Re: UK: Drivers may be banned from smoking at the wheel

[Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu]

On Mon, 14 May 2007 09:04:41 CDT, Brian Loe said:
> On 5/13/07, Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu <Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu> wrote:
> > On Sun, 13 May 2007 18:08:30 CDT, Brian Loe said:
> > > I'm not in favor of giving up my rights for ANY purpose, btw. I don't
> > > have the right to live worry free.
> >
> > A common test of any new communications protocol (and also for religious,
> > moral, and ethical systems) is "Does it successfully interoperate with
> > itself?".
>
> You don't understand "rights" - or where they come from. If you did,
> you'd answer your own silly question.

Please enlighten us as to where they come from, paying particular attention
to the fact that "rights" only make sense when embedded in a society, and
that (a) sometimes several rights, if totally unlimited, result in a non-stable
society (as a straw man, consider the right to shoot anybody who offends you),
and (b) for a society to last long enough to be even historically interesting,
it needs to be self-interoperating.  Bonus points for (c) not devolving into
the Monty Python routine in Life of Brian, re: "the right to have babies"
(actually more difficult than it sounds, as it's the logical outcome of "I have
the *right* to do so, but don't choose to exercise it".  A "right" has to be
workable even when everybody actually chooses to use it).  Extra bonus
points for (d) discussing one entity's right to take an action which infringes
on somebody else's right (for instance, my right to discriminate based on
some factor, versus the right of a person in that group to go without being
discriminated against), and (e) without resorting to deus ex machina.

Do you have the right to yell "fire!" in a crowded theater? Why or why not?

Does the Boy Scouts of America have the right to refuse leadership roles to
atheists or gays? Why or why not?

The fact that a number of vastly different meta-stable solutions to "the set
of 'rights' people have" have been implemented by various societies shows that
it's a lot more complicated than it looks.

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