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by philwelch 5273 days ago
Those are civil and not human rights, and they only exist because someone is already going through the trouble of governing you. Civil rights are a way of saying, as long as we're going to have a government, let's make sure it operates fairly and tries not to violate your human rights. The relevant human rights are, respectively, the right not to be locked in a cage without a very good reason and the right to have some say over your own life. Theoretically, you wouldn't need the right to a trial or the right to vote if it wasn't for the government going around and potentially violating your human rights.

On the other hand, by this reasoning at least, there's no such thing as a right to free beer, because then someone, somewhere would be obligated to brew you some beer, and that would violate his rights.