Are rights premised on values?

[rockydem]

I think something is a right because it's important to the values we hold as important.

Sometimes rights can be values too. Freedom of speech can be considered a value, upon wich democracy itself depends, which is also a value.

Talking in the dead language of rights is not always enough. It's important to reference the underlying values, or frame the right in terms of its value(s).

Does that make any sense?

[MatrixEscape]

1. I am not so sure if

eframing rights as values in response to the morals/values jargon of the Right is prudent. It seems like could be more of an acknowledgment or even a subtle shift in their direction.

I see what you are getting at, but the context is important so it a place to tread cautiously at least.

I think of basic rights and more generalized ones that issue from them hierarchically. Getting back to the original framing, we have the idea of self-evident truths and inalienable rights. We have have lost the ability to maintain a consensus of that and the injection of religiously-based doctrines is successfully diluting our collective discernment, then the problem will not be solved by acceding and moving out of the founding framework.

I would personally resist the pressures to enter the arena of dogma where rights, values, and morals are granted on the basis of who is deemed good and who is evil, (often in an arbitrary fashion) rather than a system of justice for all, based on a healthy legal system with pratical applications of law based on proofs, fact, and evidence. Secular justice is already well established in government and institutions. Truth and justice are a dynamic that is supposed to be rigorously tested and is subject to mutation based on the concrete, not ideological fancy and ancient texts, per se.

Taking the bait of the Domionists and Neocons in this area could be a slippery slope when resting on the efficacy and proven value of Constitution, Bill of Rights should be the focus. At best we can advocate for improvement and vigilance to that rather than argue morals and values that are in a different sphere.