[rayiner]

My problem with "natural rights" is that they're a way to take one set of arbitrary priorities and elevate them to some sort of law of nature, without having to justify them on utilitarian grounds. You have a right to property but not a right to education. Why? Because the former is a "natural right." Its no different from resorting to "because the Bible says so." Its also used to undermine democratic consensus in the same way as resorting to theology. Oh, everyone thinks there is a right to education? Wrong! Because the Bible says so... Err... Because its not a natural right, just some creation of government.

[foobarbazqux]

Yeah, it often seems they're a disguise for moral absolutism. Some convenient rule system that you can latch on to and then use to decide if things are good or bad. Tax is the worst thing there is, for example.

But, natural rights are in the same category as human rights, and there are many human rights that I value despite their nonexistence as laws.

It seems to me that natural rights are often a covert argument for male supremacy over women and children. A man is stronger than a woman, therefore he has a natural right to dominate her. The same goes for children. A child has no right to anything from its parents, because if you must depend on someone else, you wouldn't be free to obtain it in the absence of other people.

But dependence is how we are born into the world. Education is given to us while we are in a state of dependence. Is it really only that educators have the right to educate? Perhaps, if you really don't believe in assigning rights on the basis of need.

In the libertarian mindset, it's almost as if the government represents one's parents, and the romanticized state of being alone in the wild represents freedom from one's parents. Actually I believe that it's next to impossible for anybody arguing for an extreme position like anarcho-capitalism in the typical cult-like manner that we see to be reasonable, because doing so would require making the connection from what they're proselytizing to their own lives and processing their own feelings about authority.

[hacker789]

> You have a right to property but not a right to education.

I don't believe in "natural rights", nor do I believe concept has any real value. That said, you're misconstruing their argument.

Someone who believes in natural rights would say:

> You have a right to own property, but you aren't entitled to be given property. Similarly, you have the right to get an education, but you aren't entitled to be given an education.

[foobarbazqux]

Are you entitled to suck the milk out of your mother's breast?

[hacker789]

Personally, I believe babies are entitled to be nourished (directly or indirectly) by their parents.