Andrew Wilkow explains the concept of natural rights

[kevcwb]

Like Andrew said..we are right they are wrong..stupid liberal never can answer a question and always putting words in someone elses mouth

[ConservativePunkTV]

@oberltMBowden. Lincoln supported the Corwin Amendment because he believed the constitution implied what was made explicit by the Corwin Amendment. Lincoln's own words were that he "had no objection to its being made express and irrevocable." This was not a departure from Lincoln's beliefs on the matter of slavery, as he never thought that the constitution gave the executive branch the power to abolish slavery.

[oberltMBowden23]

Wilkow is a moron.. he is stuck inside the fake right vs left paradigm .. he never called out bush for his wrongs (patriot act, illegal wars, lying about wmds, torture-secret arrests,spying on us citizens,GROWING the SIZE&SCOPE OF GOVT!,ETC) but he calls obama out. I like consistency. I CALL BOTH OF THEM OUT BECUZ IM AWARE BOTH PARTIES ARE THE SAME. Wilkow says republicans are badass and the non racist party cuz of lincoln (republicans back then were big govt & Demos back then were limited govt)

[Halo4Lyf]

@oberltMBowden23 Sorry, but what illegal wars do you refer to? Last time I checked, Congress authorized all military action undertaken by the Bush Administration.

[082076]

I love Wilcow. Screw all that dont!

[philharmonic86]

Natural Rights are bullshit. If I say I have the natural right of self defense, where is the line drawn?

If someone comes at me with a knife to kill me and I kill them, I acted in the right of self defense.

Thought Experiment: In the middle of an ocean, 2 people are stranded on a lifeboat. There are food rations for one person; the other will die. Would killing the other human on the boat beat self defense? If you don't kill them, they would essentially be putting nails in your coffin.

[redleg15]

@philharmonic86

you really went to the lifeboat situation? Why not try catching fish with the single persons rations to make both people live longer in hopes of rescue? It's not always about YOU. Would you consider killing a family member as self defense?

[redleg15]

@redleg15

6 Months later and silence is golden. I can only hope that you have grown up and realized that the preservation on your life is up to you and not the Government.

[Warpath2198]

@philharmonic86 This sounds like some random poorly thought out high school babble. You are trying to compare everyday life to a life or death situation? You do realize that every creature on earth has a hard coded need to survive? Why do you think organizations like the military stress so much discipline and training? Animals even humans fall back to instincts of fight or flight in life threatening cases and silly scenarios of rights are not going to matter until the danger is clear.

[evolutionist101]

Hey folks. Instead of giving a thumbs down on my comment...how about making an argument....oh yeah...you don't have one.

[evolutionist101]

I agreed with Andrew up until he mentioned an invisible sky daddy. Andrew is a great speaker and uses good reasoning on his views, yet believes in magic.

Well....can't be right on everything.

[Brettwbeyer14]

@evolutionist101 God is rhetorical. God given rights are mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. He's simply referring to what It says. He's not saying that he believes in God, but simply believes that there is no one who can take a human's rights away from them.  The fact that God is used just refers to that weather you believe in him or not. It's natural law and andrew isn't using it as a derivative towards religion, specifically to make this point at least.

[rightarmofwyoming]

This caller is typical of much of America (and the world).

Some people just cannot wrap their head around innate rights. They think governments and laws and documents GRANT rights, when in fact they (hopefully) ENFORCE rights.

Michael W. Dean

[Brettwbeyer14]

@rightarmofwyoming i agree with you except for you wording. Government doesn't enforce rights because they are already there. They are only not allowed to take them away. What they enforce are laws that prevent anyone from taking rights including the government itself.

[oberltMBowden23]

i like andrew wilkow but he.. like most americans were not educated correctly on the civil war. the civil war was nout fought to either legalize or abolish slavery. the civil war was fought because a group of states felt they were not being fairly represented and were being over taxed and they seceded and lincoln wanted to keep those states in the union. one of the results of the civil war was the abolishment of slavery. but the battecries werent "lets win this war so we can keep slaves!"

[bricitybrac]

Why did CSA vice president Alexander Stephens say

"The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery as it exists amongst us — the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution."

[willukus]

@bricitybrac to be fair, afterwards he said it was about state rights first and foremost. Furthermore, are you aware that lincoln said that "if i could have won the war without freeing the slaves i would have done so." Lincoln was a cunt through and through.

[oberltMBowden23]

@bricitybrac B4 THE WAR LINCOLN OFFERED THE CSA A DEAL: HE SAID HE WOULD PASS THE CORWIN AMENDMENT WHICH WOULD HAVE KEPT SLAVERY LEGAL FOREVER IN THE SECEDED STATES & OUTLAW IT ELSEWHERE.. AND THE STATES REFUSED.. SO IF THE STATES ONLY SECEDED SO THEY MADE SURE THEY COULD EEP SLAVERY KEGAL.. THEY WOULD HAVE TAKEN THE DEAL AND LIVED HAPPILY WITH SLAVES. BUT THERE WERE OTHER ISSUES (SLAVERY WAS 1) BUT TAXATION/LACK OF REPRESENTATION IN THE US HOUSE/TARRIF REVENUE DISTRIBUTION/ETC WERE OTHER CAUSES

[bricitybrac]

and

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition."

In his famous "Cornerstone Speech" in Savannah, GA in 1961?

[joedoufu]

Slavery wasn't abolished by the Constitution. The abolition of slavery was made formal by *changing* the Constitution. If those amendments hadn't been made, would Andrew today defend the institution of slavery?

[ConservativePunkTV]

Andrew acknowledges that it was the changing of the constitution that abolished slavery by refering to the 13th 14th and 15th *amendments* (to amend=to change). Of course he wouldn't defend slavery. He would have fought for a Constitutional amendment abolishing it so that the Constitution more perfectly reflected natural rights.

[joedoufu]

I think you're right about what Andrew would do, but I'm right about the hole in Andrew's logic. He should recognize that the Constitution derives its validity from the philosophy of natural rights, and not the other way around.

[ConservativePunkTV]

But he does, and very clearly so. "There are certain inherent natural rights that are not granted by men to other men. You Victor do not have your rights because of me Andrew Wilkow, you have your rights because you're Victor a human being."

[ConservativePunkTV]

You're also incorrect about where the Constitution derives its validity from; the Constitution is a legal document, and derives its validity from the consent of the governed. To say that it derives its validity from natural rights is to say that a constitutional amendment which violates natural rights would invalidate it, which legally it wouldn't. The case can be made that there are already amendments that violate natural rights.

[Brettwbeyer14]

@joedoufu the constitution was changed but not in a way that historically suggests that it's OK to change it as we see fit, as I imagine is what you are probably suggesting. It was really not changed as much as it was more specified. in the Declaration of Independence, it states that all men were created equal. Therefore if southern states had followed the constitution, there wouldn't have needed to be amendments added to it because all the laws stemming from the constitution are implied laws.

[joedoufu]

@Brettwbeyer14 You're replying to something I wrote 4 months ago. If I remember correctly, I reminded Wilkow that the Constitution is not the source of rights, but rather their guarantor. The constitution has been amended several times, not just to "clarify" but to change its intent, for example the abolition of slavery, the income tax, and direct election of Senators. You are incorrect to state that the original Constitution outlawed slavery. Article 1 section 2 clearly recognizes its legality.

[Brettwbeyer14]

the direct election of senators was added because it in no way contradicts the intentions laid out by the declaration of independence and the bill of rights. neither does income tax as long as it has representation and fulfills the enumerated powers of government. and slavery is unconstitutional not just because it was abolished by an added amendment but because the constitution is derived from what is outlined in the declaration of independence. it states that all men are created equal.

[joedoufu]

@Brettwbeyer14 : "because it doesn't contradict" does not mean that it is a clarification of the original document. The original Constitution was meant to balance power between the states and the federal government. The 16th and 17th amendments changed the character of the nation to a much stronger federal government. Slavery is immoral (and violated moral law) but was not unconstitutional until the constitution was amended.

[Brettwbeyer14]

having senators directly elected does not take power away from the people of the land, so it is a moot point. Slavery may have not been considered unconstitutional back then. That would be because they were wrong. The constitution has implied powers that serve as guidelines for writing and enforcing laws. The whole purpose is not just for balance of power in government, but to preserve the idea of natural rights outlined in our founding document. Slavery goes against it.

[joedoufu]

@Brettwbeyer14 The direct election of senators takes power away from the STATES, eliminating a critical check on federal power. In the old days the Senate would never tolerate a federal government that taxes citizens to their absolute limits, slaps unfunded mandates like Medicaid on the states, and thus forces the states to come begging for funds from Washington. It was a critical change to the character of our nation, and back on topic, a major change to the intent of the Constitution.

[Robbob9933]

@Brettwbeyer14 The Constitition even though it recognised slavery as legal was however an anti-slavery document. By counting slaves as 3/5 when dolling out representatives, states were punished for permitting slavery. Schools don't really teach this anymore. Sad thing is that if you went to high school after 1980 you were steadily taught history wrong. Today, history education bears little fedility to reality due to political correctness.

[joedoufu]

But let me point out that you are essentially agreeing with me by disagreeing. Wilkow incorrectly stated that rights come from the Constitution. In fact, they come from natural law (i.e. from God), and the Constitution merely protects them. You seem to be arguing that actually those rights *were* Constitutional, even before they were in the Constitution, because the Constitution is merely the current, flawed manifestation of some sort of "ideal Constitution". This, of course, is natural law.

[joedoufu]

Andrew, your rights aren't conferred to you by the Constitution. Nor should your philosophy be based on the Constitution. The Constitution *reflects* a political philosophy and *defends* your rights. I think you understand this but the way you talk about it is a little bit off.

[ConservativePunkTV]

Andrew never says your rights are conferred to you by the Constitution. He says that our rights are guaranteed to us by the Constitution as a reflection of Natural law @2:00. He says specifically that natural rights are not granted by men to other men starting @3:17.

[joedoufu]

At 1:38 or so, the caller asks Andrew to talk about his philosophy regardless of the text of the constitution, and Andrew says "my philosophy is based on the constitution". The caller infers that Andrew might have supported slavery before the civil war, and Andrew deflects this by pointing to Constitutional amendments. It's not a strong defense, and I think the caller's inference is justified given Andrew's rhetoric. He doesn't mention natural rights until the very end.

[ConservativePunkTV]

He mentions natural law at half way through @2:00 which is a reference to natural rights. His legal philosophy IS based on the Constitution, not his beliefs on the origins of rights or individual sovereignty. As for slavery, his first response @1:13 is that slavery violates individual liberties (read natural rights). To this, the man responded "but it was legal". To which Andrew responded that it was abolished by the Constitution, which legally it was.

[samuils]

joedoufu The rights of men are not conferred to you by the constitution, but constitution makes those rights into a LAW, who no man can take away from you. And since we are a society guided by law, it is much easier to speak in the contents of constitution.