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"Fundamental" rights are the ones whose existence is not considered a matter for debate in society.
by azernik 5y ago
"Fundamental" rights are the ones whose existence is not considered a matter for debate in society.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoNo such right exists. Can you name one?
- azernik 5y agoIn the US in particular: The right to life (in a negative, the government-shouldn't-take-it-away) is quite universally recognized - in cases where it's violated, defenders of that violation work very hard to craft a strong justification. The right to free speech (again, in a negative the-government-shouldn't-take-it-away) sense is also a fundamental part of political discourse. The right to private religious practice is broadly fundamental, though the right to religious practice of various sorts in the public domain (as well as the definition of that public domain) is hotly disputed. Notably, the right to certain social goods are "fundamental" in parts of Western Europe (e.g. healthcare in the UK), but very much are not in the US. My general impression is that positive (the-government-should-provide-it) rights are much more rarely "fundamental" in the sense of being deep in a polity's consensus.