[Daido_M]

...so why is the right to live an absolute right? What does it mean for a right to be absolute? (e.g. if someone kills other people to save himself, was he entitled to do so on the basis of his right to live?) Who gets to decide what rights are absolute and what rights aren't? Whose responsibility is it to enforce these absolute rights (and thereby to impose corresponding obligations on other people)?

The logic of "absolute" rights requires an over-simplification that doesn't reflect how rights work in practice.

[saintPirelli]

If I declare a right an "absolute" right I do not aim to answer any of the questions you posed, those are all good questions that need to be carefully considered, but none of them render the "over-simplified" right to live any less morally justified or desirable.

[rtkwe]

That 'consideration' is drawing a line though. Where when two 'absolute' rights come into conflict does the decision to break one way or another get made? Choosing one over the other draws a limitation around the one that's less important in this context.

We have all sorts of restrictions on the right of free speech. I can't libel someone, I can't make a product and say it's the product of another company, I can't open a random burger place and call it Wendy's. These are all restrictions on my speech and (as far as I've ever seen) even the most ardent free speech activist isn't saying abolish trademarks.

[jmull]

In your statement above you bemoan that without absolute rights we must "constantly debate where _the line_ is"

Here you concede "those are all good questions that need to be carefully considered".

...so we're right back to debating where the line is.

I'm not seeing a coherent argument here.

[saintPirelli]

I'm saying that knowing a right should be absolute and - for example - not knowing how to enforce this right for everyone, are not mutually exclusive.