Quote:
Originally Posted by BlueK
I disagree with your premise that someone exercising their individual rights has to be bad for someone else's rights. Sometimes there are competing rights, but I don't think it happens all that often or maybe we're not agreeing on the definition of rights. For example, if you were a middle class homeowner fighting your city because the city wants to take your property and give it to a developer to build a mall, the ACLU would likely be interested in speaking up for you. Only one individual's rights are in jeopardy in that case because the majority being able to shop at Niemann Marcus is not a right. The developer also doesn't have a right to have your property just because he has money or influence on city government. On the other hand, the government or someone else not being able to seize your individual property for frivolous reasons IS a Constitutional right.
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I reject your reality and substitute it for one of my own...
No... Seriously...
Think about it on a basic level. The only guaranteed "right" we all have is agency. We can act or be acted upon. The only way anyone can have a "right" other than that is by society deciding that someone else can not act in a way that interferes with that right.
Your hypothetical property owner... Why does he have the "right" to that land? Why is his claim to that land superior to anyone else's? Why doesn't everyone have the right to use and occupy that property?
It is because we as a society have agreed to collectively give up any right we may have to that land. We agree not to act in a way that interferes with his use of the land and allow him to control it and exclude whomever he choses. Short of that, what is to stop anyone else from coming on to the land and doing whatever they want?
So you always have to pick sides... Some battles have already been won, the recognition of some rights so deep in our consciousness that we never even question which side to take. In those cases, there is no need for somebody like the ACLU. However, there are some cases where the line is not yet drawn.
The missionary claims to have a right to the scholarship... Why?
Why doesn't the school have the right to give the scholarship to someone else? It's their money... It's their school... It's because we (society) have decided that the school can't do whatever it wants with its money. They have to give up their right to make their own decisions and submit to our rules governing how they will make decisions.
There are going to be times when two rights collide. Half of society feels that an unborn baby has the right to be born, the other half feels that a woman has the right to chose what she can do with her body. Both people can't win.
I like to explain it this way... The only "rights" we have are those we are capable of enforcing. Take away society's approval, and the only rights I have are the ones I can defend by kicking the ass of the person who tries to infringe upon them.