Original Post, my reply and other replies are
hereWhich was a mistaken post to my journal instead of a reply. I had received this reply and my reply is further below. Any comments are appreciated. :)
------- (Their response to my initial post) ----------
However, the biggest problem that I have with that is that it leads certain individuals (i.e. those with property) to have more rights than others (i.e. homeless people).The state of property ownership doesn't grant you rights. You have the same natural rights whether you happen to be a billionaire or a homeless person with nothing but the clothes on your back. You have the same rights if you're living naked on a tropical island all by yourself.
Whether it is fundamentally fair that a wealthy person can obtain a prestigious and skilled attorney to escape or lessen punishments to which a homeless person would be subjected after their public defender fumbles the ball--and the even thornier question of whether we should do anything about this fundamental unfairness--is a separate issue. But it is not that the wealthy person has any mysterious "wealthy-person-only" rights that the homeless person does not.
------- (My Reply) ----------
I guess there's a few points of contention in our discussion that would need to be clarified. I have a feeling we approach things from different angles on at least two points.
1) The nature of "rights": That is to say... "What is a right?" I shall limit it in this context to the issue of privacy (which is really what I meant to say.) Privacy is not a "right" in the US Constitution, though we cherish it an awful lot. That said, assuming that we do appreciate and honor it as a right, there is still a discrepency. It naturally follows that if someone has property to live on, they have a certain amount of privacy which a homeless person, without that property, does not have. You can talk semantics and say they still have that right. But de facto denial of granted rights essentially means NO right.
It would be as if I were to give you a thousand dollars, and then told you: You just can't spend it. You can have it all you want. But what good is it if it can't be put into use? Now, seeing as how I used the term "right" instead of "privacy" you are correct. In theory we have public defenders who are supposed to be as skilled as expensive attorneys... Of course we all know that's completely not true. I'm not going to argue that with you.
2) The other issue I am curious to know about is the question of the origin of rights. If, as you say "we all have the same rights" (you use the term natural right, which appears to be taken from a more Constitutional, perhaps Libertarian (as in the party) point of view. Pleas correct me if I'm wrong.), where are these rights derived from? The founding fathers were Deists and appropriately used their reasoning to derive a set of rights based upon their philosophical premise.
I tend to follow Mao's statement that "power flows from the barrel of a gun." This is the source of "right." Not from a personal ethics (Theory) standpoint, but from a political and sociological standpoint (Praxis.) If we have different view of the origins of right, then we may never come to agreement. So be it.
3) What are these rights of which I speak? The issue of privacy, as I noted, is not guaranteed in the constitution. I add my own rights to what I perceive as sociological rights that are to be granted (ie: they are not natural, since I don't believe that they are ordained by "nature and nature's god.") These rights are the right to necessities of survival (Food, Shelter, Clothing, (clean) Water) And also the right to improve ones condition (this includes Education, Communication and Transportation. Especially the right to education, and higher education at that.)
I note that these rights are not to be construed as being equal in terms of ownership. There should be a minimum standard for all, but people don't automatically have a right to big designer name clothes, or a nice mansion.
Since my philosophy is always evolving and my knowledge is quite limited, I will not say that this is complete truth, even though I feel a moral conviction towards it's rightness. I am still working on how this applies in terms of distribution. Does a rich person have a right to better health care than a poor person? Do they have a right to make billions of dollars? My personal stance is "no." I am interested in hearing alternative POV's, but right now, I think wealth disparity and the feudalism that we still live in is quite dangerous to an individual's rights. I could also touch upon the issue of Maslow's Hierarchy, and how that it serves our corporate/feudal system to limit satisfaction of these basic needs (as animals and social creatures.) It makes more "holes" to fill.
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