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Inalienable rights are not without limits, at least within the American system of governance. You have the right to free speech, but you don't have the right to

Inalienable rights are not without limits, at least within the American system of governance. You have the right to free speech, but you don't have the right to yell "fire" in a crowded theater and endanger others' lives. Similarly, you have the right of free assembly, but not when it puts others' lives at risk. And regardless of the legal/moral distinction, I would suggest that these limitations are both legal as well as moral.

logicchains 7y ago
>Inalienable rights are not without limits, at least within the American system of governance. You have the right to free speech, but you don't have the right to yell "fire" in a crowded theater and endanger others' lives. That's an interesting example, because that quote was actually originally used in the context of jailing somebody for opposing the WW1 draft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the.... And the actual ruling was partially overturned in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio. There's an in-depth analysis here: https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1443&context=chapman-law-review https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic... . In short, it's not clear that you don't in fact have the right to shout fire in a crowded theatre. Personally I don't support quarantine because I believe a negative-rights-based system produces the best outcomes in the long term. Yes it might do worse in a pandemic like this, but it also severly limits the possibility of other worst-case outcomes like the hundred million people killed by Mao and Stalin, the Cambodian genocide, Hitler's atrocities. If the countries involved (and by extension their governments) had been absolutely committed to the protection of such negative rights (and had institutions that made it extremely hard to violate these rights, a strong court system and constitution), they could never have justified the atrocities they committed.

logicchains 7y ago

>Inalienable rights are not without limits, at least within the American system of governance. You have the right to free speech, but you don't have the right to yell "fire" in a crowded theater and endanger others' lives. That's an interesting example, because that quote was actually originally used in the context of jailing somebody for opposing the WW1 draft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the.... And the actual ruling was partially overturned in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio. There's an in-depth analysis here: https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1443&context=chapman-law-review https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic... . In short, it's not clear that you don't in fact have the right to shout fire in a crowded theatre. Personally I don't support quarantine because I believe a negative-rights-based system produces the best outcomes in the long term. Yes it might do worse in a pandemic like this, but it also severly limits the possibility of other worst-case outcomes like the hundred million people killed by Mao and Stalin, the Cambodian genocide, Hitler's atrocities. If the countries involved (and by extension their governments) had been absolutely committed to the protection of such negative rights (and had institutions that made it extremely hard to violate these rights, a strong court system and constitution), they could never have justified the atrocities they committed.