Rights Are Curtailed for Terror Suspects

G'day Paul,

Let me give this one more shot, since I feel that you were baiting me with that post.

Mark Davis wrote, “This seems like a long, repetitive strawman argument to me because I don't know anybody that considers the concept of rights to be equivalent to some kind of force-field.”

Seems Mark Davis may have been wrong about that, because you wrote, “Rights do not protect us; they protect the ruling class by keeping us submissive.” [Emphasis added]

That says, not only that rights exist, but that they are “equivalent to some kind of force-field” protecting the ruling class. Well they aren't, Paul, in fact, they are quite the opposite. The masses having knowledge and understanding of man's Natural Rights[1] is the ruling class' nightmare.

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

That is because, why would anyone fight to be free if they believed they already were free; similarly, why would anyone defend their natural rights if they didn't know they owned any?

And, for some unknown reason you appear to believe that rights keep us [sic] “submissive”. [I now understand why you believe this. See my next post for the explanation.]

Frédéric Bastiat wrote, “Each of us has a natural right [a “just claim”] — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property.” [Emphasis and bracketed information added]

Maybe if you had a “just claim” to something it would keep you submissive, Paul, but it sure as hell doesn't keep me submissive. It is the knowledge and understanding of my natural rights, my “just claim” to my life, liberty and justly acquired property that adds to my resolve to defend them. Allow me to explain that last statement with an analogy.

Ever had an aquarium, Paul? Well, if you had, and you were attentive, you might have seen that a smaller fish, who had “staked his claim” first, could, many times, defend that territory even against a larger, more aggressive fish, which was added later. But, whether he could or not, even this stupid fish instinctively knew that he had a “right” to that property, because he was the first to claim it, and his instinctive knowledge of that “right”, I believe, made him stronger, and his foe weaker, than otherwise would have been the case. This is because one will naturally defend, far more aggressively, that which he has a “just claim” to, than that which he does not have a “right” to.

If one does not have a “right” to a thing, that is to say, a “just claim” to a thing, it is not his, Paul, it belongs to someone else, to whoever does have a "just claim", i.e. a "right", to it, and I think, way down deep inside, most of us instinctively knows we should give it back.
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[1] Legal rights (sometimes also called civil rights or statutory rights or political rights) are rights conveyed by a particular polity, codified into legal statutes by some form of legislature (or unenumerated but implied from enumerated rights), and as such are contingent upon local laws, customs, or beliefs.
In contrast, natural rights (also called moral rights or inalienable rights) are rights which are not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of a particular society or polity. Natural rights are thus necessarily universal, whereas legal rights are culturally and politically relative.