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I'm not meaning to imply that the USC applies to anyone other than US citizens from a legal standpoint. Not only am I not a lawyer, but I'm meaning to draw a di

by pc86 5y ago

I'm not meaning to imply that the USC applies to anyone other than US citizens from a legal standpoint. Not only am I not a lawyer, but I'm meaning to draw a distinction between legal rights and human rights in this context. I'm saying that the rights codified in the USC are inalienable rights. The US government isn't granting the freedom of speech, and it can't take it away. The right exists because you're a human being. The fact that a country doesn't recognize it as a right doesn't change its status.

pjc50 5y ago
Yes, that's the usual human rights rationale but it's practically a theological one - that the rights have always existed and exist even if you can't see or action them. Interestingly ECHR doesn't bother to define what a right is or where they come from, leaving the implicit position being simple legal realism that the rights exist because this document says they do and the parties agreed to it. https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Archives_1950_Convention_ENG.pdf https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Archives_1950_Convention_...
- mnw21cam 5y ago
  The other point of course is that even if you recognise a pre-government system of human rights, it is reasonable to apply exceptions. For example, the right to free speech is reasonably curtailed when the person speaking is ordering a lackey to commit murder. Most countries recognise some level of intrinsic human rights, but they all handle these exceptions slightly differently. It's not that the UK is dastardly in violating this person's right to privacy because it doesn't think the rights are worth upholding. It's just that the UK has formulated a particular set of reasonable circumstances where it is alright to violate the right to privacy, and has reasoning behind each of them. The US has a different set of formulated reasonable circumstances where it is alright to violate the right to privacy that much of Europe is pretty horrified about. Both sides being horrified at the borderline areas of the other is not surprising.
- kergonath 5y ago
  > Interestingly ECHR doesn't bother to define what a right is or where they come from, leaving the implicit position being simple legal realism that the rights exist because this document says they do and the parties agreed to it. That’s a strange take. It is basically a rewriting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. It even says so right there in the preamble. And it’s a law, part of an international treaty, not a history book. So where the origins of these rights are is beside the point and a legal description is not really surprising.
michaelt 5y ago
I think a lot of people in the US would say that rights like freedom of speech ought to be available to everyone, everywhere in the world. But if you ask them whether 4th-8th amendment rights should extend to detainees at Guantanamo Bay; or whether separation of church and state should be demanded of our Israeli friends; or whether the Queen should be deposed as a tyrant; you would find a lot less support.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  These two points of view aren't contradictory, the Constitution is very clear that it does not grant anybody rights but it is less clear about whose rights they can infringe on.
akarma 5y ago
As an American happy to live in a country with all our protected freedoms, there are some parts of the Constitution that other reasonable countries don't agree with, and that's fine. There are other cultures with other value systems and they're no less valid. (1) Freedom of Assembly, part of our 1st Amendment, is one example. A French court recently decided a protest in Paris could not take place. The court rationale was that a previous protest a few years ago in the same area on the same issue led to violence and destruction of property. The French Constitution allows freedom of speech, but not freedom of assembly, and Americans are often confused by that. The freedom to write and say what you want does not equate to the freedom to protest in the streets. Not allowing freedom of assembly would have saved many lives in the protests that have swept the US, though potentially at the cost of slower social progress. (2) Right to bear arms, our 2nd amendment, is another example. The vast majority of first-world countries don't agree that the right to bear arms is an inalienable human right in today's society. As Americans, we may prefer the added protection against government tyranny and our personal ability to protect ourselves and our belongings. Unarguably, however, it comes at the cost of mass shootings, and additionally, though many factors are responsible for our uniquely high homicide rate, easy availability of firearms certainly does not help to curb it. --- All this to say, many of our protected rights have clear, substantial disadvantages. It's not our place to tell every other country in the world how to operate.
- freeflight 5y ago
  > Not allowing freedom of assembly would have saved many lives in the protests that have swept the US, though potentially at the cost of slower social progress. The US supreme court has established that the government can't regulate the content of speech, but the government is in its right to regulate the time, place and manner of speech. [0] So it is very much a thing in the US and has been enforced plenty of times, for example during Occupy and even during BLM when protests were just declared as "riots" to then crack down on them with the full force of a militarized police arresting thousands of people [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone [1] https://apnews.com/article/american-protests-us-news-arrests-minnesota-burglary-bb2404f9b13c8b53b94c73f818f6a0b7 https://apnews.com/article/american-protests-us-news-arrests...

by pc86 5y ago

pjc50 5y ago

Yes, that's the usual human rights rationale but it's practically a theological one - that the rights have always existed and exist even if you can't see or action them. Interestingly ECHR doesn't bother to define what a right is or where they come from, leaving the implicit position being simple legal realism that the rights exist because this document says they do and the parties agreed to it. https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Archives_1950_Convention_ENG.pdf https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Archives_1950_Convention_...

mnw21cam 5y ago
The other point of course is that even if you recognise a pre-government system of human rights, it is reasonable to apply exceptions. For example, the right to free speech is reasonably curtailed when the person speaking is ordering a lackey to commit murder. Most countries recognise some level of intrinsic human rights, but they all handle these exceptions slightly differently. It's not that the UK is dastardly in violating this person's right to privacy because it doesn't think the rights are worth upholding. It's just that the UK has formulated a particular set of reasonable circumstances where it is alright to violate the right to privacy, and has reasoning behind each of them. The US has a different set of formulated reasonable circumstances where it is alright to violate the right to privacy that much of Europe is pretty horrified about. Both sides being horrified at the borderline areas of the other is not surprising.
kergonath 5y ago
> Interestingly ECHR doesn't bother to define what a right is or where they come from, leaving the implicit position being simple legal realism that the rights exist because this document says they do and the parties agreed to it. That’s a strange take. It is basically a rewriting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. It even says so right there in the preamble. And it’s a law, part of an international treaty, not a history book. So where the origins of these rights are is beside the point and a legal description is not really surprising.

michaelt 5y ago

I think a lot of people in the US would say that rights like freedom of speech ought to be available to everyone, everywhere in the world. But if you ask them whether 4th-8th amendment rights should extend to detainees at Guantanamo Bay; or whether separation of church and state should be demanded of our Israeli friends; or whether the Queen should be deposed as a tyrant; you would find a lot less support.

boomboomsubban 5y ago
These two points of view aren't contradictory, the Constitution is very clear that it does not grant anybody rights but it is less clear about whose rights they can infringe on.

akarma 5y ago

As an American happy to live in a country with all our protected freedoms, there are some parts of the Constitution that other reasonable countries don't agree with, and that's fine. There are other cultures with other value systems and they're no less valid. (1) Freedom of Assembly, part of our 1st Amendment, is one example. A French court recently decided a protest in Paris could not take place. The court rationale was that a previous protest a few years ago in the same area on the same issue led to violence and destruction of property. The French Constitution allows freedom of speech, but not freedom of assembly, and Americans are often confused by that. The freedom to write and say what you want does not equate to the freedom to protest in the streets. Not allowing freedom of assembly would have saved many lives in the protests that have swept the US, though potentially at the cost of slower social progress. (2) Right to bear arms, our 2nd amendment, is another example. The vast majority of first-world countries don't agree that the right to bear arms is an inalienable human right in today's society. As Americans, we may prefer the added protection against government tyranny and our personal ability to protect ourselves and our belongings. Unarguably, however, it comes at the cost of mass shootings, and additionally, though many factors are responsible for our uniquely high homicide rate, easy availability of firearms certainly does not help to curb it. --- All this to say, many of our protected rights have clear, substantial disadvantages. It's not our place to tell every other country in the world how to operate.

freeflight 5y ago
> Not allowing freedom of assembly would have saved many lives in the protests that have swept the US, though potentially at the cost of slower social progress. The US supreme court has established that the government can't regulate the content of speech, but the government is in its right to regulate the time, place and manner of speech. [0] So it is very much a thing in the US and has been enforced plenty of times, for example during Occupy and even during BLM when protests were just declared as "riots" to then crack down on them with the full force of a militarized police arresting thousands of people [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone [1] https://apnews.com/article/american-protests-us-news-arrests-minnesota-burglary-bb2404f9b13c8b53b94c73f818f6a0b7 https://apnews.com/article/american-protests-us-news-arrests...