Susan's Place Transgender Resources

what a strange concept...do you dis/agree with the notion that everybody has an equal right to exist? if you disagree, what alternatives would you propose?

we exist. but whether or not we have rights to existence is debatable. (if you disagree that we exist, then you've no "right" to answer this question, it's like voting: if you don't vote, then don't complain!)

i don't believe anyone has an intrinsic right to anything. To say that would need a 'something' to recognise that right.

Quote from: Pica Pica on April 29, 2009, 02:24:30 PM
i don't believe anyone has an intrinsic right to anything. To say that would need a 'something' to recognise that right.

I'm pretty much with Pica on this one.

Quote from: Pica Pica on April 29, 2009, 02:24:30 PM
i don't believe anyone has an intrinsic right to anything. To say that would need a 'something' to recognise that right.

Agreed.

No rights but those afforded by enlightened souls.

Existence is an accident. Not a right.  Just ask my mother.
Nature, the universe, and governments crush everything that exists.

Everyone has an equal right to life. Any other solution leads towards genocide and fascism...

First it was not your choice to exist. It was your parents choice. Second all rights come with responsibilities. The earth has only so many resources that are needed by 6.7 billion people not everyone has enough to survive. Nature law is survival of the fittest. So where does that leave your right to exist? You have to fight to exist.

Quote from: lisagurl on April 29, 2009, 04:05:02 PM
First it was not your choice to exist. It was your parents choice. Second all rights come with responsibilities. The earth has only so many resources that are needed by 6.7 billion people not everyone has enough to survive. Nature law is survival of the fittest. So where does that leave your right to exist? You have to fight to exist.

There are plenty of resources if they were distributed fairly. The Capitalist West is to blame for the disastrous situation in the developing World in my opinion.

There are not enough resources for people to live equally or even in the place that they are born. Take Phoenix for example. They do not have the water to support the population. They take water from others. In the no too distant future there will not be a Phoenix as we know it. Where will those people go? Every where else the resources are not being replaced as fast as the population is using them. Either nature or war will reduce the population to a sustainable level.

Read "Collapse" by Jared Diamond

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Post Merge: April 29, 2009, 04:20:49 PM

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The root of the global financial crises is too many people chasing too little resources.

No we don't. We earn it.

A right to exist?  Yes by the virtue of just being born.  We may not have been asked, but here we are.  So we have the right to exist.  And that includes the right to earn a better place in the world.

Excuse me for being an American, but

Quote from: Thomas Jefferson, The Constitution of the United SatesWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all humankind* are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Angie Zapada was denied two of those rights.  Life and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Janet
* Modified by Janet to include ALL of humankind.  Angie's killer does not get these right because he is an animal.

I second what Janet said above.

He damn sure is entitled to those self-same rights, and only when he was found guilty were those rights taken from him.

Be careful who's rights you might seek to take-away or limit.  Its not like your not on the top of other people's lists eh?

And, any discussion of 'rights' without a corresponding discussion of 'responsibilities' is pretty much nursery school philosophy. 

So, do people have a 'right' to exist, sure.  Do I have an obligation to work so they can eat and stay alive even when they choose not too?  I doubt it.

I feel it depends upon the definition of the right to exist. I don't believe anyone has the responsibilty to deny a persons life. Yet we know that life is being created every second somewhere in the world and we do damn little to "help" it exist. We as the rich,wealthy, educated debate. The poor, starved and uneducated don't. Why?

I remember Tekla's table from another post showing the causes of death in the USA. Most of it from life style diseases. So we have a right to life put many take that right away by conciously, drinking alcohol, smoking, over eating, not doing any excercise, suiciding. If there is a right there is a responsibilty, that many do not take.
Childhood mortality in Australia (excluding the Aboriginal Population) is less than 1% in the first 12 months. Taking African stats overall CHM is around 20%, most due to RSV and Diarrhoea. Both largely preventable. So if people have a right to life, is the right different for different people.
In the Australian Aboriginal population the CHM is not as bad as in Africa but nowhere near as good as in the non-aboriginal population. Australians believe in equal rights, but maybe not in all of them. I'm an Australian and happy to use my country as an example.
I would be interested in the USA stats for native Indian and for Mexican CHM.

So what is the right to life? You have the right to be born, but to survive? Well that's a different story.

What are the rights for the innocent in war? The Geneva Convention had rights for all sorts of things that are ignored, modified or changed to suit a particular Govn't.

What is a right?

Cindy J

On 10 December 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...

http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html (http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html)


Article 1.

    * All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.


Article 2.

    * Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.


Article 3.

    * Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Well to be crude
"WE" have totally crapped on that.
But it only happens in Indonisa, and such other countries.

:'(
Never  in USA

Quote from: Pica Pica on April 29, 2009, 02:24:30 PM
i don't believe anyone has an intrinsic right to anything. To say that would need a 'something' to recognise that right.

There are however the rights we give each other and those are both important and fragile.

they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, - it's that sort of thing I don't believe in, for I believe in no creator to endow. We endow them on each other.

Quote from: CindyJames on April 30, 2009, 06:58:10 AM
Well to be crude
"WE" have totally crapped on that.
But it only happens in Indonisa, and such other countries.

:'(
Never  in USA

The genocide committed in Indonesia in the sixties was US guided. The CIA provided the lists of the Communists to be killed (the estimate is between 500, 000 and 1,000,000).

I think your fellow Australian John Pilger did an excellent documentary on it, which is available on Torrent sites, can't remember the name...

Humans may debate whether they have the "right" to exist or not, but that right in no way extends to deciding it for every other living thing on the planet. Until we realize that, there will never be enough of anything for humans, consumed as we are with our greeds, hatreds, and fears. It's time for a new paradigm.

Quote from: FairyGirl on April 30, 2009, 08:05:10 AM
Humans may debate whether they have the "right" to exist or not, but that right in no way extends to deciding it for every other living thing on the planet. Until we realize that, there will never be enough of anything for humans, consumed as we are with our greeds, hatreds, and fears. It's time for a new paradigm.

Very, very, very well said.

Thank you. :)

We don't have any intrinsic right to exist, but I think that since we exist we completely have the right to fight to exist.  And that's going to interfere with some other people's right to fight to exist.

That's not really clear.  Your rights come from inside yourself, and you need to assert yourself in order to get the rights that you know inside you deserve, but other people are constantly trying to do the same thing with their rights, and sometimes they come into conflict.  The options there would be to either defeat the rights of another, compromise, or have your rights taken away.  Which you do would depend on your internal values, and the only one that seems intrinsically wrong would be to have your rights taken away, since it's something inside of you, so if you let another person take your rights it would defy the thing in human nature that makes us want rights.

So, I guess I think it's your duty to defend your rights, if they're rationally supportable of course, even if they conflict with somebody else's.

QuoteSo, I guess I think it's your duty to defend your rights, if they're rationally supportable of course, even if they conflict with somebody else's.

However if you want help defending your rights you need to defend other people's rights. The prime word is fight for your and other people's rights. That is still no guarantee that you will be successful.

Exactly my point Imaz.
I was being sarcastic, sorry.

CJ

QuoteDoing no harm includes not stealing from
others because your to lazy to work.

It has nothing to do with work or being a slave.

Not harming or stealing can have exceptions. Like in self defense.

The world is far from perfect and no one can count on automatic rights all the time. We can have faith that the system will provide justice but the majority of crimes go unpunished. Besides nothing can equal being killed. It can and does happen regardless of socially defined rights.

I keep looking at this title and thinking "Who wants to merely exist when you can choose to really live?"

Of course, as far as it is represented to me, the key right that people really care about is the right to screw everyone else over for one's own benefit.

Well, our rights are based on needs and laws. You didn't ask to exist, you just do.  In terms of religion (if you're a believer) you're a creation and have a right to live/ exist as it's seen that 'god created you' therefore 'giving you' that right.

If you want to exist then you have every right to fight for that existence.

[/list]

"Screwing" you neighbor over is not a right. It is a CRIME or an infringement upon you neighbors rights.

Steal a little, and they put you in jail. Steal a lot, and they make you king.

Bob Dylan, Sweetheart Like You, 1983

QuoteSteal a little, and they put you in jail. Steal a lot, and they make you king.

Or at least a award winning capitalist. They might even throw in a golden parachute.

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, golden parachute.

Quote from: tekla on April 30, 2009, 08:27:31 PM
I keep looking at this title and thinking "Who wants to merely exist when you can choose to really live?"

This, is probably the most awesome thing I've seen you say that I can remember at this time. I completely agree with you.
_

I have to add something to what I've previously stated.
If all human beings have a "right" to exist, then do we have a right to defend ourselves if our existence is threatened, even if that would mean threatening the existence of other human beings? Where do we draw the line as to what a man can do to preserve his existence?
And if we have this right to exist, is it not logical to extend that right to other things, beings objects, etc. We aren't "special", the planet, after all, can live without us but we can't live without it.
Does that simple fact, that we need something that doesn't need us, mean that that something has a greater right to existence, as since it'll probably exist even when all of mankind is long gone?

The original post can be seen in several ways - Broad and Narrow.  The broad interpretation would involve 'human rights'. The narrow interpretation is simply 'the right to exist' in an entirely subjective view. I don't know if I used the word 'subjective' correctly on account of me being a product of a society that sings songs about hot dogs having a first name.

I'm interpreting it in the narrow sense, not in the sense of community, culture, and social interaction.

It is a philosophical question which is why I am interpreting it in the narrow sense. I interpret philosophy to be a kind of science that attempts to discuss matters without tainting them with personal opinions.

My method of determining the answer to the question is by imagining people in the before times when they had baerly learned to walk upright or speak. 

So, if jolene primate-woman is carrying her baby over to a clearing for some water and is brutalized by hungry hyenas, then that would seem to say something of the true nature of existence, which is that it is a roll of the dice. The hyena has the same right to existence as the human. So, then I conclude that no person has a right to exist. They just do.

QuoteSo, then I conclude that no person has a right to exist. They just do.

Epicurus would agree. Many of our founding fathers were fond of his teachings. Natural laws seem to of been here long before political controls and man made rights. They did have slaves which keep most democracies afloat as ours started that way also. Now we have workers that slave for the aristocrats and they think they have freedom. How can an education system brainwash so many people?

Yeah there is no guarantee. I'm Sort of a pessimist. You're right about defending the rights of others but only because we're a minority. Majorities win basically by default. We need to prove ourselves more and defending other rights gives us the strength of numbers that we lack.

Quote from: lisagurl on May 01, 2009, 07:30:32 PM
Epicurus would agree. Many of our founding fathers were fond of his teachings. Natural laws seem to of been here long before political controls and man made rights. They did have slaves which keep most democracies afloat as ours started that way also. Now we have workers that slave for the aristocrats and they think they have freedom. How can an education system brainwash so many people?

I think most people find plenty of room within the confining boundaries of the system. That's why they don't think about their condition other than when there is an imminent and personal issue. Even then, they don't think much beyond the issue in front of them.

Maybe there's a lack of great scope within their vision.

Quote from: Rebis on May 02, 2009, 01:54:42 PM
I think most people find plenty of room within the confining boundaries of the system. That's why they don't think about their condition other than when there is an imminent and personal issue. Even then, they don't think much beyond the issue in front of them.

Maybe there's a lack of great scope within their vision.

If you're stuck in horribleness, what point, use or purpose is there thinking about it?
Maybe there is a lack of practicality on our vision.

Quote from: Pica Pica on May 04, 2009, 05:21:07 PM
If you're stuck in horribleness, what point, use or purpose is there thinking about it?
Maybe there is a lack of practicality on our vision.

I attempted to respond and came up with two lame responses that weren't worth posting.

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Post Merge: May 06, 2009, 01:59:27 PM

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Quote from: Jörgen, on May 04, 2009, 05:10:33 PM

I was reading this the other night but I was too drunk to answer though alcahol usually inspires me.

Came to a conclusion, we only have the right to live not to exist.

Also, we can't fight to have the right to exist because existing is not caring a lot about living or not having any strength to fight to live.

So, the only thing we can do is fight for the rights to live and then actually live if we want to stay here long.

sometimes I'm not so interested in staying here long.

Quote from: Rebis on May 06, 2009, 01:54:06 PM
I attempted to respond and came up with two lame responses that weren't worth posting.

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Post Merge: May 06, 2009, 01:59:27 PM

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sometimes I'm not so interested in staying here long.

I do that with the responses.

I feel like that with the lifespan....

Siblings  :P

"Sibs" for short.

:)

it would be easier to exist without the constant noise and news and eternal light that we have now.