4 ms·

The elected governments of the UK or Canada could choose to pass laws to make anything legal or illegal, but they don't. That suggests to me that the people an

The elected governments of the UK or Canada could choose to pass laws to make anything legal or illegal, but they don't. That suggests to me that the people and their representatives want these laws to be in place. Just like the people and their representatives in the USA don't want to change the constitution to remove the first amendment. The constitution in the US protects so much only because its government is otherwise dysfunctional - nobody ever has a majority large enough to change things. This doesn't happen in other countries - the current UK government has had a sizeable majority since 2019.

nostromo 4y ago
Civil rights should never be left up to the whims of the public. That’s what the US constitution gets right. As for all the Europeans that like to call the world’s oldest democracy dysfunctional - the fact that it’s hard to do things nationally without widespread support is a feature, not a bug.
- daveoc64 4y ago
  > Civil rights should never be left up to the whims of the public. That’s what the US constitution gets right. I don't see anything about the constitution that protects it against the whims of the public. If a majority of the people in the US (and the people they elect) all agreed to change part of the constitution, that could happen.
  - drdeca 4y ago
    If a large majority did, yes, it could be changed. And obviously a piece of parchment cannot force people to do something if people unanimously decided to do otherwise. But preventing the whims of the just-barely-a-majority-of-those-who-voted from changing such an important thing, is important and useful.
  - nostromo 4y ago
    No, you need a supermajority of both houses and of the individual states. It’s very hard to do, which is by design.
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  Free speech has only really existed for the right wing in the US. Left wing activists were spied on, imprisoned, and harassed all through the 20th century. With approval from people who otherwise crow on about the constitution. Pacifism was illegal in WWI and people were jailed for speaking out against the war. Trade unionists were rounded up and beaten by police. Socialists had their phones tapped. Black nationalists and civil rights activists thrown in jail. Communists blacklisted and lost their jobs. Free speech absolutism is a fantasy from the right. Only for protecting speech emanating from the right. When they are threatened by communism or related ideologies, they are more than willing to toss it out the window and did so constantly over a 100 year period. Which makes all the current crowing from the right about their feelings of persecution around identity politics and "cultural marxism" twice as ridiculous. Even here in Canada-- when left wing activists gather in downtown cores and try to disrupt things even a 1/10th of the level that the "freedom convoy" did last winter, they are tear gassed within an inch of their life. I was there in Quebec City at the Summit of the Americas and that's what was done to us. Same at the G20 protests in Toronto, where hundreds were kettled and illegally detained by police within a couple hours of the initiation of protests. When far rightists did it, they were left to occupy international border crossings (with arms!) and disrupt commerce and traffic in our capital city for four weeks before police finally intervened. And I get to hear from Americans on hackernews about what an oppressive state Canada is. It's preposterous.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - nostromo 4y ago
    Just because someone in your favored tribe had their rights violated doesn’t mean you should argue in favor of violating the rights of another group. It’s sad people are duped by this bad reasoning. You’re seeing the world through tribal scorekeeping lens. The obvious solution is to extend the rights more universally. This used to be what the ACLU did in America - fight for everyone’s access to free speech. (Sadly they’ve lost their way and no longer do this.)
    - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
- Anthony-G 4y ago
  World’s oldest democracy? I was wondering what Iceland had to do with this discussion. Though, it turns out that there’s no obvious territory, nation, state, federation or other political entity that can decisively make this claim: https://www.history.com/news/what-is-the-worlds-oldest-democracy https://www.history.com/news/what-is-the-worlds-oldest-democ...

nostromo 4y ago

Civil rights should never be left up to the whims of the public. That’s what the US constitution gets right. As for all the Europeans that like to call the world’s oldest democracy dysfunctional - the fact that it’s hard to do things nationally without widespread support is a feature, not a bug.

daveoc64 4y ago
> Civil rights should never be left up to the whims of the public. That’s what the US constitution gets right. I don't see anything about the constitution that protects it against the whims of the public. If a majority of the people in the US (and the people they elect) all agreed to change part of the constitution, that could happen.
- drdeca 4y ago
  If a large majority did, yes, it could be changed. And obviously a piece of parchment cannot force people to do something if people unanimously decided to do otherwise. But preventing the whims of the just-barely-a-majority-of-those-who-voted from changing such an important thing, is important and useful.
- nostromo 4y ago
  No, you need a supermajority of both houses and of the individual states. It’s very hard to do, which is by design.
cmrdporcupine 4y ago
Free speech has only really existed for the right wing in the US. Left wing activists were spied on, imprisoned, and harassed all through the 20th century. With approval from people who otherwise crow on about the constitution. Pacifism was illegal in WWI and people were jailed for speaking out against the war. Trade unionists were rounded up and beaten by police. Socialists had their phones tapped. Black nationalists and civil rights activists thrown in jail. Communists blacklisted and lost their jobs. Free speech absolutism is a fantasy from the right. Only for protecting speech emanating from the right. When they are threatened by communism or related ideologies, they are more than willing to toss it out the window and did so constantly over a 100 year period. Which makes all the current crowing from the right about their feelings of persecution around identity politics and "cultural marxism" twice as ridiculous. Even here in Canada-- when left wing activists gather in downtown cores and try to disrupt things even a 1/10th of the level that the "freedom convoy" did last winter, they are tear gassed within an inch of their life. I was there in Quebec City at the Summit of the Americas and that's what was done to us. Same at the G20 protests in Toronto, where hundreds were kettled and illegally detained by police within a couple hours of the initiation of protests. When far rightists did it, they were left to occupy international border crossings (with arms!) and disrupt commerce and traffic in our capital city for four weeks before police finally intervened. And I get to hear from Americans on hackernews about what an oppressive state Canada is. It's preposterous.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nostromo 4y ago
  Just because someone in your favored tribe had their rights violated doesn’t mean you should argue in favor of violating the rights of another group. It’s sad people are duped by this bad reasoning. You’re seeing the world through tribal scorekeeping lens. The obvious solution is to extend the rights more universally. This used to be what the ACLU did in America - fight for everyone’s access to free speech. (Sadly they’ve lost their way and no longer do this.)
  - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
Anthony-G 4y ago
World’s oldest democracy? I was wondering what Iceland had to do with this discussion. Though, it turns out that there’s no obvious territory, nation, state, federation or other political entity that can decisively make this claim: https://www.history.com/news/what-is-the-worlds-oldest-democracy https://www.history.com/news/what-is-the-worlds-oldest-democ...