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Ethan Victor

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What, to you, are basic human rights?

This is quite a tough one to sum up in one discussion:

"...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..."

1- Which ones summarize the scope of liberties, as a whole?
(name the ones -or your own- that give the whole perspective of liberties)

2- Can you define the basic human rights in terms of material, dimensional, spiritual- or any combination thereof?

3- Could these change? What could make them change?

4- Are they sustainable?

5- Also: where do those rights come from?

PS- Please don't make Q5 such an issue here, this isn't the purpose.

Topics: community government happiness liberty life peace philosophy politics religion sustainability
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    John de Ronde

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    Nov 3 2011: I agree with Raiford Gardiner who says "There is no “right” that you can’t lose by dint of circumstance, war, mischance, crime, mistakes, poverty, or any number of other reasons." There is no such thing as a 'Human Right". It's all made up - a utopian dream. Talk to the teenage mother giving birth in a mud hut in Africa. Does she have any rights? Talk to democracy dissidents in Syria - do they have any rights? Even our defining human quality, free will can easily be removed by a willful kleptocracy.
    As R.G. says, what we in 'free' societies see as rights are really only privileges. Whatever the UN declaration states, they can never be more than privileges.

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