If states have rights where do those come from? Your non-god? Does ISIS(L) have rights? They've declared themselves a state just as the United States declared itself a state, just as Israel declared itself a state. I certainly don't think ISIS(L) has "a right to exist" though it's no less a self-declared state than any other. If it could be overthrown and a less oppressive, homicidal government installed, even by outside intervention I'd be thrilled.
The declaration that "Israel has a right to exist" is a meaningless statement because rights don't just come from declaring them to exist. If that were true than why can't Palestinians declare themselves a state and any action the United States or Israel took against them would be violating the Palestinian state's "right to exist"? Did Israel have a right to exist before the state of Israel was declared? How? And if Israel, why not Palestine, right now?
Considering that atheists like you are routinely in the business of demoting the rights of human beings to less than a sometimes, unequal "thing" you are a total putz.
Update; Oh, Simps, what a shocker. Why can't you answer my questions? Surely if states have rights you can tell me where they come from and why the Islamic "State" in Iraq or the Levant doesn't magically gain rights by declaring they're a state just as the United States and Israel became states by making that declaration.
I think you should just fall back on your usual line, "Words fail me," to which I'd note that logic not only failed you but expelled you.
Update 2: If "history" is what creates rights for states then I suggest you and I should get our white asses off of North America along with hundreds of millions of others. What, oh what will you do without your beloved and stolen NYC? You'd lose any claim to distinction you imagine your being from that burg gives you.
You can't answer those questions. There's a reason for that, the idea that states have rights is as absurd as it was when the Confederacy claimed states' rights.
Update 3: The idea that Israel is going to be "driven into the sea" is ridiculous. If that were in danger of happening it would have happened before Israel got nuclear weapons, with them the prospect of that happening is about as likely as the United States deposing the Kim regime in North Korea by military force. It's about as likely as you getting driven into the Atlantic.
The fact that states don't have rights is not changed a single bit by the use of that slogan. If you're going to claim Israel has a "right to exist" then Palestine has one and I don't see how you can claim that other groups that declare themselves to be states don't magically get them. I'll bet you're a big fan of corporate person hood, aren't you, another magically created status for an artificial entity that has millions hoodwinked.
Update: 4 Simps' audience is the non-readers of Eschaton, he knows there's no danger of them coming here to see what was really said as opposed to his characterization of what was said. Those guys are so uninterested in what was said that they don't even bother reading what Duncan says, on those rare occasions he goes through the pretense of writing.
They're not big on complexity or rigorous thought. They're not too big on rational argument. Anyone who did that left there ages ago. It's the Yerassic age at E-ton.
Update 5: Obivously the Nazi state was not "the most civilized" country since it murdered many of millions of people - that is unless you figure a country can murder millions of people and still qualifies as "civilized"
But that brings us to the question of if the Nazi state had a "right to exist". I don't think it did, you can't escape holding it did have a "right to exist" since it took office as the result of an election, took advantage of a "state of emergency" to vote itself the "right" to rule in an increasingly dictatorial manner, annexed territory to make German settlements. etc. I don't think any state has the rights to do those things but the Nazi state legally gave itself the "right" to do those things.
I would say that such facts of real history, instead of yours as read in Bazooka Bubblegum comics, force the question of states having rights. I think it's too dangerous to pretend that they do in light of that history.
Update 6: Simps just confirmed to me that he considers a state that murders millions of people can qualify as a civilized country. Which, considering everything else I know about him, doesn't surprise me on bit. The guy is a slimy putz. I'm publishing that comment in case he lies about that.
It also confirms that when an athiest can't squirm out of something the chances are they'll say, "No True Scotsman" or some such other irrelevant line.
Update 7: Apprently even Mr. Simps understands that he can't sustain his argument about the "rights" of states because now he's trying to equate the rights of human beings with the "rights" of states. Well, dopey, I already said that rights inhere to individuals on an equal basis. I guess you didn't catch that. The Nazis, of course, believed that the state had rights and that individuals didn't. I'd say that to one degree or another the idea of states having rights always gets to the point of impinging on if not negating the rights of individuals. If not their lives.
You really don't understand any of this do you. Something tells me your undergrad program was a bit of a joke.
Last Update: Simps is exactly where he started when he discovered to his horror in his ignorance that his hero, Gore Vidal rather publicly despised Israel and that Simps shares the same opinions with such unstylish people as Midge Decter and Norman Podhorez. I'm rather astonished he didn't know that before hand.
States don't have rights, they have responsibilities. Among the most important of those is to not violate the rights of real people, regardless of nationality, race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. I believe those rights are universal, Simps, Decter, Podhoretz, Buckley etc. don't. And neither did Vidal.
"Obivously the Nazi state was not
ReplyDelete"the most civilized" country since it murdered many of millions of
people - that is unless you figure a country can murder millions of
people and still qualifies as "civilized""
Ah, the old "No True Scotsman" defense. You're getting desperate, Sparkles. :-)