Seemingly you pick apart my definition of rights without supplying one of your own. Perhaps I misunderstood. I was under the impression that the common view, the view you were expressing, was that a right is something one is entitled to. Example: The right to free speech. This is a right, something all persons are entitled to, providing said person is a citizen of the USA, and said person is within a domain controlled by the USA.

The right to food, oxygen, life, is not something to be as simply defined (what is the domain of control of life? the universe? I hope not, most of the universe is pretty anti-life, at least the life form I am.) This is the argument I'm bringing forth, that right to life, via food or oxygen, is not something one is entitled to. To make the jump to "so if a person can die, they should" is simply absurd, possibly that you're trying to throw a red herring out there, I don't know. Simply put, my idea of rights is that a person has as much power to access food as they simply have power to. This means a person can farm for food, hunt for food, or earn a good to trade for food. In an extreme case, such as haiti, a person has the right to band together with enough of his fellow countrymen and overthrow those who are keeping foodstuffs from him. But that person does NOT have a right to be provided food by others. That's the difference.

As far as where I got this? Well, not a big surprise that I'm an acolyte of Nietzsche's to a degree. But actually most of my thought process was helpfully developed and can be found in Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers (the book, please don't think of the movie, it's nothing of the same. One is a philisophical masterpiece discussing ethics and morallity, the other has Denise Richards and not enough of her nude).


You stated that the corporations have a vested interest to provide for those who can then become purchasers. Prove it. Explain how Apple has an economic interest in providing foodstuffs to Haiti so as to gain access to the Haitian market for ipods <please don't claim that the charity would be a good advertising/marketing thing, that's sorta outside the ideas.>

Ok, so where does right to food come in? Do you lump it into the legal rights? that a society that can legally imprison or dismuss you, and thus has the obligation to provide a just system for that denial of liberty, does that society also have an obligation to help those who are unable to help themselves? I disagree. I see no obligation to help those who are unable to produce an exchange of goods. Food is something that we have come to take as a right, but think how silly a notion the right to food is to any other member of the animal kingdom. Every single other member would take food, survival, existance, as something that is inherently requiring of a struggle. You say our sentience grants us certain rights. I deny the rights of a mentally retarded 35 year old contributing nothing over the rights of a psuedo-intelligent dolphin used to deactivate mines. To say that one, because of a perceived, indescribable, sentience has more rights, and the basic right to non-struggled existance, over the other is a notion I cannot understand. Can you justify it? Explain it? Does it basically boil down to "Humans shouldn't die" ? If so, I'll accept that this is simply two different views of the world. If its something more complex, please explain for enlightenment if possible.

As far as Nieztsche, any of his quotes can be taken out of place. This is what the Nazi's did through his idea-raping sister. Most of his work promotes the idea of self-reliance, self enlightenment, and self-struggle. That those who would rely upon others, such as a state, to create an idealogy for which to live by were fools. This was why he wasn't too popular with both the church and germany prior to his sisters dismemberment of his works.

So yea....does being a member of homo sapiens remove one from the rest of the worlds inherent struggle for the gift of existance?

Who called it? This guy.

I think we're just reiterating our same points. We just happen to be of different sides <of a many many sided figure> on the discussion.
Nothing wrong with your views, I just happen to disagree. But I'm also quite aware that mine could be just as flawed as I view yours to be, so it's all good =)