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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025

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Both of those statements are true, and are just different ways of framing the same thing. I would say you "gave me your car" because I am fine with the fact that ownership involves depriving other people of an object. If I were OP, it would make sense to frame it you "ceasing to deprive me" because I would abhor what I see as a backwards, oppressive social construct.

Normal people absolutely do use this double-negative framing for more controversial issues. For example a leftist might describe the state not giving someone asylum (Article 14), denying a transgender person gender-affirming healthcare ("trans rights are human rights") as "depriving them of their human rights". I can't give any (mainstream) right wing examples, because standard conservative/libertarian ideology believes that there is a meaningful distinction between "positive and negative rights", and that people are only entitled to negative rights (a conservative would view e.g. free speech as different to the above examples - a state does not "deprive" someone of their right to free speech, because infringing on someone's right to free speech requires them making a positive action to repress them - instead of just passively not giving them something they want)

Elsewhere the right to ownership has been defined as solely the right to enforce ownership. This is wrong, because it ignores the most fundamental right of ownership--the right to do as you please with the thing you own. The only way to square the circle is to say that in a state of nature everyone has that right until they're deprived of it.

There's no getting around this framing, and when you look at other examples, it starts to look absurd. For example, is bodily autonomy solely the right to deprive others of access to your body? Is free speech solely the right to deprive others of the right to limit your free speech?

Not only are these double-negative framings weird and counterintuitive, they're also inherently circular. When the right to bodily autonomy is defined simply as "the right to deprive others of the right to one's own bodily autonomy" you still haven't explained what bodily autonomy is. Once you do start to go into detail it becomes much clearer that these double-negative framings are actually inaccurate.

In reality one cannot generally do whatever they want with their own body. Suicide is generally illegal, and people will stop it by force if they see it happening. There are limits to all rights. Suicide being illegal is not a limitation on [the right to deprive others of their rights to your bodily autonomy] because not only are you not allowed to stop them from stopling you, you're actually also not allowed to kill yourself in the first place. You never had that right to begin with. It's not [everyone else has the right to stop you], because you'll still get a slap on the wrist even if nobody stops you.

As another example, mutually consensual cannibalism. It's illegal! It's not just Adam choosing not to exercise his right to deprive Bob of his right to eat Adam. Bob didn't have that right in the first place, regardless of what Adam says.

Finally, going back to the original example, trespassing is a thing even if the owner is dead or totally uninvolved. It's not a case of 1 single person having the right to deprive others. It's simply more accurate to say the other people don't have rights in the first place. You could say "ok, both the state and the owner own the property" but this also isn't true! Bystanders are also legally allowed to do things like prevent theft. Do they own the property too?

They're not just two separate framings. The negative framing--that ownership is the right to deprive others--is just wrong, and falls apart when you look closely.