4 ms·

It would, perhaps, be enlightening to quote the entire sentence from the US Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men

by Goladus 13y ago

It would, perhaps, be enlightening to quote the entire sentence from the US Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. In particular: ...deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed... In other words, I give MY government the power to arrest, prosecute, employ various armed agents to use against ME if I violate its laws. I've made no such tacit contract with France, or Russia or Singapore or China or anywhere else. Russians spying on me may be violating a treaty, but they've made no implicit social contract with me via a constitution or other set of laws.

furyg3 13y ago
You are interpreting this precisely backwards. These "Rights" are unalienable. They are not to be given away, they are not to be taken away. Governments exist to secure these rights. To help protect these rights, the government may exist... but only by consent of the people being governed. It may be true that the Russian government does not give these rights to it's citizens, or that these citizens yield these rights to the Russian government. Nevertheless, according to the morals listed in the DoI, the US government is founded on the belief that Russians have these rights, because they are human beings. Therefore, the US government, when dealing with 'men' of any nationally, needs to respect the unalienable Rights which all men have been granted by their Creator. Anything else is hypocritical. Edit: after thinking about it, it gets even better. Because foreigners have not consented to being governed by the US, the rights of foreigners not to be spied on by the US government would go even further than the rights of Americans. And yes, I know the DoI is not law. But if we Americans cannot simultaneously claim to believe in it's principles and make laws that contradict it without being hypocritical.
- anoncow 13y ago
  I really hope President Obama reads this.
- anoncow 13y ago
  I really hope President Obama reads this.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  These "Rights" are unalienable. They are in alienable. That is to say, incapable of being separated from the individual possessing them. Literally, they cannot be alienated (separated) from the person possessing them. Your real property (home, money, possessions, even spouse, children, or other family) may be taken from you and given to someone else. The word inalienable refers not to rights which may not be taken, but which can not be taken. You may be deprived of these rights, but nobody else can take possession of them. It's a subtle difference, and one few people understand, particularly in the context of natural, civil, or universal human rights, which can be argued to have a moral or socially beneficial basis, but may still be alienable. There's also a fair amount of debate over the self-evidence, alienability, and/or naturalness of these rights. Of of their status should they become so (say, through technology). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inalienable_rights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inalienable_rights
- Goladus 13y ago
  Backwards or forwards, my interpretation is less an oversimplification than the parent. It may be true that the Russian government does not give these rights to it's citizens, or that these citizens yield these rights to the Russian government. Nevertheless, according to the morals listed in the DoI, the US government is founded on the belief that Russians have these rights, because they are human beings. The distinction one must make based on my interpretation is that the US may believe that Russians have those rights, but it is not the US Government's responsibility to secure them, especially if doing so would conflict with the objective of securing the rights of its own citizens. The Government's first duty is to its citizens, and it's the duty of citizens to hold its government accountable. It is, therefore, not the least bit surprising to see a different reaction between the idea of a government spying on others versus spying on citizens. I also did not bother to question the relevance of bringing in Geneva convention arguments into a discussion about surveillance and privacy. If you examine carefully, you'll discover that the Geneva Convention deals with issues of life, liberty, and happiness quite directly in the sense of execution, imprisonment, and torture. Privacy, meanwhile, is a right derived from the US Constitution and not one of those alluded to in the Declaration. Nowhere do I say that you can't argue that a Government should uphold basic rights of all humans everywhere regardless of citizenship. What you can't do is trot out the first half-phrase of the Declaration of Independence, highlight one example of a legal argument that a non-state entity had flagrantly violated terms of a convention and should not enjoy its benefits, and somehow try to connect that to Americans being really pissed off about being subject to a large surveillance program by their own Government.
4891 13y ago
Thank you - this is the most sensible comment I've seen in this thread. Many thinkers throughout history have noted that states and criminal gangs are effectively the same. They are both inherently violent organisations. Criminal gangs are tiny states; states are large, settled criminal gangs. The Yakuza in Japan or the Cray family (when they ruled half of London) are examples of intermediate forms: criminal gangs that have taken on some of the role of the state. Rather than arbitrarily robbing people, they instead ask for protection money. This is more than just a polite form of robbery: they legitimately protect you from other criminal gangs. Though I doubt anyone here has had to make the decision, I think everyone would prefer to deal with one predictable criminal gang than many competing unpredictable gangs. Eventually the gang leaders realise that it's in their own interest to build a stable, prosperous society: its better to be a Caesar than a barbarian warlord. If nothing else, the wine is nicer. Passing laws and promising that even the leaders will abide by them makes the citizens comfortable dealing with one another and makes everyone richer. Once everyone is comfortable with the idea of the law being supreme, the mob might realise they can do away with kings and bring in constitutions and parliaments and so on. Democracy works (and only works) because the mob agrees that these are the set of rules they will live by, and that therefore it's not wise to ignore them. Still, rights and laws remain contingent on power. Human rights only extend as far as the military reach of states that support human rights. Until we build a world government, the only universal law over humanity is the same as it was in 10000 BC: raw power, physical force, violence. The world as a whole is essentially a lawless realm consisting of about 200 gangs; the only thing that stops everything turning into bloods vs crips is a shaky system of alliances, treaties and, ultimately, mutually assured destruction. One obvious counterpoint is that France no longer needs to fear Germany because the Germans and French are suddenly BFFs and neither will vote to go to war with the other. The "international community" is slowly coming to resemble a federated state, with one set of laws. But this community is not truly international. Russia and China can violate your right to privacy all they want. Ultimately, this is because they have H-bombs. Likewise, we can violate Sharia Law as much as we like and Iran can't stop us. My point is this: most of these complaints would make sense if America truly was a world government, achieving legitimacy via just consent of the 7 billion governed. But it's not, and it can limit its citizenship however it pleases. The fact that America was historically built on immigration doesn't give me, a foreigner, the "right" to live there. The very concept is nonsensical - the USG has more guns than me, and so they can decide who's in and who's out. The idea that people should be able to live wherever they want is a beautiful dream but is entirely counter to the way the world is going, and is also horrendously impractical. I've travelled to China a few times over the last few years and each time the visa requirements have gotten stricter. They've decided they don't need any more foreigners, and I can't contest the morality of this with the CPC because again, they have more guns than me. As the world gets more crowded, other middle income countries will follow suit. The walls are going up everywhere. As much as I, personally, would benefit from the US tearing down its borders and letting me live there without restriction, it doesn't make a lot of sense if they do so and other countries don't. Americans can constrain their intelligence agencies and open their borders as much as they like. They can't force other countries to do the same, which means that these policy proposals are equivalent to "we should make our intelligence gathering less capable than that of China and Russia" and "we should import Latin Americans until our quality of life is equal to that of Honduras". If America wants to reenact the fall of Rome, that's their prerogative, but as a foreigner I wish other foreigners would not cheerlead them as they do so. No America means no "international community" (what can the EU do against China and Russia?), and good luck petitioning China to respect your human rights as a global citizen. Although you might not believe it, I'm not actually a cynic about human nature or pessimistic about our future. We built stable, peaceful societies in a violent world. Go humanity! But we have to remember that this was not achieved by the divine intervention of the Great God Human Rights, but by working within the universal laws of power. Good can triumph over evil, but as even Jesus said, it needs the "cunning of snakes" to succeed.
bobwaycott 13y ago
But to follow that completely, you've also made no contract by your consent to give your government the power to arrest, prosecute, or employ various armed agents to use against another who has not so consented to your government. Treaties are an implicit social contract. The parties to a treaty are contracting binding social obligations and permissible and expected behaviors. If they were not a social contract, they would have no binding power. They may usefully be understood as a constitution of sorts between foreign powers. Violating a treaty is violating a social contract. A social contract does not equal a constitution alone.
- Goladus 13y ago
  But to follow that completely, you've also made no contract by your consent to give your government the power to arrest, prosecute, or employ various armed agents to use against another who has not so consented to your government. It's true that's outside the scope of my comment. However, once again referring to the Declaration of Independence, the concluding paragraph includes comments that the notion of statehood includes these rights[1]: as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. Specifically, that's the role of the Head of State (The President) and the State Department. ==== Violating a treaty is violating a social contract. A social contract does not equal a constitution alone. My intent was to draw a distinction between the relationship between the US government and its own people and the relationship between the the US government and non-citizens. My use of the term "social contract" was a reference to the specific Enlightenment concept. The distinction was drawn in order to help explain to people why reactions to domestic spying are different than reactions to, say, the CIA spying in Pakistan. Domestic spying gets a more visceral, widespread negative reaction because the social contract a between government and its own citizens is highly sensitive. It's the only thing preventing oppression and tyranny-- violations should always result in an immediate flurry of public discourse, political consequences, and push to address the breach. This is not to say that treaty violations and other interaction with foreign actors is not serious-- there was no shortage of outrage about for Abu Ghraib-- but people are one step removed in any such interaction in a way that they are not when the government has offended its own. [1] Selective quote, yes. But most relevant to the point. The "Supreme Judge of the World" part is interesting and relevant to the discussion in general but I didn't have time to address it.
abraininavat 13y ago
I'm pretty sure nkoren's point has just flown over your head. You're talking about the obligations of the US Government. The US Government clearly only has the obligation to secure the rights of its own citizens. nkoren is talking about the rights of the US Government. Just look at the language of the very first clause. All men are guaranteed these rights. It makes no mention of citizenship. That the US Government has the obligation to protect the rights of only US citizens does not mean that it has the right to violate the rights of non-US citizens. I don't buy the bullshit that the government can only protect my rights by violating the rights of others. That's small-minded thinking. I agree with 4891 that nations act like criminal gangs. I seem to be one of very few who believe they shouldn't, though.
- Goladus 13y ago
  nkoren is talking about the rights of the US Government. No, he is talking about the behavior of the US Government and the behavior of its citizens, and inferring motivating principles from that. Nkoren appears to have concluded that the US and its people have abandoned the founding enlightenment ideals in favor of utter selfishness. I don't buy the bullshit that the government can only protect my rights by violating the rights of others. Sorry, but that's just the way life is. Maybe someday we can live in a world without prisons, without police, without armies, and without weapons but until that utopia comes people will infringe the rights of others, and the only way to stop them is return violation. That is not to say that every time a government claims it is acting to protect the rights of its citizens it is actually doing so, or that the violations it commits are justified. Or even worth the monetary cost. Small-minded thinking is not being able to make distinctions between John Yoo, Drone Strikes, and PRISM because you think universal human equality is the only enlightenment ideal that matters.
  - bandushrew 13y ago
    Honestly, no. Small minded thinking is being unable to step out from behind the 'protection' offered by authority figures because the world just seems too scary to you. If the cost of belief in the rights of humanity to freedom, dignity and self determination is high, that is because the rewards are great. Stop being cynical, and stop being scared. Look up. The sun is shining :)

by Goladus 13y ago

furyg3 13y ago

You are interpreting this precisely backwards. These "Rights" are unalienable. They are not to be given away, they are not to be taken away. Governments exist to secure these rights. To help protect these rights, the government may exist... but only by consent of the people being governed. It may be true that the Russian government does not give these rights to it's citizens, or that these citizens yield these rights to the Russian government. Nevertheless, according to the morals listed in the DoI, the US government is founded on the belief that Russians have these rights, because they are human beings. Therefore, the US government, when dealing with 'men' of any nationally, needs to respect the unalienable Rights which all men have been granted by their Creator. Anything else is hypocritical. Edit: after thinking about it, it gets even better. Because foreigners have not consented to being governed by the US, the rights of foreigners not to be spied on by the US government would go even further than the rights of Americans. And yes, I know the DoI is not law. But if we Americans cannot simultaneously claim to believe in it's principles and make laws that contradict it without being hypocritical.

anoncow 13y ago
I really hope President Obama reads this.
anoncow 13y ago
I really hope President Obama reads this.
dredmorbius 13y ago
These "Rights" are unalienable. They are in alienable. That is to say, incapable of being separated from the individual possessing them. Literally, they cannot be alienated (separated) from the person possessing them. Your real property (home, money, possessions, even spouse, children, or other family) may be taken from you and given to someone else. The word inalienable refers not to rights which may not be taken, but which can not be taken. You may be deprived of these rights, but nobody else can take possession of them. It's a subtle difference, and one few people understand, particularly in the context of natural, civil, or universal human rights, which can be argued to have a moral or socially beneficial basis, but may still be alienable. There's also a fair amount of debate over the self-evidence, alienability, and/or naturalness of these rights. Of of their status should they become so (say, through technology). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inalienable_rights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inalienable_rights
Goladus 13y ago
Backwards or forwards, my interpretation is less an oversimplification than the parent. It may be true that the Russian government does not give these rights to it's citizens, or that these citizens yield these rights to the Russian government. Nevertheless, according to the morals listed in the DoI, the US government is founded on the belief that Russians have these rights, because they are human beings. The distinction one must make based on my interpretation is that the US may believe that Russians have those rights, but it is not the US Government's responsibility to secure them, especially if doing so would conflict with the objective of securing the rights of its own citizens. The Government's first duty is to its citizens, and it's the duty of citizens to hold its government accountable. It is, therefore, not the least bit surprising to see a different reaction between the idea of a government spying on others versus spying on citizens. I also did not bother to question the relevance of bringing in Geneva convention arguments into a discussion about surveillance and privacy. If you examine carefully, you'll discover that the Geneva Convention deals with issues of life, liberty, and happiness quite directly in the sense of execution, imprisonment, and torture. Privacy, meanwhile, is a right derived from the US Constitution and not one of those alluded to in the Declaration. Nowhere do I say that you can't argue that a Government should uphold basic rights of all humans everywhere regardless of citizenship. What you can't do is trot out the first half-phrase of the Declaration of Independence, highlight one example of a legal argument that a non-state entity had flagrantly violated terms of a convention and should not enjoy its benefits, and somehow try to connect that to Americans being really pissed off about being subject to a large surveillance program by their own Government.

4891 13y ago

Thank you - this is the most sensible comment I've seen in this thread. Many thinkers throughout history have noted that states and criminal gangs are effectively the same. They are both inherently violent organisations. Criminal gangs are tiny states; states are large, settled criminal gangs. The Yakuza in Japan or the Cray family (when they ruled half of London) are examples of intermediate forms: criminal gangs that have taken on some of the role of the state. Rather than arbitrarily robbing people, they instead ask for protection money. This is more than just a polite form of robbery: they legitimately protect you from other criminal gangs. Though I doubt anyone here has had to make the decision, I think everyone would prefer to deal with one predictable criminal gang than many competing unpredictable gangs. Eventually the gang leaders realise that it's in their own interest to build a stable, prosperous society: its better to be a Caesar than a barbarian warlord. If nothing else, the wine is nicer. Passing laws and promising that even the leaders will abide by them makes the citizens comfortable dealing with one another and makes everyone richer. Once everyone is comfortable with the idea of the law being supreme, the mob might realise they can do away with kings and bring in constitutions and parliaments and so on. Democracy works (and only works) because the mob agrees that these are the set of rules they will live by, and that therefore it's not wise to ignore them. Still, rights and laws remain contingent on power. Human rights only extend as far as the military reach of states that support human rights. Until we build a world government, the only universal law over humanity is the same as it was in 10000 BC: raw power, physical force, violence. The world as a whole is essentially a lawless realm consisting of about 200 gangs; the only thing that stops everything turning into bloods vs crips is a shaky system of alliances, treaties and, ultimately, mutually assured destruction. One obvious counterpoint is that France no longer needs to fear Germany because the Germans and French are suddenly BFFs and neither will vote to go to war with the other. The "international community" is slowly coming to resemble a federated state, with one set of laws. But this community is not truly international. Russia and China can violate your right to privacy all they want. Ultimately, this is because they have H-bombs. Likewise, we can violate Sharia Law as much as we like and Iran can't stop us. My point is this: most of these complaints would make sense if America truly was a world government, achieving legitimacy via just consent of the 7 billion governed. But it's not, and it can limit its citizenship however it pleases. The fact that America was historically built on immigration doesn't give me, a foreigner, the "right" to live there. The very concept is nonsensical - the USG has more guns than me, and so they can decide who's in and who's out. The idea that people should be able to live wherever they want is a beautiful dream but is entirely counter to the way the world is going, and is also horrendously impractical. I've travelled to China a few times over the last few years and each time the visa requirements have gotten stricter. They've decided they don't need any more foreigners, and I can't contest the morality of this with the CPC because again, they have more guns than me. As the world gets more crowded, other middle income countries will follow suit. The walls are going up everywhere. As much as I, personally, would benefit from the US tearing down its borders and letting me live there without restriction, it doesn't make a lot of sense if they do so and other countries don't. Americans can constrain their intelligence agencies and open their borders as much as they like. They can't force other countries to do the same, which means that these policy proposals are equivalent to "we should make our intelligence gathering less capable than that of China and Russia" and "we should import Latin Americans until our quality of life is equal to that of Honduras". If America wants to reenact the fall of Rome, that's their prerogative, but as a foreigner I wish other foreigners would not cheerlead them as they do so. No America means no "international community" (what can the EU do against China and Russia?), and good luck petitioning China to respect your human rights as a global citizen. Although you might not believe it, I'm not actually a cynic about human nature or pessimistic about our future. We built stable, peaceful societies in a violent world. Go humanity! But we have to remember that this was not achieved by the divine intervention of the Great God Human Rights, but by working within the universal laws of power. Good can triumph over evil, but as even Jesus said, it needs the "cunning of snakes" to succeed.

bobwaycott 13y ago

But to follow that completely, you've also made no contract by your consent to give your government the power to arrest, prosecute, or employ various armed agents to use against another who has not so consented to your government. Treaties are an implicit social contract. The parties to a treaty are contracting binding social obligations and permissible and expected behaviors. If they were not a social contract, they would have no binding power. They may usefully be understood as a constitution of sorts between foreign powers. Violating a treaty is violating a social contract. A social contract does not equal a constitution alone.

Goladus 13y ago
But to follow that completely, you've also made no contract by your consent to give your government the power to arrest, prosecute, or employ various armed agents to use against another who has not so consented to your government. It's true that's outside the scope of my comment. However, once again referring to the Declaration of Independence, the concluding paragraph includes comments that the notion of statehood includes these rights[1]: as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. Specifically, that's the role of the Head of State (The President) and the State Department. ==== Violating a treaty is violating a social contract. A social contract does not equal a constitution alone. My intent was to draw a distinction between the relationship between the US government and its own people and the relationship between the the US government and non-citizens. My use of the term "social contract" was a reference to the specific Enlightenment concept. The distinction was drawn in order to help explain to people why reactions to domestic spying are different than reactions to, say, the CIA spying in Pakistan. Domestic spying gets a more visceral, widespread negative reaction because the social contract a between government and its own citizens is highly sensitive. It's the only thing preventing oppression and tyranny-- violations should always result in an immediate flurry of public discourse, political consequences, and push to address the breach. This is not to say that treaty violations and other interaction with foreign actors is not serious-- there was no shortage of outrage about for Abu Ghraib-- but people are one step removed in any such interaction in a way that they are not when the government has offended its own. [1] Selective quote, yes. But most relevant to the point. The "Supreme Judge of the World" part is interesting and relevant to the discussion in general but I didn't have time to address it.

abraininavat 13y ago

I'm pretty sure nkoren's point has just flown over your head. You're talking about the obligations of the US Government. The US Government clearly only has the obligation to secure the rights of its own citizens. nkoren is talking about the rights of the US Government. Just look at the language of the very first clause. All men are guaranteed these rights. It makes no mention of citizenship. That the US Government has the obligation to protect the rights of only US citizens does not mean that it has the right to violate the rights of non-US citizens. I don't buy the bullshit that the government can only protect my rights by violating the rights of others. That's small-minded thinking. I agree with 4891 that nations act like criminal gangs. I seem to be one of very few who believe they shouldn't, though.

Goladus 13y ago
nkoren is talking about the rights of the US Government. No, he is talking about the behavior of the US Government and the behavior of its citizens, and inferring motivating principles from that. Nkoren appears to have concluded that the US and its people have abandoned the founding enlightenment ideals in favor of utter selfishness. I don't buy the bullshit that the government can only protect my rights by violating the rights of others. Sorry, but that's just the way life is. Maybe someday we can live in a world without prisons, without police, without armies, and without weapons but until that utopia comes people will infringe the rights of others, and the only way to stop them is return violation. That is not to say that every time a government claims it is acting to protect the rights of its citizens it is actually doing so, or that the violations it commits are justified. Or even worth the monetary cost. Small-minded thinking is not being able to make distinctions between John Yoo, Drone Strikes, and PRISM because you think universal human equality is the only enlightenment ideal that matters.
- bandushrew 13y ago
  Honestly, no. Small minded thinking is being unable to step out from behind the 'protection' offered by authority figures because the world just seems too scary to you. If the cost of belief in the rights of humanity to freedom, dignity and self determination is high, that is because the rewards are great. Stop being cynical, and stop being scared. Look up. The sun is shining :)