deimos3428 wrote:I think the elves would eventually rise up and kick us and our scrawny chimpanzee-sharing DNA back into the stone age -- and there'd be much rejoicing.  But if they failed, they'd probably end up in the sex trade.

red_bus wrote:The original premise has a logical hole in it, big enough to drive a bus through.  Human Rights are completely socially constructed - we choose to give them to people, or rather, most states have agreed to a series of sets of human rights for their citizens.  If you are fortunate to live in a state which does have a strong set of rights, constitutionally protected, then you all get them -- but you can't claim them because you are close by in genetic terms -- or in fact geographically -- someone living in Poland has a different set of rights (i.e. living in an EU member state and thus covered by the European Convention on Human Rights) than someone living perhaps only 100 yards over the border in Belarus (i.e. bizarre cold war hangover state ruled by a despot).

Some Human Rights are taken to apply internationally -- e.g. prohibition against slavery, or the right not to be tortured.  But even then, there are differences, e.g. the US has a different definition of what ‘torture' means when it comes to questioning captives.  And of course, rights are also often abused/ignored by people and governments, so your right in law may not translate into reality. Rights come into conflict all the time, e.g. the right of free expression versus the right to a fair trial -- which is why most countries have restrictions on court reporting (or in the case of abortion).  

Someone posted in the other thread about extending rights to people in other countries first -- and I agree -- there are still plenty of places where people lack even the most basic rights, e.g. Burma, North Korea, Zimbabwe first.  Monkeys (and also dolphins and whales) can wait…

MShipley88 wrote:    Therefore, the only question under American law would be whether or not non-humans are in fact human.  The monkeys better get a lawyer.

MShipley88 wrote:And, actually, we do recognize the civil rights of aliens in America.  We even let them parade around in the streets, carrying the flags of their country, and screaming about how unfair we all are.

Mark