dukemeiser: God’s rights don’t include access to other people’s money.

I agree.

So what’s that got to do with the rights of suspected terrorists or undocumented immigrants? Did you think that expecting not to be tortured, not to be locked in a cage forever without charges, not to be stopped at government checkpoints for the “Ihre Papiere, bitte” treatment, or not to be rousted out of your home and disappeared into some hellhole detention center, is somehow a matter of expecting “access to other people’s money”? If so, how?

apolitical,

To “OWN LAND” is a civil not a natural right? Really? The traditional constitutional theory that conservatives claim to want to uphold has typically held the right to own and be secure in your own property is a natural right — in fact, one of the paradigmatic natural rights, alongside “LIFE” and “LIBERTY.” If you beg to differ with the view, and make basic security in one’s own property contingent on government recognition of status, well, OK, but you ought to say something about why.

I also would suggest that it’s an odd sort of theory that would make some of the rights that warhawk conservatives wish to deny to terrorist suspects (e.g. the right NOT TO BE TORTURED, the right NOT TO BE LOCKED IN PRISON FOREVER WITHOUT CHARGES, etc.) civil rather than natural rights. In fact, the latter seems an obvious and immediate application of the natural right of liberty; nominally acknowledging the right while allowing people to be locked in prison forever without charges would make the right of liberty completely vacuous. Again, if you beg to differ with the view, OK, but you’re diverging pretty radically from what people have traditionally wanted to say about natural rights, and you ought to say something about why.

If, on the other hand, natural rights do include the right to own land, the right not to be tortured, the right not to be locked in a cage forever without charges, etc., then it seems like that ought to substantially affect what supposedly pro-natural-rights conservatives can consistently endorse as government policy against undocumented immigrants and foreigners suspected of terrorist connections. Either the view strips down the scope of natural rights to the point of being indistinguishable from totalitarianism, or else it is inconsistent (as per Roderick), or, well, there’s always the theo-nationalist Synthesis.

It may seem to be a contradiction, but this is really a matter for dialectic.

Thesis: Our constitutional rights aren’t granted to us by government. Our rights come from God, and the Constitution simply recognises them.

Antithesis: Illegal immigrants and terrorist suspects don’t have constitutional rights because they’re not American citizens.

Synthesis: Only American citizens were created equal, because God only cares about Americans.

You might worry that this is an uncharitable reconstruction of the argument. But I think that the Synthesis does seem to be a pretty accurate representation of common American conservative views.

... A group of insurrectionary Anarchists, active in the US, who were inspired by the Italian immigrant Luigi Galleani. They carried out a large-scale campaign

... Well, OK, whatever. If you have some particular case in mind where my choice to use the descriptively accurate term "slave driver" is making my analysis

... Um. Point of order. As the terms are usually used in philosophy, utilitarians *are* moral realists -- that is, they believe that statements of moral

... Right; usually passed just about the same time. The Wobs were usually more or less the intended target of both kinds of laws (although on the Criminal

... No, there's not, and it's certainly true that if enough people value oppression strongly enough to be willing to pay the cost of inflicting it, then you

... Many if not most states have similar laws. Oklahoma's law is a bit unusual, in that you don't usually see examples with any legislative history at all as

Roderick: … would you run a headline saying that the find “challenges the law of gravity”?

We are talking about the O-A News here. Don’t give them any ideas.