What is a Christian nationalist?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Biff Tannen said:

There has been put forth the idea of wilderness and rivers having natural rights recently. Noodle on that for a bit. 

I drove from Austin through Houston and back yesterday.

I wouldn't mind nature having some more say in the matter. 

[956 Worldwide 34,742]

One of my hot takes is that  the freshman level understanding of ideas is more important than the rigorous and advanced thought, because the people who take action usually stop absorbing around the freshman level because that’s the point where they can weaponize the ideas. That’s true from Alcibiades to Stalin.

All the more reason to tread carefully before handing the young generation an axe.  

[Bozo_Casanova 26,519]

Interesting thread that seems to devolve around the wrong question. 

11 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Seems that a good number of posters fundamentally disagree with this statement?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

They don't seem to have really thought about them, particularly the meaning of "Creator" and "self-evident."

To @troph's point, the historical context of the enlightenment and Deism is extremely helpful here. That said, it's not required. To have unalienable rights endowed by a "creator" does not require the agency of a personal God, and they are said to be "self-evident" because we observe them, even when violated or explicitly rejected by the state. In other words we assert the existence of a universal moral order, and it is up to us to enforce it. 

The atheist crowd here seems to be making the Mussolini/Richard Dawkins argument- if God was real he would not allow men to be alienated from the rights he has entitled them to, which is exactly the same argument Dawkins makes, essentially, that if God was real we could see Him, or in Mussolini's case, that an omnipotent God would strike him dead, which someone eventually did, although we can't know whether or not they were divinely inspired.
So "rights are man-made," atheists insist, and Theocrats agree, as @956 Worldwide points out - because in that world, one man is greater and one is lesser. Power - whether aquired through force or popular election or simple inheritance - power decides who is who and for the powerful. The theocrat carries the mandate of heaven and "do what thou wilt" is the whole of the law. 

But I digress - the crux of this issue is not the existence of a personal God, but the existence of natural rights. In other words - The idea that humans are endowed by a creator (i.e. "God" or "nature" or the Universe) with self evident, inalienable rights seems to me like sort of a deist/moral-philosophical version of the core idea of the Upanishads - "Thou art that."

 

Edited February 25 by Bozo_Casanova

[Pato del Muerto 52,547]

7 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

One of my hot takes is that  the freshman level understanding of ideas is more important than the rigorous and advanced thought, because the people who take action usually stop absorbing around the freshman level because that’s the point where they can weaponize the ideas. That’s true from Alcibiades to Stalin.

All the more reason to tread carefully before handing the young generation an axe.  

Could also just be that 18-21 is when we all think we have it all figured out, and that’s a decent trigger to stop learning- because we know it all.  
 

that is to say, it’s not the information so much as the period of human development when it is transferred. 

[TexasHooch 5,122]

14 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

One of my hot takes is that  the freshman level understanding of ideas is more important than the rigorous and advanced thought, because the people who take action usually stop absorbing around the freshman level because that’s the point where they can weaponize the ideas. That’s true from Alcibiades to Stalin.

All the more reason to tread carefully before handing the young generation an axe.  

In other words, how to leverage the Dunning Kruger effect.

[BrickHorn 18,259]

16 hours ago, Huckleberry said:

So your entire argument is circular as others have pointed out. You are saying that natural rights don't exist only legal rights because to be a right it has to be a legal right so natural rights don't exist. 

This is the reason you can't convince anyone of anything. You are only saying this is the way it is because it is this way. 

It’s not circular. The authority that enforces a right need not be legal (although I listed many examples related to legal authority for the sake of illustration). It can be cultural or supernatural or natural, to give a few examples.

The point is that the word “right” has meaning. It conveys an entitlement. It’s something more than just an aspiration about how things should be or a judgment about what is or is not moral. And the term “natural right” implies that a particular right somehow derives its authority from nature (which the Enlightenment thinkers who advocated this concept attributed ultimately to a supernatural source). 

My question is: in what sense does nature enforce any natural rights? If anything, nature seems hellbent on violating them. We all die, for example. As it pertains to life, the only inviolable law of nature is that it will inevitably be taken away from you. So how is the right to life in any sense protected by nature? From the time we’re born, nature is out to kill us. 

But maybe I’m assuming too much. Maybe those who claim natural rights exist merely mean something like: there are certain moral principles that seem obviously correct. Okay. If that’s your view, fine. But you’re talking about something else entirely and the word “right” is just misleading propaganda. That something is morally correct is insufficient to give anyone an entitlement to the morally correct outcome. Which makes labeling these concepts as “rights” misleading or at the very least confusing.

Edited February 25 by BrickHorn

[DixonHur 11,346]

28 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

The authority that enforces a right

This phrase perfectly illustrates where we diverge in our definition of a right.

A right does not require authority or enforcement.  In fact, it's quite the opposite.

A right is something that can be done without seeking approval from someone else.   

But it also need not be devoid of consequences.

 

Edited February 25 by DixonHur

[Bozo_Casanova 26,519]

39 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

It’s not circular. The authority that enforces* a right need not be legal (although I listed many examples related to legal authority for the sake of illustration). It can be cultural or supernatural or natural, to give a few examples.

The point is that the word “right” has meaning. It conveys an entitlement. It’s something more** than just an aspiration about how things should be or a judgment about what is or is not moral. And the term “natural right” implies that a particular right somehow derives*** its authority from nature (which the Enlightenment thinkers who advocated this concept attributed ultimately to a supernatural**** source). 

 

*you are conflating the source of a thing with the mechanism of enforcement.
** That's an assertion, not an argument. 
*** "Derives" is a funny word in this context. To them natural rights does not imply that the right derives from nature, but that the rights are themselves natural. Which makes sense, because they are philosophically rejecting the mandate of kings as unnatural. 
**** Not universally or even broadly. Many explicitly dismissed the question of supernature as completely besides the point. 

[David Dennison 18,941]

40 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

This phrase perfectly illustrates where we diverge in our definition of a right.

A right does not require authority or enforcement.  In fact, it's quite the opposite.

A right is something that can be done without seeking approval from someone else.   

But it also need not be devoid of consequences.

What isn't a right?

[Bozo_Casanova 26,519]

3 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

What isn't a right?

Almost everything

[BrickHorn 18,259]

14 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

A right is something that can be done without seeking approval from someone else.

“Can be done” is doing a lot of work. Who decides what you can or can’t do? Who clears the way when there is disagreement? 

Consider the example of free speech. In China, the government does not protect such a right. If you were to attempt to exercise that right without seeking approval to do so, you might find yourself censored, arrested, or even executed. Do you have a right to free speech in China? Why or why not?

[David Dennison 18,941]

2 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

“Can be done” is doing a lot of work. Who decides what you can or can’t do? Who clears the way when there is disagreement? 

Consider the example of free speech. In China, the government does not protect such a right. If you were to attempt to exercise that right without seeking approval to do so, you might find yourself censored, arrested, or even executed. Do you have a right to free speech in China? Why or why not?

Because his definition of a right doesn't require authority or enforcement, free speech does not appear to meet the definition in China or anywhere else.

[956 Worldwide 34,742]

8 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

“Can be done” is doing a lot of work. Who decides what you can or can’t do? Who clears the way when there is disagreement? 

Consider the example of free speech. In China, the government does not protect such a right. If you were to attempt to exercise that right without seeking approval to do so, you might find yourself censored, arrested, or even executed. Do you have a right to free speech in China? Why or why not?

Free speech is a fundamental right. Even in China although the government violates that right.

The argument seems to be that if the powerful can violate that right, then the right doesn’t exist.  That kind of drives at the heart of the matter. Internalizing that as a truism is the road to tyranny. 

Edited February 25 by 956 Worldwide

[David Dennison 18,941]

2 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Free speech is a fundamental right. Even in China although the government violates that right.

The argument seems to be that if the powerful can violate that right, then the right doesn’t exist.  That kind of drives at the heart of the matter. Internalizing that as a truism is the road to tyranny. 

The argument is that it's a fundamental right because man has deemed it so.

[YChang 3,455]

Kinda timley, an opinion piece from the Times 

Edited February 25 by YChang

[nbmishoid 963]

16 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Seems that a good number of posters fundamentally disagree with this statement?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Disagree with the natural right framing, but not the choice to make this a practical axiom

[BrickHorn 18,259]

29 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

The argument is that it's a fundamental right because man has deemed it so.

Yeah, I should have been asking more questions all along rather than explaining why the idea of natural rights is absurd. The answers from proponents of natural rights make the absurdity of their concept clearer than I ever could. 

It’s a natural right because we (read: I) say it is! What do a billion Chinese know? Or Russians? Or anyone who lived before 1783? The right to free speech was enshrined in the fabric of the universe at the very moment of creation. You won’t find it everywhere, or even in the vast majority of times and places. But the right to free speech is absolutely fundamental and universal and cannot possibly be denied any living human.*

* Except in 99.99999999999999999% of circumstances. 

[BrickHorn 18,259]

16 minutes ago, nbmishoid said:

Disagree with the natural right framing, but not the choice to make this a practical axiom

Right. I will never dispute that the state should be structure such that free speech is a protected right. But this hocus-pocus about deriving it from natural law or a divine creator is a distraction. And deferring to the whims of a make-believe deity or subjective notions about what nature decrees is dangerous, because those concepts are untethered to reality. It’s much safer to advocate for rights on the basis of the good outcomes they generate and the bad outcomes they avoid in the real world.

Edited February 25 by BrickHorn

[David Dennison 18,941]

2 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

Yeah, I should have been asking more questions all along rather than explaining why the idea of natural rights is absurd. The answers from proponents of natural rights make the absurdity of their concept clearer than I ever could. 

It’s a natural right because we (read: I) say it is! What do a billion Chinese know? Or Russians? Or anyone who lived before 1783? The right to free speech was enshrined in the fabric of the universe at the very moment of creation. You won’t find it everywhere, or even in the vast majority of times and places. But the right to free speech is absolutely fundamental and universal and cannot possibly be denied any living human.*

* Except in 99.99999999999999999% of circumstances. 

Which means even natural rights are not independent of man defining them as such.

[956 Worldwide 34,742]

3 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

Right. I will never dispute that the state should be structure such that free speech is a protected right. But this hocus-pocus about deriving it from natural law or a divine creator is a distraction. And deferring to the whims of a make-believe deity or subjective notions about what nature decrees is dangerous, because those concepts are untethered to reality. It’s much safer to advocate for rights on the basis of the good outcomes they generate and the bad outcomes they avoid in the real world.

Who gets to define “good” vs. “bad”’ outcomes? The authority that oversees 1 billion Chinese people disagrees with your definition of a good outcome. 

[David Dennison 18,941]

1 minute ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Who gets to define “good” vs. “bad”’ outcomes? The authority that oversees 1 billion Chinese people disagrees with your definition of a good outcome. 

Who decided free speech is a fundamental right even in China?

[Mrs Whiggins 13,050]

44 minutes ago, YChang said:

Kinda timley, an opinion piece from the Times 

Thank you for removing the paywall so I could read the article. Very worthwhile read.

[956 Worldwide 34,742]

Just now, David Dennison said:

Who decided free speech is a fundamental right even in China?

Natural rights, if you buy into the theory, exist independent of a “who.” 

[David Dennison 18,941]

Just now, 956 Worldwide said:

Natural rights, if you buy into the theory, exist independent of a “who.” 

Says who?

[BrickHorn 18,259]

4 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Who decided free speech is a fundamental right even in China?

I bet all those Chinese kids who got steamrolled to death in Tiananmen Square are relieved to hear they have the right of free speech.

Edited February 25 by BrickHorn

[956 Worldwide 34,742]

The bottom line is that “good” or “bad” is merely emoting if we accept the proposition that people get to define those terms. You can substitute “yay” or “boo” and they carry equal weight. Something either gives you the ick or not, and if power doesn’t share your ick then you are SOL. 
 

Natural law is a way out of that problem, although it is also acceptable to get comfortable with “yay” and “boo” as the baseline for judging outcomes and actions. 

[BrickHorn 18,259]

11 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Which means even natural rights are not independent of man defining them as such.

Bingo. 

[formermav43 4,606]

6 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Who gets to define “good” vs. “bad”’ outcomes? The authority that oversees 1 billion Chinese people disagrees with your definition of a good outcome. 

I also had trouble processing those two posts back to back.

[956 Worldwide 34,742]

1 minute ago, BrickHorn said:

I bet all those Chinese kids who got steamrolled to death in Tiananmen Square are relieved to hear they have the right of free speech.

The authorities and power agreed they needed to be steamrolled, so what’s your gripe? 

[David Dennison 18,941]

Natural law is just nature. Is that different from a natural right?

[BrickHorn 18,259]

1 minute ago, David Dennison said:

Natural law is just nature. Is that different from a natural right?

“I have a natural right to life,” insists person doomed to die in accordance with natural law.

[BrickHorn 18,259]

7 minutes ago, formermav43 said:

I also had trouble processing those two posts back to back.

A utilitarian approach is more likely to convince the CCP than is “the creator said so” or “Mother Nature decrees.”

[956 Worldwide 34,742]

4 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

A utilitarian approach is more likely to convince the CCP than is “the creator said so” or “Mother Nature decrees.”

[Bozo_Casanova 26,519]

21 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Natural rights, if you buy into the theory, exist independent of a “who.” 

Yes exactly, because there doesn’t have to be a “who” to have a natural order. It doesn’t say “we hold these truths to be true because of sky man.” It says “we hold these truths to be self evident.” 
IOW the truth is as natural as our own existence and we don’t need to prove or be able to explain the reality of either for them to exist.

Edited February 25 by Bozo_Casanova

[Bozo_Casanova 26,519]

11 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

“I have a natural right to life,” insists person doomed to die in accordance with natural law.

And yet here you are, chugging along, during the only time that exists. 

[956 Worldwide 34,742]

2 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Yes exactly, because there doesn’t have to be a “who” to have a natural order. It doesn’t say “we hold these truths to be true because of sky man.” It says “we hold these truths to be self evident.” 
IOW the truth is as natural as our own existence and we don’t need to prove or be able to explain the reality of either for them to exist.

The entire Bill of Rights project as inspired by the enlightenment was an attempt to establish basic humane rights separately from a personal and particular God. They spoke in the language of the time, which trips people up. 
 

From a utilitarian standpoint it’s an easy test. The vast bulk of humanity is trying to move to places that embraced this theory. Those who live in places that embraced the enlightenment do not want to go places that never had it (China, Near East) or rejected it (post-Soviet).  So whether it’s right or wrong it works better than the alternatives.  

[Bozo_Casanova 26,519]

7 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

The entire Bill of Rights project as inspired by the enlightenment was an attempt to establish basic humane rights separately from a personal and particular God. They spoke in the language of the time, which trips people up. 
 

Crucial. But I’m still not sure it’s as inaccessible as all that. Atheists, being fundamentalist evangelicals themselves, are just very insistent about the centrality of their articles of faith, even though they are implicitly but intentionally sidestepped here. Theocrats have the same problem.

Edited February 25 by Bozo_Casanova

[David Dennison 18,941]

20 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Yes exactly, because there doesn’t have to be a “who” to have a natural order. It doesn’t say “we hold these truths to be true because of sky man.” It says “we hold these truths to be self evident.” 
IOW the truth is as natural as our own existence and we don’t need to prove or be able to explain the reality of either for them to exist.

And in the case of the framers, that natural order was, shall we say, rather unfortunate for a not inconsiderable segment of the American population..

[David Dennison 18,941]

18 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

The entire Bill of Rights project as inspired by the enlightenment was an attempt to establish basic humane rights separately from a personal and particular God. They spoke in the language of the time, which trips people up. 

Well, sort of.

[956 Worldwide 34,742]

3 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

And in the case of the framers, that natural order was, shall we say, rather unfortunate for a not inconsiderable segment of the American population..

That segment eventually got things changed by arguing that the framers‘ philosophy was inconsistently applied.  It is an interesting alt-history where they embraced “rights are power.” How do you think that ends in an 85 vs. 15 percent balance? 

Edited February 25 by 956 Worldwide

[Foosters 17,860]

No, How's on third.

[David Dennison 18,941]

Just now, 956 Worldwide said:

That segment eventually got things changed by arguing that the framers‘ philosophy was inconsistently applied.  It is an interesting alt-history where they embraced “right is powr.” How do you think that ends? 

We're still working through the kinks of man accepting natural rights as nature intended.

[956 Worldwide 34,742]

Just now, David Dennison said:

We're still working through the kinks of man accepting natural rights as nature intended.

I would agree with that. I think we get to a better place than accepting “right is power”. 
 

I do wonder if leftists who make the “right is power” argument have thought through what that really means given global per capita GDP and the latent potential to use violence to compel. The decolonizers should be glad that colonizers do not share their ethos. 

[David Dennison 18,941]

Just now, 956 Worldwide said:

I would agree with that. I think we get to a better place than accepting “right is power”. 

I do wonder if leftists who make the “right is power” argument have thought through what that really means given global per capita GDP and the latent potential to use violence to compel. The decolonizers should be glad that colonizers do not share their ethos. 

The country that allegedly embraces the theory of natural rights is the same country that spends close to a trillion dollars every year on the military. I'm not sure the populations we dominate consider that kind of power soft or natural.

I'm pretty sure Anastasis has some thoughts.

[956 Worldwide 34,742]

1 minute ago, David Dennison said:

The country that allegedly embraces the theory of natural rights is the same country that spends close to a trillion dollars every year on the military. I'm not sure the populations we dominate consider that kind of power soft or natural.

I'm pretty sure Anastasis has some thoughts.

Democracy needs to be better armed than tyranny. What do things look like where the tyranny is better armed? 

[David Dennison 18,941]

Just now, 956 Worldwide said:

Democracy needs to be better armed than tyranny. What do things look like where the tyranny is better armed? 

I'm sure that makes the populations we tyrannize feel much better.

[956 Worldwide 34,742]

1 minute ago, David Dennison said:

I'm sure that makes the populations we tyrannize feel much better.

Who are we tyrannizing. Please be specific. 
 

Also, in light of the fact that we have power and they don’t… what’s the gripe? 

Edited February 25 by 956 Worldwide

[Dahobbs 17,628]

47 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

“I have a natural right to life,” insists person doomed to die in accordance with natural law.

Isn't mathematics a decent enough analogy? It is self evident that 2+2 = 4. Whether or not any particular person or authority would accept that answer, it remains true. Natural rights, at least for their proponents, are similar. The right is inherent in sentience. A legal right is a different concept and depends upon a referenced legal structure. A natural does not require any separate structure other than existence. Your practical concerns may have some merit, but I don't find the rest of your argument terribly compelling. 

[David Dennison 18,941]

Just now, 956 Worldwide said:

Who are we tyrannizing. Please be specific. 

Currently Palestinians, but we've also been known to tyrannize Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Central America, and pretty much any country with outstanding loans to the World Bank. But they all had it coming, right?

[956 Worldwide 34,742]

Just now, David Dennison said:

Currently Palestinians, but we've also been known to tyrannize Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Central America, and pretty much any country with outstanding loans to the World Bank. But they all had it coming, right?

From our own utilitarian standpoint, again— what’s the gripe? Please explain why “we” should not have exercised our power via politics and war in a way that maximized “our” utility?