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Protesting is a fundamental human right and obligation. It is something that you should do as casually as you would voting, volunteering, and taking out the gar

Protesting is a fundamental human right and obligation. It is something that you should do as casually as you would voting, volunteering, and taking out the garbage: something you do from time to time when the moment demands it. See also: https://enwp.org/Chilling_effect https://enwp.org/Chilling_effect

themafia 9mo ago
[flagged]
- dns_snek 9mo ago
  > No. It's not. Governments are not natural. So you have no "fundamental" rights here. You could make the same moot point about all societal laws. Fundamental rights are determined by the constitution, the UN declaration of human rights, as well as any other local charters.
  - Claudus 9mo ago
    [flagged]
    - direwolf20 9mo ago
      If you believe rights are what God and the Constitution grant, then they're meaningless. Some piece of paper has no real–world relevance. Cops shooting people in the face has real–world relevance.
      - Claudus 9mo ago
        [flagged]
    - jonathanlydall 9mo ago
      Barring physical limitations, what you can and can't do is ultimately determined by what the society you are by and large a part of deems to be acceptable behaviour. Government rules and social norms can change over time, it ultimately doesn't matter what you feel is "right" or what some law says is "right", it's really about what you can get away with. A large part of what you can get away with is determined about whether or not you will ultimately be penalized for your actions (possibly through violence), and laws can keep people aligned on what is or isn't going to be accepted and when people deemed to be acting in a socially unacceptable way are likely to be penalized in some form. While "rights" may be somewhat philosophical, they can have very real physical "weight" behind them in the form of other people "enforcing" them. And finally, in case you are mistakenly under the impression that I think it's okay for anyone to do anything they want so long as they can get away with it, I don't, but that discussion drifts into the territory of morality and ethics which, while related, are nevertheless different and very large topics of discussion in themselves.
    - idiotsecant 9mo ago
      God doesn't have a typewriter, as far as I know. When he gets one I hope he clears up which 99.9% of human religions are heretical and which 0.01% are divine law, that would be really helpful. In the meantime, rights are not granted by anyone. They are a contract between the governed and those that govern. Breaking that contract is the sort of thing that doesn't end up working out well for the governing class.
      - Claudus 9mo ago
        Since the existence of God is implicit in your assertion, are you suggesting he isn’t omnipotent, or have you come up with a new definitional concept of ownership? Or maybe you just don’t believe in the existence of typewriters.
        idiotsecant 9mo ago
        Yeah, the typewriter thing.
    - NickC25 9mo ago
      [flagged]
      - Claudus 9mo ago
        …or, Baal, Nature, Reason, etc. take your pick, heck probably even AI; which would “happily” explain it to you and answer all your “clever” questions, unlike me.
        NickC25 9mo ago
        I'm not asking "clever" questions. You clearly state that rights are given by a divine being. Since humans for thousands of years have had different ideas about "god", I'm simply asking which of those beings is the one that grants rights. Because the truth is - there is no "god" in the way humans think there is. Saying some mythical sky-daddy grants a certain group of people "rights" at a given point in time is laughable at best, and deliberately disingenuous at worst.
        olyjohn 9mo ago
        What's with the weird quotes? Are you writing your answers in Word and pasting them into here?
      - ibejoeb 9mo ago
        The comment was not an appeal to religion. It's making the point that the notion of intrinsic rights is philosophical, and there must be a greater authority above all human systems if there can be a right at all. Otherwise, it's just something that the prevailing authority allows. The point as it relates to the American Constitution is that that it was conceived with the notion of these divine rights and explicitly recognizes that there is no authority that can deprive the individual of them, thereby placing a hard limit on what a government can do. You're free to disagree with the notion, of course, but it's worth understanding the foundation.
      - ComposedPattern 9mo ago
        Muhammad is not a god, and he was very insistent on that point. The Buddha is also not seen as a god is most traditions. Elohim, Allah, and Ahura are generic terms for God or gods. One does not need to know the specific identity of God to justifiably believe that rights come from God. Suppose that I receive a handwritten letter with no name on it. By the nature of the letter, I can reasonably infer that it was sent by a human, even if I don't know what specific human it was. GP's argument is that the nature of rights implies that they must come from God. This is because they think rights can't be taken away by others; if they could, they would be privileges, not rights. They presumably think that for a right to be inalienable, it must come from an authority above all others, like God. You seem to think that rights only apply to specific people at specific times and places. That's fine, but it's the very point that GP was addressing—if rights are given by the government, then they're not rights at all. Restating the claim that rights are not universal does not address GP's argument. I don't think GP's argument works when it comes to God, because it might be that rights simply exist independent of any authority. Maybe they're an emergent property of human beings, or maybe they simply exist, the way that many believe that God, the number two, or the universe itself just exist without cause. GP might not agree, but it's certainly coherent to believe in inalienable rights without believing in God.
- mikkupikku 9mo ago
  Governments are natural; nature abhors a vacuum. Governments which at least pay lip service to the premise of respecting people's rights are another matter entirely.
oceanplexian 9mo ago
> Protesting is a fundamental human right That doesn't include vandalism, it doesn't include blocking roads, looting, or assaulting people. What's obvious to me is that a certain class of protestors are intentionally provoking a response from the government by breaking the law. Inevitably someone is arrested, hurt, or killed, and that is used as an excuse for more protests. The protests get increasingly violent in an escalating cycle. That process isn't exercising a "fundamental human right", it's a form of violence. If you don't agree with the Government the correct answer is to vote, have a dialog, and if you choose to protest do it in a way that's respectful to your neighbors and the people around you.
- defrost 9mo ago
  > a certain class of protestors Yes, a proportionally large and significant number of local Minnesota community members of long and good standing. > are intentionally provoking a response from the government are reacting to excessive over reach by outsiders, directed by the Federal government to act in a punative manner. > Inevitably someone is arrested, hurt, or killed, This has already happened. Multiple times. As was obvious from the outset given the unprofessional behaviour and attitudes of the not-police sent in wearing masks. > [the people aren't] exercising a "fundamental human right" they are exercising their Constitutional rights. Including their right to free speech, to bear arms, to protest the Federal government, etc. > the correct answer is to vote, talk to your neighbors and friends, and peaceably protest, Which they have done and they continue to do. See: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/the-neighbors-defending-minnesota-from-ice/685769/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/the-neighbors-defe... for more about the local community of neighbour loving US citizens acting in defence of their community.
  - pclmulqdq 9mo ago
    The main thing I see these protesters doing wrong is that they seem to freak out and fight back once they get aarrested. This is not how to deal with under-trained law enforcement unless you want to die. Get arrested, get booked, have your friends pay your bail, and then have a media circus around the court cases that result. This seems lame and takes some self-control to do, but it works really well. Instead, people are getting killed and videos are coming out that seem very chaotic, where people with different predispositions than you can empathize with the police. If those videos were people getting arrested and pepper sprayed for speaking out and for helping each other, they would hit a lot harder for a much larger population.

themafia 9mo ago

[flagged]

dns_snek 9mo ago
> No. It's not. Governments are not natural. So you have no "fundamental" rights here. You could make the same moot point about all societal laws. Fundamental rights are determined by the constitution, the UN declaration of human rights, as well as any other local charters.
- Claudus 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - direwolf20 9mo ago
    If you believe rights are what God and the Constitution grant, then they're meaningless. Some piece of paper has no real–world relevance. Cops shooting people in the face has real–world relevance.
    - Claudus 9mo ago
      [flagged]
  - jonathanlydall 9mo ago
    Barring physical limitations, what you can and can't do is ultimately determined by what the society you are by and large a part of deems to be acceptable behaviour. Government rules and social norms can change over time, it ultimately doesn't matter what you feel is "right" or what some law says is "right", it's really about what you can get away with. A large part of what you can get away with is determined about whether or not you will ultimately be penalized for your actions (possibly through violence), and laws can keep people aligned on what is or isn't going to be accepted and when people deemed to be acting in a socially unacceptable way are likely to be penalized in some form. While "rights" may be somewhat philosophical, they can have very real physical "weight" behind them in the form of other people "enforcing" them. And finally, in case you are mistakenly under the impression that I think it's okay for anyone to do anything they want so long as they can get away with it, I don't, but that discussion drifts into the territory of morality and ethics which, while related, are nevertheless different and very large topics of discussion in themselves.
  - idiotsecant 9mo ago
    God doesn't have a typewriter, as far as I know. When he gets one I hope he clears up which 99.9% of human religions are heretical and which 0.01% are divine law, that would be really helpful. In the meantime, rights are not granted by anyone. They are a contract between the governed and those that govern. Breaking that contract is the sort of thing that doesn't end up working out well for the governing class.
    - Claudus 9mo ago
      Since the existence of God is implicit in your assertion, are you suggesting he isn’t omnipotent, or have you come up with a new definitional concept of ownership? Or maybe you just don’t believe in the existence of typewriters.
      - idiotsecant 9mo ago
        Yeah, the typewriter thing.
  - NickC25 9mo ago
    [flagged]
    - Claudus 9mo ago
      …or, Baal, Nature, Reason, etc. take your pick, heck probably even AI; which would “happily” explain it to you and answer all your “clever” questions, unlike me.
      - NickC25 9mo ago
        I'm not asking "clever" questions. You clearly state that rights are given by a divine being. Since humans for thousands of years have had different ideas about "god", I'm simply asking which of those beings is the one that grants rights. Because the truth is - there is no "god" in the way humans think there is. Saying some mythical sky-daddy grants a certain group of people "rights" at a given point in time is laughable at best, and deliberately disingenuous at worst.
      - olyjohn 9mo ago
        What's with the weird quotes? Are you writing your answers in Word and pasting them into here?
    - ibejoeb 9mo ago
      The comment was not an appeal to religion. It's making the point that the notion of intrinsic rights is philosophical, and there must be a greater authority above all human systems if there can be a right at all. Otherwise, it's just something that the prevailing authority allows. The point as it relates to the American Constitution is that that it was conceived with the notion of these divine rights and explicitly recognizes that there is no authority that can deprive the individual of them, thereby placing a hard limit on what a government can do. You're free to disagree with the notion, of course, but it's worth understanding the foundation.
    - ComposedPattern 9mo ago
      Muhammad is not a god, and he was very insistent on that point. The Buddha is also not seen as a god is most traditions. Elohim, Allah, and Ahura are generic terms for God or gods. One does not need to know the specific identity of God to justifiably believe that rights come from God. Suppose that I receive a handwritten letter with no name on it. By the nature of the letter, I can reasonably infer that it was sent by a human, even if I don't know what specific human it was. GP's argument is that the nature of rights implies that they must come from God. This is because they think rights can't be taken away by others; if they could, they would be privileges, not rights. They presumably think that for a right to be inalienable, it must come from an authority above all others, like God. You seem to think that rights only apply to specific people at specific times and places. That's fine, but it's the very point that GP was addressing—if rights are given by the government, then they're not rights at all. Restating the claim that rights are not universal does not address GP's argument. I don't think GP's argument works when it comes to God, because it might be that rights simply exist independent of any authority. Maybe they're an emergent property of human beings, or maybe they simply exist, the way that many believe that God, the number two, or the universe itself just exist without cause. GP might not agree, but it's certainly coherent to believe in inalienable rights without believing in God.
mikkupikku 9mo ago
Governments are natural; nature abhors a vacuum. Governments which at least pay lip service to the premise of respecting people's rights are another matter entirely.

oceanplexian 9mo ago

> Protesting is a fundamental human right That doesn't include vandalism, it doesn't include blocking roads, looting, or assaulting people. What's obvious to me is that a certain class of protestors are intentionally provoking a response from the government by breaking the law. Inevitably someone is arrested, hurt, or killed, and that is used as an excuse for more protests. The protests get increasingly violent in an escalating cycle. That process isn't exercising a "fundamental human right", it's a form of violence. If you don't agree with the Government the correct answer is to vote, have a dialog, and if you choose to protest do it in a way that's respectful to your neighbors and the people around you.

defrost 9mo ago
> a certain class of protestors Yes, a proportionally large and significant number of local Minnesota community members of long and good standing. > are intentionally provoking a response from the government are reacting to excessive over reach by outsiders, directed by the Federal government to act in a punative manner. > Inevitably someone is arrested, hurt, or killed, This has already happened. Multiple times. As was obvious from the outset given the unprofessional behaviour and attitudes of the not-police sent in wearing masks. > [the people aren't] exercising a "fundamental human right" they are exercising their Constitutional rights. Including their right to free speech, to bear arms, to protest the Federal government, etc. > the correct answer is to vote, talk to your neighbors and friends, and peaceably protest, Which they have done and they continue to do. See: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/the-neighbors-defending-minnesota-from-ice/685769/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/the-neighbors-defe... for more about the local community of neighbour loving US citizens acting in defence of their community.
- pclmulqdq 9mo ago
  The main thing I see these protesters doing wrong is that they seem to freak out and fight back once they get aarrested. This is not how to deal with under-trained law enforcement unless you want to die. Get arrested, get booked, have your friends pay your bail, and then have a media circus around the court cases that result. This seems lame and takes some self-control to do, but it works really well. Instead, people are getting killed and videos are coming out that seem very chaotic, where people with different predispositions than you can empathize with the police. If those videos were people getting arrested and pepper sprayed for speaking out and for helping each other, they would hit a lot harder for a much larger population.