[extropy-chat] Declaration of Independence

Adrian Tymes wingcat at pacbell.net
Fri Nov 26 22:36:23 UTC 2004


--- Kevin Freels <cmcmortgage at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> I hardly see "functioning in society" as a basis for
> rights. Stephen Hawking
> would not have done very well in society 200 years
> ago.

Stephen Hawking likely would not have survived past
childhood 200 years ago, so this would have been a
moot point.

> A baby cannot
> survive and cannot function in society at all.

Yet babies are rarely given rights of any sort, until
they become not-babies.

> If
> your concern is over crime
> and punishment of other "sentients", then that is a
> separate issue.
> Likewise, your voting scenario is a problem with
> voter fraud and the vote
> tabulating systems, not a problem of basic "human"
> or "person" rights.
> Whether or not a person can responsibly function or
> vote has little to so
> with their basic rights as a sentient being.

Then it depends on what you define as basic rights.
Many of the rights listed in the DoI, such as the
right to trial by jury, were ones subject to ability
to function within society.  (One can not meaningfully
hold a trial at which the defendant can not understand
anyone else in the courtroom, and where the defendant
does not even understand the concepts of "court" or
"courtroom", except as a mockery of an in absentia
trial.  Where human beings fit that role as
defendants, they are remanded to mental institutions
as unfit for trial.)

BTW, there is a second objection: the DoI is a
historical document, and as such reflects word usage
at the time it was written.  It is not subject to
amendment - unlike, say, the Constitution of the
United States, which was explicitly intended to be
updated over time, to correct and flaws that were
found after its writing.  (E.g., society came to view
the provision for slaves as a flaw in need of
correction, even though it was a very intentional part
of the original document on which much debate had been
spent.)



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