[ameister14]

It's not really the fallacy of equivocation, since legal rights follow natural rights and he's not confusing the two.

Property rights are not necessarily externally applied. As you can apply use to the area around you, you can use your natural rights in order to claim property and protect it through force. In this way you are innately a sovereign. When you join in a community, you give up some of your natural rights to the state, particularly as regards the application of force.

[dragonwriter]

> legal rights follow natural rights

Legal rights, as I said previously, may be motivated by beliefs about natural/moral rights, but they are, purely and simply, a decision by the State to use coercive measures to exclude some actions. And they may also not be motivated by any belief about "natural rights". Natural rights, except as a rhetorical device to claim the moral high ground in arguments about what decisions the State should make in terms of imposing coercive power on behalf of one or the other conflicting claimants in a class of actual or hypothetical disputes, don't actually have any direct bearing on, really, anything.

> As you can apply use to the area around you, you can use your natural rights in order to claim property and protect it through force.

You can use your physical capacity to exclude people from actions (whether or not they relate to an entity in which you claim a property right, and whether or not any "natural rights" exist or have any bearing on the situation). You belief about the existence and scope of natural rights might have an impact on where you choose to exercise that physical capacity, but, again, that's pretty much beside the point.

> When you join in a community, you give up some of your natural rights to the state

That's a rather controversial claim; many of those who believe in the existence of "natural rights" also believe that a fundamental distinguishing feature of "natural rights" is that they are inalienable -- that is, they cannot be transferred or surrendered.

[ameister14]

>Natural rights, except as a rhetorical device to claim the moral high ground in arguments about what decisions the State should make in terms of imposing coercive power on behalf of one or the other conflicting claimants in a class of actual or hypothetical disputes, don't actually have any direct bearing on, really, anything

And where, precisely, does the State come from? From where does it come by its power? What is the State? If there was no community, would a state still exist? Sort of; each of us would retain individual sovereignty, and most likely, begin to group together again for security of both our persons and our property.

The idea of the state of nature and natural rights is not to create said rights, but instead to illuminate the rights each of us already possesses.

>whether or not they relate to an entity in which you claim a property right

I don't know what this means. My point was pretty simple; if I pick a bunch of apples and you try to take them from me, I can say 'those are mine' and hit you. In effect, I am thereby claiming property and enforcing my right to said property through force.

>many of those who believe in the existence of "natural rights" also believe that a fundamental distinguishing feature of "natural rights" is that they are inalienable -- that is, they cannot be transferred or surrendered.

It's not that controversial. Only some natural rights are inalienable, not all. The right to enter into the state of war, for example, is both a natural right and one which a person may give up to the state or community.