Paradox for Conservatives

[domer76]

I have identified what they are. Again, it's a normative statement not a positive one. I can not put it on display. I can only give my arguments for why they should be recognized.

It's interesting that the opponents of natural rights fail to answer how they would argue for any rights of the oppressed without making normative statements. Why should I support legislation to expand the rights of those groups and on what basis do you claim they have rights? Without a normative statement the only argument is a threat of force.

Please give an example of where in this world you detect liberty and freedom without a concept that argues that humans have rights. Such a place does not exist, never has and never will.

Sorry, but a society and government cannot be run, and law cannot be enforced with "normative statements". Thta's the problem with natural rights adherents. They can't define exactly what those rights are.

Why should you support expansion of rights? Answer that question for yourself. You either do or you don't and will vote accordingly, won't you?

The codified Constitution and BofR demand equal treatment under the law. Legislation, in the form of civil rights laws, identifies which groups are protected from certain types of discrimination. Threat of force? Of course. What are you dependent on with your "natural rights"? The "natural" good will of people? Look at this forum. Good luck with that. A good portion believe anything other than a white, Christain male is a lesser being.

BTW, you're confusing the word opponent for one who does not accept the concept of natural rights.

Give me an example of ANY natural right, anywhere, that is universal in this world. But first, you actually have to identify one.

[Timshel]

Sorry, but a society and government cannot be run, and law cannot be enforced with "normative statements". Thta's the problem with natural rights adherents. They can't define exactly what those rights are.

Why should you support expansion of rights? Answer that question for yourself. You either do or you don't and will vote accordingly, won't you?

The codified Constitution and BofR demand equal treatment under the law. Legislation, in the form of civil rights laws, identifies which groups are protected from certain types of discrimination. Threat of force? Of course. What are you dependent on with your "natural rights"? The "natural" good will of people? Look at this forum. Good luck with that. A good portion believe anything other than a white, Christain male is a lesser being.

BTW, you're confusing the word opponent for one who does not accept the concept of natural rights.

Give me an example of ANY natural right, anywhere, that is universal in this world. But first, you actually have to identify one.

It's not a problem at all because no one has suggested that laws should be enforced with normative statements. They should (and are in free and prosperous societies) be based on those norms.

I have defined exactly what they are. Here it is again, natural rights are rights that are not dependent on the law. They are universal.

Again, to say something is a natural right is to make a normative statement not a positive one. For that one would say it is a legal right. But both are abstract concepts.

That does not mean it cannot or has not been defined. It has been, repeatedly. Time to move on with debate.

Your response to why I should vote for the expansions of rights is nothing but a copout and attempt to evade the fact that the true support for these expansions of rights is based on social norms or appeals to morality. The only other choice is force or maybe you can appeal to self interest, but unless one is a member of those groups that's a tough sell.

The constitution and bill of rights are premised on natural rights arguments or normative statements about individual rights and would have long been shredded without those notions being popular.

Your argument is that there is no moral statement that is superior to the notion that only white Christian males should enjoy liberty or legal rights. I stronlgy disagree.

What does it mean to not accept the concept while not being an opponent? The only way to hold such a position is with strawman nonsense about natural rights.

Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. But you don't seem to understand what it suggests to say that these are universal natural rights. Again, it is not a positive statement. It's a normative statement claiming that individuals possess these rights regardless of the law. It does not mean that all are free to enjoy these right but that they should be free to enjoy these rights.

[Micawber]

Like this?

Obama told an audience in El Paso that deportation of immigrants would focus on “violent offenders and people convicted of crimes; not families, not folks who are just looking to scrape together an income.”

Two weeks ago, however, the Department of Homeland Security released a report that flatly belies the new policy.

From January to June 2011, Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed 46,486 undocumented parents who claimed to have at least one child who is an American citizen.

In contrast, in the entire decade between 1998 and 2007, about 100,000 such parents were removed. The extraordinary acceleration in the dismantling of these families, part of the government’s efforts to meet an annual quota of about 400,000 deportations, has had devastating results.

Research by the Urban Institute and others reveals the deep and irreversible harm that parental deportation causes in the lives of their children. Having a parent ripped away permanently, without warning, is one of the most devastating and traumatic experiences in human development.

These children experience immediate household crises, starting with the loss of parental income. The harsh new economic reality causes housing and food insecurity. In response to psychological and economic disruptions, children show increased anxiety, frequent crying, changes in eating and sleeping patterns, withdrawal and anger.

In the long run, the children of deportation face increased odds of lasting economic turmoil, psychic scarring, reduced school attainment, greater difficulty in maintaining relationships, social exclusion and lower earnings. The research also exposes major misconceptions about these parents.


https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/21/opinion/deporting-parents-ruins-kids.html

My dad is 80. He has “children”

Get some facts.

[Legion]

My dad is 80. He has “children”

So?

Get some facts.

I did, and they seem to be at odds with your assertion.

He didn't. His party is tearing crying south american and mexican babies from their mommies.

Obama immigration policy splits families when parents are deported

Sulaiman Hakim, 17, and his sister, Janna, 18, showed a photograph in New York of their mother, Faten, who was taken from their home by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and deported to Ramallah in the West Bank.

Rony Molina, a landscaper pictured at his home in Stamford, Conn., was left alone to care for three children after his wife, Sandra Payes Chacon, was deported to Guatemala in 2010. Their three children — ages 8, 11 and 19 — are American citizens.
Sandra Payes Chacon, the wife of Rony Molina, pauses at a friend's house in Atlixco, Mexico, as she talks about her husband and their three children she left behind in the United States. She was deported to Guatemala in 2010.

Amelia Reyes-Jimenez carried her blind, paralyzed baby boy, Cesar, into the U.S. illegally in 1995 in search of better medical care. She had three more kids, all American citizens. She was arrested in 2008 and, two years later, deported to Mexico without her kids.

Alexis Molina was just 10 years old when his mother was abruptly cut out of his life and his childhood unraveled overnight. “She went for her papers,” he says. “And she never came back.” Alexis’ father, Rony Molina, a landscaper, was born in Guatemala but had lived here for 12 years and is an American citizen. Alexis and his 8-year-old brother, Steve, are Americans, too. So is their 19-year-old stepsister, Evelin. But their mother, Sandra, who lived here illegally, was deported to Guatemala.

“How can my country not allow a mother to be with her children, especially when they are so young and they need her?” Rony Molina asks. “And especially when they are Americans?”

It’s a question thousands of families wrestled with as a record number of deportations meant record numbers of American children being left without a parent — despite President Barack Obama’s promise that his administration would focus on removing only criminals.

Nearly 45,000 such parents were removed in the first six months of this 2011, said the federal department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

At least 5,100 U.S. citizen children in 22 states went into foster care, according to an estimate by the Applied Research Center, a New York-based advocacy organization, which first reported on such cases in 2009. An unknown number of those children were put up for adoption against the wishes of their parents, who, once deported, were often helpless to fight when a U.S. judge decided that their children are better off here.

“I had no idea what was happening,” says Janna Hakim of the morning in 2010 when a loud knocking at her Brooklyn apartment door jolted her awake. It was the first Friday of Ramadan. Her Palestinian mother, Faten, was in the kitchen baking the pastries she sold to local stores.

Janna, then 16, and her siblings were all born here. None knew that their mother was in the U.S. illegally — or that a deportation order from years earlier meant she could be whisked away by ICE agents.
“I am not a criminal. I am the mother of American children, and they need me, especially the younger ones,” she cried over the phone from Ramallah, where she is living with her own mother after 20 years away. “How can a country break up families like this?”

“When nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing, when all this is happening, the system just isn’t working, and we need to change it,” Obama said during his first run for president in 2008.

“That gave us a lot of hope,” said David Leopold, general counsel for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “Now we are all scratching our heads wondering where is the discretion when many of our lawyers continue to see people being deported with no criminal record, including parents of American children.”

“Quiet, slow-motion tragedies unfolded every day as parents caught up in immigration enforcement were separated from their young children and disappeared,” Nina Rabin, an associate clinical professor of law at the University of Arizona, wrote in “Disappearing Parents: A Report on Immigration Enforcement and the Child Welfare System.”

Rabin, an immigration lawyer, says one of the most unsettling experiences of her life was witnessing the “cruel and nightmarish destruction” of one Mexican family whom she represented in a fruitless attempt to keep a mother and her children together.
The mother, Amelia Reyes-Jimenez, carried her blind and paralyzed baby boy, Cesar, across the Mexican border in 1995 seeking better medical care, Rabin said. She settled in Phoenix, illegally, and had three more children, all American citizens. She was arrested after her disabled teen son was found home alone.

Locked in detention, clueless as to her rights or what was happening to her children, she pleaded guilty to child-endangerment charges, and then spent a year fighting to stay with her children.

Twice her attorneys tried to convince an immigration judge that she qualified for a visa “on account of the harm that would be done to her three U.S. citizen children if she were to be deported,” Rabin said.

She lost and was deported back to Mexico in 2010.

Her parental rights were terminated by a court after a judge ruled that she had failed to make progress toward reunification with her children — something Rabin said was impossible to do, locked away for months.

Her case went before the Arizona State Court of Appeals, but the family was destroyed. “Tragically, we heard of cases like this every day,” Rabin says.

https://www.denverpost.com/2012/08/25/u-s-immigration-policy-splits-families-when-parents-are-deported/

[kudzu]

Has "god" allegedly told you that immigrants should enjoy the legal rights, responsibilities, and benefits the Constitution gives American citizens, Brad?

Of course rights come from the government. God didn't give rights to blacks, slave, women or sharecroppers until 100 years ago.

[sear]

k #170

You make a painfully sharp point k #170;
but its understated style is likely too subtle to reach the one it's addressed to (even if it reached me). The bitter reality is, if they have to be told (& L clearly does), then even telling them explicitly probably won't make a difference.
You are right of course. But I wouldn't bet the farm that you've persuaded, or even reached L about it.

[Truth Detector]

Of course rights come from the government. God didn't give rights to blacks, slave, women or sharecroppers until 100 years ago.

That's the most moronic statement on the planet; Government gives us rights. You really are dumber than a rock.

[Bourbon]

Rights come from God not the Government.

Immigrants don’t have the same rights as Americans!

Willie Nelson's plea to "Christians everywhere" on immigration

Source: CBS News

Music legend and Texas native Willie Nelson is speaking out about the immigration controversy currently unfolding in his state and other stretches along America's southern border.

Under the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy, anyone suspected of crossing the border illegally faces criminal prosecution. Children traveling with adults are being separated from their families and placed into shelters. The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that nearly 2,000 children have been separated over a six-week period, a practice that many leaders in both parties have criticized as "inhumane."

"What's going on at our southern border is outrageous," Nelson said in a statement Thursday, first reported by Rolling Stone Country. "Christians everywhere should be up in arms. What happened to 'Bring us your tired and weak and we will make them strong?' This is still the promise land," Nelson said.

<snip>

Nelson's appeal to Christians seemed intended as a rebuttal to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who defended the policy on biblical grounds. Sessions said last week, "I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/willie-...be-up-in-arms/

---

Sessions is taking it from all sides, from the Methodist Church to Willie.

[domer76]

It's not a problem at all because no one has suggested that laws should be enforced with normative statements. They should (and are in free and prosperous societies) be based on those norms.

I have defined exactly what they are. Here it is again, natural rights are rights that are not dependent on the law. They are universal.

Again, to say something is a natural right is to make a normative statement not a positive one. For that one would say it is a legal right. But both are abstract concepts.

That does not mean it cannot or has not been defined. It has been, repeatedly. Time to move on with debate.

Your response to why I should vote for the expansions of rights is nothing but a copout and attempt to evade the fact that the true support for these expansions of rights is based on social norms or appeals to morality. The only other choice is force or maybe you can appeal to self interest, but unless one is a member of those groups that's a tough sell.

The constitution and bill of rights are premised on natural rights arguments or normative statements about individual rights and would have long been shredded without those notions being popular.

Your argument is that there is no moral statement that is superior to the notion that only white Christian males should enjoy liberty or legal rights. I stronlgy disagree.

What does it mean to not accept the concept while not being an opponent? The only way to hold such a position is with strawman nonsense about natural rights.

Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. But you don't seem to understand what it suggests to say that these are universal natural rights. Again, it is not a positive statement. It's a normative statement claiming that individuals possess these rights regardless of the law. It does not mean that all are free to enjoy these right but that they should be free to enjoy these rights.

You prove my point with your vague statement: "Here it is again, natural rights are rights that are not dependent on the law. They are universal." Unable to provide an example of a universal right.

You're correct, expansion of rights is based on social norms and social norms are ever-changing. Nothing universal about that. Nor "natural".

The Constitution and BofR may well be premised on what you say, but they carry ZERO weight without their codification. Zilch. Nada. There are no rights without the law. Pure and simple.

You miscomprehend my statement about white Christian males. Better reread it and, while you're there, reread the posts of the racist white "Christian" males on this forum. Try to digest what their concept of a "natural" right is.

Let's be clear on the concept of acceptance vs. opposition. It's not that difficult. I do not accept your concept of your god, whatever that may be. However, I do not oppose you worshipping that god. Comprende?

[Bourbon]

BTW, These are what crisis actors look like ...




And this




And this



And this



And this



And this



And this



And this




Just a few of the many actual crisis actors in America. They not only create the crisis they then blame others for what they have done, all the while acting out their fantasies of being persecuted by "bad" people.

[Bourbon]

Governor Cuomo announces intent to file multi-agency lawsuit against Trump administration

Source: Press release, State of New York

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced New York State intends to file a multi-agency lawsuit against the Trump Administration on the grounds that the federal government is violating the Constitutional rights of thousands of immigrant children and their parents who have been separated at the border. We now know of more than 70 children who are staying in federal shelters in New York State and that number is expected to increase as other facilities are contacted. The Governor is directing the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, the Department of Health and the Office of Children and Family Services to commence legal action against the federal government's "Separation of Families" policy. Following the callous and inhumane treatment of immigrant families at the border, New York is suing to protect the health and well-being of children being held at least 10 different facilities across the state and at others throughout the nation.

"The Trump Administration's policy to tear apart families is a moral failing and a human tragedy," Governor Cuomo said. "We will not tolerate the Constitutional rights of children and their parents being violated by our federal government. New York will act and file suit to end this callous and deliberate attack on immigrant communities, and end this heartless policy once and for all."

The Governor announced that New York plans to sue the federal government for:

Violating the Constitutional Rights of Children and Families

Parents are being separated from their children at the border as a result of the Trump Administration's new "zero tolerance" prosecution of the minor federal offense of improper entry into the country. In prior administrations, families who appeared with children at the border would be processed together and released with a date to appear in court. Now, parents, many of whom are seeking to protect their children and families from gang violence, are being systematically detained, separated from their children, and, in some cases, deported with no meaningful opportunity to participate in making decisions concerning the care and custody of their children. Yet these parents are still afforded rights under the United States Constitution to familial integrity and to decide to exercise their parental rights in New York State.


Read more: https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/gov...administration

[Truth Detector]

Governor Cuomo announces intent to file multi-agency lawsuit against Trump administration

Source: Press release, State of New York

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced New York State intends to file a multi-agency lawsuit against the Trump Administration on the grounds that the federal government is violating the Constitutional rights of thousands of immigrant children and their parents who have been separated at the border. We now know of more than 70 children who are staying in federal shelters in New York State and that number is expected to increase as other facilities are contacted. The Governor is directing the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, the Department of Health and the Office of Children and Family Services to commence legal action against the federal government's "Separation of Families" policy. Following the callous and inhumane treatment of immigrant families at the border, New York is suing to protect the health and well-being of children being held at least 10 different facilities across the state and at others throughout the nation.

"The Trump Administration's policy to tear apart families is a moral failing and a human tragedy," Governor Cuomo said. "We will not tolerate the Constitutional rights of children and their parents being violated by our federal government. New York will act and file suit to end this callous and deliberate attack on immigrant communities, and end this heartless policy once and for all."

The Governor announced that New York plans to sue the federal government for:

Violating the Constitutional Rights of Children and Families

Parents are being separated from their children at the border as a result of the Trump Administration's new "zero tolerance" prosecution of the minor federal offense of improper entry into the country. In prior administrations, families who appeared with children at the border would be processed together and released with a date to appear in court. Now, parents, many of whom are seeking to protect their children and families from gang violence, are being systematically detained, separated from their children, and, in some cases, deported with no meaningful opportunity to participate in making decisions concerning the care and custody of their children. Yet these parents are still afforded rights under the United States Constitution to familial integrity and to decide to exercise their parental rights in New York State.

Read more: https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/gov...administration

@ Cuomo. Biggest moron within the Democratic Party of the Jackass. I hope MORE Democratic leaders join him so Americans can see just how pathetic, repugnant and stupid the party has become.

[PoliTalker]

Hello Bourbon,

Willie Nelson's plea to "Christians everywhere" on immigration

Source: CBS News

Music legend and Texas native Willie Nelson is speaking out about the immigration controversy currently unfolding in his state and other stretches along America's southern border.

Under the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy, anyone suspected of crossing the border illegally faces criminal prosecution. Children traveling with adults are being separated from their families and placed into shelters. The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that nearly 2,000 children have been separated over a six-week period, a practice that many leaders in both parties have criticized as "inhumane."

"What's going on at our southern border is outrageous," Nelson said in a statement Thursday, first reported by Rolling Stone Country. "Christians everywhere should be up in arms. What happened to 'Bring us your tired and weak and we will make them strong?' This is still the promise land," Nelson said.

<snip>

Nelson's appeal to Christians seemed intended as a rebuttal to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who defended the policy on biblical grounds. Sessions said last week, "I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/willie-...be-up-in-arms/

---

Sessions is taking it from all sides, from the Methodist Church to Willie.

Those who use the Bible to justify atrocities demonstrate they don't get the meaning of it.

[Timshel]

You prove my point with your vague statement: "Here it is again, natural rights are rights that are not dependent on the law. They are universal." Unable to provide an example of a universal right.

You're correct, expansion of rights is based on social norms and social norms are ever-changing. Nothing universal about that. Nor "natural".

The Constitution and BofR may well be premised on what you say, but they carry ZERO weight without their codification. Zilch. Nada. There are no rights without the law. Pure and simple.

You miscomprehend my statement about white Christian males. Better reread it and, while you're there, reread the posts of the racist white "Christian" males on this forum. Try to digest what their concept of a "natural" right is.

Let's be clear on the concept of acceptance vs. opposition. It's not that difficult. I do not accept your concept of your god, whatever that may be. However, I do not oppose you worshipping that god. Comprende?

There is nothing vague about it. It's the definition.

I provided examples. What you are demanding is not definitions or examples but certainty. I can't provide that and never claimed otherwise.

Natural rights are an argument for certain social norms. I don't believe they have changed much, they simply unfold in new ways as things change and the laws catch up.

Those bigots don't believe in natural rights. They are fascist who believe might makes right. So, apparently, they agree with you on that.

I am an atheist. I don't worship anything. That does not mean I must reject the idea that some actions are moral and others immoral.

[Flash]

*SIGH*

You are right. All these posts about racial discrimination become pointless and repetitious.