this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2025
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It tells you that concepts like rights, morality, right and wrong are all human inventions and are all relative. Nature or the universe do not enforce them. You have a certain right, if the society you live in thinks you should have that right and if circumstances allow that you have that right. That means none of these rights are unalienable or guaranteed, they have to be defended constantly. Both physically and legally, both against internal and external threats.
Mistaken reality aside, The (alternate) Janeway has a point. Everything we've painstakingly fought for previously has to be backed up by those willing to ensure those rights remain. By what means is yet to be seen, preferably by ink or, as needed, by force. Understandably, blood has already been spilled, but we hope to not need go further.
Rights are a human construct. They don't exist in nature.
When we fight to construct them, we must fight to keep them. In a representative democracy, our representatives are the ones who are supposed to fight for us. But when they fail, that responsibility falls back to the average, everyday, common person.
The struggle to keep our rights moreso has to do with getting people off the couch to stand up for what they believe in. In an apathetic society glued to their toys and treats, their bread and circuses, it's that much easier for other humans with wishes to collect their own power to dismantle that of the majority.
human construct
Yeah but also human constructs are objectively real. When people say human construct in a way that relegates it lower than natural phenomenon, that is a condition of alienation. A building is a human construct, so is art, so is a computer, an industry, a society.
Rights are a social construct which are no less real than physically existing constructs. Money is a social construct, so is religion. In fact religion served the same function in feudal society that money does in capitalism.
Since all these things were created by humans, and humans are a part of nature, then human constructs are a part of nature. Rights develop as society develops, as we become more advanced. The right to healthcare didn't exist before there was widely available doctors, hospitals and clinics to provide it, before modern medicine made it possible to heal many injuries and diseases. But now that the material basis for it exists, like any technology, it can be used to improve the lives of everyone or it can be used to oppress.
But both outcomes are the result of human activity.
I dig your conclusions, but I think that it becomes difficult to convince people when we ourselves are operating on a faulty basis. The reality of human alienation from nature is not an essential part of nature, it is the product of human activity. It took work to create it and it will take work to reverse it. Alienation is a condition of class rule.
But the real basis for it, which in our society is laws and culture underwritten by state violence, is not as permanent as the fact that it is the labor and time of all the workers that create what is actual. And if we want to change the conditions that alienate us from the rights and privileges that our labor creates, then we have to be able to reflect on reality as it is. We have to not just make mystified statements but really understand every step in the process of the logic that we will use to inform the actions needed for liberation.
Taking for granted our alienation as natural and not imposed, is a step in the logical process that informs our subjugation.
And that needs to start with electing representatives and a President that respects and will restore our Constitution.
This goes farther than Trump. Our Constitution was damaged and tattered well before that, which is part of what enabled Trump and his admin to rip it to shreds.
The President getting to decide what laws are enforced and which aren't is kind of insane. The pardon power was generally fine before this, but was clearly open to abuse.
Hillary broke the law with her private email server, but everyone else, including W and Trump and Hegseth broke that same law. It just wasn't enforced until they decided to hit Hillary with it specifically.
If there are laws we shouldn't enforce, we should just get those laws off the books. And clearly we need to rein in Presidental power. We left a whole lot of trust that the office would be run in good faith, and regardless of party that's generally been true, with exceptions. The is the first administration that hasn't given a single fuck about the American people.
I feel like every previous President was brought in and made to understand that it's a china shop, and they need to not act like a bull, and then were given very specific and explicit reasons why for each situation. There's a reason each predecessor did what they did, and those actions were generally done under the advisement of some very smart people with solid research, and if you're going to break with that previous decision, you better be really damn sure of what you're doing.
This is the first administration that's come in and told each of those advisors to fuck right off. The biggest plate to break so far is the idea of Due Process. When I Google the phrase "Due Process", the first thing that comes up should absolutely not be about immigrants. This isn't a law centered on immigrants or anything about immigration specifically. You know the reason that immigration comes up as the top result for "due process" in 2025.
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It's a failure of the system as a whole. If the rights are described as inalienable as a fact of the law then any president who tries to take those rights away should ideally be stopped by the courts.
Instead we have courts that say "hmmm it's pretty clear they can't do this so how can I make up some absolute nonsense to say it's totally ok for them to do it...."
It is worse than that. The shadow docket is pretty much the judicial version of "neener-neener, I can't hear you!"
...we did build that system. We are currently in that system, which has been corrupted by a criminal and terrorist organization called the Republican party
normally you'd have a congress that flexed its power to stop the President from touching rights at all, but over time the Executive has become more and more powerful and Congress more and more impotent.
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Pretty words, but no system is self enforcing. What's going on now has taken the collective agreement of thousands of bad actors, over decades, to enact.
true, but I think the system must be afraid. we need the public to have solidarity and see beyond their privilege. the American individualist ideology is a poison.
The moment the state tries to fuck over anyone, the whole nation should stop to a halt.
Yes. And this is why rights are lost as soon as you lower your guard.
See, we've been trying to do that, build an ideal system, real hard for a very long time but the only, only, absolutely tried and true only method to get there is via democracy. And people keep voting the fucking strip away all rights guys into power.
Yup. This is the basic principle of anarchism.
Welcome to Anarchism :)
No, give me all the rights, I'm good, I swear.
Rights are not given, they're taken.
Sorry, but there's always going to be a power structure.
Tribal people shunned those who didn't fit in and forced them out.
The trick is to build a system with good checks and balances and an informed populace willing to uphold those rules.
I don't know who said it, but it goes something like this.
"Every time you build a fool proof system, the fools get more creative."
You can't force people to be 'well informed' or even aware of their own interests.
There was plenty of evidence that Donald Trump was a complete idiot and a scoundrel available in 2015. a decade later and there are still tens of millions of people who will tell you he's a genius and a moral exemplar.
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Which "tribal people?" When? There are tribal people all over the world. They don't all share the same "power structure."
Let's just turn it around.
Why don't you show me a society with absolutely no rules of conduct? Where everyone does exactly what they want, all the time?
Let's just turn it around.
Why don't you show me where anyone is claiming such a thing? You conflated practices of "shunning" with the customs of all "tribal people." There are variants of exile and rehabilitation that run through a spectrum of possible options to all people who are self governing. Who exactly are you arguing with?
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Ackshyually, humans have experimented with various forms of social organization for most of prehistory and history. The current system of states with rigid laws and extreme enforcement is very recent. People used to transition between different hierarchies and systems, even seasonally. Not to mention many peoples would self-organize. In some Northest-American tribes, it was common sport to make fun of leaders and not take them too seriously. Some Sumerian city states had massive assemblies instead of high councils.
I HIGHLY recommend "The Dawn of Everything" by David Graeber to EVERYBODY.
There are only two systems in which rights cannot be taken away. A system with no rights in the first place, or a system with no living beings to have rights.
The point of inalienable rights, is they are the rights which must always be fought for and protected no matter the cost.
especially if the good president, is an old guard nominee, otherwise republican lite nothing will change. they keep the status quo of the oligarchs, and groups like AIPAC.
This makes sense, there are no abuses of human rights in the US it is just that some people do not meet the conditions to receive privilages like basic healthcare, food assistance or fair treatment by state employees.
America, where everyone is equal, and some are even more equal than others!
Constitutions are just a "we promise we wont oppress you" pinky promise. Laws are nothing but the words of people. It wouldn't mean anything if nobody (especially those in power) respect those words anymore.
Someone woke up? Good thing and welcome
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