You talk in circular fashion, I did not say states (a political land mass) inherently have any rights. I did say people, a collection of individuals, empower states with rights to act. You can split hairs on my use of rights and authority but the presumption of authority by any state (a governing body of individual human beings) is built on the bestowed right (by others) to act authoritatively.

The 'consent of the governed' is a prime example.

The moral is the practical. Without morality and rights you live in terror. If 50.1% may not understand that then you are past the edge of civilization with a mixed, part statist/ part free system or worse.

That is where we are today, with a great risk of losing more of what you produce and the risk becoming greater over time. Without a fundamental change in outlook on fundamental philosophic premises it is only a matter of time. People are still becoming wealthy even in China, but more of them are disappearing there, too.

But there is a limit to what you can "hide" and guns will not help you once you are targeted by either the state or ordinary goons. You can't live that way. Guns are even more hopeless against the state.

Exactly, and most of the world still operates on those prehistoric premises, including tribal customs. "Proper philosophical principles" and "high-level moral concepts" are a rarity and millennia in the future. A spark of them may have emerged, to be treasured and understood by a few. We are being overrun by the barbarians among us whose ideas have reverted back to pre-intellectual levels. "The nature of man" has sadly not reached the idealized level that Rand ascribed to him. Evolution of moral ideas and rationality are at the mercy of predatory animal instincts. The idea of "rights" becomes a pragmatic tool for exploitation. Objectivism has a long way to go to lift mankind to your lofty principles and obtain people's reasoned and volitional cooperation.

You won't achieve a happy state of life if you ignore the virtues that make it possible, starting with rationality and its derivative virtues such as productivity and self esteem. Happiness is a sustained state characterizing your life, not a momentary emotion. You won't achieve any of that running around assaulting people. You won't achieve it internally with that kind of mentality, and you will live in fear and won't even survive when others defend their rights and treat you as you deserve. Even thugs with no concept of morality or rights will be after you.

The goal of moral behavior is your own happiness; the standard of choices is the nature of man. Happiness is a successful state of human existence, not an arbitrary whim to pursue. Man must discover his nature and what his happiness consists in.

"Mutual respect" is not a primary. You can not respect someone for what he is (and isn't), but unless he has forfeited his rights through criminal activity you respect his rights, which is not the same as respecting him. Civilization requires respect for rights. Respect for rights can only come from understanding their nature and purpose, and the choice to be moral accordingly.

If those around you don't do that and don't respect your rights it doesn't make your rights meaningless, only impossible to live in accordance with because you aren't in civilization.

Ownership is a philosophical/moral concept. It does not require anyone else's consent. If others ignore your rights you have a right to defend them. If you can't do it then you succumb to lack of civilization and your life fails, but it does't mean you had no property rights, only that they were stolen by brutes. That is true of both your life and your possessions.

The only sense in which consent is required is that if people are to live as human beings then you and those around you must recognize the facts of reality and choose to be moral, which is a statement of the importance of philosophy, not a denial of your right to your life or property rights as nothing but a grant by the whims of others.

A being born with no "nervous sensation" is by your description not aware of anything. It has no perceptual awareness. Its mind could not have any content to ponder. Whatever "mental" biological activity it may have it is not consciousness, which is the faculty of awareness of reality.

Such a being with no conscious awareness of reality is not, by definition, a rational being. Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses as his means of grasping the facts of reality. The means are his conceptual ability to integrate his perceptions in abstract form (concepts), in accordance with the method of logic.

Man as the "rational animal" means that man must use his reason in order to survive. The being you described has no such faculty; it is cut off at the base with no perceptions of reality to integrate. It is no more conscious, let alone rational, than a celery stalk, whatever else might be going on with some neurons celery does not have.

Rationality is the primary virtue because it is the means of exercising reason on behalf of one's life, which in turn is the basis of morality. That in turn is the basis of rights: morality applied in a social context.

The being you described has no possibility of morality because he is not a rational being -- it does not have a brain capable of making choices required to live, let alone think in principles in order to do it, and therefore the concept of rights does not apply to it. In particular, like a celery stalk it has no right to exist. Morality and rights are concepts inapplicable to it.

You will have to explain what you mean by that in order to discuss it. Your right to life does not depend on what "contracts" were made by anyone before or after you were born. Once you are born and are a human person you have rights by your nature as a human being and no one can in logic demand that you cite any "opt out" clause of anything. You are what you are. I don't know what you mean by the question "Is this technically and morally enslavement?"

Ownership is a high level concept based on rights. Rights are moral principles. It is not about "two chickens pulling on the same worm in a barnyard" and is not "what you can grab". The proper principles may or may not be recognized and enforced. When they are we have human civilization and freedom. Warfare between groups is a result of the lack of recognition of rights by competing tribal collectivists. They don't grasp or acknowledge the concept of rights of their own members either. Warren and Sanders have a long legacy.

Rights can be ignored by brutes and injustices committed; they do not disappear as moral principles based on the nature of man as a rational being.

The basis of our rights is the nature of man, as identified by proper philosophical principles. Rights pertain to individuals. Only individuals have rights. The state cannot have rights and rights cannot not be subjectively "bestowed" on it by a will of the people. That is tribalist denial of rights.

"There is nothing except a volitionally agreed ethic of mutual respect of "rights", and those don't apply to everyone. One group can collude against another, and the ever increasing brain capacity can justify any atrocity. The notion of a person owning himself or herself is easily compromised. The prehistoric formula of power and conquest still prevails."

The foundation of state and their right to act. While a state is not alive to have inherent rights, it is bestowed rights by concensus to act as a body to varying degrees, some most egregious.

Ownership? Its essential meaning hasn't changed since our earliest days of being a mammal. It's what you can grab, and keep by fending off other marauders. Two chickens pulling on the same worm in the barnyard. At some point communal groups managed to work out agreements of mutual refraining from forcible taking of what others had, the start of a stand-off and social contracts, voluntary refraining from initiating violence, the start of division of labor and trade. Behind the scenes, though, such courtesies were not extended to those who were not members of the chosen group, and the envy and covetousness and plundering continue.

There is nothing except a volitionally agreed ethic of mutual respect of "rights", and those don't apply to everyone. One group can collude against another, and the ever increasing brain capacity can justify any atrocity. The notion of a person owning himself or herself is easily compromised. The prehistoric formula of power and conquest still prevails.

What percentage of humanity actually practices Objectivist ethics? What percentage hates rich people and wants to expropriate them to take for their group? There is no respect for ownership rights, nor for owners. Look at the devices the moochers exploit, from victimhood to injustice to group rights and reparations. Having to earn something is passe. And they can never get enough. There is no connection with exchange of values, no recognition of merit. Demand becomes entitlement.

And the Sanders and Warrens feed this envy and cash in. Looters, unite. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Thank you. I was just returning to address that Life needs no concept of ownership.
Now, will you engage with me on an abstract suvbersion of this principle? I was enjoined in a contract through SSA, by my parents consent, and have never seen a published "Opt Out" of this contract. I was never directed or instructed as to ways or means of extrication. Is this technically and morally enslavement? I think it is.

A person born deaf, dumb and blind (add with no nervous sensation) could not develop his/her own degree of conciousness/awareness in his/her own isolated environment? We may not recognize any aspect of commonality with that person's experience but that doesn't lessen his or her existence or life, nor does it delegimize his/her right to exist, it only makes it far different (and apparently incomprehensible to some)bthan most experience.
For the record, without external assistance that person wouldn't last very long, even so.

Who is the cowardly hit and run clown who is mindlesslessly 'downvoting' pro-Ayn Rand posts without even an attempt at response?

Who is the cowardly hit and run clown who is mindlesslessly 'downvoting' pro-Ayn Rand posts without even an attempt at response?

I agree. The state of Freedom allows an individual to pursue anything. Humans cannot survive without nurture. By this action (nurture) we are indoctrinated into an environ of dependency upon others. Liberty, a learned concept, is a choice, by an individual, to interact with others in the causality of mutual benefit. There are restrictions upon, and encouragements for behaviors that detract or enhance life. If a value structure is subjectively based, the pursuit of happiness you have just expressed can be denigrated to a culture of torture and rape.
The Objectivist's Ethics is the clearest statement of objective values structure ever. Rand has some gaps, yet are easily filled with self-evident metaphysical relationship and choice cycles. Life at simplest is the cycle of relationships and choices. Humans get to choose, subjective or objective, based upon what we learn and what supports our comfort or discomfort. Subjectivity, when challenged, shall always create conflict and discomfort, wether within the individual or between others.

Its just that "pursuit of happiness" could mean torturing others if one was a sadist, or raping women if one had an overwhelming desire for sex in a pursuit of happiness.

So 50.1% agree to private property so we work and generate the property, then when the tables turn and50.1% are socialists they simply withdraw their consent and take it.

Gives lots of reason to work in the first place. Might as well hide what you produce and buy guns to protect it.

Out of metaphysical necessity Life seeks comfort over discomfort. I see Happiness as an emotional attenuation of comfort for more complex Life.
That language is metaphorical for the sensory and emotional states of "Things", perhaps a Definitionary is in order now that humans are interconnected around this world.

It the mutual respect between people that allows for privatization. You can say you own something but it's meaningless if those around you don't respect your claim and expect the same respect from you and others.
I'd say this foundational to society in general.

"Ownership" of one's life is not the same concept as ownership of property; it is more fundamental and a logical requirement for property rights. In that sense it is more important than the right of owning an object or intellectual property.

He has confused the self with property. Your right to your life is a fact, based on human nature, but requires "validation" philosophically to grasp that fact. The philosophical principle must in turn be recognized in law for a civilized existence. That in turn makes possible the legal recognition of property rights and a system of deeds to record them. The moral and legal principles of the right to your own life does not require a deed, only the fact that you exist.

So unless others consent to your owning things, you own no things at all and they can be taken away from you at any time with the withdrawal of the "consent"

I always had a problem with the "pursuit of happiness". Its so nebulous. Just what does that really mean