For some reason this has conjured up an image of Peggy Mitchell as a Libertarian, suggesting that the state is taking bleedin’ liberties and that Phil is going to bleedin’ well sort it aaaht.

You gotta fight. For your right. To party.

It’s cold, can someone sort out those Somalian Pirates? http://www.seanbonner.com/blog/archives/piratesarecool.jpg

You believe the Creator was the Cookie Monster, I believe the Creator was the inevitability of the laws of physics and mathematics. Either way, the rights are axiomatic.

Where I do start to part company with others is the idea that putting my life at risk is OK if it mostly turns out that I get lucky and won’t be killed (the argument behind the idea that the state has no right to ban drinking and driving). While I might not be injured, I have suffered actuarial harm.

I further argue that the primary job of the state (or a higher power, at any rate) is to arbitrate justly between the competing rights of individuals: my right to listen to the music I choose vs. your right to sleep at night.

I think the phrase you’re reaching for is endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.

The basis should be quite clear: “does this interfere with your liberty”? If not, mind your own business and leave me a alone to mind mine. The trouble is that people then make specious arguments that your freedom does interfere with them. “If you smoke you’ll get cancer and that will cost me money, if you stick your todger up another man’s bottom you’ll get aids and that will cost me money”. None of these are certain and it ignores the fact that the state will not allow you to opt out, the state uses oppression to make you be part of the health system.

The right to sex with any consenting adult f.i. doesn´t take away anything from anyone else, the ´right´to equal pay does because the money ultimately has to come from those not benefitting.

Maybe we need some new words because ´right´conflates too easily with ´correct´ & the legal term ´right of abode´ with the emotional statement ´right to a home´.

If the Guardian readership approves of something, it’s a right.

If the Guardian readership doesn’t approve of something, it is forbidden.

The views of the rest of the population are “the passing whim of the mob”. These are ignored.

This is what we call ‘democracy’.

Out of the frying pan….