Comment by hayst4ck
9 days ago
America has done an absolutely terrible job of teaching people about rights.
If governments granted rights then they would be privileges not rights. In western tradition governments exist to protect rights, such as the freedom of expression, not to grant them. If you believe these are human rights, rather than your privilege as an American, then you must protect their rights to seek justice too.
People are already being robbed of due process, which means they are robbed of the process that determines their right to "protections" and citizenship status. Almost all authoritarian regimes presume the right to rob people of the protections of their state. You perceive citizenship to be some indelible legal status, but citizenship can be revoked either tacitly or explicitly which is a prelude to the violation of someone else's rights and their human dignity.
The law can't protect or enforce itself. If the ruling regime chooses not to be bound by law then what should happen or what is supposed to happen is supplanted by what can happen. Even a cursory look of what can happen in authoritarian regimes should turn anyone's stomach.
I think what's going on is a helpful reminder that there's no such thing as "rights" in the way you describe. Everything we have, everything we're permitted to do, is at the pleasure and permission of our governments. Constitutions and laws are only worth anything if the people in charge honor them. Might may not make right, but might does let you impose whatever you want on people who don't have your might.
You can try to design systems where one group of people don't have all the might, and so those who balance them are somewhat adversarial in their goals and desires. We always thought the US had such a system, but when you put law enforcement and the military under a single group, and give the other two groups no teeth, you really don't have that sort of system.
> Everything we have, everything we're permitted to do, is at the pleasure and permission of our governments.
Wrong! The people are ultimately responsible for reigning-in their governments and are the ultimate source of any rules or rights that the governments end up enforcing.
If you think that the ultimate authority is with the government, then you have justified every authoritarian regime out there.
There are two basic world views.
One is based on order and rule. You have a leviathan, an absolute ruler, who imposes order on society.
The other is one based on freedom and law/justice. A society based on affirmative mutual consent and a system orthogonal to power to handle disputes.
Unfortunately, power determining the outcome of disputes is the default, and a system of law or justice cannot enforce itself without the participation of those bound by it. The core founding principle of western society is solidarity via collective bargaining, what other option is there than other than to submit to someone more powerful than any individual?
Do you want to submit to a man, or submit to an idea? If you submit to an idea you must defend it. If you submit to a man, you deny your own agency and your own rights.
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You’re making useful points but you’re also just choosing convenient definitions that make your point of view “correct”.
The parent comment has a definition of “rights” that admits their existence… and I think what you’ve demonstrated is that you have a different definition of “rights”. In other words, you’ve demonstrated that you haven’t really grasped the underlying meaning that the parent comment is getting at, and you’re instead responding to the words that they used to express it.
If you start with a definition for “rights” you can make arguments about whether they exist. But if you start with a different definition and get to a different conclusion, it doesn’t mean you’ve discovered some logical flaw in the argument, it just means that the two of you have failed to communicate with each other.
I appreciate your analysis, but another way to consider this discussion is that asserting the existence of "rights" is an unsupported conversational maneuver that frames the debate. The grandparent is defining a concept into existence, which is a questionable move IMO, despite being tradition.
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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?"
These are the kind of men that founded our country, better men than exist today. This is the type of thinking that led to America, and these are the cultural echo's many young culturally American boys hear from their fathers and grandfathers.
These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER" and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God. Thomas Paine - The Crisis
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God - Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson (https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jeffers...)
If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come. It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! John Henry -- Give me liberty or give me death.
You say you have no power and so let the world inflict itself on you, these were men that inflicted themselves upon the world. These men chose reason over comfort. These men chose not to be slaves through their action.
> We always thought the US had such a system, but when you put law enforcement and the military under a single group, and give the other two groups no teeth, you really don't have that sort of system.
More like the two other groups (the elected group more so than the appointed judges) willingly gave up their teeth.
> In western tradition governments exist to protect rights, such as the freedom of expression, not to grant them.
You may be overgeneralizing here, only the US has enshrined freedom of expression in their constitution. Pretty much in any other western government such protections do not exist and freedom of expression has been under attack for a long time
Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights is enshrined in legislation in the UK and Ireland, and offers protections for signatories of the convention.
(Edit: Oh, and the Bill of Rights gives parliamentarians quite an extreme version)
Also Canada : https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/how-righ...
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> Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights is enshrined in legislation in the UK and Ireland, and offers protections for signatories of the convention.
it's enforced nowhere, since the European Convention on Human Rights has never attacked any of its members for putting people in jail or fining them for what they posted online. So, you can have all the laws on paper that you want, if nobody respects them, they might as well not exist.
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> You may be overgeneralizing here, only the US has enshrined freedom of expression in their constitution.
Sounds very progressive considering voting for the African American population came about in 1965, and having McCarthyism in the 50s (which was basically persecution of free speech and freedom of expression, the same thing the Trump administration is doing atm).
Freedom of expression being "enshrined" in the Constitution sounds good, but if it comes with no voting if I am black, and with being persecuted for leaning left, maybe that's not exactly "freedom of expression".
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
What a strange view. America has done a poor job of teaching you about rights. They are legal only - natural law (the proper name for the doctrine of so-called "human rights") is religion. God-given rights you may have but rights in law they are not.
The rule of law is crucial to a free, just, and good society but you conflate the rule of law with the law saying what you would have it say. If the law is changed or the powers given under law are used in a way you do not like then that is not unlawful.
Dictators vary in how much they rely on law. Some have used law to do their evil: take Hitler. Some do their evil outside the law. This tells us that in truth the rule of law is but one part of what we need to have a good society.
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