Question about Rights and the Constitution

Where do our rights come from?

Do we just HAVE rights, and the Constitution recognizes and protects them, or does the Constitution / the Government give us our rights?

Discuss!

Disclaimer: Yes, I know this is very USA centric, but the principle applies to pretty much any Western nation.

The perspective of the US Constitution is very much the former. Other western constitutions differ.

I don't think reality is so simple - do "rights" exist in a state of nature? And what is the point of an abstract right which one cannot enjoy?

Yes, the US Constitution recognizes that people simply have rights. The Bill of Rights enumerates specific rights that the US Government is not allowed to fuck with.

Since the bill of rights can be changed by the amendment process it is not true that the government is not allowed to fuck with them. It is just harder to do than simply making laws.

Our rights are innate, something we possess by virtue of our being human. In an earlier time, they would've said "God given," but there's no need to appeal to a deity.

Our rights being innate are prior to government.

Our rights are not granted by government. Government's proper role is to guarantee them.

My understanding is that The Declaration of Independence recognizes rights as inherent, and the Constitution both expounds upon what those rights are and how to create a system of government that ensures those rights are continually recognized.

So, option 1.

Do you not know this?

I believe he's asking for our opinions. And I expect there will be opinions on both sides.

I can understand the inherent rights argument, but I'd argue they're not because of Prohibition.

The Constitution provides an effective means to combat against the infringement of inherent rights. The fact that Prohibition was demolished is proof of that.

This is a topic for discussion. My own POV on the matter is irrelevant, for the sake of discussion.

But to humor you, yes, of course I know the answer to this.

Your rights don't go away even if the Constitution is amended.

You still have a right to free speech even if the Constitution were to give the government the authority to suppress it. As a practical matter, you might not be able to exercise it, but it would still be there.

All humans are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.

I like how Germany's Basic Law (basically Constitution) handles it.

It leads off with the list of rights and says that it is the purpose of the government to ensure those rights (also, those rights cannot be removed or edited in a way that would diminish them).

This is opposed to our Constitution which rights were a later addition and only passive rights (in that the government can't do things, not that they have to do things which would be assertive).

But I'm sure @K. will be around soon to tell me I'm misremembering my German government.

I totally believe in the tagline of one of the Musketeer movies.
"If justice becomes outlawed, the just must become outlaws".
If they outlaw free speech, I'll underground pirate that shit.
Until the SWAT-ies kill me, I suppose.

Actually no. Since anyone can take away your rights by overpowering you they are not innate. They are a social contract that is codified into a system of laws and rules that can be changed. If they were insured by a deity of superior power that would be something else, but the government and local authorities can be changed and the rights you have under your present government removed or added to as your societal environment demands.

In other words you are living in a fantasy of idealism and rhetoric.

"Innate" does not mean "incapable of being suppressed."

Our social contract--the Constitution--recognizes that our rights are innate. That is why the Bill of Rights isn't written in the form "People are free to do X," but in the form "The people's right to do X shall not be infringed" or 'The Congress shall make no law regarding X."

Rights can only be suppressed. If the Constitution were amended tomorrow to give Congress the power to regulate speech, I'd still have the right of free speech. The state would just be acting to infringe that right.

Better than living in a world where the state defines what liberty I have.

Technically both--we have rights predating the Constitution, and the Constitution has since granted us additional rights either as a natural progression of those earlier rights or as new rights.

There are rights that existed prior to writing the Constitution that we "just have." The Constitution recognizes some of these rights explicitly, or implicitly through its structure and other mechanisms; but it does not claim to be granting those preexisting rights.

Further, the Constitution adds additional rights on top of those preexisting rights--either as initially drafted or via amendments. Some state constitutions have even taken this concept further, granting its citizens more rights than those guaranteed by the US Constitution.

We were human long before we grew out of braining each other with sticks. Thousands of years passed before we developed gunpowder. Are you SERIOUSLY going to sit there as a rational entity and argue it's an innate right to own a gun?

You don't have the innate right to escape being fucking eaten if there's a tiger in the same room. Natural law respects NOTHING. Your only rights are what you can defend, they ain't innate. And right now, 70% of the US populace wants gun controls.

Defend yourself, or roll over. The jungle ain't giving you a headstone whether you win or lose.

Nope, that's pretty much it.

As for the original question, normative claims are not about how the world is, but how it should be. Rights are normative. Hence you can't say whether rights ARE dependent or independent of constitutions. It is purely a political decision.

You are misunderstanding the OP.

There are currently no viable alternatives to gun ownership. Guns will remain regardless of the level of histrionics leveled against it.

Yes, because that right flows naturally from the right of self-defense and the right to property.

So what? I maintain I have rights even when they're unpopular.

Exactly.

You are arguing semantics over a concept that is poorly defined. Rights are a human construct. Nature barely even gives you the right to exist when you see how easily you, and any creature, are killed and removed from this universe. Your right to communicate is reliant on your physical ability to communicate. What good is a right to a firearm when firearms themselves are man-made things which have not always existed? Where was the cave man in all these rights? Does the ocean care about your right to breathe when you are drowning in it?

Those rights are a security blanket that makes you feel better but reality is you have none of them so you probably should look to work with your neighbor more to establish you ability to have your desires rather than pretending you have some innate birthright just for existing.

We have rights because we agreed to give ourselves rights. They're only rights in the academic sense, however, because the moment enough people change their minds, rights become privileges which can be revoked, and revoked privileges become crimes.

So is every philosophical concept.

It isn't the universe or nature that owes us respect for our rights. It's each other.

Yes. If I'm born mute, my rights have not been violated, as nature doesn't owe me anything. But if someone silences me, then my rights have been violated.

Again, flows from the rights of self-defense and property.

Again, you're trying to envision rights as something nature owes me. That's not what they are. They're what we're owed from others.

Every moral and ethical view is ultimately reducible to some unproven assertion. If you say I have no right of self-defense as a human being, that is as much an unsupported ethical claim. And mine at least has its basis in nature: human beings have the facility for their own defense, and defend themselves in the state of nature.

"Rights" are a meaningless abstraction. Whatever freedoms and privileges we enjoy or not are, in practice, at the discretion of government.

Or, put another way, the distinction that "God/nature gives us rights" and "government protects rights" is philosophical only.

A "right" is an abstract sort of permission that only exists to be granted or surrendered as part of a contract. Theres nothing innate about them, regardless of how much we'd like to believe that.