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well a fundemental right to life would but into other fundemental rights

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IMO, all other rights stem from this one, therefore it trumps the others.


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At what point did this become a right? Was this a right 10K years ago? Did we simply lock up the tiger that ate the cave man? We are not as dominant over nature as many would like to think. There are serious natural constraints on what we are able to do. We cannot garuntee life. If we attempt to do so at this point, it is not going to work.

There is no right to life.

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Just to clarify (if I may; shout me down if I'm mis-representing you vulture) -- but when vulturesrow speaks of rights (or anyone else who refers to rights, be they legal or natural) -- it's referring to anything that we have a just claim on;this is not a guarantee, nor is it even synonymous with a guarantee (even if we might sometimes say such things like 'we are guaranteed the right to vote', or some other such similar platitudes).

Obviously, there is no entity that I know of which can guarantee life -- in the way that you mean guarantee. I may eat poison turkey tomorrow and die, regardless of whatever rights I may possess. Even if I survive the turkey, I might catch the bird flu at the mall on Friday -- and if I can somehow escape the bird flu, I might die in a car accident on the way home from the mall. So you're right to note that no such 'guarantee' to life exists, but it's not particularly pertinent to a discussion about the legitimacy or the hierarchy of rights. Rights aren't guarantees, and no one is arguing (I don't think) that they are.

There are many entities that might be able to recognize and adjudicate (and from there, codify and forcibly defend) what we justifiably can lay claim to – I prefer a sovereign state, with its rule of law, to do my right-recognizing and defending. pvn and others may prefer some other paradigm for how we justify and defend our claims. But what VR is talking about -- as is everyone who refers to a 'right' -- is merely meant to convey that we have a justifiable claim on whatever it is we have a right to. And I think almost all of us agree that life is something with which we can have a justifiable claim on.

Clearer, I hope?