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Topic: legal rights of the next generation
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remind
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6289
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posted 01 June 2007 09:53 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Ward:
...So we can rape and pillage the bounty of the Earth without any regard for their well being then?
Whose well being, the unconceived? It is utter nonsense that those unborn, let alone those unconceived, should have any legal rights in the here and now. That said environmental laws nowadays if implimented and acted upon assures good stewardship of the earth into the future, and those who are born in the future would get their rights just as others have when born.
From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004
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Sven
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 9972
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posted 01 June 2007 12:53 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Ward:
Well then just who are we trying to save the enviroment for?
For existing people and for future generations. There may be moral and ethical obligations to future generations but no legal obligations to those future generations. Any legal obligation to do or not do something as it relates to the environment is a present legal obligation a person (or company) has to abide by law. Pretty simple, really.
From: Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!!! | Registered: Jul 2005
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Steppenwolf Allende
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13076
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posted 03 June 2007 12:15 PM
Well, from my take on it, this isn't about old family run businesses, but about getting over the horrors of capitalistic economics and its exploitative, destructive and oppressive results.Corporatist apologists are just a laugh. quote:
I get it now. This whole thread is about envy. Your daddy never left you a business like these other 100 families, and you're bitter about that.
No, I think it's more about justice--as in the people who do the work get the spoils, not those who own or profit off them. the latter is the biggest cause of most of the world's problems. quote:
What you think is unfair is that they got it, and you didn't.
If they took it off other people instead of working for it themselves, then it's unfair. Period. quote:
Well guess what, Buttercup? A lot of us didn't inherit anything either. So you'll find sympathy in short supply.
Perhaps. But I think you'll find even less sympathy for brown-nosers who celebrate legalized theft and undemocratic rule that causes so much poverty, insecurity, repression and degradation. PS: if you notice on that impressive list of old companies, most of them are family-owned and operated small businesses, likely providing a decent living for those involved (who are most likely working at it day after day), not forking out billions in returns for parasitic elites as with multi-national corporations and big bureaucracies and banks.
From: goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here | Registered: Aug 2006
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Steppenwolf Allende
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13076
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posted 03 June 2007 12:25 PM
As for future generations having rights, as many have already pointed out, no, they can't have rights now because they don't exist yet.And because they don't exist yet, there is no legal requirement for anyone now to ensure they have what people alive now would expect them to have or want. There is, as others have said, a fundamental moral imperative to try our best to provide a better, freer, healthier and more enlightened future for future generations. This we are failing at because such imperatives are given so little value by our capitalistic dominated economies and cultures. Leaving our kids whatever money or personal assets we may have, based on the assumption that future economies will be money-based and so they will need it, is fine. But I think trying to educate and enlighten them as they are growing on the values of democracy and equal rights, mutual respect and personal and social responsibility, respect for the fundamental importance of labour and our environment to our existence, etc. is more important. If they choose not to practice or respect these values, it’s their choice. But it’s important to at least give them the knowledge so they will have a choice.
From: goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here | Registered: Aug 2006
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robbie_dee
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 195
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posted 03 June 2007 01:46 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Steppenwolf Allende:
As for future generations having rights, as many have already pointed out, no, they can't have rights now because they don't exist yet.And because they don't exist yet, there is no legal requirement for anyone now to ensure they have what people alive now would expect them to have or want.
Suppose a person donates a piece of property, to be held in trust perhaps by a charitable organization, on the condition that that property be used in perpetuity as a park. Members of future generations, who don't yet exist, don't exactly have a "right" enforceable against the trustees to ensure that the property continues to be used as a park. BUT the trustees still would have a fiduciary obligation to see that the property was used for that purpose. And if the trustees made a plan, say, to convert the park into a condo development, even if it was to be converted 100 years in the future, someone in the present could take action against them for breaching their fiduciary obligation, even if they were really doing so mainly for the benefit of people not yet even born. What I mean by my example is that there may be a way to imagine creating legal obligations (in addition to the obvious moral and ethical ones) for the benefit of people in the future, as well as the present. This could very well be for environmentalist reasons (imagine if we weren't just talking about a park, but a forest or a river or an ocean or indeed the whole world...). Is that where you were going with this, Ward? [ 03 June 2007: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]
From: Iron City | Registered: Apr 2001
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