Survey Question: Which rights can you give up?

Governments often claim residents have given away certain rights in exchange for protection. People describing them self as anarchists sometimes claim your rights can be given up in a contract where the other side may beat you up or some such thing. But, few people would say you should be allowed to sell your self into absolute slavery for the rest of your life in exchange for any amount of money.

Here would be the extremely minor side: In boxing, someone contracts the right for another person to hit him in exchange for a prize if he comes out the winner of the fight. Another minor example would be as part of an experiment a subject allows them self to be burned with a 2nd degree burn as part of a dermatology test to see how well a certain burn treatment would work.

Here would be a couple examples in the major extreme: A billionaire hunter who offers $1,000,000.00 in prize money to any man who subjects himself to a hunting contest. The contestant will be shot and killed by the hunter if the hunter can find and kill him. If he lives for more than four hours, he collects the $1,000,000 prize. Another major example would be selling your self for an inescapable 50 year contract where you work in exchange for $700,000.00 at the end of the contract. Your family would get the money if you die first, but if you try to escape your agree that you can be kidnapped and re-enslaved.

I believe the majority of people would claim that certain rights are waived when the government is involved. For example, when you are pulled over, the police can put you in jail if you say you don't have a drivers license at all. If not a majority of people support this, certainly a large percentage do.

So, under what circumstances can you give away your rights? This is an open-ended survey question with no set answers. This is an issue I am undecided on, so that is why I'm looking for ideas on this concept.

Here is a list of commonly accepted rights, that not everyone necessarily accepts as a right:
The right to freedom of expression.
The right to freedom of religion.
The right to life.
The right to quit any job.
The right to remain silent.
The right to self-defense.
Here are a list of less commonly accepted rights, or at least what some people claim to be rights:
The right to own property. (not a universally accepted right)
The right to own weaponry.
The right to report any news story using any words (censorship outside USA is common).
The right to work.
The right to food.
The right to health care.

The question is: Can you give up your rights? If so, which ones? What circumstances.

This is a survey question, so all opinions on this are welcome and harsh criticism is strongly discouraged!

Since the last three aren't rights, it's an easy choice.

Cowards will always answer weapons. It is a fact that there are people who need guns for protection due to where they live, what they are involved in..etc.

If you feel the need to carry one in a school, driving around...etc that makes you a coward with irrational fears..or they live a dangerous country and if so ...move if you feel your safety is in jeopardy at all times.

Never understood the saying "I carry so i don't have to live in fear"...umm that is living in fear.

a reply to: centarix

so all opinions on this are welcome and harsh criticism is strongly discouraged

originally posted by: Teikiatsu
Since the last three aren't rights, it's an easy choice.

I would agree, but other people wouldn't. Everyone disagrees at some point what is a right and what isn't. So, thats why I started with universally accepted rights and ended on things people would mostly disagree about being a right.

I would not give up my right to be secure in my person, property, and the right to defend such.

Now, understand that my right to be secure in my person and property includes my right to work and have such food, clothing, and shelter as I might provide through my own efforts as well as my right to my life. Also understand that my right to self-defense and my right to weaponry are intrinsically intertwined. It's very hard to defend yourself against someone who has weaponry if you do not have it and thus, without weaponry, your right to self-defense is empty.

You do not have the right to expect anything to be provided to you through the efforts of another, even if it's something you want to regard as your right. As such, health care cannot be a right. You cannot provide your own health care, and in order to have a right to it, you have to expect an entire class of workers (medical workers) to be subsumed to your needs. In another time, we called that arrangement slavery.

Similarly, when you start to expect that others should provide you with your food, clothing, and shelter, you are asking for them to be enslaved to your needs.

Now, there is a huge difference between a society making a voluntary arrangement to provide certain things to individuals who genuinely cannot provide for themselves, and simply declaring certain things to be a basic right that all must have provided to them. The first is a social contract that depends on the agreement of the society - a social privilege if you will, but the other is something one might feel entitled to no matter where one is or what the state of one's society might be.

Honestly, I don't think I could choose to remove any rights at all. It would effect too many people, even if I don't necessarily agree with the concepts (such as religion, in my case), and I don't wish someone else's rights to be taken away even if it doesn't apply to me.

If your asking it at a personal level, and this wouldn't effect others, then feel free to take away my right to have a religion, because I don't have one and highly doubt I ever will

a reply to: Ghost147

Hmmm, call it your right to freedom of belief. You choose not to. Understand there are countries where this is not allowed. So maybe you ought to rethink that.

Healthcare is a right in most "1st world nations"...

Bank It.

You're lagging behind.

We'd never give it up unless it relied on child slave blood banks and organ harvesting centres.

That's the type of example you were looking for right?

a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

So what happens when you get stranded on a deserted island? If you need an appendectomy, how do you get your right taken care of?

Fact is that despite what you call it, health care is NOT actually a basic right. It is a privilege that your society has decided to accord you with. If your society falls apart tomorrow, you can kiss your health care good-bye, but you would still be able to have your person, your right to your possessions and your right to do what you could to defend then. In total anarchy of societal collapse that would be cold comfort, but you would still have those abilities to try ... you would not have your health care service.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

So what happens when you get stranded on a deserted island? If you need an appendectomy, how do you get your right taken care of?

Why would I be stranded on a deserted island?

That's absurd.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

So what happens when you get stranded on a deserted island? If you need an appendectomy, how do you get your right taken care of?

Travel Insurance

a reply to: centarix
The 50 years for 700k is working for under 7 dollars an hour. That's less than minimum wage so no, though I'd say no even if it were a thousand an hour. The under 7 dollars an hour is if I were working only 40 hours a week every week. If it were say 8 hours of sleep and 16 hours of work well...it'd be much less an hour.

I wouldn't give up any rights under any circumstances. Without rights what are we?

a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

Why would anything happen?

Your so-called right to health care is only as good as your society's ability to provide it. Look at Venezuela. They all have the same right you do. Look what it gets them.

But guess what? Your life and the life of someone in Venezuela are still a life. That doesn't change depending on the governmental/societal systems surrounding you both. That's why life is a basic right. You have it simply be virtue of being you and here and alive.

True basic rights are like that - they impose no obligation on others in order for you to have them. They are intrinsic to your person.

Notice I did not trash the idea of socialized health care in my post. I only pointed out it is not a basic right. It is a social privilege. You have it by virtue of the society around you, not because you are human and it is not intrinsic to your person.

a reply to: ketsuko

No, where I live it's a human right.

Ask any Brit with their head screwed on.



Re: right to life, if I needed an emergency appendectomy on a deserted island I'd be as good as dead, so that right is useless.


If it's a deserted island with a pack of wolves my right to weaponry is also useless.


Your deserted island example is absurd in that sense.

Re: right to life, if I needed an emergency appendectomy on a deserted island I'd be as good as dead, so that right is useless.

First off, either you are being intentionally obtuse in order to miss the point of the thought exercise ... or you are dense. This is a thought exercise. You are absolutely correct. You would be as good as dead. That's sort of the point. If you were indeed stranded on a deserted island (or society collapses around you), your "human right" to health care would be useless which is the point that is being made.

There are no doctors to enslave to your beck and call to keep you healthy. You cannot keep yourself healthy. Your rights would be violated by circumstance alone. Boo-dee-frickin'-hoo!

But, notice that at the same time, you can attempt to live, work, build your own shelter and create your own clothing, gather your own food and water, etc., all without the need for others to enslave to provide any of it for you. In other words, those things ... the fruits of your labors, person, property, etc., ARE your human right because you can provide them unto yourself, even on a deserted island, even with society collapsing around you.

If it's a deserted island with a pack of wolves my right to weaponry is also useless.

Clearly, you never read Island of the Blue Dolphins as a child. Why is your right to weaponry useless? If you can sharpen a stick, you have a spear. If you can pick up a heavy rock, you have a bludgeon. If you can build fire ... well, you get the point. Don't tell me you are thinking only of GUNZ?

Somehow, our ancestors managed to fend off wolves just fine without firearms.

So, yes, you absolutely still have every right to defend yourself using whatever weapons you can fashion.

I could give up my right to remain silent. I could treat an interrogator to all my karaoke favorites.

a reply to: ketsuko

miss the point of the thought exercise

Actually no, I'm literally the only person to partake in the exercise giving an example of what right I'd give up and for why.
Try again.






Our doctors and nurses don't complain about being "enslaved to our beck and call" because they understand the basic right to healthcare.


Good luck with just yourself and your sharpened stick against a pack of Wolves.
Lol.

I think you're forgetting our "ancestors" also hunted in packs.


You didn't put me on the desert island with a pack, or if have said the healthcare expert would cut out my about to burst appendix because that's what tribes have always done for each other.


It's a right.

Don't cry because you don't have it.

Here are a list of less commonly accepted rights, or at least what some people claim to be rights:

The right to own property. (not a universally accepted right) The right to own weaponry.

In this Country, the above aren't "less commonly accepted rights" or "claim to be rights". Anyone who'd trade rights away for a sense of security is a someone who'd finger a friend, neighbor or family to those that made these false promises of safety. Earlier, a poster labeled people who enacted self-security by being armed was a "coward". I think it's the former, not the latter.

You can give up any rights you wish it is when rights are taken away from someone
That is the problem, people in power want to take away right and claim it is for our own good. ....who should be allowed to say what is for someone's good? ....
People who claim that they are only trying to do what is best for you is usually out to take advantage of you and exploit you for whatever is good for them. And that is just wrong. Rights are rights and not privilege you cannot take away a right that was never yours to give in the first place.