Obamacare Recreates the First Estate

Originally posted by normbenign
Sure, and most of them were deists also, but that doesn't mean atheists can't have opinions in the US, nor does it mean that natural rights exist.
Natural rights only become actual rights when a government entity chooses to enforce them, as by adopting the US Constitution.

"Natural Rights" are just a fancy way of saying "some stuff I like."

Originally posted by no1marauder
By whom? Absent State laws allowing incorporation, it would not exist. Those State laws now exist, but they don't and can't confer a constitutional right.

Until something is challenged and declared illegal, it is legal.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
"Natural Rights" are just a fancy way of saying "some stuff I like."

It is scarey, finally we agree on something.

Originally posted by normbenign
Until something is challenged and declared legal, it is legal.

Is that supposed to be a response to my point?

Originally posted by no1marauder
An individual is an individual and the corporation he forms is a separate and distinct legal entity. They are not the same thing.

Yes, I'm aware of that, but the individual and/or group don't cease to exist because of incorporation.

Yes, they are different, but they are also the same.

Originally posted by normbenign
It is scarey, finally we agree on something.

Laissez faire anarchists and Euro style socialists both disparage the idea of Natural Rights for different ideological reasons. Neither were very well represented among the Founders or at the Constitutional Convention.

Originally posted by no1marauder
State laws on incorporation are constitutional. That does not imply that corporations have rights not granted by those laws.

It doesn't imply that they have no rights which are sacrificed by incorporation by the individuals involved.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Laissez faire anarchists and Euro style socialists both disparage the idea of Natural Rights for different ideological reasons. Neither were very well represented among the Founders or at the Constitutional Convention.

It's interesting that you label me a "Euro style socialist" even though I have never voted for a socialist party.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Only the State law even allows the creation of a corporation so your claim is nonsense. Even without a statute an individual exists; he is not dependent for his existence on positive law as an artificial entity like a corporation is.

See the tenth amendment. .....the States and the people.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Laissez faire anarchists and Euro style socialists both disparage the idea of Natural Rights for different ideological reasons. Neither were very well represented among the Founders or at the Constitutional Convention.

I'm not an anarchist of any kind.

Originally posted by no1marauder
There is no way of knowing what the Founders believed as regards Natural Rights?

What an astonishing assertion!

While I generally think that most of them had some notion of natural rights, I don't think it is well articulated in anything but in the first paragraph of the DOI. Do you find the phrase liberally sprinkled into the Constitutional debates?

More to the point, unless a government enumerated human rights, it is pretty easy to see that those rights hardly existed in reality. They were seldom even mentioned before the enlightenment.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Is that supposed to be a response to my point?

See the edit. They typo made the sentence incomprehensible.

By the way the strongest argument against unlimited government power is the existence of a significant list of enumerated powers, and that many things are not enumerated. The logical conclusion is that those things not enumerated are left to the States and to the people.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
It's interesting that you label me a "Euro style socialist" even though I have never voted for a socialist party.

It is vital to no1's style to label and pigeon hole everyone.

Originally posted by normbenign
It doesn't imply that they have no rights which are sacrificed by incorporation by the individuals involved.

That is a non sequitur; no one has suggested that the individuals involved have sacrificed anything.

Originally posted by normbenign
See the tenth amendment. .....the States and the people.

What is your point? Is it a claim that the Tenth Amendment somehow establishes a right to incorporate?