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From: kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
Newsgroups: mod.politics
Subject: Natural rights
Message-ID: <12233231944.16.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Sat, 23-Aug-86 21:50:05 EDT
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Posted: Sat Aug 23 21:50:05 1986
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To: foy@AEROSPACE.ARPA
    From: foy@aerospace.ARPA

    ... Some seem to say that people have a right to do anything
    they want economically, but also have a right to be free from
    phyusical agression.  They seem to imply that these are natural
    rights.

  Yep.  Read Ayn Rand.  And the Declaration of Independence.

    I would like to understand where they think these rights come
    from. It seems to me that these "rights" are arbitrary sets of
    rules defined by arbitrary methods, by arbitrarily selected groups
    of people.

  Nope.  Read Ayn Rand.

    To illustrate my concern with a little story: Suppose;

    ... He asks me to sign a piece oaf paper ... It has lots of big
    words that I don't understand ... deeds and mortgage and 
    interest...  One day a man in a Uniform ... tells me I have to
    move off my farm tomorrow.  ...

  A contract is not a piece of paper.  It is a meeting of minds.  A
contract is not binding if one of the parties did not understand it.
  Opponents of libertarian philosophy often bring up stories in which
the population does not consist of rational adults, but of children,
feebleminded people, criminals, insane people, or people in a sinking
lifeboat.  Do we really want a system which treats everyone as if they
were like that?  Is that the most realistic view of the people of this
country?
                                                              ...Keith

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