My argument doesn't hinge on the negation of natural rights theory. It's based on a simple observation of the way large-scale societies have always worked in practice: they have never treated protection of private property even in its purest forms as an absolute.
My point is not that the question at stake is straightforward, but that once we stop clinging to flawed analogies, the matter reveals itself as a policy issue like any other, an issue that is complex but ultimately resolvable by the usual means of analysis.
The statements:
an issue that is complex but ultimately resolvable by the usual means of analysis.
and
All the rest is rhetoric.
seem contradictory. What is the usual means of analysis if not rhetoric?
I was employing the colloquial sense of 'rhetoric' in that final sentence. Had I instead used 'sophistry', someone would no doubt have rebutted my choice of words by justly remarking that the Sophists and that Protagoras guy were jolly good fellows. :)
My point is not that the question at stake is straightforward, but that once we stop clinging to flawed analogies, the matter reveals itself as a policy issue like any other, an issue that is complex but ultimately resolvable by the usual means of analysis.
All the rest is rhetoric.