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“We assert that any form of taxation on churches and other religious organizations is a direct and dangerous step toward state control of the church.” So the rest of us are supposed to provide government services to religious organizations, including profit-making ones, for free.
https://www.constitutionparty.com/rel...
“We call on our local, state and federal governments to uphold our First Amendment right to free speech by vigorously enforcing all laws against obscenity.” A rather creative method for protecting free speech.
https://www.constitutionparty.com/por...
“We affirm the God-given legal personhood of all human beings from fertilization to natural death, without exception. . . As to matters of rape and incest, we find it unconscionable to take the life of an innocent child for the crimes of his father.” So the mother has no rights at all, and we return to back-alley abortions?
http://www.constitutionparty.com/the-...
“The Constitution Party will uphold the right of states and localities to restrict access to drugs and to enforce such restrictions.” So criminalizing drug use and sales is just fine as long as it’s not the federal government doing so.
https://www.constitutionparty.com/dru...
“Education should be free from all federal government subsidies, including vouchers, tax incentives, and loans, except with respect to veterans.” Another privileged class. Military personnel, like any other workers, should be fairly compensated while in service (including for injuries sustained in performance of such service), not granted special privileges afterwards.
https://www.constitutionparty.com/edu...
“We are opposed to any judicial ruling or amending the U.S. Constitution or any state constitution re-defining marriage with any definition other than the Biblical standard . . . We reject the notion that homosexuals, transgenders or those who are sexually deviant are deserving of legal favor or special protection, and affirm the rights of states and localities to proscribe offensive sexual behavior.” No further comment needed.
1. Everyone is entitled to the protection of the government. If your argument is that certain associations aren't paying for their services, I would point out that even if the religious institutions or non-profits aren't paying income taxes, their individual members are. Should the individual members stop receiving those benefits just because they walk into a church, an orphanage, or a homeless shelter? Of course not. It seems to me your beef here is with the religion - not the government.
The real danger - as embodied in the IRS targeting scandal or Obamacare - is whether or not the government can use policy as a coercive measure to force private organizations to change their beliefs or operating procedures. Anyone who believes in the Constitution and First Amendment should immediately cry foul - regardless of whether or not one believes in the principles of the individual establishment. Once government is given license to persecute belief, every other right falls with it. If you believe that a government can force belief, you also must condone minimum wage laws. You must condone diversity-based hiring practices. Do you see now why this is such an important issue?
2. Not all forms of speech and expression are protected. Protected speech must be speech that expresses an idea or point of view. And let's be honest: no one uses obscenities in polite company. Vulgarities are for those with limited vocabularies, limited self-control, and little respect for others. They are for shock factor - not intelligent conversation or sharing viewpoints.
3. The mother has the right to determine when she has sex, absolutely. It's pretty hard to get pregnant without having sex. As to "back alley abortions", you are aware of Kermit Gosnell, right? You are aware that a Texas law requiring abortion providers to maintain clean equipment and operating rooms was struck down correct? So really, current abortions are no safer or cleaner just because they take place in a building. The other question is safe to whom? The baby certainly isn't going to agree with you. And you might want to look up the instances of deaths and TSS associated with abortive procedures, not to mention the psychological ramifications. To call any such "safe" in any form is ignorant.
4. Yes. If Colorado wants to make drugs available, that's up to Colorado. And if Wyoming next door says no, then no it is. The principle you are missing is that again, there is no enumerated power which gives the right of control to the Federal Government. And it is currently the Federal Government - not State governments - saying no to marijuana legalization. An objection to this one seems pretty ridiculous to me whether you are for legalization OR against.
5. Are soldiers members of a privileged class? Yup. They are true patriots - privileged to work for little or no pay for extended periods - frequently away from family and loved ones. They work on holidays, they miss graduations, childbirth, and more. And you might want to look at how much the common enlisted person makes while in the service - it's crap. I don't have any problem in exchange for their service giving them a deferred payment for education benefits. I would also point out that those benefits are a huge incentive for maintaining a volunteer-based military. Take it away and you are likely to have to resort to a draft to fill the ranks.
6. I see bolded text. I don't see an objection here and I make it a practice not to infer when I can simply ask for clarification.
1. Associations should be taxed equally or not at all, whether they are religious or non-religious, profit-making or non-profit. Businesses should not be taxed to pay for government services for churches or other private organizations.
2. So freedom of speech should be limited to “intelligent conversation”, “sharing viewpoints” or words acceptable in “polite company”? Sounds like you think that Constitutional protections should extend only to speech that you approve of.
3. “The mother has the right to determine when she has sex, absolutely.” But the Constitution Party would ban abortion even in the case of rape. They are justifying their position on explicitly religious grounds. And are you claiming that legal abortion clinics are as unsafe as back alley abortions?
4. State-level banning of drugs is a prime example of how social conservatives and libertarians differ. Social conservatives are just fine with violating individual rights as long as the states or lower level of government do it. Libertarians uphold individual rights against usurpations by any level of government.
5. You did not disagree with any of the points I made about what’s fair to military personnel, you just used their current crappy treatment to justify special privileges for veterans. I’ll repeat my position: Military personnel, like any other workers, should be fairly compensated while in service (including for injuries sustained in performance of such service), not granted special privileges afterwards. And you don’t need after-service “benefits” to maintain a volunteer army. You just need to compensate them appropriately while they are in the armed forces.
6. It’s a clear violation of individual rights for a government at any level to put individuals into the category of “those who are sexually deviant” or to outlaw sexual behavior that the government deems “offensive”.
I work for a Non Profit and the town/state does squat! and to be honest, we don't want them to...just leave us alone.
Same as a corporation...I don't think a corporation itself should be taxed because everyone that works and runs that corporation is already taxed. Profits are put to work...they just don't sit there unclaimed...same goes for non profits...donations pay expenses, including building maintenance.
PS...the police have never been here...
The difference is in who is primary responsible for defending rights according to the Constitution. The Constitution Party holds that if a certain duty or responsibility isn't specifically enumerated and delegated to the Federal Government for control, it defers to the States (see the Ninth and Tenth Amendments). How do "individuals" protect rights? By forming governments. I think you're creating a division here that doesn't really exist.
1. I'm with you that organizations shouldn't be taxed at all. That would eliminate leverage altogether. But within the system we have, again, you miss the point: it isn't about equality of taxation. That's a straw man as it doesn't exist anyway. Businesses like GE pay almost zero effective tax rates because they get special tax treatment. The issue is about the government's ability to coerce belief - as I gave in my examples.
2. You might want to check your Supreme Court history. The Court tests for Speech have specifically excluded vulgarity because vulgarity isn't about expressing opinion. In either case blaming me personally is not only pointless, but misdirected. For an excellent primer on Speech in the Courts, I strongly recommend Hillsdale College's free class on the Supreme Court. They have one entire 40 minute lecture on Speech and the major cases involved.
3. "They are justifying their position on explicitly religious grounds." Yes, they are. So what? If you can prove when life starts, you can argue with them. They have their opinion you have yours. "And are you claiming that legal abortion clinics are as unsafe as back alley abortions?" I'm not claiming it. It's already proven. As I said, go look up the statistics. They are unflattering. Abortion providers are not required to have sterile procedure rooms. They aren't required to clean their instruments. They aren't even required to be performed by full medical doctors and the doctors don't have to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. No. They are not safe. Don't allow yourself to simply be swayed by the propaganda of fear. Want to know what's more dangerous to the health of the mother: having an abortion or giving birth? Abortion - even when performed in a clean operating room. (Here's more about Gosnell (warning, it's graphic) http://www.theblaze.com/news/2013/04/...
4. This is one of the topics on which I just don't get the Objectivist stand. One the one hand it is all about rational thought over emotion, yet they argue vociferously in favor of recreational drug use even though it directly degrades the capacity for rational thought. The second part is that drug use never solely affects the person taking the drugs. We see it with alcohol today not just in impaired driving, but in domestic abuse. Do recreational drugs help people be better workers? No. That's why companies do drug testing: they don't want an impaired person working for them. You see it as a personal rights issue. I see it as a personal willfully diminishing their capacity for reason and wanting society to approve of the resulting choices.
5. I agreed that military personnel are a special type of people. What I said was that I don't have a problem with allowing them to accrue deferred compensation in the form of education assistance. You obviously feel this is unfair. That's your opinion. "You just need to compensate them appropriately while they are in the armed forces." You're arguing a contradiction here. Deferred education benefits ARE one of the benefits/compensations they get while they serve. You're arguing about employment contracts. If you want to argue that no one should get anything from their employer after they leave, you are arguing against pensions and other deferred benefits plans. You are arguing that valid contracts which include post-employment benefits should be nullified. It's your hill to die on.
6. Rights are individual - not joint. Sexual acts require two participants. Therefore, there is no right to sex. Sex is a contract, and as such is subject to how society wants to deal that contract.
As I stated before and will repeat, rights are individual. Society is a construct of multiple individuals, therefore it has no rights. Society is a joint agreement between individuals about what conduct between its members is acceptable, recognized, and condoned by the body politic - the individuals in aggregate. Contracts fall in this area. Any government: local, State, or Federal is authorized by the individual to enforce laws as passed and ratified by the People within its appropriate sphere. The Constitution intentionally attempted to limit the sphere of the Federal government so as to allow localities autonomous independence to test and try out various ideas - everything from marriage to drug legalization to health care to education and more. The Constitution Party wants to further that ideal: that the Federal Government should be restricted back to its Constitutional foundations and realm of authority, leaving much of these debates to the regionalities, communities, and localities of the People. This actually enhances freedom because it allows one to leave let's say Utah and go to California if gay rights are a huge issue. With homogeneous rules across the nation, freedom to act on one's beliefs is curtailed because of that very uniformity.
"Objectivists... would consider criminal sanctions for deviations from such behavior to be an unacceptable initiation of force by the government."
What is always at question is first: whether or not the subject of regulation is a fundamental right. I agree completely that rights should be protected by government and that such is their first and primary responsibility. But much of what you list as policy disagreements are not rights, but actions taken by individuals that affect other members of society. So yes, those other members of society can and should be able to voice their opinions and participate in the creation of laws which define and oversee "acceptable" behavior on the part of its members. This is called Freedom of Association. It is part and parcel of associating with any given group of people.
The Founding Fathers knew that whenever you have two or more people together you will have differences of opinion. The Constitution provides a framework for allowing all to voice their opinions to effect public policy. But at the end of the day, only one set of principles can prevail. And the method by which it is determined which voice prevails is the vote. You are allowed to hold a differing opinion, but the law is authorized to punish one for acting in violation of the laws as determined by the vote. If there is no enforcement of the law, there is no law - anarchy rules. And where anarchy rules, rights are subject to infringement by anyone and everyone with no recourse other than individual might.
What I think is interesting and of particular note is that what is generally the punishment for abrogation of law? Fines, perhaps, but in many cases it is ostracism and segregation (via incarceration) from the very community and laws one rejected when disobeying. Both the law-breaker and society are getting exactly what they want in the end: non-association. Usually, that non-association is temporary and based on the assumption that at some point the lawbreaker intends to rejoin society (and conform to societal laws and norms).
Why do you think Atlantis is such an appealing construct to many Objectivists? For the same reason that it appealed to the Puritans, the Amish, the Mormons, and many others who came to this nation in the 1600's and 1700's. They wanted a place to associate with the like-minded where they set the terms of association. What are wars ultimately fought over? Association. What must be recognized, however, is that the right to association is directly tied to specific membership duties and expectations of conduct as proscribed by that association.
So, yes: Associations absolutely have the privilege of determining their requirements for ongoing membership and may form governments for the purposes of enforcing those membership requirements.
“The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man’s self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. But a government that initiates the employment of force against men who had forced no one, the employment of armed compulsion against disarmed victims, is a nightmare infernal machine designed to annihilate morality: such a government reverses its only moral purpose and switches from the role of protector to the role of man’s deadliest enemy, from the role of policeman to the role of a criminal vested with the right to the wielding of violence against victims deprived of the right of self-defense. Such a government substitutes for morality the following rule of social conduct: you may do whatever you please to your neighbor, provided your gang is bigger than his.” – Ayn Rand, from Galt’s speech in Atlas Shrugged.
I will only comment on Galt's quote thus: If one acknowledges of their own free will and choice to join an association - whether that be a nation, a church, or a philosophy, do they not acknowledge to be bound by the conditions of membership? Most assuredly. This quote dances around that fact. Was not living in the Gulch wholly contingent upon pronouncing and living by Galt's Oath? Of course. That was the condition, the mandatory requirement of participation in Atlantis.
What wasn't covered in the book was how the Gulch itself would go about enforcing that requirement. It was very noticeably missing with only a sidelight of Naragansett working on a "revised Constitution". Dagny left of her own free will and choice, but the book never covered what would have happened had she (or anyone else for that matter) chosen to stay without citing the oath - of failing to act in a manner proscribed by the covenants of association of the Gulch. This quote doesn't cover it either. It correctly asserts that it is easy for government to overstep its bounds in restricting rights, but fails to address the fact that most of what gets covered in law and society isn't about rights at all, but interactions between members.
What you seem to be arguing is that associations have no privilege to enter into binding contracts proscribing the appropriate behavior of their members. That falls directly at odds with what we observe in Atlas Shrugged itself. I invite your comment.
And government is not a mere “association”, it is a coercive entity. Again, Ayn Rand frames the issue very well:
“The difference between political power and any other kind of social “power,” between a government and any private organization, is the fact that a government holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force. This distinction is so important and so seldom recognized today that I must urge you to keep it in mind. Let me repeat it: a government holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force.
“No individual or private group or private organization has the legal power to initiate the use of physical force against other individuals or groups and to compel them to act against their own voluntary choice. Only a government holds that power. The nature of governmental action is: coercive action. The nature of political power is: the power to force obedience under threat of physical injury—the threat of property expropriation, imprisonment, or death.” – Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”.
Government is responsible for enforcement of laws so designated under the rules of society (i.e. association), yes. What is missing from this statement, however, is the recognition of the voluntary nature of association, meaning that law enforcement (not necessarily to be confused with coercion) is completely justified and valid by voluntary admission of the member. Coercion is the unjustified, i.e. involuntary use of force. Where association is not voluntary, then, yes, government by virtue of the involuntary nature of that association would be almost certainly coercive and unjustified. Voluntary association changes the entire equation, however.
For example: Galt's Oath is a governing statement about the expectations for conduct explicitly for members residing in and associated with the Gulch, is it not? It means nothing otherwise. Even Dagny admitted that she was a guest until she, herself, committed to inclusion in the association and all that that entailed - its protections and its services as well as its obligations for conduct. Galt himself acknowledged this and offered to vouch for Dagny during her temporary stay as befitting a host. The question is about how Galt (or anyone else) was going to enforce compliance with that Oath on a resistant and rebellious member (Dagny was voluntarily compliant). That situation is never broached in the book, but is a situation societies in reality deal with every day. And why? Because people differ in their views and philosophies and those conflicts mean disharmony in association. For the association to survive, harmonization must take place or the incongruencies rip apart the association and dissolve its benefits to its members.
What were the Founding Fathers complaining about? It wasn't about government per se, but about how their rights of association were being trampled: they weren't being treated equally to others within the association known as Great Britain. Their petitions for redress of grievance were being ignored. The solution: to void the association with Great Britain by declaring Independence and creating their own association (and resulting government).
Societies are associations of laws with the expectation of enforcement of those laws. They cease to justifiably exist when laws are not enforced or enforced capriciously. Note that that was one of the primary complaints brought up in Atlas Shrugged - how the laws were created to make everyone an offender so that the enforcement of that law could be used as leverage to make the person play along. Examples included the blackmailing of Reardon and the eventual governmental control of Taggart Transcontinental in spite of James' objections.
Is coercion in government a real problem not only in the world of Atlas Shrugged but also in the real world of today? Absolutely. But it is very easy to go too far and advocate for effective anarchy in declaring that no government may exist. I advocate only for the proper role of government as a principle, leaving individual policy matters to be discussed individually.
It is in the area of shared or interactive activities that rights are very much in the picture. At least this is the Objectivist view of rights, your views may vary.
In cases where actual rights are the question, associations have no legal authority to abridge rights under the Constitution - whether public or private. I agree with you. Only a minority of actions taken in the public sphere amount to issues of rights, however, and in these areas, laws of common acceptance hold legitimacy. One may have the right to enter into a contract, i.e. to interact with another person, but one can not oblige the rest of society to accept, acknowledge, ratify, or enforce such an interaction without a law to that effect. That applies to economic interactions just as much as social interactions. To attempt to claim any such is just as unjustly coercive of the individual upon the rest of society as you claim the government is upon the individual. It would be like claiming a right to health care, a right to a job, or a right to ignore the speed limit.
For better or for worse, we have adopted a representative government, which means that we vote for Representatives, and those representatives are given proxy authority to act on our behalves to vote on measures which affect the community. We only vote directly on those representatives, not generally on the individual measures. No vote receives 100%, which means that some people will not get what they want. The problem is in asserting that somehow even though one has the opportunity to participate in the process in declaring that somehow because the result runs contrary to one's desires that it is now illegitimately coercive. That seems to be the main argument being made by many civil libertarians when objecting to social norms being established as law.
Objectivism does not recognize any government’s authority to establish “social norms” as law when such norms violate individual rights. As Ayn Rand points out, “A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man’s self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law.” – Ayn Rand, from Galt’s speech.
"“Society” ..., each of whom can accept, acknowledge or ratify your contract (or not, if they choose)."
Enforcement of a contract is the sole province of government - else all you have is a society of vigilantes and individual interpretation. There must be a uniform structure and method of enforcement - via government - or it is as if there is no government at all! A complaint is brought before a judge who adjudicates applicability of the law and then directs the Executive to enforce the law, but the common citizen is only involved as either plaintiff or defendant. You seem to include the citizenry as having some active, implied judicial or executive role. I don't think that works.
I would also point out a significant danger in the word "protection". "Protection" is a pro-active term and government only has the power to re-act. Police do not stop shootings, home invasions, robbery, burglary, assault, or any number of other crimes. They do not (currently) have the ability to see into the future and intervene (i.e. Minority Report style). Instead, they investigate, compile evidence, and bring charges against alleged perpetrators to be adjudicated in court. The same with the military - it may only properly act in self-defense except in times of war (which is why that formal Declaration is so important). Protection is a popular, but incorrect, word to use for the role of government; if one considers "protection" correctly, it is actually coercion because protection can only take place when someone is pre-emptively prohibited from doing something before they even act. I can get into the First Amendment implications of such a stance in another response.
What proper government can do is set the terms for what is appropriate behavior by declaring what is not appropriate behavior and assigning penalties for that inappropriate behavior, i.e. 25 years to life for murder, 30 days for public intoxication, etc. Then when someone is accused of being in violation of that law, the alleged is then tried before a judge/jury and either acquitted or convicted depending on the evidence. A pro-active/protective measure would have been to shoot Dagny out of the sky as soon as she penetrated the shield - or even got close. A re-active measure was to wait until she had violated the terms of the community and only then enforce punishment: exile until she was willing to agree to the terms. The Gulch did the appropriate and justified thing and applied (they really didn't enforce anything) their terms post-hoc - after the violation had occurred.
And again, you are automatically attributing coercion with a government "of the People, By the People, and For the People" - a government in which that very government has been given an express license to create laws for the Republic by voluntary association and enforce those laws by express consent of the governed. Unless the law in and of itself violates a Right, the actions taken by such a government - while certainly to be considered force - do not necessarily constitute coercion, as I have layed out.
Now, you seem to place an important condition upon contracts in order for them to apply under what you see as being proper: that of non-coercion. You seem to think that if the contract seemingly only deals with the two parties involved and they enter into such a contract of their own free will that society has no part or parcel in the matter. The problem is that part of a contract's very nature is not only the terms of the exchange itself, but the terms for enforcement upon one of the parties in the case of non-compliance. That is where law enforcement becomes involved and if we recognize that law enforcement is granted their powers by the People, then by extension the People themselves become involved. So you see, the notion that somehow there can be a contract which doesn't involve other people doesn't in actuality exist. Any time a contract is entered into - however simply - both parties are in fact enlisting society to act as witnesses of that contract and obliging them to participate in enforcement of that contract. Thus, not only is society completely justified in setting acceptable terms for what they will participate in and be willing to enforce, there can be no contract without such!
I don't get why people can't understand that any rights you have, can not Intrude on anyone else's rights.
Nor can I understand why people can't understand that with each and every law, or regulation passed, you are loosing liberty.
Love your post.
While I mostly agree with the CP and have communicated and followed them for abfew decades, I cannot subscribe to their 'white as nrwvfalken snow" litmus test for it's candidates. I get having politicians beyond reproach but today that would mean pastoral candidates, many of those would be lying.
And protection of individual rights involves far more than reacting after a crime has been committed. For example, it justifies an increased police presence in response to threats, and in areas that are known to have high crime rates.
Not true at all. Remember, I have already agreed with you that the primary responsibility of government is to respect Rights. They can not do this in a socialist society - it is antithetical to such an ideology. What you are conflating is the notion of rights and contractual obligations. What I have said repeatedly and which I will repeat again is the simple fact that any willing association comes with the responsibility to respect and defend (note that I did not use the word protect) individual rights, but it also has the prerogative to set policy for interactions among its members as long as those policies do not abrogate individual rights. This is precisely how the Constitution was set up and worded. Inasmuch as a law or policy abrogates individual rights - such as arbitrary rules like handgun-ownership restrictions in Washington, D.C. - those rules must be struck down as unenforceable and illegitimate. That is a proper role of the Courts: to rule on the Constitutionality of various laws, i.e. whether or not they infringe on rights. If any given issue doesn't expressly deal with a right, however, the whole legal environment changes significantly. It is the whole reason we have civil vs criminal courts. Criminal courts deal with infringement upon rights: usually property or life. Civil courts deal with contracts and their enforcement.
I have never once stated that rights are irrelevant in any situation. What I have pointed out is that in many of the policy objections you have cited, the policy isn't dealing with rights at all, and therefore the standards are different. They are civil matters rather than criminal matters. Have some civil matters bled over into the criminal arena? Yes, and a proper review of such is totally appropriate. What I can not condone is the blanket statement that absolutely no civil laws are justified, which is in essence what you are attempting to assert. As I have laid out, that case simply is not supported.
“The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law.” – Ayn Rand, Galt’s speech in Atlas Shrugged
There are two parts to acceptance in a transaction. The first is the acceptance between the two participants, which is up to them and them only. The second is the enforcement of that interaction in society, which absolutely requires society's say. A fundamental right can not imply a duty or responsibility on others even though such may be exercised "in a social context." When one interacts with the rest of society, one does not get to determine for any other person what is considered acceptable except through association and/or law-making - else such an one is directly guilty of coercion. It doesn't matter whether one's action directly coerces another into action or not. If an individual expects anyone else to respect, condone, or uphold one's action, the other party must retain the right to participate in either acknowledging or refusing that proposed obligation - normally through participative action/voting (which in a Republic is law-making through representative government).
Speech is a right because it is the expression of opinion/thought but no one is forced to agree with you or act on your behalf as a result. Religion and association are similar to Speech in most cases. The right to bear arms is the personal right of self-defense either in response to force initiated by other individuals or groups. The right to vote is the right to participate in representative government, but doesn't require of anyone else that they vote or even know how you voted. Homosexual unions, recreational drug use, etc. are primarily about the approbation of society towards these actions and only minimally issues of rights. Abortion is a little trickier because it a direct conflict of perceived rights.
"Civil courts are as much about rights as criminal courts."
I think it is instructive to note the types of punishments that can be meted out by each. Civil courts are solely limited to remunerative restitution or (in extraordinary circumstances) specific performance. Only criminal courts hold the jurisdiction of involuntary incarceration. While civil courts can and do resolve such matters as property ownership (a right), disputations regarding the exercise of property rights are usually criminal matters, i.e. theft, burglary, vandalism, fraud, etc. To me, the differences are significant and should not be casually dismissed or lightly equivocated.
"The distinction is only in the types of rights that are adjudicated."
I'm not sure I understand what "types of rights" you are referring to here. Perhaps you can elaborate.
Re: “A fundamental right can not imply a duty or responsibility on others even though such may be exercised ‘in a social context.’” Fundamental rights impose negative obligations on others – the obligation to refrain from interfering in the exercise of one’s rights, including rights associated with contracts, even if the others don’t agree with how specific individuals are choosing to exercise such rights.
Re: “Speech is a right because it is the expression of opinion/thought but no one is forced to agree with you or act on your behalf as a result.” No one is forced to agree with me, but absolutely a proper government is required to protect my right to free speech if it is threatened by others within the government’s jurisdiction. As Ayn Rand said, that is what a government is for: the protection of individual rights. If the government does not act on my behalf when my freedom of speech or any other rights are threatened, it is not performing its proper function.
Re: “The right to vote is the right to participate in representative government, . . . “ Strictly speaking, voting is not a right, it is one of many possible ways of setting up or participating in the functions of a government. As Ayn Rand says, “Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).” -- Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness
Re: “Civil courts are solely limited to remunerative restitution or (in extraordinary circumstances) specific performance. Only criminal courts hold the jurisdiction of involuntary incarceration.” The distinction is simply one that happens to exist in the United States at this point in time. In principle, a legitimate government could set up both court systems and punishments that differ from those currently in place.
Re: "The distinction is only in the types of rights that are adjudicated." By this I mean that under present conditions, civil courts are set up primarily to adjudicate alleged violations of contractual rights while criminal courts are set up primarily to adjudicate alleged violations of non-contractual rights.
Again, what has been my point? The point is that society has a say in determining what is termed acceptable behavior between its members and incarceration is a tool in reformation. I would also put it this way: if a society does not act to frown upon certain behaviors, is that not approbation? Yes. You seem to want to have it both ways. This is impossible. Either a society must choose to approve behavior, or it must choose to disapprove. There is no in-between.
"Fundamental rights impose negative obligations..."
Please explain that term. To me, there is no such thing as a "negative" obligation. There is either an obligation - or there is not.
"No one is forced to agree with me, but absolutely a proper government is required to protect my right to free speech if it is threatened by others within the government’s jurisdiction."
I agree completely.
"Strictly speaking, voting is not a right, it is one of many possible ways of setting up or participating in the functions of a government."
As it can have multiple expressions, I can agree that the term may be ambiguous in its use. We call economic choices "voting with our wallets" do we not? I still think of it as the choice to act - the choice of discrimination between two values. To me, there can be no more fundamental expression of individual rights. Is it given a distinct outlet within an association? Sure. I think this one can be taken either way depending on how one looks at it.
Can one vote to infringe upon another's right? Not justly, no. But members absolutely get a say in association matters if the association is founded on individual rights.
"In principle, a legitimate government could set up both court systems and punishments that differ from those currently in place."
That's a novel concept. Care to share any further? You've intrigued me.
"By this I mean that under present conditions, civil courts are set up primarily to adjudicate alleged violations of contractual rights while criminal courts are set up primarily to adjudicate alleged violations of non-contractual rights."
I am curious what you call a "contractual right". Contracts are agreements of coincidental (and by that I mean taking place at the same time) obligation or duty, but I call into question the notion that any such are "rights". If through my action I can confer a "right" upon someone else - even by agreement - you would then have to admit that governments could do the same. I don't think you really want to go down that road and I know it's one I'm not going to argue in favor of. From my point of view, there are individual rights, and there are contractual agreements and obligations.
The above paragraph pretty much sums up the difference between your viewpoint and mine, and everything else is incidental by comparison. I don’t see where the above statements have much overlap with Ayn Rand’s views on political or social issues, but anyone interested can read both sides of our exchange and decide for themselves.
Agreed. Thank you for a reasonable discussion - especially since we disagree. There are several members of this community with whom I can not have a rational discussion in disagreement.