I can’t help you if do not understand the distinction between the two different meanings of “right”.
I thought you said there were three meanings?
In any case, the proposed third meaning just doesn’t seem to exist in the way you think it does. You claim (in
red below) that the meaning relates somehow to a “right” to do or have something without fear of repercussion - which would be a legitimate third meaning - but then you confuse the point by throwing in the phrase “might makes right.”
The problem is that, even on the most charitable of readings and the possibility that “might” could, indeed, underwrite “right,” what the phrase would mean is that ”might” would function to make something “proper, correct, good, etc.” which is, essentially, identical to your second meaning.
The word “right” has several meanings. One is the opposite of “left”. The second one is “proper, correct, good” etc. - the “right thing to do”. **The third one is what one has the “right” to do - something that can be performed without fear of repercussion. When I used the phrase “might makes right”, I was referring to the third meaning - and I explained it, too. So I am not sure how could you have taken it in the second meaning. **From the fact that I brought up the horrible injustices perpetrated by confiscating someone’s property you should have realized that I do not consider the actions of a ruling body automatically “proper, correct, or right”. But unfortunately it is a sad fact, that the “rights” of people are declared by the strongest “bully” on the block, usually the government of a nation state. (Nope, there are no “natural” rights - regardless what the Declaration of Independence says.)
The most plausible third meaning of “right” would be the sense of positive rights, as in “rights” owed to a citizen or member of an association by the body of citizens or members. Those “rights” however, are still subject to the moral definition of “right,” as in morally “proper, correct, good, etc.” since it would be difficult to grasp how something improper or evil could be “owed” as a right to anyone, except perhaps to members belonging to intrinsically immoral bodies such as a society of thieves or legion of demons.
Even so, it is unclear as to how positive “rights” could possibly make an act by a government morally right, since positive civil rights could only be presumed to exist within the larger system of ethics that grounds the civil society or polity. In other words, “rights” that are NOT “proper, correct or good” could not be legitimately owed to citizens unless the society itself had abandoned all attempts to be morally legitimate.
By the way, the believers do say that “might is right” (good, proper, moral…) when God is the one who commits the atrocities.
I am not sure which believers say, “might is right,” since that would be taken as a disparaging remark that would be critical of a proposed justification for an action (I.e., implicit in the statement is the understanding that might, by itself, does NOT morally justify any action.) Otherwise, the word “moral” becomes, de facto, whatever acts are initiated by the most powerful body or entity.
Here, I suspect, is where your confusion lies. You seem to misconstrue the omnipotence of God (and, therefore, Being with most power) as the sufficient justification for his actions - at least, you claim “the believers” resort to such a claim. Perhaps some might, but it would be illegitimate, at best.
The classical theist claim isn’t that God’s omnipotence justifies whatever he does, but that “good” is identical with “being,” and since God is Being Itself, then what is “good” can only come from the nature of what is. “Good” can have no meaning whatsoever aside from what is - the ground of being itself.
Metaphysically speaking, Being Itself, in the Thomistic sense of Actus Purus, must, by definition, be omnipotent and could not be the source of all existence and creation without being omnipotent. Omnipotence, in this sense, is a positive requirement in order to be the source of all that is AND the source of all that is good, by definition.
This is also the case with the meaning of the word “true.” There is no sense to be made of the idea of truth unless it refers to what actually is - the nature of being or ultimate reality. Again, the same applies to the meaning of “good.” Nothing can be “good” unless its goodness is sourced in the essential Goodness of Being Itself which must be, if it is to be the source of all that exists Omnipotent or, in Biblical speak, Almighty.
Now, it may be true that God’s omnipotence is fundamentally identical to “Fullness of Being” which properly describes the nature of Being Itself and, therefore, the nature of “the Good” and “the True,” but that does not reduce to a proposition that just any demonstration of power justifies an action, which is what a morally confused individual implies by using “might makes right” to justify an action, morally speaking.
