MrJonno wrote:One cannot have "government" without "rights." Government is merely the process used to adjudicate rights recognized by the social group. In a wolf pack the Alpha male and female have rights that other members of the pack do not, and the entire pack acknowledges those rights. Frankly, we don't really know how or why such governance comes into being or what the wolves think about it, nor can we say with any accuracy that wolves do not engage in abstract thought, being ourselves unable to get inside their heads.
Government is the method groups of individuals organise themselves to achieve common goals (like survival).
Yes, this is true.
For it to be government as opposed to just a bacterial colony the individuals must be aware of their role even if its just to obey their leaders.
Why the distinction? Is a colony of Anthozoa Cnidaria, which organizes itself into columns, sheets, bollards or other forms that allow each member adequate access to nutrients and other necessities of life any less of an organization to achieve the common goal of survival than a human city with zoning laws and ordinances?
They both achieve the same function; to permit maximum freedom of action of the individual organism or member of the society consistent with achieving that organisms desires or needs in the interests of continued survival. One is more sophisticated than the other, but both are well organized. What is the rational basis for your argument that each member must be "aware of their role" in the organization of the collective. Is not all of human behavior nothing more than a sophisticated and complex iteration of the fundamental Darwinian principles of evolution and species survival?
'Rights' are often legislated by government but its not a requirement, you can't have rights without a function society/government but you can have a government where no one has any rights
No, you can't. At the very least, in a totalitarian government, the government elite who do the governing have more rights than those whom they rule. Even in a wolf pack government, every member of the pack has a place in the pack structure, just as the organisms of the Anthrozoa Cnidaria colony does, and each individual member has a right to at least that place in the government structure, however primitive the structure might be.
The entire concept of "government" is at its core nothing more or less than the adjudication and assignment of rights, the allowing and disallowing of exercises of personal freedoms by members of the group in the interests of other members of the group or of the entire collective. Even ants have government, and ant government has a rigid hierarchal structure, with some ants being tasked with feeding the queen, which grants them the right not to be a warrior defending the hive, and some ants being tasked with being a warrior, which denies them the right to feed the queen.
It is the ability of the individual organism to exercise freedom in pursuit of self-interest, combined with the inevitable conflict that occurs where more than one organism is present in an environment, that leads to both government and the acknowledgment (not the granting) of "rights," or the authority to defend against intrusions on the freedoms of action of the individual.
True, but as I said, rights can be a function of nature as well, although the animals that acknowledge such systems are not capable of intellectualising them.
Rights are an intellectual concept, if you can't intellectualise them or others for you don't have any rights
Wrong. Rights exist as an observed function of the systems of organization of living organisms and how they govern their behavior.
Sure it does. The most fundamental and essential right of any living organism is the right to continued life. All living organisms will defend this liberty in one way or another, and since they claim that continued life and defend it, it's their right to do so.
Lower organisms don't even realise they are alive,
a plant may react automatically to a change in environment but its obviously not something they are conscious of.
Doesn't matter. They still exercise liberty to seek out and obtain the exclusive use of those resources necessary to continued life, and they defend those liberties against intrusions by other organisms in the interests of continued individual survival, right down to the membrane around a bacteria that protects it against being eaten for food by another bacteria. These functions are seen in ALL living organisms, without exception. A bacteria may not be capable of rationalizing rights flowing from such functions, but we are capable of observing the functioning of nature and examining them philosophically and intellectually as a part of the examination of how rights come to exist and how they are acknowledged and respected in various social structures.
Evoluntary even for higher animals their impulses to stay alive is actually secondary to their impulse to reproduce.
So? What does the priority placed upon a particular behavior by the species have to do with whether or not is is a liberty interest the individual organism protects?
I was in the nightclub district of my local city and I certainly had the desire to reproduce with a lot of women in skimpy clothes who walked past (in fact probably most of them) that doesnt give me the right to rape them through it might well be pretty natural to do so.
Actually, you have the freedom to rape them, meaning that you have the desire to exercise that liberty in your self-interest and you have the present ability to cause the action to occur, but your right to do so is constrained by the equal or superior liberty interests of the other individual in not allowing you to do so. This is precisely the conflict in rights, or the conflict in freedom of actions that I am referring to. By yourself, alone in the world, you have the right to ejaculate your sperm whenever and wherever you like. But as soon as a woman comes on the scene, her liberty interest in not having you ejaculate inside her vagina comes into competition with your liberty interest in doing so. In nature, the "government" of the jungle (nature) adjudicates those competing rights and you, who has the physical ability to overcome resistance by the female, have a right to inseminate her at will, merely because you can physically do so.
More sophisticated government structures, like that of the wolf pack, adjudicate your liberty interest as the omega wolf against the liberty interest of the Alpha female and Alpha male, and the "law of the pack" constrains your right to mate. The same thing occurs at higher levels of governmental sophistication in humans, but the root factors are exactly the same.
I just don't see how creatures want to live means creatures have the right to do so, thats not even circular logic thats just a statement out of the ether
They have the right because they claim it, not because you, or someone else grants it. Their right to live exists as a natural function of their existence, and their right to continued life depends on their ability to defend it against those who would interfere with that right. There is no philosphical strength to the assertion that a living organism does not have a right to life, or to defend that life, or to seek out and obtain the exclusive use of resources to ensure continued life unless someone else grants them that right. The right is inherent and part of the organisms existence, and while it can be infringed, regulated or even taken away by superior force, the right does not come into being merely because it's "granted" to them by some other organism.
Again, a "right" is nothing more or less than a freedom of physical (or intellectual) action of an individual organism that can be defended against intrusion or interference with by another organism. One does not, for example, have a "right" to be free of the effects of gravity, whether because one jumps from a cliff or because a rock falls from a cliff and hits you. Rights do not accrue to inanimate objects because they are not living creatures and cannot lay claim to the moral authority to preserve, protect and defend their own individual continued existence. Therefore, "nature" itself cannot have rights, insofar as "the environment" or inanimate objects. But living creatures certainly can and do have rights, but only those rights that such creatures can defend against intrusion or interference, or those rights which other organisms recognize and acknowledge as valid and worth of respect. One may have a right not to be eaten by a lion, but unless one has the power to prevent such an eventuality, one's right may be vitiated by a more powerful creature exercising its superior right to have dinner.
nor can we say with any accuracy that wolves do not engage in abstract thought, being ourselves unable to get inside their heads.
We can run experiments to see if they can plan for the future, see if they have a concept of self, ie recognise themselves in a mirror. Its not easy but nor is it impossible. Dogs/wolves are probably on the very borderline of some sort of concept of self while it becomes far clearer in higher apes etc
Planning for the future is not a criteria that applies to this argument. But I note that wolves plan for the future quite clearly, as seen in their pack hunting tactics.
There is no death penalty for not paying taxes in the 1st world (there is in China) but of course is you intefere violently with public officials you can end up dead but thats not for the tax evasion thats for violence. If someone stops you for speeding and you get out of the car with a crowbar, a policeman can shoot you dead but thats not for the speeding is it
Nonetheless, the root justification for killing a tax scofflaw is that the tax is due and the government will ultimately do what it must, up to and including killing you, to collect it. Were this not the case, the IRS wouldn't have SWAT teams or guns. They would simply back off at any sign of violent resistance and say, "Well, since you are prepared to violently object to paying your taxes, it would be immoral of us to use violence to collect them, so let's just forget that you owe those taxes."
That's not how it works, now is it?
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
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