7 ms·

Reading the Soviet Bill of Rights is pretty instructive because it'll show you how much such a thing is worth on its own. Here is just a subset of the rights g

by Meekro 9y ago

Reading the Soviet Bill of Rights is pretty instructive because it'll show you how much such a thing is worth on its own. Here is just a subset of the rights guaranteed by the USSR Constitution: speech; press; religion (both to profess and refuse to profess); assembly (including a specific right to demonstrate); participation in lawmaking; inviolability of the person (from warrantless arrest) and of the home (from unlawful entry or search); privacy of all correspondence (including phone conversations); right to challenge actions of government officials and bodies in court; right to a job; work week limited to 40 hours; free medical care; welfare payments in old age, sickness, or disability; free housing; free education; academic freedom for scientists. It's a very good list, and what I listed above isn't even half of it [1]. Precisely none of those were actually respected by the government. Having a Bill of Rights is great, but having a tradition of limited government, checks and balances, and rule of law is what gives those guarantees any weight. [1] https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/77cons02.html https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/77cons02....

dragonwriter 9y ago
Note that the rights in the Soviet Constitution have an important explicit limitation in Article 39: “Enjoyment by citizens of their rights and freedoms must not be to the detriment of the interests of society or the state, or infringe the rights of other citizens.”
- adrianratnapala 9y ago
  This sort of thing is common in well run democratic countries too. European constitutions are full of provisions that say "Such and such a right is inviolable, except when it's not". Or "except when it is violated according to the law". And it works! That's because (in recent decades) the political reality in Western Europe has been basically in favour of democracy in freedom -- and so they limited basic rights only in corner cases like Holocaust denial. Constitutional texts can help people focus on what is needed for democracy and freedom (and US the Bill of Rights does a good job of this), but what really counts is how people live out the text, rather than the mechanics explicit in the text.
  - nybble41 9y ago
    Still, the fact that these exceptions exist is a clear sign that the authors of the document did not see these as rights at all, but rather revocable privileges. In practical terms, you don't need a written constitution to uphold rights, and having one does not guarantee that rights are upheld—but if you're going to go to the trouble of defining rights in a written constitution, you shouldn't include an insidious "escape hatch" which undermines those rights by claiming that they can legitimately be infringed "for a good cause". Rights, as opposed to privileges, are unconditional and cannot legitimately be infringed under any circumstance.
mirimir 9y ago
Sure. But US governments also respect those rights selectively. Consider the War on Drugs.
- iamdave 9y ago
  And by extension, the issue of Civil Forfeiture.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    Yes, how could I have neglected to cite that sucker!
    - iamdave 9y ago
      Eh it's a fair omission. The war on drugs has only fueled the civil forfeiture issue, as it's a commonly pointed to reason by officers why they think someone carrying an excess of cash is up to no good: "We suspect this money is connected to a drug operation". I don't know if there's a term for it, but if anyone knows or can coin something on the spot to describe the phenomenon where the Drug War and other aspects of American criminal law has invariably irritated smaller undressed wounds within the criminal justice system and caused them to open up as larger festering problems that probably wouldn't have seen as much widespread public attention otherwise-outside of specialized legal communities and advocacy circles. Examples of what I mean are, as mentioned Drug War -> Civil Forfeiture, PATRIOT Act -> Due Process for War Detainees, Snowden -> Due process for surveillance investigations, etc.
nraynaud 9y ago
Remember that the bill of rights didn’t prevent slavery. There is a common trick for enlightened democracies: you can always call some groups of people non-citizens and do horrible stuff to them. The trick is as old as democracy, the Greeks were doing it already. (Modern day America has an entire manual to strip citizenship from people, don’t believe you’re like a native just because you got a piece of paper and a flag, the beast might turn against you)
- rypskar 9y ago
  Try to look up how the concept of human "race" was made to support the right to have slaves. Is strange how some countries have taken it even longer by siding "race" and ethnicity
schoen 9y ago
Also the PRC Bill of Rights: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China#Chapter_II._The_Fundamental_Rights_And_Duties_Of_Citizens https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People%27...
danjayh 9y ago
This is what scares me about the current attitude (nationally) towards gun control. The right to bear arms is a basic civil right, unambiguously encoded in the Bill of Rights alongside speech, assembly, religion, due process, etc. Throughout history, taking away weapons has always been an early step down the slippery slope to totalitarianism and stripping the populous of their other rights. Just because it's unlikely to happen here -- that we think it can't happen here -- doesn't mean it will not. That's what everyone in all of history has thought, but in fact by the time anyone realizes what's happening, it's usually too late. "All political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns, that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party." -- Mao Zedong
- coldtea 9y ago
  >Throughout history, taking away weapons has always been an early step down the slippery slope to totalitarianism and stripping the populous of their other rights. Only in places/eras where having weapons mattered. It's not like anybody's gonna take on the feds with their guns.
- wahern 9y ago
  So you've never seen the movie Tombstone? You think there's no legitimate history of measured gun control in this country, and that any departure from the current trend is a slippery slope to a dictatorial state?
- kelnos 9y ago
  Let's talk in practical terms for a second, though. Do you truly believe that gun ownership in the US could result in a bunch of citizens overthrowing the US government should it become tyrannical? I just don't see it happening. The US military is far too well-trained and -armed, and of course a hypothetical tyrannical US government would turn the military against its citizens if there was an armed uprising. And they would win so laughably easily. Now sure, there's the possibility that factions in the military would turn against this tyrannical government and save the day, but you don't need the 2nd Amendment for that to work out.
  - 9y ago

by Meekro 9y ago

dragonwriter 9y ago

Note that the rights in the Soviet Constitution have an important explicit limitation in Article 39: “Enjoyment by citizens of their rights and freedoms must not be to the detriment of the interests of society or the state, or infringe the rights of other citizens.”

adrianratnapala 9y ago
This sort of thing is common in well run democratic countries too. European constitutions are full of provisions that say "Such and such a right is inviolable, except when it's not". Or "except when it is violated according to the law". And it works! That's because (in recent decades) the political reality in Western Europe has been basically in favour of democracy in freedom -- and so they limited basic rights only in corner cases like Holocaust denial. Constitutional texts can help people focus on what is needed for democracy and freedom (and US the Bill of Rights does a good job of this), but what really counts is how people live out the text, rather than the mechanics explicit in the text.
- nybble41 9y ago
  Still, the fact that these exceptions exist is a clear sign that the authors of the document did not see these as rights at all, but rather revocable privileges. In practical terms, you don't need a written constitution to uphold rights, and having one does not guarantee that rights are upheld—but if you're going to go to the trouble of defining rights in a written constitution, you shouldn't include an insidious "escape hatch" which undermines those rights by claiming that they can legitimately be infringed "for a good cause". Rights, as opposed to privileges, are unconditional and cannot legitimately be infringed under any circumstance.

mirimir 9y ago

Sure. But US governments also respect those rights selectively. Consider the War on Drugs.

iamdave 9y ago
And by extension, the issue of Civil Forfeiture.
- mirimir 9y ago
  Yes, how could I have neglected to cite that sucker!
  - iamdave 9y ago
    Eh it's a fair omission. The war on drugs has only fueled the civil forfeiture issue, as it's a commonly pointed to reason by officers why they think someone carrying an excess of cash is up to no good: "We suspect this money is connected to a drug operation". I don't know if there's a term for it, but if anyone knows or can coin something on the spot to describe the phenomenon where the Drug War and other aspects of American criminal law has invariably irritated smaller undressed wounds within the criminal justice system and caused them to open up as larger festering problems that probably wouldn't have seen as much widespread public attention otherwise-outside of specialized legal communities and advocacy circles. Examples of what I mean are, as mentioned Drug War -> Civil Forfeiture, PATRIOT Act -> Due Process for War Detainees, Snowden -> Due process for surveillance investigations, etc.

nraynaud 9y ago

Remember that the bill of rights didn’t prevent slavery. There is a common trick for enlightened democracies: you can always call some groups of people non-citizens and do horrible stuff to them. The trick is as old as democracy, the Greeks were doing it already. (Modern day America has an entire manual to strip citizenship from people, don’t believe you’re like a native just because you got a piece of paper and a flag, the beast might turn against you)

rypskar 9y ago
Try to look up how the concept of human "race" was made to support the right to have slaves. Is strange how some countries have taken it even longer by siding "race" and ethnicity

schoen 9y ago

Also the PRC Bill of Rights: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China#Chapter_II._The_Fundamental_Rights_And_Duties_Of_Citizens https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People%27...

danjayh 9y ago

This is what scares me about the current attitude (nationally) towards gun control. The right to bear arms is a basic civil right, unambiguously encoded in the Bill of Rights alongside speech, assembly, religion, due process, etc. Throughout history, taking away weapons has always been an early step down the slippery slope to totalitarianism and stripping the populous of their other rights. Just because it's unlikely to happen here -- that we think it can't happen here -- doesn't mean it will not. That's what everyone in all of history has thought, but in fact by the time anyone realizes what's happening, it's usually too late. "All political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns, that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party." -- Mao Zedong

coldtea 9y ago
>Throughout history, taking away weapons has always been an early step down the slippery slope to totalitarianism and stripping the populous of their other rights. Only in places/eras where having weapons mattered. It's not like anybody's gonna take on the feds with their guns.
wahern 9y ago
So you've never seen the movie Tombstone? You think there's no legitimate history of measured gun control in this country, and that any departure from the current trend is a slippery slope to a dictatorial state?
kelnos 9y ago
Let's talk in practical terms for a second, though. Do you truly believe that gun ownership in the US could result in a bunch of citizens overthrowing the US government should it become tyrannical? I just don't see it happening. The US military is far too well-trained and -armed, and of course a hypothetical tyrannical US government would turn the military against its citizens if there was an armed uprising. And they would win so laughably easily. Now sure, there's the possibility that factions in the military would turn against this tyrannical government and save the day, but you don't need the 2nd Amendment for that to work out.
- 9y ago