I am a hard line anti religious atheist. I despise religion. I just try to be polite and not show it. In my explanation of where I believed rights came from, reason =/= faith.

The problem I have with your argument is that the logic doesn't follow. If slaves did not have rights because the law didn't give them rights, then why bother giving them rights? If blacks or gays did not have rights because the law didn't give them any rights, then why were they given rights? Surely if the majority opinion of society was that blacks and gays are inferior and don't deserve rights, then the idea of them having rights shouldn't have even been considered? Why was Martin Luther King proclaiming that blacks have rights, and demanding equal treatment for them, when the law said otherwise?

Basicall, your line of logic is: Law makes rights > A has no rights > Rights for A should not even be taken into consideration, since there is no law giving A rights > Since rights of A should not be considered, A should never have rights.
But eventually, and despite the beliefs of majority and despite the law, someone came by and declared that A does indeed have rights, and set upon trying to convince the rest of the world of that. If rights come from law, and thus A has no rights, where did that someone get the idea that A DOES have rights?

My assertion is that the 99% don't have a clue what to do with the wealth, and redistributing the 1%'s wealth to the 99% will have the exact same result as giving control of a 747 to a ramdon Joe in coach.
The 99% are far better of when the people who know what they are doing are in charge, even if that 1% sometimes makes colossal mistakes (and, admittedly, who in the 99% knew about credit default swaps and could foresee the crash they caused? If none, then why do you suppose the 99% would do better?)

I wasn't offended. It just made my respect for you drop a lot, and that made me sad 

When your Roomba or your Sex Doll 9000 becomes intelligent enough to be self-aware and reason, but people who have no concept of rights or justice keep using them as tools, yes. Yes you will.

Problem is, what you are calling "rights" are just laws. Slaves always had rights. They were just denied by law. Women always had rights to engage in any activity that men did. They were just denied by law.  Gays always had the right to form and consumate relationships. They were just denied by law. As the Declaration says, all men are created equal with certain inalianable rights. Those laws I mentioned changed not because society decided to change rights on a whim, but because society realized those people had rights all along, and denying them was unjust.
That's the part you seem to have a hard time grasping. Rights come from people reasoning and figuring out what is just. Laws are applied to the best of peoples ability to protect those rights. But often, people have skewed sense of entitlement, and create unjust laws. Those laws don't change the underlying rights.

300 years from now we will very likely have debates about entities some don't consider human. There will be attempts to pass laws denying people rights, such as attempts to ban marriages between a human and, say, a clone, or a human-animal hybrid (furry), or an intelligent machine/robot. Conservatives, and especially religious ones, will proclaim loudly that those "things" are not people, they have no souls, and giving them rights will take us down slippery slopes (What's next? Incest? Marrying a full animal? Marrying a toaster? Giving your refrigerator rights?). But even if the laws are passed, and those personal choices are interfered with, the fact that those "things," if they are able to think, reason, and feel, still have fundamental rights, will still have their rights of making their own reasoned, informed, and personal choices infringed upon by law.
I'm not sure how to explain this better besides asking you to think if slaves were entitled to rights while slavery was illegal.

 -.-

Where's the icon for silently staring in passive-agressive judgement?

Re: ParrotyBit

Ethanol is doing just fine in Brazil, and our corn farms would likely get decimated by Brazilians if they weren't so heavily subsidized.

I actually wish oil wasn't so heavily subsidized by the government in the form of land leases, tax subsidies, and international security (wars). If gas at the pump was actually $6 a gallow, like it's likely supposed to be, other options like electric, compressed air, hydrogen, ethanol, etc. would actually become competitive and see a lot of push for tech development. Worst case, there's always rail with electric (I envy Europe for that one)

As for who owns what it would be a terrible catastrophy is the 99%ers were suddenly given everything the 1%ers own. Those 1%ers own what they do because they know how to make it work, and how to keep it producing more. A 99%er who suddenly found himself with a chunk of land with an apartment building, a factory, or a restaurant on it will very likely soon find himself with a bare worthless chunk of land with a boarded up empty building. It would be as if the entire world has suddenly suffered a Millionaire's Curse (see majority of people who strike it rich through lotteries or windfalls, who end up destroying the wealth and being way worse off that they started)

They can drink water, or wine, or anything else. It's unlikely that a single company will own all drink able products, because due to them being so different, a company trying to be the jack of all trades will end up being horribly inefficient, and a more focust comtetitor will emerge.
Also, not buying the product is a form of substitution (substituting it for nothing). Didn't want to go into it in the OP,  but if soda becomes too expensive, people will buy it less, meaning drop in demand, and thus drop in price.

Yeah, that's CO2, not C02.

Oh, and I guess all black holes look the same to you, too, right?

So the was that MY property rights differ is based on what OTHER peoples opinion on my property is? What about if it was a white lab rat or a fish instead of a dog? Is the only difference in my property rights just that other people don't care about one animal and care about the other? What if people started to care more about fish, and less about dogs? Are you suggesting my property rights would change, and are fluid, based on the whims of others?
Sorry, but that doesn't sound like rights to me. Hell, of rights were only based on what majority of other people cared about or how it made them feel, sure as hell wouldn't be able to excersise the rights I do in my bedroom.

Actually, in reality, exactly the opposite has been happening. Instead of the race heading to the bottom, wages in outsource countries like India and China have been skyrocketting. It's actually a bad idea to outsource to India now, with employees expecting 9% annual raises, and China is having major issues with labor shortages, with factories being forced to pay more and more to competitively hire.
Really, the only options we have are either A) get rid off the minimum wage and have salaries drop to be competitive with the rest of the world, then have them slowly increase again as the world catches up to Western levels of income, or B) keep doing what we are doing, and suffer severe unemployment problems until the rest of the world catches up and we are competitive again. A keeps everyone employed, but many poor, B keeps most as middle-wage earners, but many competely broke. Theres no option C

Yes, I guess? Not sure where you're going with this. How is me owning the dog with the brain inside different from me owning a couch with the stuffing inside, or a friedge with the shelves inside?

Plenty of examples of this is real life. Just means you have an easment contract with the road owner, or own a helipad.

Can you please explain to me how owning property in the form of a dog differs from owning property of a couch, and differs from owning property of a fridge? I don't get it, and you just kinda stated that they are diferent without explaining how or why.

Careful. Next he'll be causing you of defending pedos/rapists and blaming the victims.

Also, excellent book http://www.amazon.com/Harmful-Minors-Perils-Protecting-Children/dp/0816640068

Is "because that's the way it is" and "because that's what I've been told" the status quo for your answers to all the laws and reasons and why's? Do you even have your own opinions on matters, or are you just parroting others and feeling more sure of yourself because that's what others say too? (Without ever questioning why)


I also never said "society" is government. A neighbor is society, and laws aren't needed to intervene.
Also, I am not asking for a number of claims, or other peoples opinions. I don't care if millions of people claim they were harmed. I just want to know why you believe sex is harmfull? What about it causes harm? You brought up this a an example of something that according to you is harm full, and thus should be illegal. I want to know how or why it causes harm.
I have my own thoughts on this, but I need to hear yours. So, why is sex harmful?

No, I do not. I never even implied such. Note "probably" is not "yes" and note that

Why do you believe sex is harmful?

Point is that you say, "because it's hot and you'll burn yourself," or "I've done it before, got hurt, and want you to learn from my mistakes." The "you'll understand when you're older" is a stupid copout for someone who doesn't know the answer, and I am VERY lucky that my parents never used that line on me for any topics.

That is the issue, because if there is absolutely no harm in it, then why stop it? And if there is harm in it, then probably yes, intervene. Thus the answer depends on you answering what you believe the harm in that situation to be.

And by the way, neither you nor society can answer your question decisively (14? 16? 18? Marriage?) so why are you expecting me to?
But, again, why do you believe sex is harmful?