has a corresponding law that you may not murder and that the government may not kill you without due process. In this case, both the right and the law restrict freedom--killing people--to secure liberty--the right to life. Do you see where I'm getting at?

However, oppressive governments are goverenments that go beyond that. They restrict liberty itself. When there are sufficient oppressive laws, the government, and not the individual, is the entity that is violating the most rights. And in this case, society is actually better off in the state of nature (anarchy, if you will). Thus, in this extreme scenario, a revolution, peaceful if possible, violent if necessary, is perfectly justified.

NOTE: I do believe in peaceful revolution. In fact, I believe that in this day in age, peaceful revolution is much more likely than violent revolution. In the 1980s and 1990s, at least in rich countries, change was brought along by public and economic pressure, not by force. Berlin '89, which I consider the archetype of the successful modern revolution, occured with no bloodshed at all. A bunch of college kids went to protest, people started demanding American products, and the state collapsed on its own intiative. A cynical West German painted this memorable graffiti line on the Berlin Wall: "They came. They saw. They did a little shopping."

That said, when a government makes peaceful revolution impossible--which I can't imagine most government doings simply because of the new reality of globalization--it makes violent revolution inevitable.

Laws are simply codified rights. A right to life, for example, has a corresponding law that you may not murder and that the government may not kill you without due process. In this case, both the right and the law restrict freedom--killing people--to secure liberty--the right to life. Do you see where I'm getting at?

We do not believe that Rights are granted by the governing body of a nation to its citizens, but rather Rights are those things to which a citizen is due by benefit of being. It's the government's position to protect the rights of its citizens, and can only take away those rights through Due Process.

In all honesty, I'm having some difficulty seeing both of those statements in the context of society.

Global Market is stating that the difference between Freedom and Liberty is the potential infringement on the comfort of another that Freedom could result in is restricted in Liberty through laws. Where Rights factor into this, however, I am almost clueless. Are Rights and Liberties one and the same? In which case, is a right simply a freedom to do what one wants, as long as they don't infringe on the freedom of another to do what they want, granted to them through one's very existence?

Then, if this is not one hundred percent dependent on a governatorial and legal structure to manage, what is there to curb the human desire to act entirely for the benefit of one's self?

It seems to me that without government, a right is meaningless in the face of human nature. I hope I've misunderstood, though; from what I've read into this thus far, the concept is incredibly flawed...

Ok, let me clarify our position.

Rights are inherent in the person. One person living alone on an island has the right to do whatever he pleases. There is no government granting him any rights or giving him permission to do what he does. A second person washes up ashore on the island. He has the same rights as the first person. Between the two of them, they eat more food than the island provides. Each person is infringing upon the other's right to life by depleting the food supply. In order to survive, the first person decides to eliminate the threat to his right to life. This involves a direct infringement upon the second person's right to life. At this point person two points this out to person one, but person one, being intent upon his own survival, doesn't give a mallrat's patootie about person two's right. There is a conflict.

Multiply this by even just 100 times and you've got a bad situation. Clearer heads realize this and figure 'hey we gotta do something so we can all live together and noone's rights are violated.' At this point they band together in some sort of communal group and agree to certain provisions. This is the government.

This group of people does not grant any right to life to each person on the island, but they do set up rules and regulations whereby those rights which each person has inherently are protected and secured against being infringed upon by someone else.

This is all rather crude and it's been a LONG time since my policital science classes, but you get the gist.

Government does not grant the rights, it is set up solely to protect them.

That is the point of view of the Rogue Nation of Greenspoint, and hence why we would disagree with the points of the proposal which we've already cited.

Laws are simply codified rights. A right to life, for example, has a corresponding law that you may not murder and that the government may not kill you without due process. In this case, both the right and the law restrict freedom--killing people--to secure liberty--the right to life. Do you see where I'm getting at?

We do not believe that Rights are granted by the governing body of a nation to its citizens, but rather Rights are those things to which a citizen is due by benefit of being. It's the government's position to protect the rights of its citizens, and can only take away those rights through Due Process.

In all honesty, I'm having some difficulty seeing both of those statements in the context of society.

Global Market is stating that the difference between Freedom and Liberty is the potential infringement on the comfort of another that Freedom could result in is restricted in Liberty through laws. Where Rights factor into this, however, I am almost clueless. Are Rights and Liberties one and the same? In which case, is a right simply a freedom to do what one wants, as long as they don't infringe on the freedom of another to do what they want, granted to them through one's very existence?

Then, if this is not one hundred percent dependent on a governatorial and legal structure to manage, what is there to curb the human desire to act entirely for the benefit of one's self?

It seems to me that without government, a right is meaningless in the face of human nature. I hope I've misunderstood, though; from what I've read into this thus far, the concept is incredibly flawed...

Rights are guarantees that the government will not infringe on your liberty. They exist as sort of an enumeration of liberty.

You are right that rights depend on government. This also means conversely that the government's job is to uphold rights, and when the government fails to do this, the people have the right to create a new government.

Moreover, people have the right to act entirely for oneself--what they do not have the right to do is the violate the rights of others. There's a subtle but important difference.

Rights can easily be infringed in the State of Nature, which is why people create governments. But since overbearing governments can violate rights just as easily, if not easier, than in the State of Nature, sometimes it is desirable to throw off the government and create a new one, hence revolutions occur.

I would like to point out that practically speaking, it would be hard to accept a univocal defintion of the terms rights, but furthermore, I should point out that no such agreement should be made in the first point because the term is not univocal. There are two different meanings to that term which are foundamental to it. There are HUMAN RIGHTS which are rights due a person merely based on the fact that they are a person, and these rights are the possessions of all persons. There are also CIVIL RIGHTS which is the form that your proposal addresses. These rights are solely the permissions granted by the governing body to the citizenry, they are also called "legal rights".

These are two very different concepts and one definition should not be accepted to the exclusion of the other for both defintions are needed to properly express our ideas. However, if you wish, a proposal requiring specification of which rights are being referred to in a legel document may be a good idea. To mandate that whenever the term "rights" the word "Human" or "Civil" must proceed it simply in the interests of clarity, but please do not rob the language of a much needed second defintion.

Would Ignatius of Antioch please be so kind as to provide a list of " HUMAN RIGHTS which are rights due a person merely based on the fact that they are a person"? I don't see your distinction. Despite the grand rhetoric of the US Declaration of Independence, I don't think there is any such thing as an "inalienable right".

You may have the right to attempt to do a number of things, but there are no absolute rights. I doubt there is a single Human Right that you could list that I couldn't come up with a way for society/government to surpress or deny. Give us a list, and we'll tear it apart. (server timeouts permitting)

Life for starters. While anyone may have the ability to take it away from another, they do not have a moral right to do so.

Civil Rights are based on the civil law.
Human Rights are based on the Moral Law.

Thus I could see perfectly well where an atheist or agnostic would disagree with Human Rights on principle, but the Natural Law is based on these Human Rights, and it doesn't take a Christian or Catholic to see this. Cicero came to the conclusion well enough without Christianity as did Plato and Aristotle and a large portion of the Classical Western World.

Human rights are based on the sovereignty of the individual. This is far from being unique to Christian morality. In fact, many parts of 'human rights'--the right to suicide for example--are specifically rejected by Christians.

The Romans based their concept of human rights on the Jus Naturale, roughly speaking, Natural Law. But their natural law would be what we consider common law today, namely the idea of ownership if your life and the products thereof.

Roman civil rights were based on the Jus Civitas, civic law, which was, in essence, codified common law.

Human rights has nothing to do with the Christian Natural Moral Law. The concept of human rights comes from the Jus Naturale. While they are similiar, they are not exactly the same.

Life for starters. While anyone may have the ability to take it away from another, they do not have a moral right to do so.
Life is cheap. It's easy to take, impossible to protect, and not a right. What right to life does a dying cancer patient have? What about an AIDS baby? An auto accident victim? No government conspiriacies here, just the circle of life taking back its own. Add in tyrannical governments and apathy, and the tally goes way up. Nobody has a right to life - at best they have the right to attempt to pursue life.

If the Aztec or African Gods demand lives as payment for miracles, do your morals automatically prevent those deaths? Do Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity agree on even the basics of what constitutes moral behavior? If these rights are so obvious, why doesn't everyone agree with you?

Take a look at some of the NationStates descriptions, and tell me that all these nations subscribe to the same moral code that you consider an absolute. Read some of the opinions of your fellow Forum members, and tell me that all of us agree on what is and isn't moral.

What you're describing seems to be some sort of Absolute Right that you attribute to your own moral code. You are taking your beliefs and decreeing that they are Natural and Inalienable Rights. If they were actually Natural rights, we wouldn't need this bill - everyone would already have them, and nobody could take them away from anyone.

You're forcing your opinions, no matter how reasonable or widely accepted, on the rest of us. That's not rights. That's coercion.

Why don't you propose the definition of the Right(s) and post it. The ensuing discussion will tell you what should be added and delted. Its difficult to reach a middle ground in such issues, but the Opressed People of Lumpy Nuts admire your ourage for trying

We agree that the categorical term "rights" should be defined.

We disagree with the proposed definition.

Inalienable rights inhere in every human being without the action of any intermediate political action.

Freedoms granted by legislative fiat are more properly termed"privileges".