Re: Health care [was Sources of Innovation]

Posted by Roger Critchlow-2 on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Sources-of-Innovation-tp4566136p4575661.html

I think Glen was just working up a Presidents Day troll.  The day we celebrate the births of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln is the perfect day to appear to deny that "rights" exist.  

But I think he really means that their existence is problematic, and if you scan the Wikipedia article on rights you'll see how one might come to that conclusion.

-- rec --

On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 9:32 AM, Robert J. Cordingley <[hidden email]> wrote:

Glen
See http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ and don't skip the bit that says "disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind".  A right isn't a natural consequence... but then I think you jest.
Thanks
Robert

On 2/15/10 8:32 AM, glen e. p. ropella wrote:

Thus spake Nicholas Thompson circa 02/14/2010 10:49 AM:
 

Rights talk is madness.
   

That's the most true sentence I've seen on this mailing list. [grin]
Nobody has a right to anything.  Some of us are lucky enough to be in
the right social classes to take advantage of particular legal systems;
but that's the whole extent of it.  If there are any rights at all, they
are those provided by our biology.

E.g. I have the right to be hungry when I don't eat.  I have the right
to be euphoric when I hunt.  I have the right to pain and death in the
freezing dawn in my cardboard shanty under the bridge.

Everything else is ideology and illusion.  Luckily, there are those of
us who are crafty enough to exploit the gullibility of those around us
so that our rights seem more real than theirs.

 

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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org