Anyone being affected by Proposition 8?

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Radar

If you don't believe human beings have inalienable rights, yes....you are a monster. The good news is identifying the problem is half the battle. Now you can seek help to fix it.

Then I am a monster.

I believe in the civilising power of progress...through that progress we have identified a set of 'rights' which we currently deem inalienable...but they're not actually inherent in our humanity. I am a card carrying member of Amnesty International and campaign in my country on 'human rights': but I also recognise that these rights are an intellectual construct, a theoretical framework into which we place our understanding of ourselves. I like that intellectual construct, it is useful for us as a species, and allows us to transcend some of the less appealing aspects of our humanity.

In the identification and application of an agreed set of 'rights' we are able to transcend in large degree our animal selves.

But those rights are not inherent. If they are then they must also apply beyond our species to other animals. We are animals. Thinking, feeling, advanced animals.


[eta] in the centuries of philosophy to which you refer Radar, the concept of natural rights included within it an acceptance of inequality between the sexes. Tom Paine, whilst arguing for greater rights for all (including women) nonetheless drew a distinction. I'm paraphrasing now, because my copy of RoM is at my house and I'm down at mum's, but it goes something like this: Nature recognises no inequality except for that which exists between the sexes.

The rights of man are not necessarily the rights of woman. To me, as a woman, the rights you speak of are profoundly alienable.

[bluecuracao]

Dana, I understand your point of view, but you're wrong. The differences in rights that you perceive are cultural, not natural. You should know that there have been and still are matrilineal societies where women have dominant rights. If there are these, and patrilineal rights, too, then there can be no "inherent" applied to either sex.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by bluecuracao

Dana, I understand your point of view, but you're wrong. The differences in rights that you perceive are cultural, not natural. You should know that there have been and still are matrilineal societies where women have dominant rights. If there are these, and patrilineal rights, too, then there can be no "inherent" applied to either sex.

In what way does that make me wrong? I don't believe rights are inherent to either sex. I don't believe rights are inherent at all. I was merely pointing out to Radar that the sources he cites as evidence for the existence of rights (the fact that a thousand years' of philosphers and thinkers have all recognised the existence of natural human rights) do not actually point to a recognition of inalienable human rights at all. Many of the writers who suggested that natural rights exist, also suggested that those rights are not equally applied across the sexes.

By Tom Paine's logic, I, as a woman, am not equal in nature to Radar, as a man. I, as a woman, do not have the same human rights as Radar.

[bluecuracao]

OK, reading again, I misunderstood your post. And reading my post again, I misspoke. I agree with Radar that we all have inherent rights, but I came across as saying that no one does.

And fuck Thomas Paine.

[Radar]

Originally Posted by bluecuracao

OK, reading again, I misunderstood your post. And reading my post again, I misspoke. I agree with Radar that we all have inherent rights, but I came across as saying that no one does.

And fuck Thomas Paine.

Hear Hear!