Rights Culture

[Lunar]

Obviously Americans and obsesed with their rights - is this a bad thing?   This culture has spread across the world with globalization and many area which didn't even have a word for 'rights' are forced to develop them just so they can interact with the world.

I think it is a good thing overall but has its drawbacks.

Let's look at the way the abortion debate is framed for example.  A fetus's 'right to life' verusus a woman's 'right to her own body.'  I think it's fairly easy to say that this impedes compromise and mutual understanding. 

We have children's rights, gun rights, smoker's rights, employee rights, property rights,  consumer rights, animal rights, union rights, women's rights, men's rights, gay rights, and so on.  The guy playing music has a right to play it however loud he wants and the woman next door has the right not to be forced to listen to it...yet these are mutually exclusive.  These absolutist formulations tend to drown out other issues like long-term measures that will protect our 'rights,' as well corresponding responsibilities, obligations and moderations.  Our attention is instead focused on the visual short-term.

On the other hand, the 'rights' culture checks government power, which is why I ultimately side with it.

[A18]

The problem is when we think we have a right to other people's property, such as with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other horrid anti-discrimination laws.

[John Dibble]

On the other hand, the 'rights' culture checks government power, which is why I ultimately side with it.

Indeed. A culture that is fixated on rights will have negatives(like new rights such as the 'right to healthcare' and other such BS 'rights' getting invented), just like any other culture, but it is a good culture in general.

[Bono]

A short text by Arthur Schopenhauer:

"The man who starts from the preconceived opinion that the conception of Right must be a positive one, and then attempts to define it, will fail; for he is trying to grasp a shadow, to pursue a spectre, to search for what does not exist. The conception of Right is a negative one, like the conception of Freedom; its content is mere negation. It is the conception of Wrong which is positive; Wrong has the same significance as injury—laesio—in the widest sense of the term. An injury may be done either to a man’s person or to his property or to his honour; and accordingly a man’s rights are easy to define: every one has a right to do anything that injures no one else.

To have a right to do or claim a thing means nothing more than to be able to do or take or vise it without thereby injuring any one else. Simplex sigillum veri. This definition shows how senseless many questions are; for instance, the question whether we have the right to take our own life, As far as concerns the personal claims which others may possibly have upon us, they are subject to the condition that we are alive, and fall to the ground when we die. To demand of a man, who does not care to live any longer for himself, that he should live on as a mere machine for the advantage of others is an extravagant pretension.

Although men’s powers differ, their rights are alike. Their rights do not rest upon their powers, because Right is of a moral complexion; they rest on the fact that the same will to live shows itself in every man at the same stage of its manifestation. This, however, only applies to that original and abstract Right, which a man possesses as a man. The property, and also the honour, which a man acquires for himself by the exercise of his powers, depend on the measure and kind of power which he possesses, and so lend his Right a wider sphere of application. Here, then, equality comes to an end. The man who is better equipped, or more active, increases by adding to his gains, not his Right, but the number of the things to which it extends."

[Citizen James]

Then of course there's the religious right.  Not to be confused with the freedom of religion.

As my father once mentioned, your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.   The point where things get sticky are  when two people's rights conflict - such as your right to put any substance in your lungs you like (Smoking), vs. my right not to have to put up with the stench and health hazards (In public spaces anyway).

I don't see anything in the Civil rights act which involves the redistribution of property unless a) you think that civil lawsuits are wrong, or b) you believe that employers with more that 15 employees should be able to openly practice racism and deny employment and advancement soley on the basis of skin color.

[John Dibble]

Then of course there's the religious right.  Not to be confused with the freedom of religion.

As my father once mentioned, your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.   The point where things get sticky are  when two people's rights conflict - such as your right to put any substance in your lungs you like (Smoking), vs. my right not to have to put up with the stench and health hazards (In public spaces anyway).

I don't see anything in the Civil rights act which involves the redistribution of property unless a) you think that civil lawsuits are wrong, or b) you believe that employers with more that 15 employees should be able to openly practice racism and deny employment and advancement soley on the basis of skin color.

The essential problem with the Civil Rights act that is being specified is that privately owned facilities like restaraunts are declared as 'public', even though they are owned by an individual and not the government.

[Jake]

Better that we have no rights, as to not infringe on other's rights. 

[John Dibble]

Better that we have no rights, as to not infringe on other's rights. 

LOL! Well then, lemme just tax the hell out of you to fund my favorite government programs, cuz you don't have the right to the money you've earned.

[Jake]

Better that we have no rights, as to not infringe on other's rights. 

LOL! Well then, lemme just tax the hell out of you to fund my favorite government programs, cuz you don't have the right to the money you've earned.

Exactly, but let me have your house so I have somewhere to live. Everyone wins

[John Dibble]

Better that we have no rights, as to not infringe on other's rights. 

LOL! Well then, lemme just tax the hell out of you to fund my favorite government programs, cuz you don't have the right to the money you've earned.

Exactly, but let me have your house so I have somewhere to live. Everyone wins

Sorry, but I have more guns, so you can't tax me.

[Blue Rectangle]

On the other hand, the 'rights' culture checks government power, which is why I ultimately side with it.

Real rights really are checks to government powers.  Unfortunately, people claim rights that rely on the greater government powers:
--"I got a right to turn on the TV without being offended" (The government has the power to censor TV)
--"I got a right to streets without potholes in them" (The government must raise taxes to pay for better street maintenance)

one of your examples did fall in this category:
--"I got a right to unionize" (The government has the power to force my employer to not fire me)

A true rights culture is good, but an entitlement culture masquerading as a rights culture is not.