> A human right is a right humans enjoy for no other reason than being a human. Despite my first paragraph, certain things like surviving or not getting harmed/punished simply because you exist are near-universally accepted as human rights, but again, like obligations, rights only have meaning if they can be enforced. The human part of human rights is critical because it transcends laws created by people. In essence, they are rights given to a person by their creator. This is why human rights, as ordained by the Creator is used as foundational reasoning behind the US war of independence and civil wars.
What you’re describing are what we frame as natural rights in the US, which can be understood to be “human rights” but this phrasing as I understand it went back to roughly the UN Declaration of Human Rights which is an odd document, and I’m not aware of this phrasing being used much in English at least before then (but feel free to correct me if you know otherwise!).
American law is best understood within a framework of natural and common law, but one of the issues this has caused is that natural or “God-given” law is at odds with the separation of church and State, so what it really boils down to is we rely more heavily on the common law tradition which is in turn also informed by natural law as it was conceived of through the customs of England at a point in time. Citing natural law is done, but I’m not convinced that relying on it solely would withstand a serious challenge under American jurisprudence anymore because at the end of the day, it is amorphous and it does violate separation of church and State. Even common law, while informative of how the Federal courts operate, is actually not that useful at the Federal level seeing as how Federal law relies more heavily on the Constitution (again, informed by the common law, and common law tradition is used to understand the language with better clarity but it is never cited as a source for law) and the statutes that Congress passes or the treaties we sign.
> Both slavery and King George's tyranny were lawful but the law was rejected because a right given to humans beyond the authority of any government to regulate was violated.
Well, it was rhetorically rejected, but perhaps it would be best understood as independence was proclaimed by the Union of States and then recognized by the United Kingdom, with a war in-between to settle the claim. Then for a period of time, the United States government was governed by the Articles of Confederation before we passed the Constitution.
As for slavery, we rejected that (and indentured servitude) through a constitutional amendment. Our elimination of it relied on statute, not any common or natural law concepts (although the rhetoric against slavery did cite natural law, rhetoric is rhetoric and law is law).
> This is one if the reasons why I passionately hate communism, because they don't enforce mere secular agnosticism but explicit atheism because anything short of that allowd the people to reason and challenge authority imposed on them that is absolute and unquestionable. You can't challenge the CCP and tell them you will hold a religious service without permit at your home because it is your right as a human to believe what you want and share that belief because under that regime there is no authority over humans above the government and as such human rights are defined by the government and is beyond challenge.
You see, this cuts to the heart of the matter: the continued existence of the PRC under the CCP’s domination, and other states like North Korea, the KSA and some other Muslim Kingdoms and other illiberal States really kind of cuts against the whole “X is a human right” schtick. Some would even argue that the United States is illiberal which, let me be clear, I strongly disagree with, but because our values don’t line up with theirs and they find some of our values or traditions abhorrent, they’ll argue the point anyway. So at the end of the day, we’ve got a bunch of claims by different peoples and organizations about what is actually a human right and basically no agreement. Given that we share this world, I can’t really agree that such a thing actually exists in any meaningful sense, but I can say I vastly prefer my tradition over others.
> Ultimately, what the military (or victor military of a conflict) allows to be your human right is what is practiced.
While I appreciate your pragmatism, I don’t think this is fair. Maybe all law is enforced by the gun barrel of the State pointed at us, but within many countries there does exist the means to defend yourself and your claims without resorting to military campaigning, even against the State, and there are one or more elected bodies representing people’s interests, juries, and as much I personally disrespect them, even referendums in a lot of places. Our conception of rights changes all the time, and while I don’t think positive rights are always well thought out, it is a fact that a lot of places have actually incorporated them well after a nation was founded through a process of lawmaking.