Have you considered the idea that what could be considered a natural right back when people *could* find still unused empty spaces, is no longer such when there is no more good land left unused, and when humanity has already spread all over the world?

Discovery of new territories is all fine and good -- and I can understand the argument "If you don't like your lot in life, go move further out and find new land".

But to believe the same applies now, where the above (finding unused land) is no longer practical means favoring the established owners over the new owners -- and the heirs over the self-created.

It fails criteria of both justice and equality.

But by that argument there's hardly an square inch of soil in Europe (possibly the world) that wasn't once grabbed forcefully by their previous owners. Where does that leave modern ownership of property as a concept, except merely a human convention driven by democratically-written law, not a natural right at all?

Look -- I agree that you've earned it, in the sense that you deserve it and you ought have it.

But where does that "food" or those "goods" come from? They didn't magically appear from heaven, so the raw materials are at the end the result of someone toiling the earth (mining, farming, etc).

And possession of the earth is arbitrary. It preexisted anyone's birth, so there's no "natural" sense in which one person or another owns it. It's a *human convention*, not a natural law, to claim land as property -- as a result it's a human convention, not natural law that any raw materials can be property -- and therefore it's human convention, not natural law that ANY material good can be property.

It's a very *useful* human convention, I grant you. But that doesn't elevate it to the level of "natural right".

I live in Greece - must I accept the orders of some byzantine emperor who handed off acres of land to monasteries as not only "legitimate property" but actually a "natural right"?

You're playing with words, you're not communicating anything meaningful.

You may just as well say that if policemen are allowed to quit, then protection from burglars is an empty claim. Or if firemen are allowed to quit, then citizens' access to the fire department is an empty claim. That's just stupid.

"Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, say I."

What if my happiness depends on the liberty to take over your property?

The Lisbon Treaty is not a sentient organism therefore it can't "self" do anything. You probably mean something like "If the elected governments of the member-states unanimously agree with with the elected Members of the European Parliament, then certain more decisions will pass from unanimous voting to majority voting".
That's not self-amendment ofcourse. That's amendment by elected officials.

The Lisbon Treaty's major improvement is that it now explicitly includes any state's right to secede from the European Union. Previously no such right explicitely existed.

So, the whiners will eventually have to quit with their whining and just convince their nations to depart from the Union. Nobody is anymore capable of truthfully saying that the European Union forced *anything* on them. If they don't like it, the member states now can simply leave it. They now will have the right - for the first time.

And yet you oppose the treaty that made this right explicit. How come?

Only if they're not allowed to quit.

"The American Revolution was sparked, in part, by taxes of 2-5%."

Accompanied by NO REPRESENTATION. "Taxation without Representation is Tyranny" went the phrase. I certainly agree with that. But taxation *with* representation isn't tyranny. It's the democratic majority's right to determine by law what property is whose property.

If democracy didn't create such laws, there wouldn't be any property at all, merely possession.

All physical property depends on material resources which preexisted your birth, or any other human being's birth.

Therefore it's not a "natural right" to claim exclusivityover any material object - to call any material object your property.

Property is a legal right which people through their governments uphold, because it's a very *useful* legal right (as it incentivizes work and wealth-production, and defends us from each other's parasitism). But claiming it a "natural right" is merely a form of superstition.

I'm pretty sure that most people who had abortions valued their own human lives -- and as such valued human life in general (if not always in the specific case of a foetus).

This is a game of definitions. I believe you are misusing the word "arbitrary": I think you are using it where you should more properly be using the word "subjective".

The laws of physics are objective.
The value of human life is subjective.
The definition of the meter is arbitrary.

Society's desire to protect itself is not "arbitrary" - it's a necessity for a long-lasting society, and therefore not arbitrary, based on the the basic human desire for survival (which again is not arbitrary, but a fundamental part of our genetic makeup).

Something is arbitrary only if the same people having the same concerns could reach a completely different solution. (e.g. should we use the symbol "+" or "-" to signify addition? That's arbitrary)

If however the conclusions are inexorably bound to the concerns (in order to protect human society we must value human life), then they're not arbitary. They may be *subjective*.

"The attribution of value to human life is completely arbitrary. "

It's not arbitrary, it's an consequence of the fact that we're human, and the simple that fact that humans that don't value human life either kill themselves or are psychopaths on which a functioning society cannot be based.

Attributing value to human life is probably the LEAST arbitrary thing in human civilization.

"doesn't hire those that don't"="only hires those that do"

It's a basic logical transformation.
If you leave out the 'only' you completely miss the meaning of strict criteria described.

And the way you transformed it previously, doesn't only fail to take that into account, but almost completely reverses the meaning.

The meaning is that he would NOT want to work for a company that only hires employees that work in their spare time. You transformed it wrongly.

"I was just trying to remove all negatives."

Well, that's impossible, unless you use antonyms or expressions like "refuse to" -- in which case you merely hide the negatives, you don't remove them.

"It's easy to defend the rights to freedom of speech or of assembly. Those can be rationally derived from the fact of one's existence. "

Hardly. You're merely accustomed to rights only referring to issues of Liberty.
Here in Europe we are also accustomed to rights referring also to matters of Equality, and social Solidarity as well.

A right to broadband access (even if it meant publically provided free broadband access) is no different conceptually than a right to a public free education - a right pertaining to Social Solidarity.

"Free speech does not impose anything on anyone."

Try to exercise your free speech loudly enough in the middle of night, when people are sleeping, and you'll be arrested for disturbance of the peace, as it's likewise considered that people are also entitled to peace and quiet.

You really think you understand where negative rights end? Imagine the person who buys all the property around your home and fordids you to cross into his property. Let's see how well your "right to travel" works then.

If you consider property to be a "negative right", then certain other negative rights become merely theoretical and can be violated in practice by people owning the air you breathe, and the earth you walk upon. Even freedom of speech can be violated in the name of "intellectual property".

The distinction between positive and negative rights is to some extent arbitrary, as even the hardest core of negative rights need be protected and supported with positive rights that will ensure that other people won't abuse *their* negative rights.

Liberty is violated in practice when Equality is absent. Equality is violated in practice when Solidarity is absent.