Please make your case that any citizen does not have the right to sign away his rights.
Are rights unalienable or are they not?
I made my case in asking questions that exposed how signing away your rights can lead to some cases so extreme that my mere mentioning them causes you to wrongly claim I have insulted you. I think that makes my case rather strongly. I think there are rights you cannot sign away in our society; or at least society will not recognize such contracts as valid, binding, nor a defense to what would otherwise be crimes.
Resorting to hyperbole and a insult, as you do above, is certainly not mindful of civil discourse.
Please cite where I made any insult. I asked questions based on your blanket statement.
And what hyperbole? Given the opportunity you don't think there are those well enough off financially, but morally bereft enough as to purchase a heart from a perfectly healthy man? You don't think there are those who might calculate that a 10 or 20% premium on wages is cheaper than complying with OSHA regulations if such regs can be avoided through an employment contract? And indentured servitude is not even hypothetical but was a commonly used means of one paying for his passage across the Atlantic to escape Europe and come to the New World.
Cite were I support indentured servitude.
Does a citizen have a right to sign away his rights or doesn't he? What is your position?
Many persons were able to escape Europe and come to the New World only because such contracts were available. Such contracts were available only because they were enforced by the courts. I'm sure with a little imagination one could envision cases today where similar contracts might very beneficial to refugees or persecuted minorities who cannot otherwise afford to escape their persecutors. A rational case can be made for almost anything. Would you support or oppose the courts enforcing contracts for indentured servitude in our day, or wouldn't you?
Cite were I oppose mine safety regulations.
Does a citizen have a right to sign away his rights or doesn't he? What is your position?
Cite where I expect a court (government) to permit the killing of a citizen in pursuit of contract enforcement.
Does a citizen have a right to sign away his rights or doesn't he? What is the value of a contract, willingly entered into, if the courts will not enforce it? What is your position?
I submit that the only entity that is willing to kill to enforce a contract is the government.
I submit that any number of individuals might be willing to kill to enforce a contract and that brings up the question of whether courts/government/society is obligated to help enforce such a contract--freely and knowingly entered into--just as we would a routine contract for goods and services, or whether we are entitled to refuse to enforce such contracts under one principle or another.
I ask this bearing in mind that non-enforceable contracts are tantamount to saying that there are certain rights we will not allow a man to sign away.
You made a blanket statement of support for a citizen being able to sign away his rights. You did so in a thread where any number of likely exceptions to that claim had already been made. Within that context, I simply provided three examples of where a perfect respect for private contracts (the right to sign away our rights) could lead.
If you want to provide some exceptions or provisos to your blanket and bold assertion about signing away our rights, feel free to do so.
Or, stand boldly on your assertion and accept the extreme cases.
But don't pretend I've done anything untoward in asking you to elaborate your position.
Certainly no more untoward than how you have sometimes represented some of my positions.
Charles
