Talk:Negative and positive rights/Positive right talk archive

message: This is a record of the old Talk:Positive right page. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 23:36, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

message: Libertarians do support positive rights, they just don't support forcing others to realize them. Libertarians support the right to education, that is, individuals may pursue an education, so long as teachers aren't forced to provide it. Legitimate positive rights include the freedom to pursue a wide range of activities, but forced labor or subsidation (taxes) to realize a right is not legitimate.
:A right that isn't guaranteed is not a right. Saying "I support your right to an education, but I won't do anything to provide you with an education if you can't afford it" is like saying "I support your right to life, but I won't do anything if that maniac over there decides to blow your brains off". Also, libertarians seem to have this strange notion that the more "freedom", the better - no matter if the increased "freedom" makes life a hell of a lot worse for huge numbers of people. To use your own example, would you allow a doctor to refuse to help a black patient on grounds of his skin color? Would you allow teachers to refuse to teach children of a certain religion? It's pretty clear that you do consider it perfectly OK for poor children to remain illiterate if their parents can't pay for their education, or for poor dying people to be left to rot on the street if they can't pay for private healthcare services. If that's your version of "freedom", then it's a "freedom" not worth having, thank you very much! -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 18:44, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Very true Mihnea. It often wonder how many 'libertarians' became so when they got their first tax bill and, as their jaw hit the floor, it dawned on them - "I know I've used all this great free stuff in the past, but I didn't expect to *pay* for it. Therefore I need to find an ideology that says it was all wrong because otherwise I'll seem like a freeloader." --Nobby stiles 21:49, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As the eminent 20th-century Russian-American philosopher Ayn Rand proved, a right is a right to action, not to the object of that action.  Thus, as each individual exists solely for his own sake, no one has any authority to compel one to provide for another, whatever the reason or the outcomes.  Kurt Weber 23:50, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Libertarians

message: Ok, RJII, let's say you're right and my statement is a "waste" because it points out the obvious. So what? I mean, what are we actually wasting? Right now, we're just wasting each other's time with a pointless argument. What do you have to lose if you let me write things that point out the obvious? -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 19:12, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Even if I point out the obvious, why are you so opposed to it?

message: "However, in practice, the enforcement of a negative right also requires positive action - for example, the right to be secure in one's home implies that some action must be taken, either by the home owner or by an agency such as the government, to repel someone who attempts breaking and entering."
Is the introduction of the phrase "also requires positive action" meant to confuse the uninitiated reader?  Is this an attempt to falsely equate negative and positive rights?  Why is this phrase even included?
In any case this sentence is an representative of a gross misunderstanding of what constitutes a negative right.  The phrase "for example, the right to be secure in one's home implies that some action must be taken" exhibits this ignorance.  The reality is, for a person to be secure in their home, another individual must not invade that home.  There is no implication.  Any discussion of "enforcement" belongs in a social contract theory thread. 
In short, this sentence should be removed.
:I agree. It's bizarre to say the least. Minhea is trying to make some kind of point. I haven't been able to figure out what it is. It looks to me like he just doesn't understand what a negative or positive right is. And, it makes the articles look really dumb. RJII 17:44, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Positive Action?" 

message: "However, critics of the libertarian view may point out that private property itself can only exist while there is a government to defend it. Thus, it is reasonable to ask people to give something back in return for the government defense of their property. This comes in the form of taxation, which can then be used to provide for people's positive rights as well."
Firstly, this is not a libertarian thread, so why is a "critique" of the "libertarian view" being raised?
Secondly, regarding the phrase: "... private property itself can only exist while there is a government to defend it."  Why has the author stated this as a fact?  Many social contract theorists would disagree.  They would argue that negative rights are enjoyed by virtue of the state of being human, not by the state of being governed.  They would also assert these rights exist whether a government chooses to recognize them or not.  That, when proper governments are formed, they are formed in order to better secure the negative liberties enjoyed by man.  The primary purpose of these social contracts being the neutral mediation of disputes.
:Yes, this is another Minhea edit. Besides that, it looks like he doesn't realize that a rights can be a human construct. For example, if two people agree to not initiate violence against the other, then they've established individual rights. He seems to think that if no one is around to prevent them from violating the contract that the rights don't exist, which is wrong. They continue to exist so long as the two continue to refrain from attacking the other, per the contract. RJII 17:52, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Critique? 

message: This article is very interesting. It shows the irreconcilable mindset difference between the W.A.S.P. (the anglo-saxon race) and the "rest of the world".
Most people in the world understand that homo sapiens sapiens originated as a community being. The cavemen could not survive as individuals but as a tribe and private property did not exist among the cavemen as scientific research has shown long ago. The private property is an artifical invention that does not stem from the law of nature at all, unlike the brotherhood of man (as in humankind). Elders educated the young even among the cavemen when private property was in several dozen millenia distant future. So it is stupid to claim general education infringes on your right to own.
The anglo-saxon in contrast consider themselves individuals (self-gods) and hold private property is more basic than the community (brotherhood of men). Their values are centered on economic value, which defines the moral guidances. It is controversial, because economy can only exist in a community, obviously, but the anglo-saxon consider communities and societies as something of secondary importance and created only on the wish of individuals. This is against established science as all isolated people have shown mental decay in a few years, even those washed ashore with treasures from a shipwreck, therefore community is more important than property.
I think the proper solution should be to create
us.en.wikipedia.org
and
restoftheworld.en.wikipedia.org
and issues where the anglo-saxon think radically different than the rest of the world could be described differently on the two sites. The main en.wikipedia.org ould only yankee turn right, europeans turn left to see the article of your like. This would prevent edit wars and the parties could remain comfortably ignorant of the others ideas.
    - What does it have to do with race?
:I find it hard to believe that private property didn't exist among cavemen. For an individual to consider the product of his labor as belonging to him seems to be very natural. Collective property seems like it would be more "artifical." RJII 23:29, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Maybe property as in "this belongs to me because I'm able to protect the product of my labor with my fists" is very natural, but when did it turned into property as a right? (i.e. the idea that "is a matter of justice than others don't try to take away the product of my labor from me - morally they shouldn't try to do it" as a general belief), which is what is being discussed in the "positive" and "negative right" articles. On the other hand collective property (as in "this land belongs to us because we live here and our ancestors lived here") is a belief supported by the natural sense of belonging to a tribe, even when the "we're able to protect the products of our land with our fists" fails. Actually, tribal property seems much more logical than individual property to a family of  hunters-gatherers; individual labor only would turn into the idea of a "product" much later, when the complex techniques of agriculture and farming became widespread. Diego Moya 13:05, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The two sides can never understand each other 

message: This article needs some serious revising. There are questions barely addressed: Whose idea is this? Where did it originate? How is it regarded within the academic community? Where are the references? The problems with this article aren't surprising when you see the comments on this page. There are two sides, and both seem to be making no attempts at any kind of rapprochement. If you can't do it, find people that can. Wikipedia isn't the place to put your own views and to settle debate, it is a central repository for knowledge. Go and find what is written about this subject elsewhere and present the summary here without emotion or fanfare. If you can't do that, go and find another subject that you're not so wrapped up in.
--Gantlord 13:46, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: And getting worse: this is turning into an uncited manifesto. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:23, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is in a bad way