Ah, a "natural rights" fan. America seems to be full of them at the moment.
We've been full of them for around 250 years, considering the fact that our country was founded on the principle of natural rights. It's in the second paragraph of our Declaration of Independence.
The problem with the natural rights argument is it always asumes anarchy as a possitive thing and opposes any kind of collective agreed rules ie laws.
Neither of these two statements is correct. You are displaying a fundamental misapprehension regarding natural rights/natural law/social contract theory. I am not an anarchist, I am a minarchist, as was Thomas Jefferson and many of the other American revolutionaries-- some limited laws and a decentralized structure of collective government are good. And those who subscribe the concept of rights or liberties granted by nature or God have differing opinions on anarchy. Among the three major founders of natural law/social contract theory, there was a wide difference of opinion as to the "state of nature" (or anarchy if you will). Rousseau regarded it as mostly good, almost idyllic, while Hobbes saw it as a nightmarish "war of all against all", and Locke saw it as somewhere in between. I tend to err on Locke's view of things.
But whether you personally subscribe to "natural rights" theory or not, it is clearly the foundation of what most of the Western world today conceives of as "rights". "Human rights" and "civil rights" are essentially founded on natural rights theory. The problem is that as the concept of "human rights" and "civil rights" have become further removed from their original philosophical underpinnings, most people's concepts of them have become somewhat fuzzy to the point that many Americans think that the Bill of Rights actually
creates or grants rights, rather than just enumerating and protecting natural rights, which is definitely what those who wrote it thought. Obviously, due to historical differences, this misapprehension of what rights are is even more widespread in Europe. Shame, since the first attempt at fully implementing a system based on the idea of natural rights might have been in America, but the idea did originally come from Switzerland, France and England (though I think the Swiss at least still have a grasp of the concept).
If we look at the event from a natural rights perspective then yes friend beardy has every right to tell a bunch of lads they are rapists and baby murderers. They in return have the natural right to point out this isn't true.
Correct.
If our bearded chum persists then the matter would be settled as in any situation where a guy wanders up to a bloke and calls him a rapist with no justification whatsoever.
Nope. Here's the difference-- which has correctly been recognized by Federal courts in the US for a very long time-- there exists a difference between expressing (a perhaps false and malicious) opinion in the context of political speech, and knowingly making false claims out of malice alone. We consider the former to be protected speech, and the latter as unprotected defamation/libel/slander.
The shithead Islamist fucks in this case are expressing a political opinion when they insult the soldiers calling them rapists/baby killers. It is understood by everyone that they are delivering a political
opinion. This is clearly different than deliberately and knowingly making a false assertion about someone for the purpose of causing material harm to them. Thankfully, the courts in the US have considered laws, regulation, or law enforcement which restricts political speech to be deserving of the strictest scrutiny in judicial review. I would not want to live in a country where the government had the power to censor someone's political opinions because they contain false information, insults, malice, or patently offensive content-- that opens the door to abuse by the powers that be, exploiting such subjective criteria for the purpose of quashing dissent.
However we do live in a society of laws and these soldiers were expected by society to eschew their "natural rights" to defend their good name then and their so it's reasonable to expect that the legal framework that demands they take the abuse also deals with the abusers.
While your statement is logically valid, it is not sound, as your presupposition-- that the law is justified in denying the soldiers their rights of free speech-- is incorrect.
Oh, and welcome to the forum Rico.
Topic: Five men guilty of threats at Luton homecoming parade