by Max Barry

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Region: Balder

Odin wrote:You make me sound so smart, when I'm just struggling to keep up. :P

Aw, don't sell yourself short.

Kendell wrote:Difficult to give the TLDR but here goes nothing. First, there are two different types of rights: natural rights and unnatural rights. In comparing natural rights, unnatural rights, and freedoms, you have to view them as a hierarchical system. It is easier to start from the bottom. So on the bottom you have freedoms. A freedom is the declaration of an unrestricted activity given by a government. Basically, you can do anything you want that is within the law. If you violate that law you can have that freedom taken away.

Next you have unnatural rights. They are basically freedoms, in that they are given and taken away by governments, but generally a government won't take away your unnatural right even if you violate it. Violating an unnatural right is also worse than violating a freedom. Lastly are natural rights. They are granted to you at birth and no government or person can take them away from you. What this means is that (1) within every natural right are unnatural rights and within every unnatural right are freedoms and (2) a freedom can be established as an unnatural right and an unnatural right can be established as a freedom or taken away.

Is this your own informal categorization, or are you intending to rely on the meanings as used in political philosophy? Because this account of "unnatural rights" does not actually seem to square with the literature on the subject. (That is, just because something is an "unnatural" right, does not mean it is not a required right; it may be an optional thing, or it may be morally requisite for reasons unrelated to the inherent characteristics—i.e., not based on the "nature"—of the right-holder in question.)

Civitas nubibus wrote:Whats the tldr difference between right and freedom.
Gun safety classes and training classes as kids to help introduce them to guns.
More guns =more cool

If I may give my competing answer:
"Rights" are moral/legal claims that should be respected, or else a penalty be suffered by the party that disrespects them.
"Freedoms" are a specific type of rights, which protect the claimant from certain kinds of restrictions.

So the right to a speedy and fair trial is not a "freedom," because it has nothing to do with preventing restrictions on those who have it, but it is still a "right," because it demands a specific kind of action taken (by the government, in this case) toward whoever it applies to. Whereas "free speech" is a freedom, because it is specifically a right which forbids the government from restricting speech, except in certain limited circumstances (e.g. defamation or endangering public safety).

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