4 ms·

> there isn’t generally speaking a right to play football Just curious, are you American? Because this comes across as a totally alien way of thinking - why wo

by defen 7y ago

> there isn’t generally speaking a right to play football Just curious, are you American? Because this comes across as a totally alien way of thinking - why would there be or why would you need a "right" to play football? Do I, generally speaking, have a right to stand on one leg? If I'm reading you correctly there's no right to perform any novel activity, because the right couldn't have been granted yet!

akerl_ 7y ago
I am American, but the relevance of there being an explicit right in the US constitution isn’t as part of some hypothetical claim that one may only do things which are enumerated. The relevance is that in the US, removing a named right is more difficult than removing an unnamed right. In the absurd case, this is obviously not a risk, because an attempt to ban standing on one leg is obviously not reasonable. But if the 2nd amendment didn’t exist, gun regulation in the US would have looked very different over the past century.
- defen 7y ago
  > removing a named right is more difficult than removing an unnamed right. That doesn't immediately strike me as obviously true. Many states attempted to remove the unnamed right to an abortion (by which I mean, abortion is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution); but that was struck down on 14th Amendment grounds. It wouldn't surprise me if an enterprising lawyer could contest a statewide firearm ban (assuming no second amendment) via the commerce clause, for example.
  - akerl_ 7y ago
    I think your point agrees with mine. In the US, the path to defending an unnamed right generally involves an “enterprising lawyer” drawing a line to try to bucket it as a part of a named right. Defending the named right directly requires strictly less mental gymnastics.
simonh 7y ago
People don't, in the normal course of things, have a right to charge at and assault each other, with enough force to cause life changing injuries. That's the context of this discussion. Before it was known that AF seems to consistently lead to these injuries this wasn't a problem, but now the evidence is amassing that it does, if the game doesn't get reformed there is a risk it could get sued and legislated out of existence. With that background, clearly the game doesn't have a legal right to exist, to stop that happening.

by defen 7y ago

akerl_ 7y ago

I am American, but the relevance of there being an explicit right in the US constitution isn’t as part of some hypothetical claim that one may only do things which are enumerated. The relevance is that in the US, removing a named right is more difficult than removing an unnamed right. In the absurd case, this is obviously not a risk, because an attempt to ban standing on one leg is obviously not reasonable. But if the 2nd amendment didn’t exist, gun regulation in the US would have looked very different over the past century.

defen 7y ago
> removing a named right is more difficult than removing an unnamed right. That doesn't immediately strike me as obviously true. Many states attempted to remove the unnamed right to an abortion (by which I mean, abortion is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution); but that was struck down on 14th Amendment grounds. It wouldn't surprise me if an enterprising lawyer could contest a statewide firearm ban (assuming no second amendment) via the commerce clause, for example.
- akerl_ 7y ago
  I think your point agrees with mine. In the US, the path to defending an unnamed right generally involves an “enterprising lawyer” drawing a line to try to bucket it as a part of a named right. Defending the named right directly requires strictly less mental gymnastics.

simonh 7y ago

People don't, in the normal course of things, have a right to charge at and assault each other, with enough force to cause life changing injuries. That's the context of this discussion. Before it was known that AF seems to consistently lead to these injuries this wasn't a problem, but now the evidence is amassing that it does, if the game doesn't get reformed there is a risk it could get sued and legislated out of existence. With that background, clearly the game doesn't have a legal right to exist, to stop that happening.