[Pants-of-dog]

POD, just as a preliminary question... Where do rights come from?

You talk a lot about rights, but what is meant by rights?

If you are an atheist, aren't rights just whatever the government says rights are? I am curious.

Rights come from society. We as a group decide that people have rights.

This is true regardless of one’s religious beliefs.

Landlords have the right to rent their apartments to who they wish, I believe, as it is their property..?

If a man is only willing to rent a property he owns to his son, and would otherwise simply dispose of it, who am I to judge? What if a man is only willing to rent the apartment to a current Seminarian as it is across from the seminary and he rents it at reduced rates, and he believes this is a part of his alms to the Church?

What if it is a rental situation where the man only wants to rent to a young student who would live in their home as a single person, and he has some idea that his tenant should be of decent moral character to have a positive influence on his kids? What if a Muslim only wants to rent to another Muslim, so that he does not have to worry about having unclean foods and drink in his home..?

I can think of plenty of scenarios where I want nothing to do with interfering with the private actions of someone.

I do not have the right to demand what anyone does with their property as a private individual, and I do not have the basis to violate the rights of a property owner. Of course, there can be reaosnable regulations, like the billeting of soldiers in an emergency under certain conditions... I think you see my point, though.

You should familiarise yourself with housing discrimination laws in the USA.

Housing Act

The Fair Housing Act was passed at the urging of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Congress passed the federal Fair Housing Act (codified at 42 U.S.C. 3601-3619, penalties for violation at 42 U.S.C. 3631), Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, only one week after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

The primary purpose of the Fair Housing Law of 1968 is to protect the buyer/renter of a dwelling from seller/landlord discrimination. Its primary prohibition makes it unlawful to refuse to sell, rent to, or negotiate with any person because of that person's inclusion in a protected class.[7] The goal is a unitary housing market in which a person's background (as opposed to financial resources) does not arbitrarily restrict access. Calls for open housing were issued early in the twentieth century, but it was not until after World War II that concerted efforts to achieve it were undertaken.

The Fair Housing Act (Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968) introduced meaningful federal enforcement mechanisms. It outlawed:

Refusal to sell or rent a dwelling to any person because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin in the terms, conditions or privilege of the sale or rental of a dwelling.
Advertising the sale or rental of a dwelling indicating preference of discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin.
Coercing, threatening, intimidating, or interfering with a person's enjoyment or exercise of housing rights based on discriminatory reasons or retaliating against a person or organization that aids or encourages the exercise or enjoyment of fair housing rights.
When the Fair Housing Act was first enacted, it prohibited discrimination only on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.[8] In 1988, disability and familial status (the presence or anticipated presence of children under 18 in a household) were added (further codified in the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990).[8] In certain circumstances, the law allows limited exceptions for discrimination based on sex, religion, or familial status.[9]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing ... ted_States)#Fair_Housing_Act

But they aren't fit because they have an obvious mental disconnect with reality and disturbing behavior.

When we ban someone who is a schizophrenic, we likewise do not interfere with their rights.

Did you know that, in Iran, the Christians do not do military duty? Their rights are not actually violated. It's just the circumstnaces that exist within an Islamic Republic. I am not offended by this, either.

Why would someone have a right... to surpass normal standards or normal conditions for a military body? I don't really get it.

So the trans people who were already serving when the ban was proposed were magically unfit to serve?

Trump’s ban would have kicked out the trans people who were already serving.

If they are already serving, they have already been judged as fit for service.

Things do get complicated when you do these things, don't they?

Not really.

So you concede this point, I assume?

The same way that being a racist harms the norms and ehtics of the society, right. I do not know why I have to explain the mechanics of this to you.

Raxism harms norms and ethics by attacking the rights we have decided to resepct as a society. Trans people do not do that.

So, no. This argument of yours is wrong.

Right, we base it on thinking it is a moral harm.

You have not shown how your thinking is based on actual harm.

I don't know? I mean, if someone wants to do something absurd with their own property, it is their right? I am not sure. You are asking me to think about things in a funny way.

I suggest familiarising yourself with US discrimination laws.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_R ... 4#Title_II

So no, according to US law, you cannot refuse sevice in restaurants to minorities.

I wouldn't know how to answer that because it isn't relevant to me. I do not accept premise A (Islam), so why would I accept premise Z (Islamic honor killings), an extreme manifestation that is beyond my world of reference..?

You said Muslims should have the right to discriminate and otherwise ignore laws based on their religious values. According to that same logic you proposed, honor killings would also be okay.

I think that it is obvious why people are morbidly depressed and tortured souls when their identity doesn't conform in the least to reality.

Please provide evidence for this claim. Thanks.

[maz]

"She"

Transgender teen says she was bullied before allegedly attacking two Tomball students

A Tomball High School sophomore living in CPS custody has been arrested and charged with beating two students in the school on Tuesday, according to court records.

The suspect has been identified as 17-year-old Tra'vez Perry. Authorities say Perry was captured on video brutally beating a male student and a female student in a hallway.

The victims were taken to a hospital, and Perry was charged with misdemeanor assault. Perry, who is transgender, told police that the female victim had taken her picture and posted it on Snapchat with a negative comment, according to a Tomball police report.

The victims were taken to a hospital, and Perry was charged with misdemeanor assault. Perry, who is transgender, told police that the female victim had taken her picture and posted it on Snapchat with a negative comment, according to a Tomball police report.

Police said Perry kicked the male students in the head and face. She also kneed the female students in the nose, the report said.

[Sivad]

Rights come from society. We as a group decide that people have rights.

This is true regardless of one’s religious beliefs.

Rights don't come from society, rights are those freedoms and entitlements that cannot be rationally disregarded or violated. When we say we have a right to something we are saying that there is no rational justification for anyone to interfere with us in regard to that something.

[Drlee]

When we say we have a right to something we are saying that there is no rational justification for anyone to interfere with us in regard to that something.

But this does not apply to anything at all. There is absolutely nothing in this world that does not have a price and or some people who have been denied it.

So it has to be a social convention. Agreement is the only key to any right.

[Albert]

The trouble with rights is that it has become mixed with identity politics. The act of same sex was criminalized before yet that act has been turned into homosexual identity. Whereas now homosexuals are somehow a group that has a rights separate from others. Similarly now you can see this is also attempted to be done with pedophiles. In the end it is nothing but using the philosophy of liberalism to create justification for criminal and vile behavour.

[Drlee]

The trouble with rights is that it has become mixed with identity politics. The act of same sex was criminalized before yet that act has been turned into homosexual identity. Whereas now homosexuals are somehow a group that has a rights separate from others. Similarly now you can see this is also attempted to be done with pedophiles. In the end it is nothing but using the philosophy of liberalism to create justification for criminal and vile behavour.

Wrong again sport.

The act of same sex was criminalized before yet that act has been turned into homosexual identity. Whereas now homosexuals are somehow a group that has a rights separate from others.

No. They have the same rights. No more, no less.

Similarly now you can see this is also attempted to be done with pedophiles.

Garbage. Show me the slightest evidence that this is true. We lock up pedophiles for life.

[Pants-of-dog]

Rights don't come from society, rights are those freedoms and entitlements that cannot be rationally disregarded or violated. When we say we have a right to something we are saying that there is no rational justification for anyone to interfere with us in regard to that something.

This is a definition of “rights”. It does not contradict my claim about where rights come from: i.e. they are a social construct.

[Sivad]

This is a definition of “rights”. It does not contradict my claim about where rights come from: i.e. they are a social construct.

It does contradict your claim, it means we have reasons to respect these freedoms and entitlements regardless of whether society recognizes them or not. Rights are grounded in rationality, not social custom.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

In my second post in this thread I wrote:

As for segregated spaces and women's safety concerns, the idea that a man would go through a sex change procedure to harass women on toilets is frankly absurd. This particular German law has been in place since 1981, I doubt there's been a single incident.

I don't know the current situation in Germany, although I vaguely remember reading about some Supreme Court rulings on the matter, but the UK govt is consulting on self-id at the moment. We are no longer talking about arduous sex change procedures which, as you say, can be assumed to serve as a deterrence. Personally, I'm fine with making an exception for this small group of genuinely ill people, but by now I'm of the view that the law has to make it clear that it is an exception precisely because the confusion and lack of clarity is being exploited: the protected category sex refers to women, and one doesn't become a women through a thought process, no matter how convincing this thought might be in one's mind.

The whole gender-fluidity thing is certainly exaggerated to the point of absurdity by certain people, but I see it mostly as an overreaction to right-wing intolerance.

You'd do Freud proud.

More seriously, note that the American Academy of Pediatrics disagrees:

Meanwhile, “gender identity” is one’s internal sense of who one is, which results from a multifaceted interaction of biological traits, developmental influences, and environmental conditions. It may be male, female, somewhere in between, a combination of both, or neither (ie, not conforming to a binary conceptualization of gender). Self-recognition of gender identity develops over time, much the same way as a child’s physical body does.

Also, why would it be less convincing to you for people to not be sure about their gender than believing they are the opposite sex? We know that the intensity of dysphoria can vary with time and there are people who have gone through hormone therapy or sex-reassignment who regret it. There's a lot of evidence that this is not a clear cut thing and this accords well with other chronic illnesses - they often wax and wane over a lifetime.

That said, as I mentioned earlier, this has now a cultural dimension as well, most prominent among youth, and the transgender label now also seems to include cross dressers (e.g. the Credit Suisse guy I linked to earlier). The whole thing is too much in flux to know what demands we can expect next. Hence, there needs to be clarity of thought on two aspects of this. One, there is a distinction between sex and gender, and the former is biologically/genetically determined. Second, there are genuinely ill people who deserve our empathy and should get reasonable accommodation on the one hand and culture warriors, confused youth and opportunists on the other hand who need to be strongly pushed back.

Finally, the most despicable aspect of this is that we might be losing the battle for the treatment of children and teenagers. Early and quick transitions are becoming ever more popular, despite the fact that the evidence in favour is shaky (to put it mildly). There's a lot of misinformation and misrepresentation when it comes to the subject, and it overwhelmingly comes from the political/cultural left. The NYT article in the OP, which is essentially activism disguised as reporting, is a case in point.

[Sivad]

But this does not apply to anything at all. There is absolutely nothing in this world that does not have a price and or some people who have been denied it.



So it has to be a social convention. Agreement is the only key to any right.

You're confusing rights with the recognition and protection of rights. Rights have nothing to do with social convention, they inhere independent of convention or law.

[One Degree]

You're confusing rights with the recognition and protection of rights. Rights have nothing to do with social convention, they inhere independent of convention or law.

I argued the falsity of this elsewhere. For your argument to be true, your rights would have to exist in the absence of other people. Imagine yourself alone on a desert island and tell me what rights you have.
You have choices but no rights without the agreement of others.

[Sivad]

I argued the falsity of this elsewhere. For your argument to be true, your rights would have to exist in the absence of other people. Imagine yourself alone on a desert island and tell me what rights you have.
You have choices but no rights without the agreement of others.

Certain rights only become relevant or operative in the context of society but they do not depend on society's recognition or acceptance. Rights are abstract truths that obtain regardless of attitudes or opinions.

[One Degree]

Certain rights only become relevant or operative in the context of society but they do not depend on society's recognition or acceptance. Rights are abstract truths that obtain regardless of attitudes or opinions.

Add two people to your island. You believe you have the right to life. The other two disagree violently. What happens to your inalienable right?

[Albert]

Right
In an abstract sense, justice, ethical correctness, or harmony with the rules of law or the principles of morals. In a concrete legal sense, a power, privilege, demand, or claim possessed by a particular person by virtue of law.

Each legal right that an individual possesses relates to a corresponding legal duty imposed on another. For example, when a person owns a home and property, he has the right to possess and enjoy it free from the interference of others, who are under a corresponding duty not to interfere with the owner's rights by trespassing on the property or breaking into the home.

In Constitutional Law, rights are classified as natural, civil, and political. Natural rights are those that are believed to grow out of the nature of the individual human being and depend on her personality, such as the rights to life, liberty, privacy, and the pursuit of happiness.

Civil Rights are those that belong to every citizen of the state, and are not connected with the organization or administration of government. They include the rights of property, marriage, protection by law, freedom to contract, trial by jury, and the like. These rights are capable of being enforced or redressed in a civil action in a court.

Political rights entail the power to participate directly or indirectly in the establishment or administration of government, such as the right of citizenship, the right to vote, and the right to hold public office.

https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/right

Wrong again sport.

People who like to bonk a person of same sex had always had the same rights that all of us have. The whole mumbo jumbo how homosexuals were oppressed by the system because of their identity is nothing but a brain messing so they can bonk someone who is of same sex without legal prosecution.

Homosexuals used the same rhetoric that the feminist used to basically push through decriminalization of their acts. That they were somehow this minority that was being subject of oppression by the state. It is nothing but nonsense. They basically used the whole concept of protection of minorities to justify what was considered a moral sin and criminal act.

It is also interesting to note that protection of minorities was meant to be protection of people who held different views and ideas. It was never meant to be used to legalize deviant and criminal acts.

[Sivad]

Add two people to your island. You believe you have the right to life. The other two disagree violently. What happens to your inalienable right?

Nothing. The claim isn't that rights can't be violated, they obviously can be, but a violation of a right doesn't negate the existence of that right.

[One Degree]

Nothing. The claim isn't that rights can't be violated, they obviously can be, but a violation of a right doesn't negate the existence of that right.

It only exists in your imagination unless someone enforces it on the island. It can not be enforced without other people. If it is not enforced then it does not exist except in your imagination which gains you nothing.

Edit: I believe this to be the basic flaw in the reasoning of liberalism. It conflates ‘imaginary rights’ with ‘actual rights’ and then can justify anything on the basis of imaginary rights. Any rights they make up become self justifying.

[Sivad]

It only exists in your imagination

No, it's an objective fact about what is due and proper between rational self-aware beings.

which gains you nothing.

The discovery of these truths gains us civilization. You people have it exactly backwards, rights don't come from society, society comes from rights.

[One Degree]

No, it's an objective fact about what is due and proper between rational self-aware beings.




The discovery of these truths gains us civilization. You people have it exactly backwards, rights don't come from society, society comes from rights.

How is it objective if others disagree? Again, you are claiming it exists without people.
No, civilization was the result of mutual protection. No one was thinking of ‘rights’.
My edit above...
Edit: I believe this to be the basic flaw in the reasoning of liberalism. It conflates ‘imaginary rights’ with ‘actual rights’ and then can justify anything on the basis of imaginary rights. Any rights they make up become self justifying.

[Albert]

The concept of rights was mainly designed to protect people from the power of a state. The liberal philosophers saw the state is a necessary evil that had to be contained and its power checked. They lived in times where a monarch had the power to use the state to oppress them, if you criticized him, had different ideas towards policy or views on Christianity they were in danger of oppression. Individual rights were supposed to protect you from state persecution regardless of your views and expression. This is where they were coming from.

They did not mean it to protect deviancy or immorality, it all had to do with power relationship between the state and individual. It just shows how far the liberal doctrine has been perverted and screwed up.

[Sivad]

How is it objective if others disagree?

Truth doesn't require consensus, truth is truth regardless of attitudes or opinions.

No, civilization was the result of mutual protection. No one was thinking of ‘rights’.

That's not civilization, it's just primitive banding. Not all societies are civilized, even our most advanced societies are only barely civilized. Really, civilization is something human beings haven't quite achieved as of yet and I doubt we ever will.

My edit above...
Edit: I believe this to be the basic flaw in the reasoning of liberalism. It conflates ‘imaginary rights’ with ‘actual rights’ and then can justify anything on the basis of imaginary rights. Any rights they make up become self justifying.

When you deny rights you're denying that we need any justification at all for any form of tyranny imaginable.