There is a whole lot wrong with this post, but this part is just too wrong to gloss over...
Third, and perhaps most important, is that your fundamental assumptions here are inconsistent. Rights are in a very real sense are zero sum. The more rights made universal, the more rights I lose myself (however small the loss). Your example of murder - by making life a universal right, I remove someone's right to do whatever they want, in this case taking your life should I want. It seems obvious in this situation that it is a better result for society for everyone to give up their right to kill others in order to have a society which values their individual lives.
All that follows I ignored, because it's all based upon a flawed premise. First, you can't make a 'right' universal, even with the consent of all people. A right either is, or is not. A right is discovered, not created. This much should be self-evident (as stated as such in the Declaration of Independence), but even if it is not, it remains a fundamental founding principle of the United States, and by virtue of replication, much of the modern 'Western' nations. It's also reflected in the Magna Carta, so it's not like the founders & framers were pulling this premise out of their asses.
Second, the benefits of liberty; i.e. the exercise of one's rights within the constraints of the rights of others, is not a zero sum game. The social benefits of rights are in the exercising; but I can't enjoy my own liberties without respecting the liberties of my peers. As the old saw goes, my right to swing a stick ends at my neighbor's nose. At no point has there ever been a 'right' to murder, for my neighbor's right to life (because he own's himself, and I have no claim on his person) predates us both (even if it might not be an ancient & eternal right) and is equal to my own. Likewise, such rights as they are, are also dependent upon reciprocity. If I were to ignore my neighbor's right to life, and attempt to kill him (without just cause, let us assume); whether successful or not, I have no claim to a right to life myself.
No one has decreed life a right, it simply is. And yes, it's pretty universal.
The fact that you are making this argument is precisely my point.
If you believe that is remotely true, then you really don't know what I'm talking about, and all of this must sound entirely foreign to your mind.
Some rights are so universally accepted in that it is completely understood that losing some individual freedom in order to facilitate those rights as a society is normal, good, and mutually beneficial. However that does not invalidate my premise, it merely affirms that in many cases it is completely ok to sacrifice some individual freedom/liberty for the sake of a cohesive society.
You misunderstand. Whatever liberties that I must surrender to live within a free society that respects my rights, were never rights to begin with. For example, you might be "free" to jump up on the deli counter and piss on the food, as in physically capable of doing so, but you never had the
right.
Now if you want to argue semantics that sacrificing some "liberty" in order to claim a Right does not make Rights a zero sum game, sure. But I don't think this is what you are attempting to claim here.
"Rights" require their mutual recognition. When that generally occurs, it's not zero sum; it's net positive sum. For thousands of years, such rights were not mutually recognized, and humanity got what it deserved out of that.
During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man. ]To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues. No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.
-Thomas Hobbes
And even so, if the Right to life is to be upheld above everything else, there are still times when that right will be forfeit in a government state. Situations such as armed robbery, or otherwise aggression. Is the Right to life so universal and self evident that no one (not even the police) should be able to shoot and kill an armed robber? What about a mass gunman? Clearly not. But that further supports what I am saying.
No. It further supports what I have been saying. The free man only has his rights so long as he is willing & able to respect the rights of others. The police officer doesn't shoot the armed robber as punishment; he does so in defense of his own right to life when threatened, because the armed robber has, and continues to, display a lack of respect for the rights of others unmolested, including life. Your view of how societies actually work isn't wrong, your understanding of
why it is that way is flawed. You will find, should you endeavor to correct your misunderstandings, that the concept of rights flows from the premise that
true law, as opposed to political law or statue, is universal and discoverable. In an ideal world, statues simply reflect true law, and define details about how society will respond to violations. This change in worldview will affect how you see everything.
We can again argue semantics, but the bottom line is that any functioning society has determined times and situations where Rights/liberties are forfeit (regardless of how fundamental and self-evident they are or where they originate from), for the sake of societal cohesion.
Society
cannot make such a determination for me. It can, at most, offer me concessions in return for my
voluntary compliance; but such an agreement is always conditional & temporal. The passing of regulations & statues does not change this.
And to top this all off the example being discussed in this thread (a Right to all the profit of your labor without taxation) does not fit the case where it is universally agreed upon by the overwhelming majority of people living in 2016 as being self-evident.
Again, you misunderstand. Rights exist whether or not the majority agrees with them or not. Rights may be regularly violated by a society, and many often are even in many nations today; but life is not always fair, and even
that doesn't necesarily mean your rights are being violated. If you would like to have a deeper discussion about what rights actually are, I'm willing. But I get the impression that there are many in this thread for whom the concept is foreign to them; and they, instead, have come to believe that privileges and/or courtesies are rights. Such a side topic would be lengthy, and likely difficult for many here to grok.