Why should people have "rights"

>>2674332
The concept of negative rights acts as a counter to the concept of laws.

If laws are edicts the government gives that must be obeyed lest the citizenry be punished, rights are things the government must respect lest they be violently overthrown.

These two ideas together form part of the Social Contract, wherein people give up a portion of their negative rights [such as the right to murder, rape, or steal] in return for the benefits of law.

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>>2674332
>Why should people have "rights"
The origin of the concept comes from the halls of medieval monasteries, where rival cadres of bickering monks asked each other this question:
"What is the right way to treat someone?"

They framed it in a religious sense: in order to achieve a more perfect union with the dictates of Christ, we need to categorize behaviors which do and don't fall within the parameters of those rules which flowed from Jesus's commandment to love your neighbors as yourself. Neighbors who love each other don't steal from one another, don't covet each other's wives, etc.

Because the salvation of the soul was at stake, Christians were obligated to treat each other in a loving manner, and as such "the right way" to treat people became social obligations, or "rights".

It was precisely this line of thinking which inspired enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke, which in turn inspired the American revolution to reverse this trend of thinking of "rights" as a privilege granted by citizenship, but something inalienable and inherent in all people, with the government's role to act as an enforcer of these self-evident truths, which vary over time as technology changes the circumstances of the human condition and allow for a wider variety of possibilities.

>>2674332

They don't, rights are obviously an artificial concept and a very recent one at that

>>2674371
> inalienable and inherent in all people, with the government's role to act as an enforcer of these self-evident truths
cringe

>>2674332
Because they make society better

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>>2674332
>should
You already fucked up

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>>2674383

Might as well post our Stirner memes, this thread is relevant

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>>2674392

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>>2674394

>>2674394
This the best stirner meme ive ever seen

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>>2674397

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>>2674332
There is no reason to have rights.
But what you see today is actually not giving rights to all people, but restricting rights of dominant categories and distributing "fake"-rights to inferior people which dont deserve anything.

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>>2674406

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>>2674430

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>>2674438

>>2674332
Because they will kill you if they don't. The "why" and the "how" changes all the time, but the end of it is that they will kill you if you don't give them concessions.

I feel like there are plenty of other reasons, but even if you're just an edgy nihilist this should suffice.

>>2674394

This one is very very good

>>2674336
But different communities expect their government to respect different sets of rights. And the government can be too powerful to be overthrown by its citizens, making the citizen's expectations redundant. In either case, rights aren't "universal" or "inflexible", which calls in to question the utility of the concept.