I don’t recall ever claiming I knew of such a mechanism. The lack of such a mechanism, of course, isn’t incompatible with my statement that a state is not the only enforcement mechanism of rights.

That’s not what I said. What I did say was that if all moral/rights assertions are thought to be equally reasonable, that leads to a contradiction — but of course that’s only true if you think that any moral/rights assertions are reasonable at all. In your case, then, you can at least escape the contradiction. Whether you can escape harm from the state or anything/one else, being unable to claim protection or help, is another matter.

You can, of course, believe or disbelieve in anything you like. But what you can’t do, if rights, like morality, are meaningless absurdities, is make any claim. You’re on your own, TG.

Micha was the one who brought up rights-enforcing mechanisms. Just because I don’t believe in rights doesn’t mean I can’t also disbelieve in a mechanism that can stand up to the state.

Micha, what rights-enforcement mechanism is capable of protecting me from the state?

“Rights”? What “rights”? “Any of it” would have to include “rights” too I’m afraid.

Maybe the problem here is that you think the argument from absurdity (reductio ad absurdum) is a fallacy.

First of all, it’s not impossible that Americans mostly deserve what they have. Secondly, even if it’s just a better shake Americans ought to be able to pass it on, at the national level, to whom they choose.

if all moral assertions are equally reasonable, then it’s as reasonable to assert that it’s immoral to do that which I’ve agreed to do as it is to assert that it’s moral
Yes, there is no reason at all for any of it.

Micha, what rights-enforcement mechanism is capable of protecting me from the state? Because all the competitors seem to have gotten their asses thoroughly kicked everywhere but the high seas and Antarctic.

True, it wouldn’t make sense to speak of rights if we adopted the logical positivist position. I don’t, in fact, adopt that position, but I thought I’d put it out there as a possible disproof of your claim that “not all moral assertions are equally reasonable.”

No, I’m simply talking about what the Constitution, as you point out, refers to as secured rights, or, as I said, viable rights.

But then Larry goes on to say that “there are no states without defensible borders, and definable citizens,” thereby implicitly assuming that a state is the only enforcement mechanism of rights.

I didn’t actually say that a state was the only enforcement mechanism for rights, but I probably should have stated explicitly that it’s the only just — i.e., morally reasonable — mechanism, since alternatives either involve attempts at private enforcement (see Nozick) or are reducible to a state in any case.

… might it be the case that all moral assertions are equally reasonable given that all moral assertions are equally unreasonable, if we reject the possibility of cognitively meaningful moral assertions altogether?

In which case it hardly makes sense to speak of “rights” at all, whether as discussed by the Constitution or by Roderick Long.

“I am open to serious, empirically-minded arguments about the location of the point at which additional openness to migration leads to diminishing benefits. But, I’m afraid, one sees very little of this.”

C’mon, be honest with yourself. You have no interest in “serious, empirically-minded arguments.” You don’t like numbers and you don’t like reality. You like metaphysics.

Putting on my logical positivist hat for a minute, might it be the case that all moral assertions are equally reasonable given that all moral assertions are equally unreasonable>/i>, if we reject the possibility of cognitively meaningful moral assertions altogether?