[creekster]

[quote]

Originally Posted by hoyacoug

I think I have answered this multiple times already. Life, liberty and property may all be removed at a whim unless you have due process. It is the gatekeeper to all other rights. Without it, no other right is ever secure. Just ask the Guantanamo detainees how they feel about their natural rights right now. I will leave the debate about whether due process is a substantive or procedural right for another day.

You have not answered it. Instead, you have repeated your assertion which is most decidely not na answer. I think I have explained why DP is not the first natural right. How on earth can you conlude that it is? How does it exist in a pure state of nature? Gollum in a cave does not have a need for DP, and it has no meaning for him. Thus it is created by the compact. It does nto exist before. Therefore it is what we, the signatories, say it is. Even if I concede arguendo that DP is the key to settling the question of whether a right can fairly be limited or curtailed I do not need to concede that it is a natural right. To the contrary it simply underscores the fact that DP only exists where several of us are pushing against each other. SO go ahead and repeat away. It is certainly making one of us look silly. COuld be me, I suppose.

Btw, I assume the reason you will leave the Substantive/procedural debate for another day is becasue that only has meaning in the context of our constituion and undermines your intial premise.

As to your second question, a natural right cannot, by its very nature, be alienated. This is part of the basic premise in US law that you cannot waive the right to a criminal proceeding, for example. Whether or not the alleged terrorists hold contempt for due process is immaterial to the fact that they have a natural right to that process.

First, I never said it could be alientated. ALthough while I'm chatting with the Gitmo geeks about their natural rights, perhaps you can visit death row in some nearby state and ask those folks how their inalienable rights to life and liberty are doing. IOW, natural rights can certainly be imparied by our compact, becasue we say it can. This process of imapirment is DP, and it only arises after the compact is created. Second, the "basic premise" to which you refer springs not from natural law but from constitutional law. Rules we decided should apply to criminal proceedings. Once those very basic steps have been taken, however, you can certainly waive large portions of proceedings.

I do find it ironic that you have so many problems with accepting due process as a natural right (because of its inherent vagueness) but have no problem accepting property as a natural right. Isn't that principle equally vague, if not more so? What property do we have a natural right to? Do I rightfully own all land? Do we all jointly hold all land and all other property? Or is it just a right to be able to hold property? If the latter, are you infringing on that right by placing conditions on my ability to hold property (price, interest, etc)? Given that you don't think due process is a natural right, does that mean I can simply take away your property for whatever reason I find proper? Can I simply take your life because I think you are too short to be useful or because I don't like people named Creekster? Can I remove your liberty because it is convenient for me to do so? If so, your system of natural rights is a system where the strongest prevail and all others be damned. What stands in the way of such hysteria? Due process.

With all due respect, what are you talking about? The fact that I do not accept DP as the prime natural right, as you repeatedly assert, does not mean I don't value DP or that I don't think it is a good thing to have in our system. Are you actually asserting that ALL rights we have in our society are natural rights? I find that hard to believe. Natrual rights aren;t in a system, they're NATURAL. the system is what srpings up as we try not to let each other's natuiral rights get carreid away when they bump into each other. As to the property question, read John Locke, from where Rousseau and Jeffereson cribbed a bunch of their ideas; he explains better than I can. Btw, how did you know I was short?