VeloCity said:Again, if health care and education are not rights, what are they?
Benefits of a strong economy.
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VeloCity said:Again, if health care and education are not rights, what are they?
And when the economy is weak?kielbasa said:Benefits of a strong economy.
VeloCity said:And when the economy is weak?
VeloCity said:And when the economy is weak?
Have you ever actually looked into what Bork believes? Like his belief that the constitutional protection of speech only applies to political speech and nothing else?Scott SoCal said:Ummmkay. Should be easy to prove most legal experts agree that Bork is effin' nuts.
You print worthless paper money to "pay" for it.VeloCity said:And when the economy is weak?
VeloCity said:Have you ever actually looked into what Bork believes? Like his belief that the constitutional protection of speech only applies to political speech and nothing else?
"Imagine a country governed under Bork's judicial philosophy. Calls for civil disobedience, the basis of the entire civil rights movement in the United States, could be punished. Publishing scientific theories or papers that the government objects to would have no constitutional protection whatsoever and the scientist could be imprisoned for offering an explanation that the government finds objectionable (Galileo, anyone?). There would be no right to publish any book or magazine, or give any speech that was not explicitly political. Bork's legal philosophy amounted to little more than a continual apology for authoritarian government and a dramatic limitation on the rights of conscience considered sacrosanct by Jefferson and Madison."
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2003/11/robert_bork_and_the_9th_amendm.php
Boy, I thought you conservatives would be very much against all of that?
But you're right re: my claim about "most legal experts", it was hyperbole. So I'll amend it to:
I'm pretty comfortable saying that most legal experts and most people who are familiar with his judicial philosophy probably think Bork is effin' nuts.
Have you ever actually looked into what Bork believes? Like his belief that the constitutional protection of speech only applies to political speech and nothing else?
VeloCity said:Again, if health care and education are not rights, what are they?
Scott SoCal said:You are not born with a right to education the same way you are born with a right to life.
When you say it's a right, what does that mean to you?
Amsterhammer said:I wonder what Fox News and the rest of right thinking, conservative America would make of FDR in 2011?
Scott SoCal said:You are not born with a right to education the same way you are born with a right to life.
When you say it's a right, what does that mean to you?
Glenn_Wilson said:Yeah well that is ONE of the demands that the preoccupied @wall street want. Education / college for free. Because they were forced to take out student loans that they do not want to pay for.
Why not? And who says so? And anyway, who says that you have a right to life to start with? How does one determine what constitutes what is and is not a "right" in the first place? Who gets to decide these things?Scott SoCal said:You are not born with a right to education the same way you are born with a right to life.
redtreviso said:meggadittoing much?
VeloCity said:Why not? And who says so? And anyway, who says that you have a right to life to start with? How does one determine what constitutes what is and is not a "right" in the first place? Who gets to decide these things?
Well, we do, collectively. There is no such thing as "rights" - they're human-constructed abstractions. We made them up. We invented the entire concept out of whole cloth. They can encompass anything we - society - want them to; they can mean anything we want them to mean. The "right" to education is just as artificial as is the "right" to life or the "right" to free speech, and vice versa. They don't have any meaning other than that which we give to them, and they're entirely dependent on prevailing cultural and societal attitudes and mores.
Some countries have decided that other societal components, like health care and education, constitute "rights", ie you have as much "right" to access to health care or an education as you do the "right" to free speech. And it's not out of a sense of altruism or social justice, but because it provides benefits to society as a whole.
And if one really wanted to get picky, none of these "rights" exist in isolation anyway - isn't the "right" to access to health care just an extension of the "right" to life, since the latter is generally dependent on the former?
Alpe d'Huez said:I'm not from Europe, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of education there is paid for in the form of civil (or military) service. And if this country gave that as an option, one you could opt out of, I'd support it. That is, you agree to civil/military service for a couple of years, taxpayers will pay for your bachelors degree up to $X at the college of your choice.
There is no doubt that school loans have become some sort of cash cow scam in some ways. Students getting MBA's today are finding out the six-figure debt they incurred gets them a job shredding paperwork for $9 an hour under a glass ceiling - if they can get that.
I always thought it was interesting the way the conservatives were actually pro-birth, but not pro-life when you think about it. They don't care how rotten of life or little opportunities children seem to have, but insist they are born anyway at all costs, even in cases of rape and incest. Baffling to me one could be so passionate about one, and so coldly against the other.
As to Robert Bork, the last philosopher Mortimer Adler wrote an interesting view on Bork's SC confirmation hearing, and why he was ultimately against the confirmation (despite sitting on the University of Chicago Board of Scholars with him) but also on the errors the Senate Justice Committee made in their judgment. This link comes from a left-leaning site, but Adler's article was not written for it, and it would be a mistake to paint Adler as a political liberal, as anyone who has read his writing would attest. Very well written, analytical article.
Glenn_Wilson said:Yeah well that is ONE of the demands that the preoccupied @wall street want. Education / college for free. Because they were forced to take out student loans that they do not want to pay for.
It's not "for free", any more than health care in Canada or Europe is "free".Glenn_Wilson said:Maybe a certain amount of college education for free is the way.
VeloCity said:Why not? And who says so? And anyway, who says that you have a right to life to start with? How does one determine what constitutes what is and is not a "right" in the first place? Who gets to decide these things?
Well, we do, collectively. There is no such thing as "rights" - they're human-constructed abstractions. We made them up. We invented the entire concept out of whole cloth. They can encompass anything we - society - want them to; they can mean anything we want them to mean. The "right" to education is just as artificial as is the "right" to life or the "right" to free speech, and vice versa. They don't have any meaning other than that which we give to them, and they're entirely dependent on prevailing cultural and societal attitudes and mores.
Some countries have decided that other societal components, like health care and education, constitute "rights", ie you have as much "right" to access to health care or an education as you do the "right" to free speech. And it's not out of a sense of altruism or social justice, but because it provides benefits to society as a whole.
And if one really wanted to get picky, none of these "rights" exist in isolation anyway - isn't the "right" to access to health care just an extension of the "right" to life, since the latter is generally dependent on the former?
Alpe d'Huez said:I'm not from Europe, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of education there is paid for in the form of civil (or military) service. And if this country gave that as an option, one you could opt out of, I'd support it. That is, you agree to civil/military service for a couple of years, taxpayers will pay for your bachelors degree up to $X at the college of your choice.
There is no doubt that school loans have become some sort of cash cow scam in some ways. Students getting MBA's today are finding out the six-figure debt they incurred gets them a job shredding paperwork for $9 an hour under a glass ceiling - if they can get that.
I always thought it was interesting the way the conservatives were actually pro-birth, but not pro-life when you think about it. They don't care how rotten of life or little opportunities children seem to have, but insist they are born anyway at all costs, even in cases of rape and incest. Baffling to me one could be so passionate about one, and so coldly against the other.
As to Robert Bork, the last philosopher Mortimer Adler wrote an interesting view on Bork's SC confirmation hearing, and why he was ultimately against the confirmation (despite sitting on the University of Chicago Board of Scholars with him) but also on the errors the Senate Justice Committee made in their judgment. This link comes from a left-leaning site, but Adler's article was not written for it, and it would be a mistake to paint Adler as a political liberal, as anyone who has read his writing would attest. Very well written, analytical article.
VeloCity said:Well, we do, collectively. There is no such thing as "rights" - they're human-constructed abstractions. We made them up.
kielbasa said:Conversely, if there's no right to life, there most definitely is no right to health. If you're questioning the right to life which has always been understood to be the most basic, then why not question any right? Who said that there should be freedom of speech? Why would it be wrong to change that? How about liberty or democracy in general? After all, Hitler got to power because of "prevailing cultural and societal attitudes and mores" so why was it wrong? If you don't believe in objective rights, then you must also not believe in objective wrongs.