No rights can literally be 'surrendered' because they are philosophical principles based on the nature of man. Neither violation of rights nor self-renunciation can make a true principle false. An individual can only choose how to exercise his rights and voluntarily act accordingly; he cannot negate his own rights, in the sense of giving them up in principle, any more than a government.

The question of renouncing rights can only arise in terms of legal rights -- civil rights encoded in law to implement natural rights and government procedures to protect rights (or improperly violate them as now happens all the time). For example, you can make contract agreements limiting your future actions, which are enforceable, or you can waive a right like a civil right to representation by a lawyer. Such decisions may be sensible or not, but they don't negate philosophical rights.

An extreme case like agreeing to subject oneself to permanent indentured servitude is dubious, and would be governed under what is properly enforceable contract law as for what is consistent with principles of natural rights.

That kind of choice pertains to normally functioning people. If someone commits a crime then laws may properly incarcerate him for the sake of protecting the rights of the innocent. If done properly that is consistent with the moral principles giving rise to rights, which are moral principles in a social context (Rights are not the starting point.)

The only way someone can choose to literally wipe out his philosophical rights is to commit suicide so he is no longer an entity to which rights apply.

How would you distinguish the two different concepts of rights that may not be chosen to be given up and rights which one can give up by choice. The first would have to be forcefully violated and the second one could chose to allow the right to be violated as in a collectivist society where one is born with the potential for rights but do to the belief that one has no rights, the rights are put out of mind, i.e., surrendered. That would mean rights are a matter of choice and not some kind of natural attribute of each person, i.e., natural rights as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence.

Blarman's religionist revisionist history is false. He has previously demanded that I not respond to his posts. He was reminded by the moderator that this is a public forum, but all such responses to his posts are now rotely 'downvoted'. He cannot tolerate his religious promotions being rejected on an Ayn Rand forum.

I completely agree, blarman. Rahm Emmanuel was fond of the "never let a crisis to go waste" idea. What to do if there isn't a crisis handy? Why, create one, of course.

(Putting on my cynic hat.)

So much of what the dems/libs/progs think are good ideas are NEVER intended to succeed.

For example, I can't believe there are still people who truly believe that ObummerCare was actually designed to make our lives better.

I have believed from Day 1 that the ACA was meant to do one thing only: Crash the entire healthcare system and throw it into total chaos. The government then steps in and offers a solution--what they've been dying to implement for decades--Single Payer.

They manufacture the healthcare and insurance crisis, then just like the ACA, they shove Single Payer up our collective backsides.

So yeah, they do live for chaos so they can impose their solutions on us.

excellent points

The Declaration used "un", which is probably where the use in the Federal Register announcement came from. The modern spelling is mostly "in". The difference between Hobbes and Locke is valid, but today it's a matter of accepted word usage, not definition of concepts, with "un" and "in" regarded as alternate spellings of the same word and "in" being most common now.

Ayn Rand used "in" except when quoting the Declaration, reflecting a use of modern spelling.

A government-appointed advisory committee won't resolve this, either.

For what it's worth. The panel was to be a discussion of unalienable rights. Usually unalienable is taken to mean the same as alienable. There have been a number of discussions about them not meaning the same thing. Here is one of them.

http://www.teapartytribune.com/2012/0...

Indeed they do.

This is an Ayn Rand forum, not a place for Blarman to promote his religion and rotely 'downvote' responses that reject his a-historical pronouncements.

"God" was not in the Declaration of Independence. It was based on the Enlightenment values of natural rights for the individual in accordance with his nature, with a vague notion of "creator" in the distant past because nothing was known then about evolution. There was no idea of a god selecting specific rights. The Enlightenment held that it is up to man to rationally analyze nature and discover the proper principles.

The announcement in the Federal Register is deliberately vague. A definition of "human rights" in a foreign policy context for the State Dept is relevant to how we deal with oppressive foreign nations, but who knows what this is intended to turn into with this "Advisory Committee". Conservatives typically have no rational basis for rights of the individual, and the left wants to turn the topic into its ethnicity-based entitlement mentality enforced globally.

The false alternative will not be rationally discussed in a government-appointed "committee". We can expect more false alternatives combined with political pandering.

Alien Lives Matter.

That is not what "religion is there for".

Just so.
www.linkedin.com/pulse/wrong-headedne...

That's another thing that struck me. Washington's speech is about seven pages and could be delivered in about 12 minutes or so. Jefferson's was much shorter and was probably about 5 minutes. Current Presidential speeches go on for 45 minutes or more - and that's besides the ridiculous applause...

Brevity is the soul of wit. - Shakespeare

Lol. Nice.

You know, I was just reading George Washington's farewell address and Thomas Jefferson's Inaugural address and it struck me that the quality of language they employed was just so much higher than that of today. They really studied and invested in a command of the English language. Their speeches were elegant and sophisticated - a far cry from the political sophistry so many employ today. I think the loss of that richness in common speech and understanding is one of the signs of a society which has allowed technology to supplant critical thinking.

As long as they were held to be inviolate by government, I really don't care what the argued source it. That's precisely what religion is there for. As long as everyone is permitted to pursue Happiness without the boot of government on their neck or without it enforcing edicts on non-believers, live and let live. Let the individual adherents make their pleas and converts and let the free exchange of ideas be paramount!

At a panel on "inalienable rights", you would get an argument that no rights are "inalienable", and then you would be accused of being a racist for using the word "alien".

exactly...independent of govt....but also independent of religious higher powers...or claims thereof...inalienable...

All their razor sharp minds https://tenor.com/view/crackup-g-you-... are riveted on is keeping The Donald from being reelected because they hate him so much more than doing their jobs to make anything better for Americans. After all, making anything better for Americans may give The Donald something he may take any credit for. So meanwhile let's just talk impeachment! Impeachment! IMPEACHMENT! Impeachment for what? Who gives a damn! Just make that usurper of The Evil Hag's glass ceiling look bad.
Oh, yeah, and Trump's a racist, by the way. A racist! Racist! RACIST!
Yeah, dem dim Dems really got to paint the hated Donald to look really bad if Creepy Joe or another candidate from that gallery of Jackass Party twits can have any hope come 2020.

It was one of the more noted quotes from Rahm Immanuel while he was an advisor to President Obama...

Folks....you can add to the rhetoric or be part of the solution.
I just put in a phone call to Emily Sissell. She is named as the contact for more info regarding the formation of this committee. I left a message. "I'd like to participate in this endeavor"

What are you going to do?

yep....."they have no interest in fixing problems because it is only through crises (Cloward and Piven) they can effect the kind of cultural change they want to impose"

Well, that was how they were couched in the Declaration of Independence... But I'd certainly take the notion that the rights are independent of human beings rather than a product of government by human beings, because what government giveth, government taketh away...