Though, granted, since you guys still don't even have a concept of "person," or understanding on where rights actually come from or what foundation they are built on, it's no surprise you keep confusing things.
Oh. Okay. I'll keep that in mind while you continue to defend the rights of a person to maim animals.
See? Like I said, you have no idea what rights even are.
Take your head out of your latest libertarian book for a change, read up on the issue, and get back to me.
This isn't something that requires a lot of reading; just a lot of introspection and a very good understanding of logic. In the end, it makes sense in the same way as 2+2=4 makes sense, though with many more steps involved. There is a difference between a right and something you are able to do. You are able to shoot someone, you are able to destroy someone's property, and you are able to torture someone else's dog. Those are not rights, even if you are able to perform the actions without consequences.
Regarding what I said earlier about rights not being bestowed by law, as an example, I am able to marry someone of the same sex in any state I want because there are no "rights" to same sex marriage, just no laws respecting the contract from the government point of view. Just because there are no laws specifically making it legal, does not mean that same sex marriage is illegal. There is no need to confer that right to anyone. On the other hand, laws exist to take away rights, such as with the slavery example, where slaves had rights to begin with, and only the laws that punished them from excercising those rights and freedoms were the problem. As I said, laws are only able to take away rights, not give them. In the case of IP laws, it's not that IP laws give you rights to your own or someone else's intellectual property, as is often assumed. I have a right to use my own property, including data I bought and paid for, in any way that I choose. What IP laws actually do is prevent me from exercising that right. It's not that they give you rights to your IP, it's that they prevent me from doing things to your IP despite my ownership and posession of it. No laws give you rights to maim or torture animals. Laws just attempt to prevent you from doing so. Them able to do so does't necessarily make it a right of theirs either.
Ideally, I would love to see you guys go through these steps:
Define what a person is (I'll grant you the line is somewhat blurry, and even I'm not completely confident in my definition)
From that deduce what the most basic foundations of rights are
From that build upon the basic concepts of property rights
Finally, from that, deduce and expand the concept into more complex issues such as mutual respect, incentives through mutual benefits, etc.
I'm not going to hold my breath for even the first step though.