Welcome to America, now pick up your trash!

“Again with that stuff. Look you can believe whatever you want. I don't care to change your mind. You can either try to understand what I'm trying to say (which it seems you're doing a poor job of) or you can ignore what I have to say, but I'm going to totally ignore your arrogant jabs (insults) and not respond to them.”

I believe I understand what you are trying to say, and that your opinion is inconsistent with the facts. I am not ignoring what you have to say, I believe that I have addressed all of the significant points you have brought to bear on this issue (and possibly some of the insignificant points as well). You started the insults with the implication that I am a Christian proselytizer that was fresh off the turnip truck. If you don’t want to be insulted, don’t insult people.

I’m STILL more interested in seeing you substantiate your statements than I am in having you apologize for your misbehavior. The insults are not the significant issue here – the issue is where do rights originate? You haven’t yet shown where in the Constitution they originate.

The reason we are discussing this is because there is some question of whether or not illegal immigrants have rights. It’s my understanding that the possible rights of illegal immigrants that were being discussed here were not necessarily those rights that were enumerated in the Constitution and guaranteed to Citizens.

By the way, whether my statements are arrogant or insulting doesn’t change their veracity.

@@@@@

“Ah, yes, the reason we have a problem with illegal immigration is becuase no one wants to come here.”

This statement is a non-sequitur. Whether this statement is true or not, it doesn’t support the claim you implied that the reason illegal immigrants want to come here is to gain rights. What you posted was “No one that I know of that is not a resident of the US has a right to anything. That is why they are all trying to come here.” To prove the second sentence, you need to find the motive for every illegal immigrant; to disprove this, all we need to do is to find one illegal immigrant that wants to come to this country for any reason other than gaining rights. By the way, Non-Resident Dual Citizens (of the United States and another country) have rights here even if they never set foot in this country. I can see where you might not know anyone in that status, so I will concede that that part of your statement could be true.

#####

“Well I'm glad to hear you're not a religious zealot, no matter where you think your rights come from.... When it comes down to it, you have no rights at all that your community, or your side arm can't/wont secure for you.”

I have whatever rights I can claim and defend. Being a political animal, I will use whatever tools are available for me to defend those rights – including camouflage, physical strength, evasive ability, analytic reasoning ability, weapons, and Social Contract, as well as other things, if I see fit to do so. My community does not secure my rights, I secure my rights.

$$$$$

“John Lockes ‘natural rights’ aren't going to keep a bear from slaughtering you, or a felon from murdering you. We live in a violent world that operates by survival of the fittest.”

This is a Straw Man argument, however:

Rights wouldn’t stop those fatalities, but acting within them could. Successfully acting within my Right to Self-Defense would prevent the bear or the felon from killing me. I would like to point out that the Constitution cannot stop those things either; it takes counter-action by people that have rights.

%%%%%

“The only use we have for ‘rights’ are to allow us to live together in an organized community, cooperatively. Outside of that system/community there's no such thing as rights.”

Does a Hermit have a right to live outside of “that system/community”? I believe that a Hermit does, so long as they can defend that right.

^^^^^

“You either live, eat, and breed, or you die. That's it.”

Maybe. I’ll give you three out of those four; I’m not certain that breeding is a right.

&&&&&

“Until you stop arrogantly professing other people's arguments have failed without trying to argue semantics and try to understand their perspective, all your arguments will continue to fail.”

Well, let’s see now. If you cannot or will not validly counter my disproofs, then your premise remains disproven. That means your argument has failed, regardless of whether or not I arrogantly profess it to be that way. That means your argument has failed regardless of whether we are arguing semantics. That means that your argument has failed whether or not I understand your perspective.

*****

“You are right, the U.S. constitution (and it's authors) were not the first people/documents to consider the idea of rights or civil liberties. I did not mean to imply they were.”