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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

by 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...
- akarma 5y ago
  > 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 Many Americans actually died in these events in addition to dangerous fires (with people still inside buildings!) and random acts of violence, so the riot characterization has at least in some cases been fair. It makes sense thousands of people would be arrested when hundreds of crimes have occurred. The difference in the US is that these events could not be stopped from occurring, and people were not immediately arrested and water cannoned and so forth by police. It was only after the event grew and escalated and changed in nature. That is where France differs — a protest can, from the beginning, be declared unable to occur, and police respond to it accordingly. This is not at all to say that these events were all wrong or created with ill intent, but that there is a clear advantage and disadvantage to the right to freedom of assembly in the US.
  - freeflight 5y ago
    > That is where France differs — a protest can, from the beginning, be declared unable to occur, and police respond to it accordingly. I think you are misunderstanding what all of this actually means: The US government doesn't just have to tolerate protests anywhere anytime. It is in its right to deem certain times, places and forms of expression as not valid, the only thing it can't regulate is the content of the expression. So you are free to protests for whatever you want, but you are not free to do it whenever and wherever you want, the authorities have the last word on that, regardless of any violence or crimes happening.
    - akarma 5y ago
      I understand what you're referring to, but was aiming to explain the difference between the US and France in a more approachable way. The US could block a protest from occurring, but the legal basis would be much tougher than that in France (it's more protected in the US). In the US, a court won't simply forbid a protest ahead of time because the issue was protested several years ago in the same neighborhood and it led to a riot.
  - 5y ago
watwut 5y ago
USA also allows and disallows protests at various places and times. And they have just legislated new additional laws about that. But I give you that personal guns being framed as anti goverment tyranny is profoundly us thing. I find out odd also because those guns tend to be stockpiled by pretty authoritarian groups and very rarely by civil rights groups.
kergonath 5y ago
> The French Constitution allows freedom of speech, but not freedom of assembly, and Americans are often confused by that. It is a subtle issue, but under French law assembling and protesting is covered under free speech, which is a human right. However, another principle is that all rights are limited when they are in conflict with other people’s fundamental rights, one of them being to live in peace. So in case of protests they have to register beforehand to ensure that there would be some police to prevent violence. That’s the theory anyway. They are not quite as murderous as American policemen, but French ones can also be violent and heavy handed. For the same reason some protests can be forbidden. Usually, it is very difficult as the local government needs to demonstrate a significant risk of unacceptable violence. It is easier these days (in the last 2 decades or so) since there are “exceptional” measures in force to limit terrorism. And of course now there are public health restrictions because of COVID.
webmobdev 5y ago
Right to bear arms, our 2nd amendment, is another example. From what I've read about this arcane piece of legislation, some historians have suggested it stemmed from the fear of slave owners who believed that freed black man may choose to exact revenge on them and they feared that others in their country, who favoured abolition of slavery and criticised them for owning slaves, may not stand with them to offer protection against such revenge attacks. Thus, many spoke in favour of the right to bear arms, stoking fears of a future conflict between the white man and the black man.
- pc86 5y ago
  This has no basis in reality.
  - webmobdev 5y ago
    I am not an American, so I may indeed be mistaken. But the reasoning sounded logical to me - The whole civil war in the US happened because the confederates differed with other Americans on the question of white supremacy and the abolishment of slavery in the USA. For these secessionists, the enslaved blacks and the Americans who supported freeing them were the enemies.

by akarma 5y ago

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...

akarma 5y ago
> 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 Many Americans actually died in these events in addition to dangerous fires (with people still inside buildings!) and random acts of violence, so the riot characterization has at least in some cases been fair. It makes sense thousands of people would be arrested when hundreds of crimes have occurred. The difference in the US is that these events could not be stopped from occurring, and people were not immediately arrested and water cannoned and so forth by police. It was only after the event grew and escalated and changed in nature. That is where France differs — a protest can, from the beginning, be declared unable to occur, and police respond to it accordingly. This is not at all to say that these events were all wrong or created with ill intent, but that there is a clear advantage and disadvantage to the right to freedom of assembly in the US.
- freeflight 5y ago
  > That is where France differs — a protest can, from the beginning, be declared unable to occur, and police respond to it accordingly. I think you are misunderstanding what all of this actually means: The US government doesn't just have to tolerate protests anywhere anytime. It is in its right to deem certain times, places and forms of expression as not valid, the only thing it can't regulate is the content of the expression. So you are free to protests for whatever you want, but you are not free to do it whenever and wherever you want, the authorities have the last word on that, regardless of any violence or crimes happening.
  - akarma 5y ago
    I understand what you're referring to, but was aiming to explain the difference between the US and France in a more approachable way. The US could block a protest from occurring, but the legal basis would be much tougher than that in France (it's more protected in the US). In the US, a court won't simply forbid a protest ahead of time because the issue was protested several years ago in the same neighborhood and it led to a riot.
- 5y ago

watwut 5y ago

USA also allows and disallows protests at various places and times. And they have just legislated new additional laws about that. But I give you that personal guns being framed as anti goverment tyranny is profoundly us thing. I find out odd also because those guns tend to be stockpiled by pretty authoritarian groups and very rarely by civil rights groups.

kergonath 5y ago

> The French Constitution allows freedom of speech, but not freedom of assembly, and Americans are often confused by that. It is a subtle issue, but under French law assembling and protesting is covered under free speech, which is a human right. However, another principle is that all rights are limited when they are in conflict with other people’s fundamental rights, one of them being to live in peace. So in case of protests they have to register beforehand to ensure that there would be some police to prevent violence. That’s the theory anyway. They are not quite as murderous as American policemen, but French ones can also be violent and heavy handed. For the same reason some protests can be forbidden. Usually, it is very difficult as the local government needs to demonstrate a significant risk of unacceptable violence. It is easier these days (in the last 2 decades or so) since there are “exceptional” measures in force to limit terrorism. And of course now there are public health restrictions because of COVID.

webmobdev 5y ago

Right to bear arms, our 2nd amendment, is another example. From what I've read about this arcane piece of legislation, some historians have suggested it stemmed from the fear of slave owners who believed that freed black man may choose to exact revenge on them and they feared that others in their country, who favoured abolition of slavery and criticised them for owning slaves, may not stand with them to offer protection against such revenge attacks. Thus, many spoke in favour of the right to bear arms, stoking fears of a future conflict between the white man and the black man.

pc86 5y ago
This has no basis in reality.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  I am not an American, so I may indeed be mistaken. But the reasoning sounded logical to me - The whole civil war in the US happened because the confederates differed with other Americans on the question of white supremacy and the abolishment of slavery in the USA. For these secessionists, the enslaved blacks and the Americans who supported freeing them were the enemies.