the  relevent characteristics.There must be no arbitrary exclusions, and what counts as constituting relevent characteristics must be _base_d upon and open to rational justifications. Fine. Then how about: The following rights [list] shall be conferred on all people having US citizenship regardless of race, color, or creed. That fits your test of fairness. Hellhound

... Paul Rees < You are seriously suggesting that there is no test of fairness to apply when identifying rights-holders? In that case, upon what basis do you _object_ to racial or gender discrimination? Dutch There is no test. All human beings are deemed to have human rights by virtue of being human. Paul Then there is a test - you have to be human. If this is your criteria, you then have to demonstrate that being human *is* morally relevent. You cannot just assume this. Dutch Yes you can. The rights are called human rights . By definition they apply to humans. Specifically, what *is*  it about being human that confers moral considerability upon the individual? I thought we were talking about rights. Why did you concoct moral considerability ? anybody.. is that spreading the alternatives or moving the goalposts?

. . Jonathan, do yourself a favor: . . No, you do yourself a favor, Slick:  stop trying to spread bullshit . about stuff that's over your head. . . contact a physicist . or chemist, or even a good biologist, and ask him or . her yourself. You have a fundamental misunderstanding . of this issue, . . Nope - you do.  You didn't even bother to try to understand what I . wrote, about a hypothetical violation of the second law in which there . *still* would be less energy available as food.    My, you ARE stubborn. If you refuse to ask someone who knows the field, then I guess (hope?) you really know that I'm correct. I just have to decide if you're pigheaded or genuinely lost at sea. . . The anti-meat AR nitwits are talking nonsensically about an economic . loss, not a physics problem.  To see this, imagine that someone invents . low cost machinery to capture both thermal and kinetic energy from . cattle that currently is simply wasted.  Ultimately, of course, your . beloved second law would indeed come into play, and some epsilon of . energy would be lost due to entropy.  But a *huge* portion of energy . currently lost due to it being economically infeasible to capture it, . would be captured and used.    You accuse *us* of being nitwits ??? You want to recover the energy emitted as heat by cattle - presumably without causing them to just generate more, using more food - and also capture their *kinetic* energy? I'd just *love* to read your plans for converting peristaltic motion into usable energy. What about all those calories that go into the central nerbous system and the heart? You really have lost whatever respect I had left for you Jonathan; you try to counter an existing, virtually insurmountable reality by proposing...utter nonsense - and purely hypothetical nonsense at that. I'm going to save this post and show it to the next professor (of *anything*!) I speak with. It's definitely a keeper. . . It's this loss, not the entropy, that AR loon/asswipes are pissing and . moaning about.  And they're wrong about that, too, because they don't . understand economic efficiency any more than they understand physical . efficiency.    I used to think that most libertarians were sane, and I guess I still do, but now I'm a wee bit less certain of it. (...)

anybody.. is that spreading the alternatives or moving the goalposts? OK, if you insist. I will rephrase the question. Specifically what *is* it about being human than confers rights upon individuals?

and open to rational justifications. Fine. Then how about: The following rights [list] shall be conferred on all people having US citizenship regardless of race, color, or creed. That fits your test of fairness. (1) Are you using the term people as a synonym for humans , or in a philosophical sense? If the latter, then many non-humans would qualify as they are persons in that sense. (2) If you mean humans ( as I suspect), then you have failed to demonstrate WHY being human is morally relevent. As I wote above, what counts as morally relevent must be open to rational justification;  AND there must be no arbitrary exclusions. You are, it seems to me, restricting rights to humans without offering any justification (rational or otherwise) at all - thus resulting in the arbitrary exclusion of  nonhumans. best Paul