ALL human morality is quasi-religious. Democracy is fundamentally a moral philosophy. The crime of murder is "natural rights".

Our whole society is built on natural rights.

And from what I understand, this was a new point of view from governments at the time. The idea of natural born rights was kind of in stark contrast to how governments usually operated: with authority and a lack of respect of human rights.

The concept of natural rights that underlies the Constitution developed over thousands of years through a process that involved both extensive deliberation, and extensive practical experience.

We ignore the wisdom of moral tradition to our own detriment.

Well are you trying to be surprised, or are you trying to defend your natural born rights? It sounds like you're not interested simply because it's redundant.

> Well are you trying to be surprised, or are you trying to defend your natural born rights?

False dichotomy much?

I find the idea of natural rights to be of mixed value (beyond perhaps the case of a single natural right to something that might loosely be stated as that degree of liberty which does not intolerably impinge on the liberty of others), and the idea that the particular details of political compromises made by long-dead politicians define the proper scope of such rights actively harmful to efforts to appropriately balance liberty with other concerned for real live people living today.

> It sounds like you're not interested simply because it's redundant.

I'm not interested in efforts to treat political compromise as holy writ.

If I'm understanding you, it sounds like you don't necessarily consider "natural rights" to be the best facilitator for "liberty", and that you're dissatisfied with people who praise that kind of idea. Am I close?

If so: what's your point? I'm trying to defend the rights we have, and it seems like you're just arguing about the method at which we assign rights and liberty? You seem really smart, can you give us some tips on saving/changing the system for the better?

By the way, those long-dead presidents who created the world's most liberating government framework, were alive less than 300 years ago. That's not long at all.

>I'm not interested in efforts to treat political compromise as holy writ.

The concept of natural rights started with philosophers, not politicians. You seem like you need to do a little more reading on this subject.

> The concept of natural rights started with philosophers, not politicians.

No, it started largely with politicians who were also philosophers (whether you look at the ancient roots with Cicero and Seneca or people like Locke who were instrumental in crafting the modern view of natural rights.) But, in any case, it is irrelevant to the bit you quote and respond to, which is about people citing particular provisions of the US Constitution as definitive expressions of natural rights, not about the mere concept of natural rights.

You don't have to believe that they reflected such rights perfectly, to believe that they did reflect them better than our current arrangements, though.