What are rights?

**AirRick101** · 09-03-2005 07:45 AM

It's our right, it's my right, you don't have a right to do or say that, don't intrude on my rights!

You hear this all the time, but I question the idea of where we get our ideas of rights from. I feel most people just parrot what society feeds them as rights and unknowingly adopt it without much thought. But I thought where do rights come from, from reason, or something else, perhaps? The more I look in it, I feel that rights are relative. They may be collectively agreed on, but they are relative, and none are concrete, except when THAT is agreed on. Still, it's ultimately an arbitrary concept, and only functions when the entire society agree on boundaries that everybody wishes to have.

**Rakkantekimusouka** · 09-03-2005 11:39 AM

I think you just answered your own question there...rights are things that the majority of people agree that everyone should have based on, among other things, logic and reason. Sure, there's a lot of emotional bantering and wish-wash sometimes, but that all boils down to some people not thinking other people are human beings enough to deserve the civil rights that it makes common sense for us all to have.

**O-Nieronaut** · 09-04-2005 08:20 AM

At least here in the US, rights are those activities which people in power have not yet figured out how to control in mass.

**Nirvana Starseed** · 09-04-2005 09:42 AM

Rights. Are like the concepts of "right" and "wrong" in relation to our definition of how we think we should treat others and what we should ideally have as our basic freedoms in relation to living with others in a society.

True rights cannot be relative anymore than the truth can be relative. There is only one truth and nothing else is true. In the same way, there is only 1 proper definition of what people should have as their 'right.' And what you shouldn't do that will take away the freedoms or right of others.

How you see "rights" will depend on your understanding. If you have the highest understanding you will have the highest definition of "peoples rights"

When someone says "you have no right" to do that. Or claims. "This is my right". What is actually happening is they are annoucing their understanding about what is it ideally that every person should have, or not have as their 'right'. As explained above. When emotions get mixed up in this and people get confused and forget about this, there will be a missunderstanding about what the concept 'rights' actually are. In the same way there is a misunderstanding about the concepts of what 'right' and 'wrong' actually are. What they are, are concepts relative to ones understanding of truth, but not relative of themselves.

You demonstrate what you think it 'right' through your actions. You talk about what you say you think about what is right. But if your actions contradict what you say, then you reveal the truth about what you believe through your actions, because what you believe results in what you act out. It is the driving force. What you believe and live is then what matters the most. Not just what you say or think you believe and live. Living something is another thing than just saying something. That's why it has been said actions speak louder than words. It is a truism.

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