4 ms·

Sorry, but the government does not own the atmosphere, and the point of rights is not to protect minorities.

• mindslight 10y ago
  Yes obviously, it is called a hypothetical ("if"). The resulting contradiction is intended to illustrate a problem with one of its premises. If rights are not for protecting minorities, then they have no point - the majority is safe by construction. There's no way that speech celebrating July 4th would ever be curtailed in contemporary society.
  • jjnoakes 10y ago
    As a hypothetical I agree with it. If we (the people) agree that the government owns the air we breathe and should control it's motion (including sound waves) then I would have no moral problem with them restricting literal speech. But as a hypothetical it doesn't really do much for this discussion. Rights may help protect minorities, but I would not consider that to be their point. That's like saying rights were created to solve that particular problem. Rights exist, and agreeing on what they are protects whomever is having them infringed upon, minority or not. For example, if two strong people wanted to kill ten weak people, rights protect the majority. If the ten wanted to kill the two, rights protect the minority. It may be the case that the rights of minorities are infringed upon more often, but in general rights are blind to numbers.