Unalienable Rights

I will begin by first instituting the history of the phrase. John Locke (http://plato.stanford.edu...) proposed the trifecta of Life, Liberty, and Property: "He expressed the radical view that government is morally obliged to serve people, namely by protecting life, liberty, and property. He explained the principle of checks and balances to limit government power. He favored representative government and a rule of law. He denounced tyranny. He insisted that when government violates individual rights, people may legitimately rebel. (http://www.fee.org...)." This is important as Thomas Jefferson's "Pursuit of Happiness" is actually argued to come from another source: "If Thomas Jefferson did not coin the phrase, who did? Wikipedia (drawing on, I think, an old edition of the Encylopedia Britannica) attributes its coinage to Dr. Samuel Johnson in his long fable Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, published in 1759. Rasselas is an Abyssinian prince who lives in the Happy Valley, a paradise in every respect imaginable. But the Prince is discontented. Accompanied by his sister Nekayah and a wise, well-traveled poet, he escapes from his utopia and travels around the known world. They visit the Great Pyramid, where a dear friend of Nekayah is kidnapped by Arabs. Wounded by this loss, the Princess laments: "what is to be expected from our pursuit of happiness when we find the state of life to be such, that happiness itself is the cause of misery?", which is further clarified by what Dr. Samuel Johnson, "What Dr. Johnson called "civil wisdom" was, he wrote, lacking in the English public. Therefore, in another resonant passage, he declared: "We are still so much unacquainted with our own state, and so unskillful in the pursuit of happiness, that we shudder without danger, complain without grievances, and suffer our quiet to be disturbed, and our commerce to be interrupted, by an opposition to the government, raised only by interest, and supported only by clamor, which yet has so far prevailed upon ignorance and timidity, that many favor it, as reasonable, and many dread it, as powerful. (http://hnn.us...)" When we look at the origins of the statement we are then left with a standard of ambiguity for it's interpretation. Due to this we are at a loss the ability to pursue a direct notion for it's existence, with "Life" and "Liberty" being clearly defined by a basic dictionary and some common sense as "Your health" and "Your social allowances" but the last element being completely ambiguous. Now noting the history of the phrase and it's ambiguity versus Locke's particular trifecta I would begin by saying that philosophy itself, and rights, are all manmade tools; the "natural rights" of man are not extended to other species despite man being one of those species for no greater reason than man being man. We can look at this simply by noting the laws on animal abuse (http://awic.nal.usda.gov...) "Enacted November 28, 1990, and establishes a holding period for dogs and cats at shelters and other holding facilities before sale to dealers. It requires dealers to provide written certification regarding each animal's background to the recipient. Specific items included on the certificate are mechanisms of enforcement, injunctions, and penalties for violation." this amendment to "he Animal Welfare Act was signed into law in 1966. It is the only Federal law in the United States that regulates the treatment of animals in research, exhibition, transport, and by dealers. Other laws, policies, and guidelines may include additional species coverage or specifications for animal care and use, but all refer to the Animal Welfare Act as the minimum acceptable standard." comes far later than the natural rights of mankind, and of life itself, and by noting this we can take note of the fact that "Life" and "Liberty" specifically only relate to very specific notions about government and in reality about society itself. It does not exist outside of that. So now we look at the statement and note that a third of it is ambiguous and two-thirds are only enacted under very specific pretenses (as show in the Theory of Locke cited above if you wish to read) for humans. This leads to the reality of Natural Law, it's a legal theory: "In short: a natural law theory of (the nature of) law seeks both to give an account of the facticity of law and to answer questions that remain central to understanding law. As listed by Green 2003 (having observed that "No legal philosopher can be only a legal positivist), these further questions (which "legal positivism does not aspire to answer") are: What kinds of things could possibly count as merits of law? What role should law play in adjudication? What claim has law on our obedience? What laws should we have? And should we have law at all? All these questions, though organized and articulated a little differently, are under consideration in the present entry. (http://plato.stanford.edu...)", and it entirely encompasses social behavior. By looking at this in totality I propose that it is not a natural standard, that is to say that the theory itself grants itself it's own persistent validity instead of having a validity outside of itself granting it evidence for it's existence. In a simple sentence "It's right because it says its right" versus actually existing as systems and govts. that do not respect these natural rights do not fail to function and societies that do not have govts. do not necessarily fail to function without these particular standards in place. The philosophical legal nature of the limitations of government and political discourse revolving around such have no standing in the natural world particularly because even then they exist only within certain contexts of their own field of philosophy and are in contention with other theories on the formation of laws.