'Cos I don't find that phrase so very close to my own when I google his work. At this point what you said still sounds a lot closer to what I've said many times than anything I can find by Chesterton. I'm not saying it's not there, just that I need help finding it if it is, and since you have the quote ready to hand....

You are entitled to your mistaken opinion. Freedom of speech can be guaranteed without any property rights. So can freedom of assembly. So can suffrage. So can security of person. You might want to think about what you say before you say it. If you murder me in cold blood you haven't "stolen" my life, you've just killed me, a real infringement on my rights, but not on my property rights.

You have to recognize people AS people before you recognize any inherent rights they possess. I used to regard that as so implicitly obvious most people don't consciously think about it, so might need an explicit reminder. Evidently a few people actually DO need to be told, however. Very sad.

It's not "obvious" at all; slavery was common practice throughout the world for millennia and no one thought it especially odd. In fact, from the Servile Wars to the Civil War millions thought ABOLITION was the oddness; it was an afront to their property rights and they didn't see something else took precedence. Something called "civil rights. " No, rights were not respected equally, you're correct in that, but I notice in saying so you don't mention property rights at all. Probably because they don't apply.

That's awesome, except if it were true the Civil War on the basis of "ending slavery" (which wasn't the motive of those in control, but that's another thread) would be ILLEGAL because "property is the highest of civil rights" and thus anything done to a person you own is OK. Again, that was the problem with justifying the war as attempted: Slavery needed to be abolished not because the majority wanted it (which didn't happen to be true in 1865) and therefore the federal prerogative preempted personal rights, it needed to be abolished because slaves were people, too, with all the pursuant rights the federal government is OBLIGATED to protect.

We're not dealing with men in the wilderness, as much as many libertarians think they wish we were. A man in the wilderness is free to be eaten by a bear or die from shock or exposure if he falls off a cliff and breaks his leg, too. He can "claim" as much land as he wants, or claim to fly or anything else, but it doesn't make it so, and in the case of rights it's not even relevant until there's someone else there to argue the point. If a man in the wilderness meets a bigger stronger man his rights against illegal search and seizure extend only so far as his feet can carry him. There are certain tradeoffs we make to live in civilized society, but if you find those objectionable, feel free to leave any time with my blessing. Whether the things I mentioned are civil rights is open to debate, yes (though I think it difficult to maintain the negative position on that) but I think a strong argument can be made.

Morality is not the primary consideration here any more than in paying taxes to support a defensive military, a municipal fire department or any other basic government service. Much as with violent, property and other crimes the moral dimension is not why we have laws against them, the social dimension is: Society cannot function if such things are allowed. Again, if you want to live by the law of the jungle, say hi to the lions and tigers and bears for me. And btw, if you're going to trot out the standard response of why those things are different even though they're identical, that invariably reduces to "because I directly benefit" save us both some time and trouble. I don't have time to waste with that.

Cite an instance of someone else saying the same thing in virtually the same words but applying it to a different topic and I'll do what you should've done whether you were quoting me or anyone else: Attribute it to its author rather than passing it off as my own thought.

It's less about who I am than how often I used the phrase. Anyone who's been around long enough to have read many of my CMB posts will have certainly read it whether or not they recall it, and I even used it a few times when I still posted on the WoTMB regularly. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that you remember (most of) the phrase without recalling who said it or even that someone else did, but: I did say it long before this, many times, and feel within my right correcting a misquotation made in ignorance or otherwise.

Only one "variable" was changed (though its usage is closer to a constant here, since it's appealed to as an absolute. ) To say that all x stems from y because otherwise z can and will revoke x when they please isn't terribly common at all. In fact, I've only seen it two places: Many of my posts, and one of yours (in that order. ) Not in Chesterton, to date. Link...?

I won't speculate on your motives or anything else, but trying to defend claiming someone elses statement as your own on the basis that you don't respect them enough to quote is pathetically weak.

Right, and that's a valid position, but on recognizing that you liked the way someone better stated a position at which you both arrived you quoted them and identified it as a quote. That's what you're supposed to do. Consistently. If only so that people can go directly to your source and verify you haven't misquoted them. Misquoting them in a way that turns their statement on its head and not bothering to cite them is... a mistake... at best....

There has never nor will there ever be a perfect democracy, in part because conflicting rights must be resolved and in part because humans are fallen beings. "Natural rights" is a non-starter because nature itself endows little more than the "right" to die, and appeals to a higher authority run afoul of the problem that not everyone recognizes the same authority, so not everyone would respect rights granted by any particular one. Though if we go there I must ask: If natural rights aren't synonymous with civil rights does that mean lower animals possess them? Asserting the "rights" of a man alone is absurd because rights don't become a relevant concept until threatened (i.e. multiple humans arguing whose rights take precedence. ) Try railing at God about infringed rights next time you're struck by lightning (which I suspect is imminent.... ) Note, btw, that not only are you asserting natural rights to preempt property rights (which you say in the disputed statement are preeminent) but essentially equating them with civil rights (unless we accept them as granted by a Creator, which is fine, as soon as we agree on WHICH Creator, and until then irrelevant for social contracts. ) Calling civil rights natural rights because you don't want to concede the primacy of the former is semantics that should be beneath us both.

On that last point we agree. Slavery was, however, an infringement on personal rights, and asserting one of those personal rights (property) in its defense was inane. The shameful part is that Northern politicians allowed it to be done, accepted the debate in those terms, in the service of abolishing states rights (of which secession is one) along with slavery. For most states the understanding secession was legitimate was a condition of ratifying the Constitution, and no lesser light than Thomas Jefferson asserted its legitimacy within a generation of the Civil War. Yet to affirm it now is considered tantamount to treason. All because the North let the South make slavery about property rights then bashed their heads in until the Northern view prevailed.

Meanwhile, I've noted several civil rights regarded near universally as sacrosanct and that have zero to do with property rights. Most could be denied without affecting property rights at all, but property rights could be completely denied without affecting any. So any "arrogant... limitation[s]" on mental faculty are not mine. Hmmm... can someone really make the longest posts on the site if half of what they say they're just regurgitating without citing...?

You've displayed amazing semantics, ad hominems, misquotation (at least) and illogical inconsistency. It's WORSE than sophistry, but sophistry alone is enough that, once again, I consider it a forfeit and count anything further gravy. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to keep ones composure and calmly perforate their arguments until trolls foam at the mouth. *favorites* Thanks.