Comment by kelnos

Comment by kelnos 9 days ago

I think what's going on is a helpful reminder that there's no such thing as "rights" in the way you describe. Everything we have, everything we're permitted to do, is at the pleasure and permission of our governments. Constitutions and laws are only worth anything if the people in charge honor them. Might may not make right, but might does let you impose whatever you want on people who don't have your might.

You can try to design systems where one group of people don't have all the might, and so those who balance them are somewhat adversarial in their goals and desires. We always thought the US had such a system, but when you put law enforcement and the military under a single group, and give the other two groups no teeth, you really don't have that sort of system.

branko_d 9 days ago

> Everything we have, everything we're permitted to do, is at the pleasure and permission of our governments.

Wrong! The people are ultimately responsible for reigning-in their governments and are the ultimate source of any rules or rights that the governments end up enforcing.

If you think that the ultimate authority is with the government, then you have justified every authoritarian regime out there.

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hayst4ck 9 days ago

There are two basic world views.
One is based on order and rule. You have a leviathan, an absolute ruler, who imposes order on society.
The other is one based on freedom and law/justice. A society based on affirmative mutual consent and a system orthogonal to power to handle disputes.
Unfortunately, power determining the outcome of disputes is the default, and a system of law or justice cannot enforce itself without the participation of those bound by it. The core founding principle of western society is solidarity via collective bargaining, what other option is there than other than to submit to someone more powerful than any individual?
Do you want to submit to a man, or submit to an idea? If you submit to an idea you must defend it. If you submit to a man, you deny your own agency and your own rights.

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- lurk2 9 days ago
  
  > The core founding principle of western society is solidarity via collective bargaining
  What is the basis of that assertion? If you go back as far as the Greeks, this only holds true if you focus on one specific city-state, and ignore that said city-state disenfranchised foreigners and legally permitted the ownership of slaves. Similar problems occur if we attribute western civilization to the Romans.
  
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  hayst4ck 9 days ago
  
  I am far from a historian, but my understanding is that the protestant reformation birthed the enlightenment by shifting people's idea of god as something to be interpreted by an authority structure (the church) to something that is interpreted internally. Is your relationship with god mediated by a church or a direct relationship with god? The reformation is more closely related to "westenrism" than the Greeks or Romans who laid some of the philosophical groundwork.
  Out of the enlightenment we get John Locke who provided much of America's founding philosophy:
  Locke argued that a government's legitimacy comes from the citizens' delegation to the government of their absolute right of violence (reserving the inalienable right of self-defense or "self-preservation"), along with elements of other rights (e.g. property will be liable to taxation) as necessary to achieve the goal of security through granting the state a monopoly of violence, whereby the government, as an impartial judge, may use the collective force of the populace to administer and enforce the law, rather than each man acting as his own judge, jury, and executioner—the condition in the state of nature.
  My claim is that this is isomorphic to solidarity via collective bargaining when you account for the idea that the government being an impartial judge is not black and white but grey.
  I think it's fair not to say that it is not the core founding principle. I think it's probably more correct to say that it's the theory of power that must be true to support human rights or ideas of freedom.
  
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klodolph 9 days ago

You’re making useful points but you’re also just choosing convenient definitions that make your point of view “correct”.

The parent comment has a definition of “rights” that admits their existence… and I think what you’ve demonstrated is that you have a different definition of “rights”. In other words, you’ve demonstrated that you haven’t really grasped the underlying meaning that the parent comment is getting at, and you’re instead responding to the words that they used to express it.

If you start with a definition for “rights” you can make arguments about whether they exist. But if you start with a different definition and get to a different conclusion, it doesn’t mean you’ve discovered some logical flaw in the argument, it just means that the two of you have failed to communicate with each other.

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glial 8 days ago

I appreciate your analysis, but another way to consider this discussion is that asserting the existence of "rights" is an unsupported conversational maneuver that frames the debate. The grandparent is defining a concept into existence, which is a questionable move IMO, despite being tradition.

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- klodolph 2 days ago
  
  All you have to do is recognize it as a statement of opinion. It’s not a “maneuver”, it’s just an argument, and you can disagree with it.
  
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ooterness 8 days ago

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.

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noitpmeder 8 days ago

"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?"

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hayst4ck 9 days ago

These are the kind of men that founded our country, better men than exist today. This is the type of thinking that led to America, and these are the cultural echo's many young culturally American boys hear from their fathers and grandfathers.

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER" and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God. Thomas Paine - The Crisis

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God - Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson (https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jeffers...)

If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come. It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! John Henry -- Give me liberty or give me death.

You say you have no power and so let the world inflict itself on you, these were men that inflicted themselves upon the world. These men chose reason over comfort. These men chose not to be slaves through their action.

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BeFlatXIII 7 days ago

> We always thought the US had such a system, but when you put law enforcement and the military under a single group, and give the other two groups no teeth, you really don't have that sort of system.

More like the two other groups (the elected group more so than the appointed judges) willingly gave up their teeth.

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