Rights.
One of the classic claims of the "superiority" of socialist political systems is the addition of various "Rights" beyond those commonly considered self-evident, often stating them in the national constitution.
Here are a few:
.The Right to Work: literally, the recognition as a "Right" that every person have employment they are compensated for. This is most commonly reflected in legislated doles, Welfare payments, to any who are not employed as compensation for the state not fulfilling their "Right".
.The Right to Wellness: this has two parts: The recognition in law of the state's obligation to protect the health of nationals (or even all residents) from known risk, and; The recognition as a "Right" of access to Health Care (sufficient, as defined by the state) irrespective of material means or social category (class, caste, et al)
.The Right to Education: that for so long as (to some upper level limit) formal education is desired, it is a "Right" to have access to such and again, that it be provided irrespective to means or category. This, however, is often also legislatively linked to the state being the "possessor" of the education so provided, and in the name of allocating state resources the person receiving the education loses some other "Right", most commonly Liberty = freedom to live and seek livelihood in a place of one's own choosing.
That is enough to start things, I think.
Open Ground:
This is a fun one as it has lots of open ground. It can be argued that there are no "Rights" beyond the famous self-evident ones of the Enlightenment philosophers. In converse, you might think there are "Rights" that are not sufficiently world-wide and should be spread. You might disdain the examples above, or think that they are just fine but as "Privileges" allocated to nationals (citizens, subjects) only, or in some moderated form.
Here's my first poke at it:
In Japan, there is no Right to Self-Defense or Mutual-Defense by an individual, armed or not. While Self-Protection is mentioned in the body of law, actual legislation only permits resistance necessary to escape. Any violence in excess of that purpose is technically actionable as the State exclusively reserves the use of force in defense. To my knowledge, there have not been any prosecutions, but the very possibility of a 72 hour police interrogation without legal representation present (standard for any investigation in Japan) is a pretty big deterrent to anyone wanting to oh say jump on a mugger who is attacking a third party.
I'll just say I disagree, and that I think the right to at the very least the defense of my person, family, and property is my inalienable right. Would sure be convenient if the national law agreed.
It is your turn now. What do you think?
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20 comments:
LDG
Are you saying that you are not allowed to have, say, a gun in your home to protect you and yours from an intruder??
@KC
That would be one example.
The basic case is simply that it is not your right to protect yourself by force of any kind.
In the (rare) case of a licensed firearms owner, the use of that firearm is expressly for a purpose: target or hunting. Each requires a seperate license. Use of said firearm for *any* purpose not expressly licensed violates the Firearms Control Law.
Here's a worse example:
Intruder in the home. You are not in immediate threat of deadly force or restraint. Another member of your household is under such a threat. Legally, the only thing you can do is escape from the possibility of self-endangerment (run away) and inform the Police. It is the Police's obligation to protect the other member of your household.
...now that is a literal reading of the law. I assure you that were case #2 to come to pass here, by the time the Police were called to my home, they would be investigating the mystery of how a stranger got into my house and then killed himself with his own weapon.
Well... Animal Rights< fall into that. Often "new rights" are asserted to negatively impact the rights previously heald by other groups. The final goal of the animal Rights crowd, at least if you listen to the weepy Ingrid newkirk, head of PETA, seems to be that Humans and animals live entirely independantly never intersecting, and if so the decider goes to the animal.
Most of the marzist and post marxist rights fall under a different morality, where there is no Good and Evil, but only Opressor and Opressed, and being a victim is morally superior to being a victimizer. regardless of the conduct of either. Such a code or morality is specifically to overturn social orders predating Marxism.
Me I love eating tasty animals.
Scott
P.S. if Animals have claws and teth to defend themselve and are not subject to escalation legislation, why not we?
@karl
well, sort of.
I'll agree that some activists are certainly attempting to cast the issue as one of equality, if not animals-first, but...
...that really doesn't address the matter from the point of view of "Rights" as they apply to humans, unless you are implying that there is a part of the "Right to Wellness" protection that says 'we should tell you what to eat and wear because it is good for you'. Do correct me if that was your intent, please.
Off Topic
caveat: I hunt. When I do, I do so for food or materials. I also consider most of the endangerment of the general wellbeing of animals that live in proximity to humans to be the fault of humans. In those cases, I'll side with the animals every time. Ironic isn't it that the most effective and motivated Conservationists are almost always people who "use" the land, rivers, fish or animals?
anyway...
Must. Resist. Off-topic. Rant.
It turns out that I've become something of a libertarian over the last few years. (I grew up right next to Berkeley, so this was actually quite a shock.) Libertarian thought seems to say there ought to be a whole lot more "rights" than most people have. Much of that comes down to the right to freedom from government paternalism. There are just too many cases of this to talk about here. Sigh.
The right to self-defense does seem awfully primal to me, and happily enough some states (FL I believe being a recent convert) have removed from the law the obligation to retreat when threatened with bodily harm. I'd love to see more of this.
The UN for some reason that escapes me is trying to establish as a principal of international law that human beings lack a right to self defense, especially if that defense involves firearms. See here and here.
Nazi Germany took guns away from the Jews before they could start executing them. (IBM helped. Read this book.) The right of self-defense has very little meaning if you lack the means to pursue it.
...that really doesn't address the matter from the point of view of "Rights" as they apply to humans, unless you are implying that there is a part of the "Right to Wellness" protection that says 'we should tell you what to eat and wear because it is good for you'. Do correct me if that was your intent, please.
It is very much in the direction of the "Right to Wellness" in that the rights of the animal proscribes the right of people. The rights of Animals, being the ultimate in voiceless victims, are granted supreme moral authority, due to the perfection of their victimhood.
In general I see it that Animals don't have rights, but people have responsibilities.
The Rights are to be granted by the educated elites (one's betters) because the hoi polloi Have not the capability of managing their own affairs. Rule by Experts, more and more of them unelected bureacrats. It boils down to a certain interest in control and maintaining power.
Living in Los Angeles now with its amazing amounts of Latin American style patronage and occasional corruption we never saw in the Bay Area has me trusting government, and especially Democrats less and less. Very paternalistic over the peons
I am not clear on this-
but the very possibility of a 72 hour police interrogation without legal representation present (standard for any investigation in Japan) is a pretty big deterrent to anyone wanting to oh say jump on a mugger who is attacking a third party.
Are you saying if I were to try to interfere, I would be held for 72 hours? Key word- I- the person who tried to stop a crime?
As a general comment-- here in the US we have too many rights- via Due Process and these are abused and tie up our courts spending tax payer's money! Our laws here are too open to interpretation and hence, frivolous suits left and right along with the courts being tied up for months to protect the rights of a murderer, due process! Ridiculous!
this is a good topic-- I am coming back to this one later as I want to think this one out-- carefully!
reference PETA-- Ingrid is a nuisance- I made the mistake of signing a petition-- Michael Vick- as I was so angry at the time, my emails of his treatment of the dogs were all over the net! She started sending me all these other newsletters and petitions-- I ignored them and they finally stopped.
About animal having rights-- well, I think cruelty should punished to the fullest letter of the law! I, personally, will provide the noose and the whip!
@Susan
re: "Are you saying if I were to try to interfere, I would be held for 72 hours? Key word- I- the person who tried to stop a crime?"
What I am saying is that you have no legal use of violence *at all*, as you are not a Police Officer or duly deputized agent.
Nor do you have the authority to define what a crime is.
So, if you intervened in an incident, you are also in the eyes of the law -- wrong.
A Police Officer *could* chose to judge that a crime, and place you under arrest for investigation.
Then you are in the soup. So...
In short, you *could* be. Yes, you.
gotcha!
I thought this is what I read--
so just walk away and let the person get his arse beaten!
Do they have 911 in Japan?
@Susan
"Do they have 911 in Japan?"
dial 110 for a Police Emergency, so yes.
@All
so what about "Rights" that are added (rather than not recognized)? Should there be a "Right" to work, or any of the others listed?
right to work-- hmmm? There is A National Right to Work Committee here--
No one should be forced to pay tribute to a union in order to get or keep a job.
These citizens agree that Federal labor law should not promote coercive union power, and support the protection and enactment of additional state Right to Work laws until the federal sanction for compulsory unionism is eliminated.
Kentucky and Ohio (UPS)have filed lawsuits "against national and local Teamsters officials for illegal extraction of forced union dues."
Your question is not that simple--
here is a good link for "right to work"-- Kentucky's and Ohio's beef-
If you work primarily in a Right to Work state you have the right to decline joining a union and you cannot be required to pay dues or an agency fee to the union unless you choose to join the union. This includes State or Local Government employees, Public School Teachers and College Professors..
Although, I see Kentucky and Ohio are not Right to Work states
http://phoenix.about.com/cs/empl/a/righttowork.htm
@Susan
those deal with the Union privledge issue of "closed shop" vs. "right to work", also called free labor. A valuable point, but not as big an issue as I was mentioning.
"Right to Work" states that *every person* has a "Right" to gainful employment, and if they are not employed, the State is obliged to compensate them both by the provision of employment and / or the payment of compensation to assure their financial well-being.
Plainly put, under that "Right", if you don't have a job, the Government has to give you one at a (by some measure) living wage, or dole to you a payment to live on.
LDG--
I understand what you are saying--
as in reference to welfare, disability, social security, etc!
As for this-- how does the gov't or state distinguish the right to work and compensate if unable to do so-- especially when fraud is exercised in order to reap the compensations for not working-- as in many cases where the individual is being compensated by disability checks and soaking in the welfare!
I agree with the compensation to assure the well-being if one is not able to work, but unfortuantely, this is well abused! And it takes away from those who truly need it!
I have one of those living right next door to me!
this type of compensation makes it too easy for the lazy individual to reap in the benefits- Scamming is what I call this.
Gave your comments a bit more thought, Susan...
It seems your observed complaints are with the system of Entitlements that come to be once new "Rights" are recognized.
Are you just saying the Entitlement systems get gamed, get ripped off, and they need to be more robust in their rules? Or is your irritation more an indictment of the whole idea of recognizing new "Rights"?
@All
I want to be very clear on the distinction:
A recognized "Right" is a philisophical construct, which is then codified into some binding Legal device (constitution, treaty, etc).
An "Entitlement" is the legal recognition that having recognized a "Right", it implies *directly* that somethings must be legislatively allowed or disallowed: "The Right to Self-Defense" has implicit *an entitlement to access* to the means to defend one's self; "The Right to Work" has implicit an *entitlement to an income* considered a living wage.
Violations of the legal structures of an Entitlement are *not* an indictment of the philisophical justification of a recognized "Right". They, like other risks, are a "Societal Cost" to recognizing a "Right".
Here are the related "Costs to Society" for each of the examples above of "Rights" and their "Entitlements":
.The "Right to Self-Defense" carries the cost of "Increased Danger" associated with the "Entitlement to the means of Defense". Accidental shootings, firearms proliferation (you get the idea).
.The "Right to Work" carries the cost of "Largesse Risk" if the "Entitlement to a living wage" is fulfilled by a state dole. Making State money available means making other people's money (by taxation) available, which invites means of theft.
Folks, arguing the "Costs" of a "Right" is not the same as arguing the need to recognize the "Right".
Look at the UDHR for a list of what people argue are "Rights" when they are freed from the intellectual bind of "Costs" and just roll out a list.
I see what you are trying to accomplish here--
hmm????????????????
back to the drawing board!
this came from Will's-- and I agree with this completely!
(coming from a person who lives here in the US where I think gun laws are way too lenient and guns are too easy to get)
The first problem is to slow down the number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. The final problem is to make possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition – except for military, police, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors – totally illegal." (emphasis added)
I will not argue with the right to bear arms to protect yourself and property but I will agree with those scholars who say the Second Amendment "affirms a broad individual right to gun ownership.."
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