🚀 go-pugleaf

Larry Phillips wrote:
> 
> Cameron Neumann wrote:
> 
> >Larry Phillips wrote:
> >
> >> However, we do not have free speech in Canada. Some speech that isn't
> >> nice, falls under a variety of laws (see the statutes of 'hate
> >> literature' for an example.
> >
> > Don't make the mistake of assuming that just because a right is
> > recognized by only one or a few countries that it only applies to
> > citizens of those countries. There are many rights that are man's by
> > his nature (re Locke). If a government or state doesn't recognize it
> > it doesn't mean their citizens don't have it, it means it is being
> > suppressed.
> 
> And if it's being suppressed, we don't have it.

I note that in your post that Cameron replied to
you did not say that we don't have the _right_ 
to free speech, you noted that we do not have 
free speech, which is not the same as saying we 
don't have the right to free speech. Then Cameron 
went on his rant about rights.

Cameron says, "there are many rights that are man's 
by his nature (re Locke)." How about women, Cameron?
Do you see women as having many rights that are woman's
by her nature?? Such as having a voice in this public
forum, even if man does not like the voice??

Cameron went on to say, "if a government or state doesn't 
recognize it doesn't mean their citizens don't have it, 
it means it is being suppressed." I suggest that whether 
or not we have a right to free speech or anything else,
or should have a right, is debateable.

I know little about Locke, the philosopical force
behind the American Declaration of Independence,
and his notion of certain "self-evident natural
rights". 

Bentham, a British philosopher (1748-1832) dismissed 
Locke's notion of self-evident natural rights as 
"nonsense on stilts". 

Skinner's book, "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" (1971)
was, said Skinner, "an effort to demonstrate how things 
go bad when you make a fetish out of individual freedom
and dignity. If you insist that individual rights are 
the summum bonum, then the whole structure of society 
falls down."

Barbara A. Amero