True. Although there is one thing I’m hazy about. At first it seems like just semantics, but I think because people truly believe in human rights to a religions degree, its more than just semantics.

“ But let’s not mistake a ‘privilege’ for a right.”

I cannot find a distinction between so-called human rights and privileges . Clearly, since the beginning of the United States, the concept of inalienable rights hasn’t made much sense in any real way. It is like a religion, something one believes in.  

inalienable means incapable of repudiation or transfer to another

If that were indeed true and everyone had these rights, then a) there would be no distinction between free men and slaves for example or different races in America or else where. b) They are not obvious.c) They clearly can’t exist in the vacuum. If it were known that human rights existed in America for everyone, then there would be no need for the government. I mean, everyone would have these inalienable rights and there would be no way to take them away. 

But of course, this fiction was so full of contradictions that even the founders of the United States that promoted this ideology, realized that indeed there needs to be government to “protect” these err.. Inalienable rights or they could be taken away. 

Well, as the Christians say. The Lord Gives, and the Lord Takes Away, and so it is with the government. Clearly, the government can take away the rights and give them to some other group or individual, as it should be obvious to anyone who is intellectually honest with themselves and the western societies that have adopted this ideology and doctrine of human rights. 

So it leads me to a question. What is the difference between a right and a privilege? How does this differ from privileges if the government (power structure) can grant and revoke these rights?

The belief is that “a right is not something that somebody gives you; it is something that nobody can take away.” The reality is that they very much can take it away.  “Right” is a legal term. A right cannot exist outside of a social and legal power structure. It would be unintelligible and nonsensical to have rights outside of it. Hence, you need social and legal power structures to make any kind of legal rights a thing. But like in any power structure, the golden rule applies. He who has the gold, makes the rules. In other words, no power means no rights, and that constitutes a privilege because it is granted by the power structure. 

privilege definition: 

A special advantage, immunity, or benefit not enjoyed by all.
A right is reserved exclusively for a particular person or group (especially a hereditary or official right)
A right, advantage, or immunity that belongs to a person, class, or office.

Right definition:

An abstract idea of that which is due to a person or governmental body by law or tradition. 

The Witherspoon Institute’s online center for Natural Law, Natural Rights, and American Constitutionalism. This resource is conceived as an archive for and a commentary and study guide to the seminal documents of the natural law and natural rights tradition, especially as that tradition relates to American constitutionalism and political thought.

[winst.org]

They go into great detail on how the ideology of natural law and human rights developed, and I cannot see the difference between a privilege and a human right. I don’t believe it exists in a vacuum, even if many have grown up with this myth, especially in the Anglosphere. I simply don’t have faith in human rights doctrine. To me its privileges, and they are granted by those in power. If one is in disfavor with those in power, one loses privileges, very quickly. And one has to fight for it. Conversely if one is in support of the regime and power structure, one gets privileges elevated. Put in your favorite ___ "oppressed" minority.

@Krunoslav I have given some thought to this seeming conundrum and it is that indeed - a conundrum. Many, I'm sure, muse over it, as you and I do. My thoughts on it are as follows.

Individual rights have to be recognized by individuals, governments, groups, organizations, as rights of all individuals. The American Constitution does not grant these rights it only recognizes them, illustrates them and enumerates them. I would question some of the later amendments in the Constitution as being rights and would say that they blur the line between a right and a privilege. This contributes to the public also not having clear concepts between rights and privileges.

It is true government can override these recognized individual rights but only if the individual himself does not recognize his individual rights are the rights of all individuals. If he overrides the rights of another individual he forfeits those rights for himself and he is removed from participation in society to maintain the peace and a lawful, just and safe society. It is not primarily a punishment more of an isolation until a person demonstrates he does recognize those rights in all individuals.

Governments only recognize individual rights in citizens, non-citizens that do not recognize individual rights in a country are the same as criminals and can be treated that way. When in Rome do as the Romans.

Privileges generally apply to identifiable groups and not every individual, like women's rights, men's rights, children's rights, victim's rights, etc., rights to an education, healthcare, food, shelter, clothing.
Someone has to provide these "rights" and no one can guarantee them so I think they fit in the category of "privileges".

That's where I sit at the moment. What do you think? Feel free to add your thoughts.

@FrankZeleniuk "Individual rights have to be recognized by individuals, governments, groups, organizations, as rights of all individuals."

That is the trouble for me. Because it requires a system based on shared values, which American form of goverment forfeits in a practical sens in favor of set of liberal ideals.

Throughout history it was understood that there are VALUES,

• Beliefs of a person or social group in which they have an emotional investment (either for or against something), The quality that renders something desirable, valuable or useful.

Values were often seen in the context of what is socially right or wrong, as Morals. A concerned with goodness or badness of human character or behaviour, or with the distinction between right and wrong.

Morality (from Latin moralitas 'manner, character, proper behavior' is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong).

Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of conduct from a particular philosophy, religion or culture, or it can derive from a standard that a person believes should be universal. Morality may also be specifically synonymous with "goodness" or "rightness".

The Republic, the constitutional and presidential form of republic, as adopted by the set of united states (former British colonies), is specifically not based on ethnicity, race, or traditional form of religion, but on modern form of religion, known as ideology. In this case, the ideology is what today we might recognize as classical liberterianism.

Liberalism is an ideology (I call this modern form of religion) that has as its aim the development of individual freedom. Because the concepts of liberty or freedom change in different historical periods the specific programs of liberalism also change. (for example, liberalism in British Colonies has different historical roots than one in continental Europe, hence American Republic, was different than attempt to establish liberalism during French revolution)

The final utopian aim of liberalism, however, remains fixed, as does its characteristic belief not only in essential human goodness but also in human rationality. Liberalism assumes that people, having a rational intellect, have the ability to recognize problems and solve them and thus can achieve systematic improvement in the human condition.

This leads to a self created problem. People are not essentially good nor are they rational. Instead of respecting those aspects of the human nature, liberalism, much like its offshoots, communism and others tries to change the human nature to fit its ideology. Instead of recognizing what human nature is and what are the needs of human condition, in the name of its utopian ideals , liberals attempt to force people to become the mythical creatures that the ideology requires of them.

The very word liberalism comes from misguided idea that people are good and rational, and that they were historically always oppressed by some system of religion or government, hence Liberals argues that if we could only liberate people from the shackles of the past oppression, they are so rational and good that they would be liberated from previous moral and religious and historic ties and do what is best for themselves and the rest of liberal society.

Liberals do not object moral questions, but they insists it must not be forced onto people by central authority and that people must be left for themselves to decided on their own morals. They see forced morality as a form of oppression.

Hence The Free Exercise Clause accompanies the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause together read:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

Free exercise is the liberty of persons to reach, hold, practice and change beliefs freely according to the dictates of conscience. The Free Exercise Clause prohibits government interference with religious belief and, within limits, religious practice.

To accept any creed or the practice of any form of worship cannot be compelled by laws, because, as stated by the Supreme Court in Braunfeld v. Brown, the freedom to hold religious beliefs and opinions is absolute.

Federal or state legislation cannot therefore make it a crime to hold any religious belief or opinion due to the Free Exercise Clause. Legislation by the United States or any constituent state of the United States which forces anyone to embrace any religious belief or to say or believe anything in conflict with his religious tenets is also barred by the Free Exercise Clause.

.............................................

To avoid the question of morality, usually taken care of by a specific religion, founders of the United States, being liberals themselves, try to avoid this issue, but essentially creating a secular republic. Attempt to not fully separate Church and state, but to not favor one religion over another.

Off course this was less of a problem for first 100 years or so, because most Americans were people who came from already established set of Judeo-Christian values/morals, and the only problem was how to worship. Protestants and Catholics may share same sense of morality, but they don't agree on religion dogma when it comes to salvation and worship. So secularism was an attempt to live in a same community based on same Christian morality, but avoid one Christian branch or domination dominating others.

And as long as people has similar or same moral code, it worked. For obvious reasons.

@FrankZeleniuk Although the First Amendment prohibits an established church, Americans are relatively religious, and many continue to identify the nation not only as the source of their religious freedoms, but also as the embodiment of their deepest religious aspirations.

Scholars often classify this identity between ideas of nationalism and religion under the concept of civil religion.

The term religion derives from two Latin verbs: religare, meaning “to bind,” and religere, which, like the Greek verb, alegein, means “to care for, to be concerned about.”

Civil religion is the ethos of a society that undergirds a common good. Civil religions preserve "community". It’s not legal documents that do it, its the same share sense of values and especially values on moral questions.

"Culture is the compass of a people's mentalities, traditions, mores, and values Civilization is the tangible expression of the culture, representing culture's practical realizations." - Guillaume Faye

CULTURE: The set of unwritten norms of conduct that guide the behavior of a group, expressing what is considered "right" or "wrong". - Reznal Odnanref

For America , because of their shared background of most people coming over from Europe, there was what we might call the American civil religion holding the communist together. It was not the rights or constitution. It was a shared sense of values.

American Civil Religion

American civil religion is a term given to a shared set of certain fundamental beliefs, values, holidays, and rituals by those who live in the United States of America. These shared values and holidays are based upon, parallel to, but independent of the theological tenets of each specific denomination or religious belief. The notion of a civil religion originated in the United States due to its origins as a religiously diverse nation. From the Pilgrim founders and the other Puritan groups to the numerous other groups fleeing religious persecution, the American nation had a unique experience and developed a system that allowed for maximum freedom of religion for individuals and groups while allowing no one religious denomination to dominate. In this context, the nation developed a religious, primarily Protestant ethos and a set of values based on religion but not overtly based on any, one tradition.

The term was coined by sociologist Robert Bellah in 1967. The article in which the term is coined, “Civil Religion in America,” sparked one of the most controversial debates in United States sociology. Soon after the paper was published, the topic became the major focus at religious sociology conferences and numerous articles and books were written on the subject. The debate reached it peak with the American Bicentennial celebration in 1976.

The American civil religion emerged as a means to permit the creation of a distinct national set of values that was not tied to a specific confession. It permitted religion to play a fundamental role in shaping the moral vision of the country but in a way that removed theological concerns from the public arena.

But over enough generations and more liberal influence what has happened? The inevitable. That Civil Religion in America became weaker and was replaced by more and more liberal values and that inevitably let to more radical lefty values.

The United States was settled in part by religious dissenters from the established Church of England, who desired a civil society founded on a different religious vision. Consequently, there has never been a state church in the United States and individual state churches have not existed in the United States since the early nineteenth century. Religious denominations compete with one another for allegiance in the public square.

These facts have created a public discourse which accepts regular displays of religious piety by political leaders but in a vocabulary which captures the common values embraced by diverse religious traditions but eschews the particular theological tenets. Unlike countries with established state churches, where the specific religious basis of political discourse is held in common and therefore taken for granted, American civil society developed a way of discussing the intersection of religious and political values in non-theological terms.

Alexis de TocquevilleThe French thinker Alexis de Tocqueville has a special place in the understanding of the role of religion in American history. In addition to defining the economic factors that separated British culture from that of the Americans, Tocqueville found the role of religion in these societies to be significantly different. He found that many of the differences between the Americans and the English stemmed from diverse spiritual practices and freedoms. In Democracy of America Tocqueville stated:

Religion in American takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must be regarded as the first of their political institutions; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it. Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon religious belief. I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion for who can search the human heart?—but I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society.

Throughout his career, Tocqueville promoted the importance of religious freedom and education without religious influence. The importance he placed on educational innovation led to his strong defense of religious freedom:

They all attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country mainly to the separation of church and state. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America I did not meet a single individual, of the clergy or the laity, who was not of the same opinion on this point.

He viewed religious independence as not a threat to society, but as an inspiration for further social freedoms, and believed the basic freedoms of education, religion, and the press to ultimately foster the spirit of freedom worldwide.

Yet Tocqueville believed religion to be essential to human success, particularly in democracies:

Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. Religion is much more necessary in the republic … than in the monarchy … it is more needed in democratic republics than in any others. How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? And what can be done with a people who are their own masters if they are not submissive to the deity?

“I would rather try to organize politics and political discourse in a way that encouraged engagement on moral and religious questions. …If we attempt to banish moral and religious discourse from politics and debates about law and rights, the danger is we’ll have a kind a vacant public square or a naked public square.

And the yearning for larger meanings in politics will find undesirable expression. Fundamentalists will rush in where liberals fear to tread. They will try to clothe the naked public square with the narrowest and most intolerant moralism.”

• Michael Joseph Sandel is an American political philosopher.

And look at it now. Even if you want to turn to your countrymen, you cannot rely on them because they may have chosen different morals than you. And that is what we are witnessing in the West right now. It is the inevitable progression of progressive religions such as liberalism.

That is why liberalism can survive when the sociopolitical situation is nice and stable and the economy is ensuring prosperity for everyone and civil religion based on shred moral code was still remembered and practiced. But when things get hard, you need a shared moral code or the country will tear itself apart.

Whether its moral code is derived from Islam, Judeo-Christian values, Hinduism, or Buddhism, it will be similar to and proven to work.

In broad terms, the Enlightenment sought the triumph of reason over faith and belief in science and philosophy, and the triumph of the bourgeois over nobility and clergy in politics and economics.

Noble ideas, to be sure. However, as it is with all the intellects, soon they started to see themselves as being the new priestly class: those that have access to special books, know what is best for everyone, and seek to change society in their image, while they are busy not understanding society but defining it to suit their new "enlightened" set of ideas. This will give birth to liberalism, of course.

The problem with liberalism is that it tries to have it both ways. It tries to make the impossible argument that human beings have no prior moral or cultural ties to those who have come before them, and that they start from a clean slate. The liberated man is an antisocial man, to the point of radical individuality.

Liberals try to argue this point in a theoretical framework with a "human right" argument. Inalienable human rights and all that stuff, that clearly is not true. It’s a matter of faith.

And they know deep down that this is not true, so they must protect this godlike individual in order to make it possible. And they do it by creating and empowering the state. Under the excuse of protecting supposedly self-evident and inalienable human rights,

It is not that liberals say there is no way to live a just life, but they insist it is up to the individual to decide their own morals. At first, this worked in America, not because of liberalism, but in spite of it. It worked because of the Judeo-Christian moral code brought over by the settlers.

Once enough generations passed and new ideas from India and Europe were imported , the old moral code weakened to the point of losing its dominance in the community and with it the nation became more unstable. Today its tearing itself apart. That is not a bug, it’s a feature of liberalism.

We might say that: “Liberalism has failed, not because it fell short, but because it was true to itself. It has failed because it has succeeded. As liberalism has become more fully itself, as its inner logic has become more evident and its self-contradictions manifest, it has generated pathologies that are at once deformations of its claims, yet realizations of liberal ideology.

A political philosophy that was launched to foster greater equity, defend a pluralist tapestry of different cultures and beliefs, protect human dignity, and, of course, expand liberty in practice generates titanic inequality, enforces uniformity and homogeneity, fosters material and spiritual degradation, and undermines freedom.”

― Patrick Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (2018)

It reminds me of what someone said. Liberalism delivered what it promised, but it was the opposite of what most expected.

Liberalism vs. Reality - Feb 29, 2020, Excerpt from James Burnham, Suicide of the West (1964; New York: Encounter Books, 2014), pp. 319-40; 345-9.

Feb 29, 2020, Excerpt from James Burnham, Suicide of the West (1964; New York: Encounter Books, 2014), pp. 319-40; 345-9.

The Guilt of the Liberal - Feb 29, 2020, Excerpt from James Burnham, Suicide of the West (1964; New York: Encounter Books, 2014), pp. 221-8.

@FrankZeleniuk The liberal ideology is a contemporary religion. I disagree with the viewpoint of the progressive modern liberals that pursuing religious freedom is a worthwhile objective, because it is a false premise. Liberals impose their own religion upon other religions because they believe it to be the only true faith and the most moral of them all. So much so, they believe that simply self-identifying as a liberal is enough to be morally superior. They outsource the responsibility of personal morality by unloading it onto the liberal ideology itself. This is expanded by the Liberal dogma of the “doctrine of universal human rights.” Those who disagree with it are rarely tolerated; hence, those that are more dogmatic among the liberals, consider even challenging the human rights doctrine to be blasphemous.

Classical Liberalism as a philosophy gets things right when it comes to legal rights, private property, the rule of law, fair trials, etc. But it deliberately tries to "liberate" itself from assigning a shared moral code. It claims that no institution should impose morals on individuals. They must choose for themselves. Not that liberalism denies the existence of right and wrong, but rather that there are no previous moral ties to any moral norms of the past, and it is up to the individual to free himself from those moral ties and thus develop his own morality.

Unfortunately, because liberalism requires the power of the state to secure legal rights, it simultaneously says that an individual can exist on its own in theory. However, it recognizes that we cannot live without legal protection, so it grants the state the authority to enforce those rights. And so, it’s big on legal rights but weak on moral responsibilities. As we can see today, this inherently leads to it empowering either the right or left side of its enemies. Liberalism has been undermined by the very people who once represented it. Therefore, it empowers its own enemies for selfish reasons. It tries to avoid having a shared moral code, and no nation can survive without one.

What was liberalism? The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. “Classical liberalism stressed not only human rationality but the importance of individual property rights, natural rights, the need for constitutional limitations on government, and, especially, freedom of the individual from any kind of external restraint. Classical liberalism drew upon the ideals of the Enlightenment and the doctrines of liberty supported in the American and French revolutions. … The writings of such men as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Jeremy Bentham, and John Stuart Mill mark the height of such thinking.”

Reforms of the Liberal Party The Liberal welfare reforms (1906–1914) were passed by the British Liberal Party after the 1906 General Election. This legislation shows the emergence of the modern welfare state in the UK. They shifted their outlook from a laissez-faire system to a more collectivist approach. The reforms demonstrate the split that had emerged within liberalism, between modern liberalism and classical liberalism, and a change in direction for the Liberal Party from liberalism, in general, to a party of modern liberalism and larger, more active government.

In the United States, “liberal” is adopted by the collectivists and progressives, and then gets associated with the Democrats. "libertarian” “classical liberal”

@FrankZeleniuk European Origins: Due to events such as the French Revolution, liberal ideas began to advance throughout Europe in the 18th century.

Classical Liberalism

Adam Smith belonged to a group of people who are now known as Classical Liberalists.

• The rights and freedoms of the individuals as the most important aspect of society.
• These rights tended to focus on economic aspects of society.

Liberal Ideas on Political Systems

John Locke, essential rights and freedoms:

• To be allowed to participate in government.
• To be free from excessive government intrusion into one’s life.
• To be assured that no one (especially the king and the nobility) is above the law (that is, rule of law)
• To be protected and permitted to exercise individual rights.
• To be free and to make decisions on one’s own behalf.

Liberal Democracy

A political system that is based on the equality of all citizens and that has free elections, multiple political parties, political decisions that are made through a democratically elected legislature, and legal decisions that are made by an independent judiciary.

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) was a classical Liberalist who wrote essay “On Liberty” during the Industrial Revolution. Dubbed "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century", Mill's conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control. A member of the Liberal Party, he was also the second Member of Parliament to call for women's suffrage after Henry Hunt in 1832.

Role of government was to do only three things:

1. Preserve the rule of law,
2. Protect private property,
3. Ensure the security of the individual.

Rule of Law

Not based on what might happen, but rather what will happen. Based on the rationality that humans innately make wrong choices. However, he does not say that humans should not be allowed to make these wrong choices. Therefore, the government persuades society, it does not force. The idea of individual liberty is essential to the idea of liberalism.

He also warned governments of the idea of the “mass mind” approach to society, or the dangers of forcing people to think one particular way. He believed it was dangerous to silence the individual, therefore societies should embrace free speech.

Beginnings of Modern Liberalism

Developed over time to address the concerns about inequalities created by laissez-faire capitalism.

Classical vs. Modern Liberalism

Classical Liberalism: Interested in protecting the freedoms of individuals in economic affairs. Maximum rights and freedoms for certain individuals (entrepreneurs). Government rules, regulations, and social programs, are kept to a minimum, with every person acting on his or her own behalf.

Modern Liberalism: Interested in creating equality of opportunity for all individuals. Freedoms and rights favour the individual, with more individuals in society receiving rights. Government intervenes to ensure that the most vulnerable people are cared for.

‘Modern liberalism suffers unresolved contradictions. It exalts individualism and freedom and, on its radical wing, condemns social orders as oppressive. On the other hand, it expects government to provide materially for all, a feat manageable only by an expansion of authority and a swollen bureaucracy. In other words, liberalism defines government as a tyrant father but demands it behaves as nurturant mother.

Liberalism, like second-wave feminism, seems to have become a new religion for those who profess contempt for religion. It has been reduced to an elitist set of rhetorical formulas, which posit the working class as passive, mindless victims in desperate need of salvation by the state. Individual rights and free expression, which used to be liberal values, are being gradually subsumed to the worship of government power.

The problems on the American left were already manifest by the late 1960s, as college-educated liberals began to lose contact with the working class for whom they claimed to speak… For the past 25 years, liberalism has gradually sunk into a soft, soggy, white upper-middle-class style that I often find preposterous and repellent.’

*Camille Paglia

And this inevitably gave rise to the really intolerant, extreme leftist ideologies we see now. It was not a matter of whether it would happen, but when it would happen, and it is because liberalism, by its very nature, refused to engage in discussion of a shared moral code. Its integrity is jeopardized without it. Achilles heel.

And for many today, self-identifying as liberals has become a way to outsource moral responsibility to the liberal ideology itself. That is why many liberal intellectuals are so smug. They consider liberalism to be the most moral ideology, but refuse to define their shared moral code. And that is why I consider liberalism a religion. It considers itself to have the best moral ideology. To change one’s opinion and see liberalism as a flawed ideology would mean one must now find something else, and that is so scary for many liberals that they would rather defend the indefensible than say liberalism has a problem. And that is the characteristic of religions.

Furthermore, since rights are granted by the state, as soon as you remove the underlaying morality, found in religion, "rights" take over in a new socialist religion.

Progressives use the language of the old liberals, but they really act like socialists.

Roger Scruton: How Socialism got Repackaged into Human Rights

Sep 15, 2019 Sir Roger Scruton made these remarks while delivering an address to the Institute of Public Affairs, Australia’s premier free market think tank. To

“The conservative "thinks of political policies as intended to preserve order, justice, and freedom. The ideologue, on the contrary, thinks of politics as a revolutionary instrument for transforming society and even transforming human nature. In his march toward Utopia, the ideologue is merciless.” ― Russell Kirk

“Kirk defined the ideologue as one who “thinks of politics as a revolutionary instrument for transforming society and even transforming human nature.” Unleashed during the most radical phase of the French Revolution, the spirit of ideology has metastasized over the past two centuries, wreaking horrors. Jacobinism, Anarchism, Marxism, Leninism, Fascism, Stalinism, Nazism, Maoism—all shared the fatal attraction to “political messianism”; all were “inverted religions.” Each of these ideologies preached a dogmatic approach to politics, economics, and culture. Each in its own way endeavored “to substitute secular goals and doctrines for religious goals and doctrines.” Thus did the ideologue promise “salvation in this world, hotly declaring that there exists no other realm of being.” ― Russell Kirk, The American Cause

@FrankZeleniuk "Privileges generally apply to identifiable groups and not every individual, like women's rights, men's rights, children's rights, victim's rights, etc., rights to an education, healthcare, food, shelter, clothing. Someone has to provide these "rights" and no one can guarantee them so I think they fit in the category of "privileges"."

Yes. Rights imply external force to be applicable in society, hence they are privileges granted by the state and if these privileges allow for upward mobility in a society or access to more benefits, than people , lacking any other moral restrictions, will invent categories to get special privileges.

The problem of "CIVIL RIGHTS" movement.

America's Secret Constitution

Auron MacIntyre discuss Christopher Caldwell's book The Age Of Entitlement and how civil rights legislation created a parallel constitution in the United States.

@FrankZeleniuk

Roger Scruton on Human Rights: Nonsense on Stilts?

None respects religious freedom or freedom of conscience. None has a transparent system of law, and – to put it mildly – none has an immigration problem. So what does this tell us about the idea of human rights?

To read the full article click here

[forbes.com]

There is another of putting this point: human rights protect the sovereignty of individuals against whoever might wish to enslave, silence or confine them.

Subsequent philosophers justified human rights by other arguments than those used by Locke – Kant argued one way, Hegel another, John Stuart Mill another. But the shared assumption was that rights are liberties. They are there to protect the individual against oppression, and especially oppression wielded by the clergy, the sovereign or the state. Their existence is fundamental to anything that we could call government by consent, and they capture the essence of the political process as we, in the West, have since conceived it – namely as a device for protecting the individual against the group. True, Jeremy Bentham dismissed the idea of natural rights as ‘nonsense upon stilts’. But we can perhaps agree with what he meant, which is that, however rights are defined, it needs a government to enforce them.

When Eleanor Roosevelt and her advisers framed the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1945, they were seeking an impartial standpoint from which the various regimes and legal systems could be judged. The UN Declaration was to lay down a universal standard, which would be acceptable to everyone since it was founded in human nature alone. And the Declaration begins with a list of freedoms, in the manner of its predecessors, emphasizing that rights are limits to the power of the state and guarantees offered to each of us that we can be both governed and free.

By article 22, however, the emphasis has changed from freedoms to claims, and among the rights supposedly guaranteed by the Charter are radical claims against the State – claims that can be satisfied only by positive action from government. Here is article 22:

Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Contained within this right is an unspecified list of other rights called ‘economic, social and cultural’, which are held to be indispensable not for freedom but for ‘dignity’ and the ‘free development of personality’. Whatever this means in practice, it is quite clear that such alleged ‘rights’ can be guaranteed not by limiting the power of the state but by increasing it, and also by empowering the state to take as much of the property of its citizens as would be necessary to guarantee the ‘dignity’ of those who need a slice of it. The agenda has shifted from liberalism to socialism, without any indication of why or how.

Maybe this would not in itself be harmful. But subsequent uses of the concept must surely lead us to wonder where it is leading us. Take the European Convention of Human Rights, which was also adopted after the Second World War. This too begins from the traditional freedoms. And this too quickly wanders off into the realm of wish fulfillment. It is now applied by an activist court (the European Court of Human Rights) which aims to upset any piece of legislation that might have got up the nose of its far from impartial, and in any case highly politicized, judges. For example, the ‘right to a family life’ declared by the European Convention has been used to prevent the deportation of a convicted (and dangerous) criminals; the right to the traditional life style of one’s ethnic community, declared by the ECHR, has been used to install a park of mobile homes in defiance of planning law, so destroying property values all around; the right to non-discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation has been used to force an old-fashioned Christian couple who live by taking in lodgers to close down their business. Bankers have even claimed their outrageous bonuses as a human right.

All those claims can of course be argued. No doubt there are reasons in favor as well as reasons against. But they all suggest that the human rights idea has been cast loose from its philosophical moorings, and that it can be applied by lawyers and legislators to turn any grievance into an enforceable claim without reference to the wider issues of public interest. (Rights, remember, belong to individuals, and can therefore be wielded against the state, regardless of the interests that conflict with them.) The concept that was introduced in order to guarantee individual freedom is now being used to constrain it. In the name of human rights activist courts are enforcing orthodoxies that could never be imposed on us by an elected legislature.

But that brings me back to the United Nations Human Rights Council. The Saudis have already complained that Norway violates the human rights of Muslims by permitting ‘hate speech’ against them – in other words by refraining from silencing open criticism of the Koran. This from a country in which Christians are forced to conceal their faith, in which apostates are whipped or executed, in which women are maintained in a state of domestic subjection, and in which those brave enough to criticize either the regime or its fanatical clergy are either dead or in jail. The Saudis are calling for all criticism of religion and the Prophet Muhammad to be made illegal in Norway. And to illustrate their impartiality they accuse Norway of ‘increasing cases of domestic violence, rape crimes and inequality in riches’ – failing to mention that a disproportionate numbers of those ‘rape crimes’ have been committed by immigrant Muslims.

The freedoms granted to the Muslim faith in Norway are not granted to any faith other than Sunni Islam in Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, it seems, Muslims have a ‘human right’ to be protected from the criticisms which their religion naturally invites. Clearly, whatever human rights are about, in the mind of the Saudi government, it is not the freedom of the individual. The doctrine of human rights, which was introduced to guarantee our freedom, is now being used to remove it. Religious fanatics and Leftist utopians have combined to subvert the only weapon that has until now been effective against them: the only weapon that could be used by the dissenting individual, but not by those who wished to silence him.

What is the solution? More philosophy or less? An attempt to return to the root idea of rights as freedoms, or a rejection of the whole idea as a costly mistake? Take your pick.

@Krunoslav Interesting. I'll have to get a copy of Burnham's "Suicide of the West".

So what is your conclusion in 200 words or less?

@FrankZeleniuk

Conclusion:

Two hundred words or less. Hmm. Long story short. In the end, privileges, or rights. However, you want to call them, have replaced morality as though by traditional religions. Something that comes from the individual. In a liberal system of rights, these privileges are rewarded based on how one supports the state and the privileges are limited or taken away to those who oppose the state, hence the new system of values is based on worshiping the religion of statism. And that leads to socialist’s style of government. As we can clearly see today. It is inevitable.

@FrankZeleniuk Short story long:

Quite simply I see liberalism as an ideology, which I consider a modern type of religion, which unlike traditional religions, is not God centric, but human centric. Unlike socialist ideologies, it tries to empower each individual human with maximum power, at least idealistically so. When liberals and founders of the US, who were liberal, tried to create this liberated mythological man, they quickly realized that this liberal utopia does not quite work it in practice as they imagined and so they had to make a compromise. They had to empower the state apparatus to safe guard the building blocks of this liberal utopia. They call it “rights.” Whether we call them rights or privileges it is a matter of semantics. What is hard to argue against is that for this new kind of society to function, it needs the state apparatus. Founders claim is to protect these supposedly self-evident inalienable rights, but that is just a rhetoric. We all know, and so did founders that they can only exist, these rights or privileges if the power structure of the state apparatus allows it.

Now, funders of the US were not stupid, they were just idealistic. So, to try and make this new creation work they try to address the obvious set of problems. One off course is the overreach of the government, and they try to solve this problem by adding so-called checks and balances system. (Separation of powers to limit or postpone the invariable consolidation of power into a powerful central federal government as we have today).

The 4th president of the US, James Madison (1751 - 1836), understood this and in the Federalist Papers, 1788, wrote: "The essence of government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse. If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by man over man, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."

Checks and balances system can postpone the inevitable but not solve it. This was understood by some of the founders as well. The legend has it a woman asked Benjamin Franklin a question as he exited Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention in 1787. “Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?” Franklin supposedly replied, “a republic, if you can keep it.”

Implying that despite the legality of checks and balances system, it is no protection against the conspiracy inside the government of infiltration from outside, or both. Hence in this new republic that is “for the people, of the people and by the people,” the end results depend on the moral character of the people themselves.

"Remember one thing about democracy. We can have anything we want and at the same time, we always end up with exactly what we deserve." ― Edward Albee

If you want to understand democracy, spend less time in the library with Plato, and more time in the buses with people. —Simeon Strunsky

In other words, “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.... A democracy is nothing more than a mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” ― Thomas Jefferson

True enough, founder of the United States, deliberately tried to create a constitutional republic and not a direct democracy to prevent mob rule, it is still the same problem of voting. In the beginning, there was limited number of people eligible to vote their representatives in the public office and there were no political parties and no foreign entanglement. The first president. George Washington in his farewell address warns against both foreign entanglements and political parties, but even while he was alive still, both were taking off. And the rest is history, but before we got to “progressive era” of the late 19th century and investable rise of more powerful and larger administrative state and corruption, economic prosperity and American civil religion made it seems like it was not so bad. But seeds of it were already in place since the 18th century or earlier.

In the end, privileges, or rights. However, you want to call them, have replaced morality as though by traditional religions. Something that comes from the individual. In a liberal system of rights, these privileges are rewarded based on how one supports the state and the privileges are limited or taken away to those who oppose the state, hence the new system of values is based on worshiping the religion of statism. And that leads to socialist’s style of government. As we can clearly see today. It is inevitable.

@FrankZeleniuk PS..

Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism
James Burnham

James Burnham’s 1964 classic, Suicide of the West, remains a startling account on the nature of the modern era. It offers a profound, in depth analysis of what is happening in the world today by putting into focus the intangible, often vague doctrine of American liberalism. It parallels the loosely defined liberal ideology rampant in American government and institutions, with the flow, ebb, growth, climax and the eventual decline and death of both ancient and modern civilizations.

Its author maintains that western suicidal tendencies lie not so much in the lack of resources or military power, but through an erosion of intellectual, moral, and spiritual factors abundant in modern western society and the mainstay of liberal psychology.

Devastating in its relentless dissection of the liberal syndrome, this book will lead many liberals to painful self-examination, buttress the thinking conservative’s viewpoint, and incite others, no doubt, to infuriation. None can ignore it.

Download free ebook here - [ug1lib.org]

@Krunoslav The Soviet Union was a representative republic not dissimilar, in that respect, to the US. As representative republics there were two clear differences, the Soviet Union eliminated the party system, there was only one party, power was never split between parties But that never eliminated internal power struggles between factions that held different ideological views amounting to nothing more that differences in managerial priorities and who held the reins of power. Illustrating that politics follows human nature of granting privilege to supporters and penalties to non-supporters.
Secondly, it was a universal democracy.

The Founders of the US, split the powers of the State and limited the democratic process - that is the majority did not have a vote. It was not majority rule. Voting was more a right in the Soviet Union and more a privilege in the USA
Over the centuries of the existence of America the separation of powers has become weaker until we see today a union between Congress and the Executive with the Judiciary under assault. they are supposed to be watchdogs of each other and not collude with each other. The media has also left its post as a medium of scrutiny over government. If left unchecked, and the 2022 mid-terms will determine if the coalescing of all the branches of government will occur, The money is all on centralization. lots of things occurred over the more than two centuries with the Constitution that the Founders never intended and would be appalled by today. Such is the nature of government and Empire. Liberals did work to destroy it and are still hard at work to finish the job. I have often said that the government should remain staunchly conservative in order for the society to remain liberal.

In the end we are going to establish the sovereignty of nations or the global centrally controlled union of nations. We are at the crossroads.

@FrankZeleniuk I feel I must add to your comments to clarify the nuances.

"The Soviet Union was a representative republic not dissimilar, in that respect, to the US. "

It was nominally a republic, but it was not as far as I know nominally representative, certainly not in a way liberals would argue, although it reality it was a totalitarian socialist regime, off course.
fests itself as council democracy and begins with workplace democracy.

"As representative republics there were two clear differences, the Soviet Union eliminated the party system, there was only one party, power was never split between parties But that never eliminated internal power struggles between factions that held different ideological views amounting to nothing more that differences in managerial priorities and who held the reins of power. Illustrating that politics follows human nature of granting privilege to supporters and penalties to non-supporters.
Secondly, it was a universal democracy."

Under Stalin there were no competing factions, he eliminated anyone way before it even got that that.

I think the term was not "universal democracy"... Socialist thought has several different views on democracy. Social democracy, democratic socialism, and the dictatorship of the proletariat (usually exercised through Soviet democracy) are some examples.

Within Marxist orthodoxy there is a hostility to what is commonly called "liberal democracy", which is simply referred to as parliamentary democracy because of its often centralised nature. Because of orthodox Marxists' desire to eliminate the political elitism they see in capitalism, Marxists, Leninists and Trotskyists believe in direct democracy implemented through a system of communes (which are sometimes called soviets). This system ultimately mani

Soviet democracy, or council democracy, is a political system in which the rule of the population by directly elected soviets (Russian for "council" ) is exercised. The councils are directly responsible to their electors and bound by their instructions using a delegate model of representation. Such an imperative mandate is in contrast to a free mandate, in which the elected delegates are only responsible to their conscience. Delegates may accordingly be dismissed from their post at any time or be voted out (recall).

In a Soviet democracy, voters are organized in basic units, for example the workers of a company, the inhabitants of a district, or the soldiers of a barracks. They directly send the delegates as public functionaries, which act as legislators, government and courts in one. In contrast to earlier democracy models according to John Locke and Montesquieu, there is no separation of powers. The councils are elected on several levels: At the residential and business level, delegates are sent to the local councils in plenary assemblies. In turn, these can delegate members to the next level. The system of delegation continues to the Congress of Soviets at the state level. The electoral processes thus take place from the bottom upwards. The levels are usually tied to administrative levels.

The "totalitarian model" of Soviet and Communist studies historiography, which was dominant during the Cold War, follows the view that Soviet democracy was a farce and that "the Soviet regime was simply oppressive and totalitarian, and not democratic at all." Critics such as Zbigniew Brzezinski and Carl Joachim Friedrich often blamed the Soviet regime for "lacking liberty, which undermined the meaning of political participation."

Nonetheless, "revisionist school" historians focused on the relatively autonomous institutions which might influence policy at the higher level representing those who "insisted that the old image of the Soviet Union as a totalitarian state bent on world domination was oversimplified or just plain wrong. They tended to be interested in social history and to argue that the Communist Party leadership had had to adjust to social forces."

Kazuko writes that "the Soviet government did encourage the working people to speak out. As numerous studies have shown, Soviet citizens responded by writing letters and visiting government offices to address the authorities, even if there were limits to the realization of their demands and the effectiveness of their entreaties." According to Kazuko, these studies showed that "people demanded to be heard and the authorities responded, however insufficiently, because the ideas of democracy obligated them to do so."

The reason why the process leading to the Soviet Constitution of 1936 took so long, about twenty years according to Kazuko, was "deeply rooted in the ideas of Soviet democracy. The Soviet regime was democratic in its own sense of the word and this article gives it a more democratic face than what is usually imagined, especially among Western people. However, the regime's unique democratic character seemed to make it rather difficult to function adequately."

[en.wikipedia.org]

@FrankZeleniuk "...Illustrating that politics follows human nature of granting privilege to supporters and penalties to non-supporters."

This is a bit complex to argue, since tehre are many competing ideas baout this. There are certianly planty examples to support your argument, but there are also examples, although not as many where indeed "rule of law" was honored.

The rule of law is the political philosophy that all citizens and institutions within a country, state, or community are accountable to the same laws, including lawmakers and leaders.

The rule of law implies that every person is subject to the law, including persons who are lawmakers, law enforcement officials, and judges. In this sense, it stands in contrast to tyranny or oligarchy, where the rulers are held above the law.

[en.wikipedia.org]

There are examples where it was honored and where it was not honored even if it existed nominally. But when it was honored it was not because of law, but because of honor.

"The Founders of the US, split the powers of the State and limited the democratic process - that is the majority did not have a vote."

Yes, this is true, but it has a long history , strechning back to Athenian Democracy , where there were specificic conditions for voting. 18 of older, owning property, serving a militry, no criminal record or personal debt etc. Point was that only people with vested interest in the land and community should have the privelage of voitng. It was something to earn. So was the original arrangment in American Republic, that gradually changed.

Voting rights in the United States, specifically the enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of different groups, has been a moral and political issue throughout United States history.

Eligibility to vote in the United States is governed by the United States Constitution and by federal and state laws. Several constitutional amendments (the Fifteenth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-sixth specifically) require that voting rights of U.S. citizens cannot be abridged on account of race, color, previous condition of servitude, sex, or age (18 and older); the constitution as originally written did not establish any such rights during 1787–1870, except that if a state permitted a person to vote for the "most numerous branch" of its state legislature, it was required to permit that person to vote in elections for members of the United States House of Representatives.

In the absence of a specific federal law or constitutional provision, each state is given considerable discretion to establish qualifications for suffrage and candidacy within its own respective jurisdiction; in addition, states and lower level jurisdictions establish election systems, such as at-large or single member district elections for county councils or school boards. Beyond qualifications for suffrage, rules and regulations concerning voting (such as the poll tax) have been contested since the advent of Jim Crow laws and related provisions that indirectly disenfranchised racial minorities.

[en.wikipedia.org]

This is a timeline of voting rights in the United States. The timeline highlights milestones when groups of people in the United States gained voting rights, and also documents aspects of disenfranchisement in the country.

1780s

1789

The Constitution of the United States grants the states the power to set voting requirements. Generally, states limited this right to property-owning or tax-paying white males (about 6% of the population).[1] However, some states allowed also Black males to vote, and New Jersey also included unmarried and widowed women, regardless of color. Since married women were not allowed to own property, they could not meet the property qualifications.[2]

Georgia removes property requirement for voting.[3]

[en.wikipedia.org]

13 years after American war for independence, came the French Revolution.

Universal suffrage (also called universal franchise, general suffrage, and common suffrage of the common man) gives the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, or political stance, subject only to certain exceptions as in the case of children, felons, and for a time, women.

In the United States, after the principle of "One person, one vote" was established in the early 1960s by U.S. Supreme Court under Earl Warren,[ the U.S. Congress together with the Warren Court continued to protect and expand the voting rights of all Americans, especially African Americans, through the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965 and several Supreme Court rulings. In addition, the term "suffrage" is also associated specifically with women's suffrage in the United States; a movement to extend the franchise to women began in the mid-19th century and culminated in 1920, when the United States ratified the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, guaranteeing the right of women to vote

France, under the 1793 Jacobin constitution, was the first major country to enact suffrage for all adult males, though it was never formally used in practice (the constitution was immediately suspended before being implemented, and the subsequent election occurred in 1795 after the fall of the Jacobin government in 1794 discredited most ideas associated with them, including that constitution). Elsewhere in the Francophone world, the Republic of Haiti legislated for universal male suffrage in 1816.[20] The Second French Republic instituted adult male suffrage after the revolution of 1848.[8]

Following the French revolutions, movements in the Western world toward universal suffrage occurred in the early 19th century, and focused on removing property requirements for voting. In 1867 Germany (the North German Confederation) enacted suffrage for all adult males. In the United States following the American Civil War, slaves were freed and granted rights of citizens, including suffrage for adult males (although several states established restrictions largely, though not completely, diminishing these rights). In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, the focus of the universal suffrage movement came to include the extension of the right to vote to women, as happened from the post-Civil War era in several Western states and during the 1890s in a number of British colonies.

[en.wikipedia.org]

@FrankZeleniuk " Voting was more a right in the Soviet Union and more a privilege in the USA"

I still don't see any differnce between what you claim to be a right vs privelage. The only differnce I can see is that of legal terms. Legal right on paper, privalge in reality. In other words, you can have all the "rights" you want on paper, but unless the laws are enforced by the established power structure, its just a nominal meaningless term. And in reality it was always a privelage, since the goverment that can give you these rights can certianly take them away.

Furthermore as we have seen, its possible to ammend the constituion and change the "rights".

"lots of things occurred over the more than two centuries with the Constitution that the Founders never intended and would be appalled by today. Such is the nature of government and Empire. Liberals did work to destroy it and are still hard at work to finish the job"

It is true that empires go trough cycles, but in the case of liberal empire or constitutional republic system, we can point to its structural flaws even nominally so, much less in practice.

“Society has three stages: Savagery, Ascendance, Decadence.

The great rise because of Savagery [ the quality of being fierce or cruel ]

They rule in Ascendance. [ the state of being in the ascendant; governing or controlling influence; domination ]

They fall because of their own Decadence. [The word decadence, which at first meant simply "decline" in an abstract sense, is now most often used to refer to a perceived decay in standards, morals, dignity, religious faith, honor, discipline, or skill at governing among the members of the elite of a very large social structure, such as an empire or nation state. By extension, it may refer to a decline in art, literature, science, technology, and work ethics, or (very loosely) to self-indulgent behavior.]

― Pierce Brown, Red Rising

And it makes sense doesn't it. To obtain your freedom and to gain power you must be savage in your conquest. To maintain your freedom and power you must establish government or monarchy to maintain control over your people. Often this is the time when art, literature, architecture, technology and science rise. And than the new generations come along and they don't know how hard it was to obtain all this. So living in comfort they take it all for granted and they self indulge, leading to the fall of the empire.

And so the cycle repeat itself. “History is made up of circles but we see straight lines.” - Peter Senge

“How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.” ― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

The paradox of politics is that its necessary. If there is no politics, there is anarchy, but not for long. Soon a tyrant emerges. And so even in brutal environment like overcrowded prison system, there is prison politics. It is what prevents people from killing each other. But at the same time politics has no relation with the morals. As someone said; politics is the control of your environment.

Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is the continuation of politics by other means.If everyone could have everything they wanted whenever they wanted, there would be no such thing as politics. Whatever the precise meaning of the complex activity known as politics might be—and it has been understood in many different ways—it is clear that human experience never provides us with everything we want. Instead, we have to compete, struggle, compromise, and sometimes fight for things. In so doing, we develop a language to explain and justify our claims and to challenge, contradict, or answer the claims of others.

This might be a language of interests, whether of individuals or groups, or it might be a language of values, such as rights and liberties or fair shares and justice. But central to the activity of politics, from its very beginnings, is the development of political ideas and concepts. These ideas help us to make our claims and to defend our interests.But this picture of politics and the place of political ideas is not the whole story. It suggests that politics can be reduced to the question of who gets what, where, when, and how.

Political life is undoubtedly in part a necessary response to the challenges of everyday life and the recognition that collective action is often better than individual action. But another tradition of political thinking is associated with the ancient Greek thinker Aristotle, who said that politics was not merely about the struggle to meet material needs in conditions of scarcity. Once complex societies emerge, different questions arise. Who should rule? What powers should political rulers have, and how do the claims to legitimacy of political rulers compare to other sources of authority, such as that of the family, or the claims of religious authority?

"Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship."

― Aristotle

Aristotle said that it is natural for man to live politically, and this is not simply the observation that man is better off in a complex society than abandoned and isolated. It is also the claim that there is something fittingly human about having views on how matters of public concern should be decided. Politics is a noble activity in which men decide the rules they will live by and the goals they will collectively pursue.

Political moralism

Aristotle did not think that all human beings should be allowed to engage in political activity: in his system, women, slaves, and foreigners were explicitly excluded from the right to rule themselves and others. Nevertheless, his basic idea that politics is a unique collective activity that is directed at certain common goals and ends still resonates today. But which ends? Many thinkers and political figures since the ancient world have developed different ideas about the goals that politics can or should achieve. This approach is known as political moralism.

For moralists, political life is a branch of ethics—or moral philosophy—so it is unsurprising that there are many philosophers in the group of moralistic political thinkers. Political moralists argue that politics should be directed toward achieving substantial goals, or that political arrangements should be organized to protect certain things. Among these things are political values such as justice, equality, liberty, happiness, fraternity, or national self-determination. At its most radical, moralism produces descriptions of ideal political societies known as Utopias, named after English statesman and philosopher Thomas More’s book Utopia, published in 1516, which imagined an ideal nation. Utopian political thinking dates back to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato’s book the Republic, but it is still used by modern thinkers such as Robert Nozick to explore ideas. Some theorists consider Utopian political thinking to be a dangerous undertaking, since it has led in the past to justifications of totalitarian violence. However, at its best, Utopian thinking is part of a process of striving toward a better society, and many of the thinkers discussed in this book use it to suggest values to be pursued or protected.

Political realism

Another major tradition of political thinking rejects the idea that politics exists to deliver a moral or ethical value such as happiness or freedom. Instead, they argue that politics is about power. Power is the means by which ends are achieved, enemies are defeated, and compromises sustained. Without the ability to acquire and exercise power, values—however noble they may be—are useless.

The group of thinkers who focus on power as opposed to morality are described as realists. Realists focus their attention on power, conflict, and war, and are often cynical about human motivations. Perhaps the two greatest theorists of power were Italian Niccolò Machiavelli and Englishman Thomas Hobbes, both of whom lived through periods of civil war and disorder, in the 16th and 17th centuries respectively. Machiavelli’s view of human nature emphasizes that men are “ungrateful liars” and neither noble nor virtuous. He warns of the dangers of political motives that go beyond concerns with the exercise of power. For Hobbes, the lawless “state of nature” is one of a war of all men against each other. Through a “social contract” with his subjects, a sovereign exercises absolute power to save society from this brutish state. But the concern with power is not unique to early modern Europe. Much 20th-century political thought is concerned with the sources and exercise of power.

Wise counsel

Realism and moralism are grand political visions that try to make sense of the whole of political experience and its relationship with other features of the human condition. Yet not all political thinkers have taken such a wide perspective on events. Alongside the political philosophers, there is an equally ancient tradition that is pragmatic and concerned merely with delivering the best possible outcomes. The problems of war and conflict may never be eradicated, and arguments about the relationship between political values such as freedom and equality may also never be resolved, but perhaps we can make progress in constitutional design and policy making, or in ensuring that government officials are as able as possible. Some of the earliest thinking about politics, such as that of Chinese philosopher Confucius, is associated with the skills and virtues of the wise counselor.

Rise of ideology

One further type of political thinking is often described as ideological. An important strand of ideological thinking emphasizes the ways in which ideas are peculiar to different historical periods. The origins of ideological thinking can be found in the historical philosophies of German philosophers Georg Hegel and Karl Marx. They explain how the ideas of each political epoch differ because the institutions and practices of the societies differ, and the significance of ideas changes across history.

Plato and Aristotle thought of democracy as a dangerous and corrupt system, while most people in the modern world see it as the best form of government. Contemporary authoritarian regimes are encouraged to democratize. Similarly, slavery was once thought of as a natural condition that excluded many from any kind of rights, and until the 20th century, most women were not considered citizens.

This raises the question of what causes some ideas to become important, such as equality, and others to fall out of favor, such as slavery or the divine right of kings. Marx accounts for this historical change by arguing that ideas are attached to the interests of social classes such as the workers or the capitalists. These class interests gave rise to the great “isms” of ideological politics, from communism and socialism to conservatism and fascism. The social classes of Marx are not the only source of ideological politics. Many recent political ideas have also emerged from developments within liberalism, conservatism, socialism, and nationalism.
Ideological political thinking has also been the subject of hostility and criticism.

If ideas are merely a reflection of historical processes, critics argue, that must mean that the individuals caught up in those processes are playing an essentially passive role, and that rational deliberation and argument have limited value. Ideological struggle is rather like the competition between football teams. Passion, as opposed to reason, matters in supporting one’s team, and winning is ultimately all that counts. Many worry that ideological politics results in the worst excesses of realism, in which the ends are seen to justify brutal or unjust means. Ideological politics appears to be a perpetual struggle or war between rival and irreconcilable camps.

Marx’s solution to this problem was the revolutionary triumph of the working class and the technological overcoming of scarcity, which would solve the problem of political conflict. In light of the 20th century, this approach to politics seems to many to be highly overoptimistic, since revolutionary change has been seen to have replaced one kind of tyranny for another. In this view, Marxism and other ideologies are merely the latest forms of unrealistic Utopian moralism.

A disputed future

According to Georg Hegel, political ideas are an abstraction from the political life of a society, state, culture, or political movement. Making sense of those ideas, and the institutions or movements they explain, involves examining their history and development. That history is always a story of how we got to where we are now. What we cannot do is look forward to see where history is going.

In Roman mythology, the Owl of Minerva was a symbol of wisdom. For Hegel, the Owl only “takes flight at twilight.” By this he means that understanding can only come retrospectively. Hegel is warning against optimism about developing ideas for where to go next. He is also issuing a subtle warning against his other famous claim that the rise of the modern state is the end of history. It is very easy to see ourselves as the most progressive, enlightened, and rational age ever—after all we believe in open economies, constitutional government, human rights, and democracy. But as we will see in this book, these are not simple ideas, and they are not shared by all societies and people even today.

The last 80 years of world history have seen the rise of new nation-states as a result of imperial retreat and decolonization. Federations such as Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia have fragmented into new states, as has the former USSR. The desire for national sovereignty is also strong in places such as Quebec, Catalonia, Kurdistan, and Kashmir. Yet, while peoples have struggled for statehood, states have sought complex federations and political union. The last three decades have seen the rise of the European Union, which aspires to closer political integration, as well as the North American Free Trade area and many other organizations for regional cooperation.

Old ideas of state sovereignty have an awkward role in the new political world of pooled sovereignty, economic cooperation, and globalization. Hegel’s point seems very pertinent here—we cannot predict how we will appear to those in the future, nor whether what seems common sense to us will be seen as persuasive by our descendants.

Making sense of the present requires an understanding of the variety of political ideas and theories conceived throughout history. These ideas serve as an explanation of the possibilities of the present, as well as a warning against overconfidence in our own political values, and they remind us that the demands of organizing and governing the collective life of society change in ways that we cannot fully predict. As new possibilities for the exercise of power arise, so will new demands for its control and accountability, and with these will come new political ideas and theories. Politics concerns all of us, so we should all be involved in that debate.

― The Politics Book by DK (2013) by Sam Atkinson (Senior Editor), Rebecca Warren (US Senior Editor), Kate Johnsen (US Editor)

"Politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians."
― Charles de Gaulle

...braining us back to morals, once again.

@FrankZeleniuk "I have often said that the government should remain staunchly conservative in order for the society to remain liberal."

If by conservatism you mean, in the liberal context: Conservatism is a political and social philosophy promoting traditional social institutions in the context of culture and civilization. The central tenets of conservatism include tradition, organic society, hierarchy, authority, and property rights. Conservatives seek to preserve a range of institutions such as religion, parliamentary government, and property rights, with the aim of emphasizing social stability and continuity.

But ever since modern liberalism and the progressive era we have ideologes, not liberals.

“The conservative "thinks of political policies as intended to preserve order, justice, and freedom. The ideologue, on the contrary, thinks of politics as a revolutionary instrument for transforming society and even transforming human nature. In his march toward Utopia, the ideologue is merciless.” ― Russell Kirk

“Kirk defined the ideologue as one who “thinks of politics as a revolutionary instrument for transforming society and even transforming human nature.” Unleashed during the most radical phase of the French Revolution, the spirit of ideology has metastasized over the past two centuries, wreaking horrors. Jacobinism, Anarchism, Marxism, Leninism, Fascism, Stalinism, Nazism, Maoism—all shared the fatal attraction to “political messianism”; all were “inverted religions.” Each of these ideologies preached a dogmatic approach to politics, economics, and culture. Each in its own way endeavored “to substitute secular goals and doctrines for religious goals and doctrines.” Thus did the ideologue promise “salvation in this world, hotly declaring that there exists no other realm of being.” ― Russell Kirk, The American Cause

The Progressive Era

The difficulties brought on by industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and political corruption in the 19th century were attempted to be solved by a number of legislative reforms, the creation of new federal agencies, and political activism.

A new zeitgeist known as “progressivism” emerged, resulting in the “Progressive Era,” starting in the 1890s and roughly lasting until the start of World War I (somewhere between 1916 and 1920).

They say, the road to hell is paved with noble causes. In hindsight, noble ideas promoted by progressivism, gradually turned America into something so far removed from how it was founded, that one can only think of it as regressive policies, instead of progressive ones. To be fair. Not all was bad. It’s a mix bag.

Progressive ideas serve as the foundation for modern liberalism in the United States today.

The Beginnings of Modern Liberalism

Developed over time to address the concerns about inequalities created by laissez-faire capitalism. The goal is to respond to a set of economic and social circumstances that, in view of the progressive intellectuals, couldn’t have been foreseen at the founding and for which the founders’ constrained, constitutional government was insufficient. This was an argument put forth for significantly expanding the federal government’s authority. Progressivism, which calls for letting go of the political goals of the American founding fathers, claims that the constitution of the United States is outdated and that American society must progress by implementing new solutions to new problems.

Classical Liberalism was about protecting civil liberties by safeguarding a system under which individuals could independently grow to the potential. Government rules, regulations, and social programs were kept to a minimum, with every person acting on his or her behalf. Because of their outsized capital, large corporations could influence the government more. This inevitably, over time, increases social and economic inequality. Modern Liberalism, at first, argued for creating equality of opportunity for all individuals, with more individuals in society receiving rights. And they were keen on using the government intervention to ensure that the most vulnerable people are cared for.

Unlike classical liberalism, which saw the government as a necessary evil or, more naively, as a benign but voluntary social contract for free men to enter into willingly, the progressive belief that the entire society was one organic whole left no room for those who didn’t want to behave, let alone “evolve,” and thus couldn’t avoid the temptation to use the state’s power to become more authoritarian as it “progressed.”

As Camille Paglia, in her book “Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism,” elegantly pinpoints the problem; “Modern liberalism suffers from unresolved contradictions. It exalts individualism and freedom and, on its radical wing, condemns social orders as oppressive. On the other hand, it expects the government to provide materially for all, a feat manageable only by an expansion of authority and a swollen bureaucracy. In other words, liberalism sees the government as a tyrant father but expects it to act like a nurturing mother. ”

The movement began by focusing primarily on local issues, but as time passed, it gradually began to operate at the state and federal levels. Throughout the Gilded Age, the parties were reluctant to involve the federal government heavily in the private sector, except for railroads and tariffs (late 19th century). The laissez-faire philosophy, which opposes government intervention in the economy other than to protect law and order, was universally accepted by them. This attitude began to shift during the economic depression of the 1890s as small business, agricultural, and labor groups began to press the government to act on their behalf. The middle class backed progressivism, as support was given by many business owners, clergy, educators, professionals, and medical personnel who saw government intervention as beneficial to their self-interest at the time.

Hence, even in its early stages, social issues regarding women’s suffrage and racial relations were also pushed by the progressives. New reforms and laws that were passed, included labor union laws, income taxes, and antitrust laws in an attempt to curtail monopolies. The very term “progressive” reveals the fundamental nature of the movement. Always keep pushing for more and more changes, arguing for progress. Eventually, political activism became the core of the movement, more evident today than in the past. It’s not about improving anymore, it’s about the pursuit of political power and, on a broader scale, social utopia. In that sense, the ideological, rather than practical, push for progress is more forceful and far-reaching today than it was at the end of the 19th century, when the era began.

Some progressives believed that by improving regulatory operations and services, the American government would be better able to meet the requirements of the populace. Instead of using legal justifications to challenge conventions, they attempt to do so by citing “scientific principles” and data compiled by social scientists to argue their case. The progressives’ pursuit of efficiency occasionally conflicts with their pursuit of democracy. Politicians’ voices were muffled as power was transferred from elected officials to professional administrators, which in turn muffled the public’s voice.

While centralizing decision-making and giving local governments less authority may have resulted in less corruption overall, it also encouraged a distinct type of corruption, since it kept local government farther from the people it was intended to serve. Progressives who stressed the need for efficiency frequently asserted that trained, impartial professionals might make better decisions than the local politicians. This technocratic attitude toward society is still in place today and has only gotten stronger over time as technology has developed.

Far from being founded on scientific method, it has evolved into a scientism religion led by a class of professionally trained “experts” who serve as the system’s gatekeepers. The new priestly class, enjoying special privileges in the new order. This was not unique to America, and we see it today in the European Union, Great Britain and all over the English-speaking sphere where unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats are making decisions that influence every aspect of the lives of millions.

“The appeal by twentieth-century pluralists to scientific method was also ideologically—and even messianically—driven. It ignored scientific data that interfered with environmentalist assumptions and misrepresented socialist faith as ‘scientific planning.’ ― Paul Edward Gottfried

Some progressives believe that science should be applied to all aspects of life, including family, government, business, industry, finance, healthcare, and education. This resulted in a much darker side of progressivism. The Eugenics programs, a set of beliefs and activities that aim to enhance the genetic quality of the human population, were born because of this. During the Third Reich, Hitler adopted some of these principles and methods after being inspired by American eugenics. Even today, in some situations, American men and women are required to get sterilized. Compulsory sterilization in America continues to this day.

Numerous policies were adopted during this particular progressive era, including perhaps the most far-reaching overall. A significant overhaul of the banking system by establishing ‘The Creature from Jekyll Island,’ in 1913. It’s more commonly known as ‘the FED’ (Federal Reserve System). The FED is unique in that it’s composed of twelve regional banks that are coordinated by a central board in Washington, D.C. the central bank is a bank for banks. It does for banks what banks do for individuals and businesses. It holds their deposits, or legal reserves, for safekeeping; it makes loans to other banks and governments; and it creates its own credit in the form of created deposits, or additional legal reserves, or banknotes, called Federal Reserve notes. Furthermore, it also has the responsibility of promoting economic stability by controlling credit.

At first, the Federal Reserve’s chief responsibilities were to create enough credit to carry on the nation’s part of World War I. Later, after World War II, with the U.S. dollar becoming the world reserve currency and going off the gold standard in 1971, it has become the de facto central banking system of the world.

World War I

The United States entered a period of largely peaceful, prosperous growth in the early 1900s. The output of factories increased, small businesses prospered, and living standards improved in the nation’s expanding cities. More than 15 million emigrants arrived in the United States between 1900 and 1915.

Then, in the summer of 1914, war broke out in Europe between the Central Powers, represented by Germany and Austria-Hungary, and the Allies, represented by Britain, France, and Russia. The United States, which initially firmly remained neutral when World War I started, although involved by supplying the allied forces,

The Progressive Era, in which efficiency and knowledge were highly prized, was in full swing when the war broke out. For propaganda purposes, the federal government established numerous agencies with new employees to gather the mass production workforce needed to reroute the economy toward the production of food and munitions required for the war.

Three years into the war, the country was pulled into the conflict, and in 1917, it declared war on the German Empire.

Since it had not engaged in a significant conflict since 1865, the United States was unprepared for an industrialized war, and after a relatively slow start to the mobilization of the economy and labor force, it managed to grow its industrial output by quite a significant margin. Thus, a hurried expansion and modernization of the armed forces were started. The United States sent approximately 4 million military personnel during the conflict and lost 65,000 soldiers. In an attempt to coordinate the war effort, the United States government underwent a tremendous expansion during the war, consequently the strength of the U.S. Armed Forces also increased significantly.

World War I marked the end of the old European order and the start of an era that would be dominated by other forces, including the eventual rise of the United States as a global political, economic, and military superpower, while domestically it laid the foundation for the new era in American history. The mobilization of the American economy and society assisted in bringing an end to the First World War.

The post-war recession of 1919–20 was brought on by the termination of wartime production. It was a temporary but severe recession. The return of soldiers to the labor force and the conversion of munitions manufacturers to the production of consumer products led to a rapid recovery in the economy.

World War I marked the end of the old European order and the start of an era that would be dominated by other forces, including the eventual rise of the United States as a global political, economic, and military superpower, while domestically it laid the foundation for the new era in American history. The mobilization of the American economy and society assisted in bringing an end to the First World War.

The Roaring 20s

After successfully transitioning from a wartime to a postwar economy, the American economy thrived. Several industries in the U.S., particularly farming and coal mining, experienced stagnation. Overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth remained the highest since the late 19th century, and the U.S. became the richest nation in the world per capita. Additionally, it also gave loans to the countries in Europe in need of rebuilding their economies. American industry was focused on mass production, and American society was focused on increased interest in materialism.

Many Americans were drawn into the “consumer culture” by this booming economic engine, where everyone saw the same advertising, bought the same products, listened to the same music, and danced the same way. However, the decade of Prohibition was marked by more tension than joy because of the unease many Americans felt toward this new urban lifestyle and the rise of organized crime, which facilitated the illegal liqueur trade that was still in high demand. For many, the 1920s Jazz Age roared loud and long, until the excesses of the Roaring Twenties came crashing down when the economy collapsed at the conclusion of the decade.

The Great Depression

The Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 through 1941, was a turning point in American history because it led to an increased federal bureaucracy when the US entered World War II, more so than at the beginning of the progressive era. As a result of this expansion, postwar nations would subsequently come to be known for being in a permanent state of emergency during the Cold War and beyond. The state is reluctant to relinquish its authority and has a remarkable ability to continually increase it.

The time period in American history that is referred to as the Great Depression is between the stock market crash in October 1929 and the U.S. entry into World War II as a result of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, followed by the United States' official entry into World War II. Although there had been previous severe depressions in the United States, this one was particularly long and difficult.

In keeping with progressivism’s ideals and the modern age, President Franklin D. Roosevelt launched a number of projects and programs known as the “New Deal” in an effort to bring prosperity back to Americans during the Great Depression. After taking office in 1933, Roosevelt tried to use the federal government to stabilize the economy, offer jobs to people in need, and provide assistance.

The government implemented a number of experimental New Deal projects and programs throughout the following eight years. By increasing the size and extent of the U.S. federal government, particularly its participation in the economy, Roosevelt’s New Deal significantly and permanently altered it. This process has expanded and continues to expand to this day. As we enter the mid-2020s, progressivism has expanded so much that today, ironically, it’s starting to resemble the Soviet-style planned economy that it once opposed. Coming about full circle

Although primarily an economic phenomenon, the Great Depression had a profound impact on all facets of political, social, and cultural life in the United States. During the Great Depression, the radio and film industries, as well as advancements in documentary photography, reportage, and literature, all contributed to the creation of a national culture based on distinctly American customs, settings, experiences, and values.

@FrankZeleniuk " I have often said that the government should remain staunchly conservative in order for the society to remain liberal. "

That would be the notion of traditional conservatism.

Traditionalist conservatism, often known as classical conservatism, is a political and social philosophy that emphasizes the importance of transcendent moral principles, allegedly manifested through certain natural laws to which society should adhere prudently. Traditionalist conservatism is based on Edmund Burke's political views. Traditionalists value social ties and the preservation of ancestral institutions above what they see as excessive individualism.

The concepts of custom, convention, and tradition are heavily emphasized in traditionalist conservatism. Theoretical reason is regarded as of secondary importance to practical reason. The state is also viewed as a social endeavor with spiritual and organic characteristics. Traditionalists think that any change spontaneously arises from the community's traditions rather than as a consequence of deliberate, reasoned thought. Leadership, authority, and hierarchy are seen as natural to humans.

Traditionalism arose in Europe throughout the 18th century, mostly as a reaction to the chaos of the English and French Revolutions. Traditionalist conservatism began to establish itself as an intellectual and political force in the mid-20th century.

[en.wikipedia.org]

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The problem of modern conservatism is that they either use the name to get the vote, but not practice it, or they are more concerned with economic policies, rather than cultural or religions conservation. Or they have aggressive expansionist foreign policies of the neoconservative kind.

Also they seem to be content with status quote , but allow the further left to lead the way, and they are happy to concede the battle always more and more to the left … as long as they stay in power.

Roger Scruton once said. It is not uncommon to be a “conservative,” but it is very uncommon to be a conservative philosopher.

About 90–95% of academics are liberal or much further to the left. To be a conservative academic is bad for his career and it’s boring to most, since you essentially need to find a reason to have a reason … to be a conservative philosopher.

@FrankZeleniuk Why Revolutions devour their own children … By John Vincent Palatine, published Dec, 2018

The Metamorphosis of a Group Photo …

Politics is a field of carefully groomed yet nastily imprecise definitions – none the least because it is the habit of its practitioners to steer clear of commitments, pronouncements or determinations which may face the need of reinterpretation tomorrow or the very next minute. On the cheap term “freedom” alone, long books have been written. (In the next note I will cover "freedom" ) Here we want to address a different terminology.

“Conservative” or “Conservatism” is one of the most popular catch phrases in the political vernacular – yet we might have a closer look at its etymology, inherent relativism and, indeed, rotative meaning as opposed to the more superficial use in common parlance.

It derives, naturally, from Latin “conservare”. “Servare” is the root word for “servus”, the servant, and basically means “to use” in the transitive way – something to be used, as in the English word “serviceable”. The prefix “con” has the basic meaning of “together” (“together with”, more precisely) and we could essentially translate it as “something that serves (well) with”, an idea which quickly developed into the notion of something that serves well hence it should be retained.

This is the more superficial way it is used generally as to denote – in the political domain – an existing structure which should be retained because of its merits. This is the classic argument of the possessor – not the aspirer – and here we see that there is indeed a basically rotative connotation.

“The revolutionaries of today are the conservatives of tomorrow.” - Gerald Dunkl (* 1959), Austrian psychologist and aphorist.

For the revolutionary of every kind – as soon as he, she or they have accomplished the goal, must turn to the preservation of the new achievement and immediately become a “conservative”. Thus revolutionaries in due time always become conservatives – we may remember that the industrial conservatism of our time once was a revolution against the feudal system – liege-lords and manors.Therein lies the reason for the old adage that all revolutions devour their own children – see Trotsky, Danton, Robespierre and all the others.Thereafter, a new – post revolutionary – status quo is established, against which opposition arises.

This is why each and every revolutionary movement necessarily creates its own counter-revolutionary movement – as inescapable as the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

On the resulting – logically consequent – reverse instrumentalization of terror by the new “conservatives”.

F. Fürstenberg wrote in 2007 in the New York Times [“Bush’s Dangerous Liaisons” (PDF here)], in connection with the French Revolution – upon the etymology of the word “terrorist”as well:

“… The word was an invention of the French Revolution, and it referred not to those who hate freedom, nor to non-state actors, nor, of course, to ‘Islamofascism’. A ‘terroriste’ was, in its original meaning, a Jacobin leader who ruled France during La Terreur. (Reign of Terror)”

La Terreur. (Reign of Terror) - refers to a period during the French Revolution after the First French Republic was established in which multiple massacres and public executions occurred in response to revolutionary fervor, anti-clerical sentiment, and frivolous accusations of treason by Maximilien Robespierre and his Committee of Public Safety.

Several historians consider the "reign of terror" to have begun in 1793, placing the starting date at either 5 September, June or March (birth of the Revolutionary Tribunal), while some consider it to have begun in September 1792 (September Massacres), or even July 1789 (when the first killing took place), but there is a consensus that it ended with the fall of Maximilien Robespierre in July 1794 as this led to the Thermidorian Reaction.

Between June 1793 and the end of July 1794, there were 16,594 official death sentences in France, of which 2,639 were in Paris.

When it comes to communism, there is only one revolution, after that when people complain they send in the tanks.

@Krunoslav

If by conservatism you mean, in the liberal context: Conservatism is a political and social philosophy promoting traditional social institutions in the context of culture and civilization. The central tenets of conservatism include tradition, organic society, hierarchy, authority, and property rights. Conservatives seek to preserve a range of institutions such as religion, parliamentary government, and property rights, with the aim of emphasizing social stability and continuity.

No. I mean as in preserving constitutional and founding principles of a country. Not social institutions on the context of culture and civilization. Culture and civilization should be liberal, government conservative. Although liberal institutions once established tend to be even more conservative.

@FrankZeleniuk "No. I mean as in preserving constitutional and founding principles of a country."

But that is un-conservative. That is liberal ideology. To call that conservative is to accept liberalism is the new norm.

If you want to talk about a political movement, known as conservatives as I've explained that is something else. That is essentially liberalism with respect to values of some of the traditions, but only to the point of weak opposition. In the end its barely more than liberalism, since its content to trade staying in power of a liberal system for betraying tradition. For example, you would be hard pressed to find a conservative who would go against gay acceptance today. So much for conservatism.

"Culture and civilization should be liberal, government conservative"

I disagree with that very much. And history is on my side, meaning it doe snot work. I've explained why in the previous replies.

@Krunoslav

I still don't see any differnce between what you claim to be a right vs privelage. The only differnce I can see is that of legal terms. Legal right on paper, privalge in reality. In other words, you can have all the "rights" you want on paper, but unless the laws are enforced by the established power structure, its just a nominal meaningless term. And in reality it was always a privelage, since the goverment that can give you these rights can certianly take them away.

You posted a definition of "privilege" as being "A special advantage, immunity, or benefit not enjoyed by all." You should go with that when it concerns politics. A "right" is not granted by anyone. In the sense of a natural right, it is basic to all individuals and should be recognized by all as a necessity to one's own as well as every other individual's struggle in his pursuit of that which enables him to acquire the necessities to his survival - not to be given the necessities to his survival. It is not, for example a right for someone to be given sustenance in the form of food, clothing, shelter, even education and healthcare. Those things can be provided by taxpayers and delivered by government but they are privileges and not rights. Privileges are generally disabling to the individual. It makes it no longer necessary for him to utilize his ability to acquire what the privilege grants him. He no longer needs to struggle and thus his ability deteriorates Rights are enabling to the individual. It enables him to acquire for himself that which is necessary and/or desired by him. Interfere with a person's ability to exercise his pursuit of happiness and his survival and you will find your own abilities chained. Within that there is justice, right and wrong, morality and ethics. Immediacy requires the individual to act in saving himself and it is given to government the final determination of justice if necessary.

Words, especially small words, have several definitions and only one applies in each usage. You convey that you see no difference between a right and a privilege. They do not express the same concept or else only one of the words would exist. Do you see how a privilege is disabling to an individual and a right is enabling to an individual. If the government is going to provide you with a pension, you endanger yourself by being reliant on that and lose the ability to provide for yourself in old age as people have done for our existence. Great trust in government is necessary to allow them to look after your pension. If government is struck down or fails then you are lost. Looking after yourself in old age requires you to keep continually informed of the economy and in control of your future. There is no determination that you will be successful but you are not left to the vagaries of governmental control.

I hope this shines a little light on the difference between rights and privileges.

You know, politics is made very complex because of politicians being vague on the concepts of words. Imprecision or even changing definitions is a tool for them. But you know that. Everything can be boiled down to a simplicity. Complexity is only an expression of erudition.

@Krunoslav How is conserving founding principles a liberal ideology?

@FrankZeleniuk "How is conserving founding principles a liberal ideology?"

You mention constitution, I assume you meant constitution of the United States. Founding principles based on constitution are liberal principles. You forget that human history exists outside of the liberal ideology of the western nation such as United States. Founding principles that involve constitution would be the United States which claimed to be founded on proposition of a goverment, rather than ethnic, racial or established religious lines.

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

Preamble Outlines a general philosophy of government that justifies revolution when government harms natural rights.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men 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.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security"

"We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

But were these rights granted to them by the British Empire ? No they were not. There had to be a war for it. And if tomorrow if people of Florida decides to have rights that have been violated by the federal goverment of the united states, much like founders claimed King of Britain did, do you think the federal goverment of the united states would say; yes, you are "right", you have rights granted to you by the creator, they are self evident and inalienable, we are sorry we violated them?

Off course not, they would try to suppress what they see as mutiny as British did.

@FrankZeleniuk

..................................

You said: "A "right" is not granted by anyone. In the sense of a natural right, it is basic to all individuals and should be recognized by all as a necessity to one's own as well as every other individual's struggle in his pursuit of that which enables him to acquire the necessities to his survival - not to be given the necessities to his survival. It is not, for example a right for someone to be given sustenance in the form of food, clothing, shelter, even education and healthcare"

The right cannot exist on its own in any legal manner, it has to be granted by someone, a power structure inside the legal framework, otherwise is nonsensical.

You can talk about morals not being granted by anyone, since they are what drives the motivation for ones behaviour in regards of right or wrong. But right is legal term that can only exist inside the legal framework. Hence its a privilege, that is granted to someone by a third party. Usually a state. Hell, even founders understood the non practical nature of their claims, and that is why they created the goverment of the united states.

The idea of natural law and by extension human rights has a complex, but ultimately unconvincing history. It is neither shared by everyone, not does it exist everywhere.

The extensive history of for and against. The evolution of the idea of natural law and human rights, is something I posted before. But if you are curious, all the arguments and explications can be found here.

Natural Law, Natural Rights, and American Constitutionalism by Witherspoon Institute

[nlnrac.org]

...........................................

" Rights are enabling to the individual"

Its a matter of faith. One can believe in God and it might help one feel a certain way, but there is no evidence God intervenes. Same is true for Rights. its a matter of faith. Its a liberal ideology, of what you speak of, a matter of faith. There is no evidence of inalienable , self evident rights given to people by the creator. That is a liberal, religious doctrine.

Its like claiming God created the universe. There is no evidence that it happened that way, but there is evidence that one can have faith in that.

The idea that rights are magical powers as liberals like to present them, is a matter of faith. The only evidence that exists is that they are legal privileges granted by the state or other power structures.

..............................................

"Words, especially small words, have several definitions and only one applies in each usage. Words, especially small words, have several definitions and only one applies in each usage. You convey that you see no difference between a right and a privilege."

I would agree that I see no difference between so called human rights doctrine and privilege, in a sens they must be granted by a third party, but not all who have rights under the law, have same privileges under the power structure. In other words, on paper, everyone in the United States might be legally entailed to same set of rights as proscribed by the Bill of Rights, but the powers in the state can choose to enforce them selectively, hence that would be a situation where rights and privileges can be distinct use of terms. In practice, there are only privileges. Since rights cannot exist outside the legal frame work, expect in the mind of a person, at which point they are matter of faith. And that is no longer a matter of social structure. If they only exist in ones head that is.

Case in point. Even the most hard core American conservative should have seen the futility of believing in inalienable rights, when during the scamdamic their legality entered rights have been violated by the state powers and those empowered by the state.

And if you want to go further than that, you can go back to for example WWII. When ethic Japanese had their privileges taken away as American citizens because they were suspected of treason after Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese Navy.

Japanese American internment camps were located mainly in western U.S. states. The first internment camp in operation was Manzanar, located in California. Between 1942 and 1945 a total of 10 camps were opened, holding approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans for varying periods of time in California, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Arkansas.

[en.wikipedia.org]

MKUltra program , run by the CIA. illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), intended to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used in interrogations to weaken individuals and force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture. It began in 1953, was reduced in scope in 1964 and 1967, and was halted in 1973. MKUltra used numerous methods to manipulate its subjects' mental states and brain functions, such as the covert administration of high doses of psychoactive drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals, electroshocks, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, and verbal and sexual abuse, in addition to other forms of torture.

[en.wikipedia.org]

I can give you many more examples, but I don't see people being spared this because of human rights, I see people being spared because of privileges, granted by those in power. Same reason why so many corrupt officials are not on trial or in jail. Should the rule of law apply the same. If human rights were indeed self evident and inalienable, than they would protect everyone. And clearly that is not the case. Hence I see rights as legal term, but in practice and enforcement its just privileges.

@FrankZeleniuk "You know, politics is made very complex because of politicians being vague on the concepts of words. Imprecision or even changing definitions is a tool for them. But you know that. Everything can be boiled down to a simplicity. Complexity is only an expression of erudition."

“Roman laws tended to be long and complex - one of Rome's most enduring legacies to the world is cumbersome and tortuous legal prose.” ― Adrian Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life Of A Colossus

America has no shortage of lawyers, and the truth is that if we didn't have lawyers we would not need them.

“The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced. - ”Frank Zappa

“Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion.

Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.

They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution.

They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead.” ― Henry Wallace

“The essence of fascism is to make laws forbidding everything and then enforce them selectively against your enemies.” ― John Lescroart, A Plague of Secrets

Alex Jones in recent example is precisely this. Hence America is a banana republic, a fascist styled goverment. US constitution is the supreme law of the land, that is correct, but it is not a document that is outside the law. In other words, its not like holy books that deal with metaphysics and morality, its a legal document. And once America lost its religious values not part of liberal doctrine, all that is left is liberalism and ugly place it leads to.

When men are pure, laws are not needed; when men are corrupt, laws are broken.
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)

Corruption in American politics is not something constitution solves, but moral convictions that come from other sources, outside of American constitution or any of its laws. In other words, when American society and political scene was least corrupt, it was not because of the constitution, it was because of moral convictions that by and large came from Judeo-Christian tradition. Once that was replaced by other conditions, morality was no longer based on personal responsibility, but on pursuit of social utopia. And that is what we have now.

In the name of saving the planet and fighting climate change, anything is permissible and in the view of the social justice warriors , morality permissible. The means justify the end. Hence rule of law is no longer something to honor, because its fair, but it is something to exploit to defeat your enemies. After all you are saving the world, so its justified. Its social justice, the communist way.

So much for human rights as protection. Only state can protect you, because they have the power. And they grant privileges to those who help the, stay in power.

@Krunoslav As usual very interesting reading.

Even the most hard core American conservative should have seen the futility of believing in inalienable rights, when during the scamdamic their legality entered rights have been violated by the state powers and those empowered by the state.

And if you want to go further than that, you can go back to for example WWII. When ethic Japanese had their privileges taken away as American citizens because they were suspected of treason after Pearl Harbor attack by the Japanese Navy.

I hope you read this before discounting it completely after the first sentence.

There are, in my view, Inalienable rights. Rights the individual maintains.

Even if government does not recognize them or mutes them or some individual aggresses against another. The individual interred in a concentration camp still attempts to keep himself alive. He uses whatever ability he can to improve his position. Certainly it is under different circumstances, He will try to escape the oppression.He will craft a weapon for himself out of what he can. He will develop a system of money, perhaps using cigarettes. He will associate with certain people and not others. His rights are suppressed but not taken away or given. The only way his inalienable rights are taken way is if he himself gives them up. What government wants is for you to submit by giving up your inalienable rights. It is you who do so and only you. Only when a person starts saying he can do nothing against the big powerful government has he ceded his inalienable rights. And this is the point where he has given up and become a shell of a human being, a mindless slave. I would say men are ill educated and weak today and the majority will submit to tyranny. Those that won't submit and give up their inalienable rights are the only ones who will try to escape.

During the pandemic, I refused to get vaccinated. I needed more information than what was available early on and I didn't like that the vaccine was fast-tracked through the approval process.
I did not cede my right to decide for myself, make my own choices, devalue my freedom. The government can make noises, jump up and down, threaten fines and incarceration but I did not cede my right. Many did make the choice to cede their right. It was their choice and I'm sure some even today are vilifying those that didn't make the same choice.

Point being that an individual decides to give up his inalienable rights. The government does not take them away. Enough brave men who don't will demand a change in government and it may progress to the point of revolution

The founders of the Constitution figured that out and bravely fought the more powerful English Empire before ceding their rights and bowing to unjust taxation. They were very brave men in that time. They recognized their inalienable rights.

@FrankZeleniuk Thanks.

I once again, must disagree and talk history.

"There are, in my view, Inalienable rights. Rights the individual maintains. His rights are suppressed but not taken away or given. The only way his inalienable rights are taken way is if he himself gives them up. "

See, that makes no sense to me. Rights cannot exist outside of established legal framework. They would be non nonsensical. Your morality comes both from without and from within. Rights are not like that. This is the confusion I think. Rights only exist if there is a legal framework and parties agree on them. otherwise there would be no function or use for them, they would be nonsensical.

If you are walking alone in middle of a desert, the desert does not grant you or care about your rights. It will kill you unless you respect it. You need a civilization for rights.

Also rights are very much transferable. Once a slave in the United States had no rights and than he was granted rights. Once women and some men did not have a right to vote, and than they did etc.

The idea that there are rights that cannot be transferred to others (inalienable rights), simply does not hold up to common sense or scrutiny of overwhelming evidence. And since it is the power structure that assigns who and when and what will have these rights, I see no difference between rights and privileges in society. Why is Jan 6th entrapment so different than that what bankers are doing since let's say 2008? Aren't they both citizens who have same rights? Nope, one has the privileges and the other does not.

I don't know how else to explain it, The idea that there are some kind of rights that exist no matter what oppression or status in society one has, and they are always in someones head, I can understand that. But there are a lot of insane people around who have a lot of strange ideas in their head that do not correspond to reality. Some even think men can menstruate. Does not make it so.

"Only when a person starts saying he can do nothing against the big powerful government has he ceded his inalienable rights"

That is something else you are talking about. its not "rights". Hope, resistance, defiance etc. Lot of terms we can use that are applicable, rights are not one of them. I'am afraid you are misusing the term.

You can read something like Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

"Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Based on his own experience and the stories of his patients, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. At the heart of his theory, known as logotherapy, is a conviction that the primary human drive is not pleasure but the pursuit of what we find meaningful. Man's Search for Meaning has become one of the most influential books in America; it continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living."

Now one can find purpose in hope for fighting for some ideal, like "human rights", but one cannot obtain or maintain those rights while he is in concentration camp. It would be delusional to think otherwise.

"Point being that an individual decides to give up his inalienable rights. The government does not take them away. Enough brave men who don't will demand a change in government and it may progress to the point of revolution"

The goverment takes the rights away, plenty of people who can testify of this. Now, if an individual wants to fight for a system where the agreed upon rights are honored by all parties, that's different, but the power to give or take away legal rights come from those who are in power. Period.

Hope about something else is if I'm generous, misguided idealism that has no basis in reality. It can be a goal of one to establish a society that honors the rights, but one can lose them very quickly if powers that be choose it.

"The founders of the Constitution figured that out and bravely fought the more powerful English Empire before ceding their rights and bowing to unjust taxation. They were very brave men in that time. They recognized their inalienable rights."

Unfortunately this is another myth spread in America that is getting out of hand. Have you actually ever checked the truth behind this myth?

None of what you said, when put in context was correct. Its a myth. And to be honest I've debunked this many times before and one can read extensively on how things were in reality, not in mythology, so if you are truly interested I would suggest you do your own research. All I will say that its a myth. Not reality. Just like myth of inalienable rights. And since it come from the same people the so called "founding fathers" it should be no surprise. Even the term "founding fathers" should give you the hint about the mythological nature of this stories. Founding fathers. As if their are inflatable, brave superhuman, mythological beings. Not true. But I understand every nation need sits origin myth, God knows every country tends to have one. However, American one is well documents, unlike one that happened thousands of yours ago, therefore its only a myth to those who choose to accept it. These that investigate, understand the reality of the situation. I would suggest you investigate to see where the myth diverges from reality.

You can start with the lame story about taxes. That one is easy to put in context.

@Krunoslav

OK. Here is the hardcore truth. Yes, government will want you to give up your inalienable rights. They prefer you to be a mindless automaton, a slave. They use force, coercion, deceit, indoctrination, intimidation, propaganda and the weight of authority so you will give up your rights.

You are of the opinion they take those rights away. It's a long road before they will be able to get the people to give up those rights.

Yes, history will tell you the State crushes the individual and takes away his rights. What's the difference?

Continuing the lie that the State has the power to take them away does just that - continues the lie the State can take them away. Why not tell a better lie, that the State can only do that when the people are ignorant of those rights, when the State confuses the people by calling them "privileges" or some such, and forces or terrorizes them to give them up. Rights are not given up easily.

We don't have women's privileges or men's privileges, or abortion privileges or LGBTQ privileges, or Parent's privileges, or education privileges, or healthcare privileges, or voting privileges, etc. which is what they are but they are confusedly called "rights" - and for a reason. They are not rights. It is much easier for the State to get the people to give up a privilege than it is to get people to give up a right. . Privileges are not inalienable and are only granted to a select group. Let's keep those two terms well separated.

You can continue in your conviction and governments, dictators and politicians will continue to tell you, you don't have any inalienable rights. Historians will willingly, or perhaps confusedly, repeat the lie. We can live that lie or all agree inalienable rights must exist if we are to create a sustainable, just and reasonable civilization. Inalienable rights are the superior lie.
Maintain the lie States give and take rights and States for as long as there are States will give and take rights. The State after all is a social construct.
That's all I have to offer on this subject. The final word is yours.

@FrankZeleniuk I sill disagree with the human rights doctrine, but I'm happy to agree to disagree with you on this point. Cheers! I think we exchanged enough to make our points on each side. In the end we probably are best to agree to disagree on this. Where you see rights as innate and for people to own, I don't see it like that. I see it as privileges the powers that be give or deny. Its not for people to give up on something they don't have power over in the first place. They might feel they do, but evidence shows the contrary. Hence I consider liberal doctrine of human rights a religious dogma, that I do not subscribe to, personally.