Keep thinking that. When the police arrest you and you get 30 days for not providing your ID when a cop on the street decides he doesn't like you--as has happened for example in New York to a man who laughed when he saw some cops having trouble with a pedestrian they stopped for bicycling on the sidewalk and subsequently demanded his ID, then arrested him for not obeying an order from an officer--you can cry to the other inmates about how you can't possibly be in jail and your natural rights demand that they free you immediately. This has happened, it has happened many times, it will continue to happen.

What cannot be taken away is your belief in an imaginary non-revocable privilege that only exists as a philosophical ideal. In essence you believe that you should be allowed to do something or to be free of something, and anyone who prevents that is wrong and so that privilege is not taken away but is in fact simply being trampled over. It still exists and you are entitled to it simply because you believe it so. The fact of the matter is it doesn't work that way; if you want your 'rights', make your government protect them.

Soap box, ballot box, jury box, ammo box. Use in that order. Use the first three liberally and at the slightest hint of necessity; hold onto the last one, but try not to open it until you are absolutely forced. Do make sure it's full and ready at hand.

I have the physical ability to forcibly rape women, too. That will probably get me sent to jail, where I may be murdered. Same as having the physical ability to express opinions others may not like--for example, that the world rotates around the sun (almost got Gallileo executed, but instead just house arrest), or that Zeus may not be a thing (got Socrates executed).

Debate is not a mechanism for discovering truth; it is a mechanism for proving to others that you are better than your opponent by making a fool of him. The purpose of debate is to convince others: your opponent would respect you more (and lose confidence) if you prove him wrong; and observers will respect you more if convinced you are right. That doesn't mean you have to actually be right, just that you have to make others believe and follow you so that you are in a higher social standing.

Given all of this, it is obvious that people would seek to hold onto certain ideals as truth and law. What is good for individuals and good for society and what creates a stable and functional society can be determined--for example murder and theft and rape are wrong, we can show this relatively easily because when people feel that they are constantly threatened with these things they will form social groups for protection (i.e. gangs, governments, police forces) and make them laws. That doesn't mean you have any such 'natural rights', but rather that a certain amount of physical dominance has allowed the enforcement of an ideal that happens to be inevitable.

What you call 'rights' are simply 'privileges' and they are earned through sweat and blood. If you are faced with a tyranny, you will lose your so-called 'rights' immediately unless you fight for them. People died for those privileges and people will die for them again, or they will die because they've lost them. What we define as a 'right' is a privilege that is so basic and essential that it can't physically be taken away--of course, it can.

Apt/Deb has 4 levels of dependency, breaks much less often (though rpm --rebuilddb fixes the infrequent breakage), is much faster (yum is slow as hell, like running apt-get update on every operation.. `yum list installed` needs to access the mirrors?), is easier to make packages with, and has built-in tracking of actually selected packages and orphaned dependencies.

Yum/RPM has 'Requires' (as 'Dependencies'), occasionally breaks (rm /var/db/rpm/__db* && rpm --rebuilddb && yum clean), is slow and absolutely unusable without an internet connection, still uses the ridiculously complicated and inflexible SPEC format and build system (I've used both), and has some hackish and not-quite-adequate tools to semi-mimic `apt-get autoremove` but isn't quite there.

One of these is technically better.

Your response shows a vacancy of explanation, or a meekness derived from an explanation that makes no sense.

There is nothing 'natural' about the right to free speech, the highest-regarded 'natural right'. Look at how actual social interaction works: saying something unfavorable gets you shunned. Humans are a species that survives by social cohesion; social rejection is extremely detrimental, and so unfavorable speech will quickly limit your individual viability. Speaking out against the party lines, even when you're 100% correct, will get you shouted down and destroy your political career; if your views are particularly unfavorable and you are made quite well known, it may become difficult to get a job--quite especially, if your views are particularly contrary to the Government's, you can't get a clearance for those kinds of jobs.

Widely-known political views will draw physical fire. Doctors who perform abortions have been assaulted and murdered. Persons who have spoken in public about their beliefs on what is called 'death with dignity' but what is most essentially 'execution by request' or a complicated mix of suicide/murder have faced physical assault--particularly doctors who in their professional opinion espouse that people with debilitating, painful terminal illness should be allowed to end their own life peacefully are avoided or outright attacked for voicing these opinions.

On the smaller scale, saying anything unfavorable to ANYONE has the chance of drawing physical violence. The factors for this are the other person's social standing, which may be derived from perceived usefulness (does he bring the food? Is food hard to get? People will tear you apart at his command) or threat (he's a huge fucking jock, nobody is going to stop him from pummeling the shit out of you).

Essentially the 'natural right' of 'free speech' is that you can do it, but there will be consequences. We pretend this is different when the consequences are the government pummeling you with their fists rather than the guy across the street punching you in the mouth, but there is no essential difference. Your 'natural right' is created artificially by an enforcement structure consisting of public opinion of officers, government-provided police force, local cultural reactions (do they favor you? Is there a bystander effect?), and your own ability to punch people really hard if they attack you for saying stuff they don't like. Consider that historically bar fights over things said were just diffused without arresting people, and you can see that the enforcement of non-consequence between individuals is artificial. Consider that Congress is not to make laws about the free practice and expression of religion, and yet there have been laws and public policy put in place to limit that expression in public. Such rights are artificial in nature.

At the moment, you must present your ID to a police officer when requested or you will be arrested. This can be requested without cause. The right of a person to be secure in his papers refers to the papers of citizenship or immigration--the papers that identify that said person is allowed to be in the country. Your state-issued identification is those 'papers', just it's a plastic polymer. You WILL present your papers when asked, with or without cause, or you WILL be arrested for obstructing an officer. You WILL lose this in court--it has happened, it will happen again, it is public policy. That 'natural right' has passed.

Yours is a valid point. Also a valid point is that shutting down Government Funding of NPR would help balance the budget--a point which has been countered (along with dozens of other such suggestions) because "it's too small to matter, it's only $10 million."

The small measures become significant; but the big issues need to be addressed, and grandstanding is simply grandstanding regardless of absolute merit.