Is a Bill of Rights the best way to actually protect human rights? I don't think so!

[FireDragon76]

What are democracy and human rights but abstractions? They're certainly not concrete things...

I'm not arguing that point. I'm arguing your dogmatic attitude towards the US Bill of Rights is unjustified in light of what we both seem to, perhaps, agree on.

 

[FireDragon76]

Um, where do you think the Enlightenment got the idea?
And why do you think separating citizen "rights" out from the democratic process and encoding them once-for-all-time is a good idea? What about my right to life - there's drunk drivers out there! Protect me government! Do something! Oh, you can't? Because a bunch of old judge geezers are bound to interpret some old parchment that couldn't imagine modern traffic systems? Because for some reason a 'right to privacy' means I can't blow into a bag once every 6 months for statistically safer roads? Oh well - I guess I can't vote on that now either, can I? The old geezers get all the power on this one? Yeah, great democracy - and great attempt at protecting my more important 'right to life'.

"Privacy" is never something determined by a lone individual in a society. The concept itself implicitly recognizes that there are interests of others possible.

 

[TexFire316]

Bottom line? A Bill of Rights encodes the abstract ideals of one age in words that can be misinterpreted by another - and ALSO is anti democratic in that the population don't get to decide on matters of social policy. A dusty old parchment from a dusty old era encodes these 'laws' once for all, then equally dusty old Supreme Court judges decide on matters of 'law' that are actually social policy! This is my blog page about why I don't ever want to see a Bill of Rights in Australia.
___________

I’m all for human rights, who isn’t? But what is the best mechanism to protect human rights in a country? Is it a Bill of Rights, or some other mechanism? I think there are a number of problems with developing a Bill of Rights and then with implementing it.

But that’s not really the lesson Americans seem to learn. Instead, in this and so many other areas, they learn that the individual matters more than the community, that selfishness is good. I find that appalling.

Please, “Don’t leave us with the bill!” Download the podcast here.
Don't Leave Us With The Bill: The Case Against an Australian Bill of Rights

I find appalling how someone from across the pond thinks they know more about our land than we do. You are supposed to be an ally, but I'm not feeling the love.

 

[eclipsenow]

What are democracy and human rights but abstractions? They're certainly not concrete things...

See my post directly above your question, which you seemed to have missed but gives a VERY specific example of when human rights ARE concrete and not just abstractions. This question makes it appear like you have not read the whole opening post or some of this conversation.

 

[eclipsenow]

I find appalling how someone from across the pond thinks they know more about our land than we do. You are supposed to be an ally, but I'm not feeling the love.

Your disappointment about my post is registered. I hear your feelings.
But unfortunately this post is not about feelings, but about concrete democratic processes.

IE: Your logical reasons for feeling this disappointment have not been made clear?

 

[Don Maurer]

Give up your liberty for your safety and in the end you'll have neither

Was it Patrick Henry that said this?

Presuppositions underneath this above thread are interesting. Eclipsenow, your presuppositional view seems to me to be that the purpose of Government is that it exists for the protection and safety of its citizens. Here in the US, I often see the Democratic party as having the presupposition that the purpose of Government is to raise the standard of living of the poor ( or redistribution of wealth as phrased by Bill Clinton). The Republican party seems to have the presupposition that the purpose of Government is to raise the economy of the nation.

Rachel's quote is so very different. It is very unlike any of the other presuppositions in its understanding of the purpose of Government. It is willing to sacrifice safety, the welfare of the poor, the economy of the nation, or the protection of individual citizens for the sake of liberty. Rachel, I agree..... I will take my chances on getting shot (2nd amendment), not getting medical care, or whatever the government says that can give me.... just give me liberty from the oppression of politicians that want to tell me who to worship, what I can say, or what I can think.

 

[Don Maurer]

I was thinking about this some more. I deeply appreciate the bill of rights. I would see it as one of the greatest accomplishments of some of the founding fathers. Not all founding fathers supported the bill of rights. Pre-eminent among them was Washington.

One of the most interesting of the amendments was the 2nd amendments. The USA has been criticized for its gun ownership. Generally, those who do not support the 2nd amendments point at the violent crime rates in the USA. Those who support the 2nd amendment counter that the violent crimes usually occur where there is the least amount of gun ownership. In places of high gun ownership, there is nearly no violent crime. My opinion is that neither argument is what the 2nd amendment is about. Also, the price in blood is much more than the violent crime statistics. The 2nd amendment has something to do with the Civil War in 1861 - 1865. Most likely, had there been no 2nd amendment, there would have been no Civil War. The USA has paid very much in blood and treasure for the 2nd Amendment. Yet I still strongly support it. This does not mean I support the Confederacy States of America in any way. Neither am I a part of a local militia. I just support the 2nd amendment.

I think it is foolish to debate the 2nd amendment over the issue of violent crime. It has nothing to do with the 2nd amendment. The issue is the limited power of the government. Limited government was the motive of the founding fathers in creating the 2nd amendment. With the 2nd amendment, the power remains in the hands of the people. It is a provision for a population that would overthrow a dictator who violated civil rights.

I remember a statement by a very skilled admiral named Yamamoto. He scoffed at the idea of an invasion of the USA. He complained that there would be a gun behind every blade of grass.

There are other cultures with high rates of gun ownership. The Swiss are not far behind the USA. Their violent crime stats are not high at all. Their philosophy of gun ownership is different than the USA, the Swiss are about being an army to prevent foreign invasion. The USA is about liberty and preventing our own government from some Stalinist policy being brought to the USA.

Not only do I think the 2nd amendment is valid, but all amendments prevent the power of the government. The basic difference between the USA and our friends in Europe or Australia is that they trust their politicians. I don't.

 

[eclipsenow]

Rachel, I agree..... I will take my chances on getting shot (2nd amendment), not getting medical care, or whatever the government says that can give me.... just give me liberty from the oppression of politicians that want to tell me who to worship, what I can say, or what I can think.

See? Again we have the same issue. People want certain ideals and outcomes from their governments. I feel that as the legislative body of people I have voted for to do the boring admin of the country, I want certain outcomes. I want a free market economy with the state guaranteeing some welfare for the poor and healthcare and education for all. You want liberty. These are the outcomes.

How do we get them? What exact mechanisms of the various arms of government do we give these responsibilities to? How does our government adapt policies if the situation or technology changes?

You want less democracy. You trust us less. You want the right to carry a loaded M16 down the main-street during peacetime guaranteed by a parchment locked behind a glass frame and interpreted by a bunch of old judges.

I want more democracy. I trust 'common sense' and our democratic processes a bit more. I want the 'right' to carry a loaded M16 down the main-street to be evaluated by the society of the day. I want the right to carry a ridiculously overpowered weapon around evaluated by the government of the day - and I want that government to have the power to ban such weapons. Hey - if the common sense of the day wants those weapons back, they can vote out any government that banned them.

The right to carry weapons is an interesting example of democracy vs a Bill of Rights and judges because the technology has changed so much! That dusty old parchment was discussing muskets - muskets that take a whole minute to reload one shot! Today's automatic rifles fire something like 60 rounds a minute!

EXAMPLE: Australia had a terrible incident called the Port Arthur massacre. One unhinged man killed 35 people - shot children in front of their parents and then shot them. The results were swift - and popular! As the link above says:-

Under federal government co-ordination, all states and territories of Australia restricted the legal ownership and use of self-loading rifles, self-loading shotguns, and tightened controls on their legal use by recreational shooters. The government initiated a mandatory "buy-back" scheme with the owners paid according to a table of valuations. Some 643,000 firearms were handed in at a cost of $350 million which was funded by a temporary increase in the Medicare levy which raised $500 million.[39] Media, activists, politicians and some family members of victims, notably Walter Mikac (who lost his wife and two children), spoke out in favour of the changes.​

We haven't had a mass shooting like that since. The Port Arthur Massacre happened in 1996. How many massacres have America had since? How many people are killed by guns every year?

Also, your 'bill of rights' was established before we even invented cars. So now it seems Americans have the right to drive without being pulled over at Random by cops for Breath Testing. Random Breath Testing works. It creates a society where you are statistically less likely to be killed by DUI. But your dusty old parchment means instead of governments with the latest polling data and social sciences or scientific input or even old fashioned common sense making the decisions, you get judges interpreting an out of date parchment making those decisions. You don't get the latest wisdom of the human race - you get weird and wonky interpretations of an old parchment by conservative old judges that are bound to interpret that parchment - even though it is centuries out of date!

Weapons and RBT are just two examples. There are many more. I'm Australian so am more 'progressive' on these matters than you.

But don't think for one moment that the discussion is about RBT or guns. It's about what happens when smart people disagree when we take values like 'good enough safety for all' and 'good enough liberty for all' and 'good enough privacy for all' and take them for a test drive in the real world.

Who do we want interpreting those values? A parchment locked into the prejudices and blind spots of a few centuries ago, or the best information and studies and wisdom of the day?

 

[eclipsenow]

Not only do I think the 2nd amendment is valid, but all amendments prevent the power of the government. The basic difference between the USA and our friends in Europe or Australia is that they trust their politicians. I don't.

We don't trust our government to be pure of motivation and wearing their white hat and riding their white horse into town to save the day. We have ICAC, the Independent Commission Against Corruption and various checks and balances on the power of government. But right now, I do like being in a society that generally is quite cynical about politicians but trusts what I'm going to call political necessity. That is, us Aussies grumble about the government and their high salaries and their antics, etc. But when it comes down to government public health experts telling us to wear masks and stay home during a pandemic, we generally do it! There are a few rascals that try to break various lockdowns and state border closures - and the average Aussies despise them as selfish mongrels. We have a sense of the common good and common sense. We have a sense of not so much trusting the person, but the process of democratic government. We haven't had a coup or dictator rise in the years since our 1996 gun buy-back, and we're not losing nearly 4000 people a day to the pandemic. In fact, we're having another wave here in Sydney and are starting to lock down again because we have single digit figures spreading and are terrified we're going to end up in the bizarre and surreal and horrifying situation America is in.

Sometimes trusting governments and their public servant experts in various public policy matters just plain works! Sometimes it's a matter of life and death!

America not having that trust is not something to celebrate.

 

[Rachel20]

The right to carry weapons is an interesting example of democracy vs a Bill of Rights and judges because the technology has changed so much! That dusty old parchment was discussing muskets - muskets that take a whole minute to reload one shot! Today's automatic rifles fire something like 60 rounds a minute!

The technology has changed on all sides. A more equal arming of the citizens is obviously what was in view in the 2nd amendment.

EXAMPLE: Australia had a terrible incident called the Port Arthur massacre. One unhinged man killed 35 people - shot children in front of their parents and then shot them.

Sad, but pales in comparison to the 170 million democided in the 20th century by their own governments. For those who've forgotten -

 

[Rachel20]

I want more democracy. I trust 'common sense' and our democratic processes a bit more. I want the 'right' to carry a loaded M16 down the main-street to be evaluated by the society of the day.

You're a collectivist. Most "isms" are based on it from socialism to fascism - opposites, yet fundamentally the same in their underlying collectivist ideology. Our Republic is individualist. And thank goodness, because no collective can have any rights apart from those of its individuals.

 

[Don Maurer]

You want less democracy. You trust us less......

I want more democracy. I trust 'common sense' and our democratic processes a bit more. I want the 'right' to carry a loaded M16 down the main-street to be evaluated by the society of the day. I want the right to carry a ridiculously overpowered weapon around evaluated by the government of the day - and I want that government to have the power to ban such weapons. Hey - if the common sense of the day wants those weapons back, they can vote out any government that banned them....

Do I want less democracy? I guess I do not want a pure democracy (neither Australia or the USA have that). With internet technology, a pure democracy would be somewhat possible where the citizens simply vote for just about every decision. However, when you say you trust "common sense" I guess I do not at all trust the values of any democratic society. As an evangelical christian (reformed persuasion) I believe in original sin. If all men are sinful, and I elect sinners to office, I want their power reduced and controlled. An unrestricted democracy would be like two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch (a quote from a founding father in the USA named Ben Franklin). I support democracy only because it is the best by far the best system of all possible flawed systems.

I think the difference, the issue between us is not our view of democracy, but of law. I want the power of a democratically elected government restricted by law. I see the bill of rights as a value system enshrined in law. You ridicule that law as a "dusty old parchment" (no offense taken or intended).

You want the right to carry a loaded M16 down the main-street during peacetime guaranteed by a parchment locked behind a glass frame and interpreted by a bunch of old judges.

Oddly enough, have carried hunting rifles down the back road I live on..... : ).

Some of the boyz I hunt with have M14s and we target shoot. Will that count? In the county where these friends live, there are all sorts of M14s, high powered weapons, etc. There has been no gun violence in 20 years in that county, and then when there was violence by gun, it was a hand gun, not an M16.

I think you enjoy writing in a very dramatic way. I am not aware of anyone in the NRA in the USA that wants to have M16 parades. : )

The right to carry weapons is an interesting example of democracy vs a Bill of Rights and judges because the technology has changed so much! That dusty old parchment was discussing muskets - muskets that take a whole minute to reload one shot! Today's automatic rifles fire something like 60 rounds a minute!

If they had M16s in 1788AD (Date of the US constitution), I doubt if that would have changed the minds of the founders. I expect the founders would have thought more like this... If the Brit Army has M16s we want our whole population to have access to the same firepower.

EXAMPLE: Australia had a terrible incident called the Port Arthur massacre. One unhinged man killed 35 people - shot children in front of their parents and then shot them. The results were swift - and popular! As the link above says.....
We haven't had a mass shooting like that since. The Port Arthur Massacre happened in 1996. How many massacres have America had since? How many people are killed by guns every year?

I looked this up on wiki and saw he had an AR10. I saw in Tasmania they had gun laws forbidding hand guns at the time but not high powered rifles. Most likely Mr. Bryant would have been permitted to purchase whatever he wanted in certain parts of the USA because he had no felony record, he had no involuntary commitments to a psych unit. We have laws against certain people purchasing guns. I did notice the article mentioned that he was depressed, but it did not mention psychiatric involuntary commitments. I would assume that he would get away with the same deed in parts of the USA. This still would not change my mind about liberty and I do not think it would change the mind of the founding fathers.

Also, your 'bill of rights' was established before we even invented cars. So now it seems Americans have the right to drive without being pulled over at Random by cops for Breath Testing. Random Breath Testing works. It creates a society where you are statistically less likely to be killed by DUI. But your dusty old parchment means instead of governments with the latest polling data and social sciences or scientific input or even old fashioned common sense making the decisions, you get judges interpreting an out of date parchment making those decisions. You don't get the latest wisdom of the human race - you get weird and wonky interpretations of an old parchment by conservative old judges that are bound to interpret that parchment - even though it is centuries out of date!

If written words mean anything... and they do.... we know exactly what the bill of rights mean in our own culture even with all the technology changes. Words do have meaning, and the meaning of those words do not change based upon technology changes. We call those "conservative old judges" who get "weird and wonky interpretations" to be "originalists."

This issue is actually do we have the right to re-interpret words. Can I re-interpret your words subjectively so that I can fit them into my culture? I can then make them to mean anything I want. Or do I need to interpret your written words with the meaning you intended? Can we interpret words from 100 years go? How about a history of WW2 written 50 years ago? Do historical documents mean anything to you? How about the bible? Is that just a dusty old book without any real meaning to be interpreted subjectively according to technology and culture? Are there any lasting values in your world view? I have read sermons from old english puritan ministers from the 1600s. Do their words have meaning?

Weapons and RBT are just two examples. There are many more. I'm Australian so am more 'progressive' on these matters than you.

LOL, not many of those boring yanks are very progressive? Well, your right, this yank is not so progressive.

Thanks for the stimulating conversation.

 

[Don Maurer]

Sad, but pales in comparison to the 170 million democided in the 20th century by their own governments. For those who've forgotten -

Why hello Rachel, glad your still hanging around. Your first post, was that a quote from Patrick Henry?

 

[Albion]

Bottom line? A Bill of Rights encodes the abstract ideals of one age in words that can be misinterpreted by another - and ALSO is anti democratic in that the population don't get to decide on matters of social policy.

It's not a PURE Democracy (thank goodness!) but it's a representative democracy with a Constitution. Beyond that, you are mistaken in saying that the people have no way to decide on matters of social policy. The Constitution itself provides for changes through the amendment process which, by the way, has successfully been done almost thirty times. And every state allows for referenda by which the legislature can be by-passed through a direct vote of the people.

 

[Rachel20]

Why hello Rachel, glad your still hanging around. Your first post, was that a quote from Patrick Henry?

Unfortunately I don't know where it originated. Some are using it as a take on B. Franklins quote below, but his quote concerned a dispute over taxation to raise $ for war (not the meaning of the better quote imo)

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

 

[eclipsenow]

The technology has changed on all sides. A more equal arming of the citizens is obviously what was in view in the 2nd amendment.

OK - so we're going to burrow down into one of the policies not the systems that create the policies? (Just to remind you what this thread is really about.)

All right - a gun debate.
A more equal arming against your own government? First, remember your government have drones that can kill you from 10km up, tanks, and nukes? "A more equal arming" indeed!

Second, what you really should do is look at how many democracies have ruled tens of millions of people for how many centuries - and then compare that with how many democratic countries collapsed into totalitarianism and the deaths that ensued.

Third, I'll express some sympathy for owning a gun. Maybe if I lived under Donald Trump I'd want my own weapon? But gun ownership breeds gun ownership - because nobody feels safe and everyone wants one. And that's how we end up with Americans being 19 TIMES more likely to be shot than Australians.

Beginning in 2017, political scientists identified the United States under President Donald Trump as being in danger of accelerated democratic backsliding.[76][77] In a 2019 journal article, political scientists Robert C. Lieberman, Suzanne Mettler, and others wrote that Trump's presidency presented a threat to the American democratic order because it simultaneously brought together three specific trends—"polarized two-party presidentialism; a polity fundamentally divided over membership and status in the political community, in ways structured by race and economic inequality; and the erosion of democratic norms"—for the first time in American history.[78]

Democratic backsliding - Wikipedia​

Sad, but pales in comparison to the 170 million democided in the 20th century by their own governments. For those who've forgotten -

[/QUOTE]
I don't have time to watch every video every right-wing individualist throws at me on these forums, but if this video claims the USSR and China somehow demonstrate that democratic citizens need guns to protect them from their governments, then it's a clear untruth. Neither were democracies before they fell into totalitarian states. The USSR was ruled by kings known as the Tsars and China was coming out of the Qing Dynasty and going through an unstable few decades of totalitarian takeovers and coups before the Communists finally took over.

What's more pertinent is not the question "How bad can any form of government get?" but "How likely is it that a certain type of democracy we are actually in would collapse, and is the death toll we're putting up with now worth it?" American's lose about 30,000 individuals a year to death by gunshot. That's 300k per decade and THREE MILLION people per century. That's a civil war! Is it worth it when in 200 years Australia hasn't collapsed into totalitarian rule once - not even a little bit.

 

[eclipsenow]

It's not a PURE Democracy (thank goodness!) but it's a representative democracy with a Constitution. Beyond that, you are mistaken in saying that the people have no way to decide on matters of social policy. The Constitution itself provides for changes through the amendment process which, by the way, has successfully been done almost thirty times. And every state allows for referenda by which the legislature can be by-passed through a direct vote of the people.

Yes - Constitutions can be amended. When was the last time yours was amended? My point? Certain social polices are better handled by the democratic process than the Constitutional process. Both are democratic tools, but one is vastly slower and harder than the other. Constitutions should be a blue print for how the country works and what checks and balances that country has. Australia is a Westminster system of democracy, with a Constitutional Monarch and other checks and balances from our High Court.

https://www.ruleoflaw.org.au/wp-con...ration-of-Powers-July-2013-Printers-Copy1.pdf
Infosheet 20 - The Australian system of government – Parliament of Australia

A Bill of Rights seems to me to be a massive intrusion from the Court system into the democratic functioning of a country. It takes things like the privacy vs Random Breath Testing or citizen safety vs gun debate and enshrouds them in extra layers of judicial bureaucracy that anti-billers like myself think just shouldn't be there!

I especially don't want a Bill of Rights in Australia where our Constitutional reform process itself is utterly constipated. Only politicians can put forward a Referendum. Citizens don't have that right! Now in some European countries if citizens are agitated enough about something and get a big enough petition together, that automatically triggers an election. Some European countries even have a guaranteed Referendum review every 10 years where (I think from memory?) a panel of citizen jurors is selected to chair a conversation with the public about what might need changing - and then they'll present this to the government who take their findings and write up a Referendum that then goes back to the people.

Maybe, with this kind of regular, guaranteed review of the Constitution - including any Bill of Rights reviews - maybe I would consider a Bill of Rights in such a setup.

But while Australia's politics seems to be drifting a little far to the right for me at the moment, I'm generally quite happy with life in Australia. We protect HUMAN RIGHTS by legislating appropriate things. Our governments are kept in check by the Queen (via the Governor General) and the High Court.

And under this system we have SMASHED the pandemic so far (although I'm worried about that more infectious UK variety - THREE TIMES more infectious!)

We have provided universal medicare for all, banned all kinds of guns, and have Random Breath Testing to work towards safer roads.

And we've done all that in an Ordo-Liberal free market system where a free market is guarded by government welfare and social justice for all.

And we've done that with just 1% more tax per unit GDP than America - so we're hardly Communist! Our healthcare is actually vastly CHEAPER per citizen than in the USA - but everyone gets treated. My son had Leukaemia years ago and it probably would have cost over $300,000 - but we just went into the public Children's Hospital at Westmead and got state of the art service in a dedicated Children's Hospital with clowns and an in-hospital children's channel the kids could phone into and everything.

CULTURAL EFFECTS OF BEING RAISED IN A RIGHTS-CULTURE
It seems being raised in a culture where you are constantly told as kids "You have the right to a gun, the right to this, the right to that, the government is evil, buy a gun to protect yourself!" etc has a spin-off into American culture that social medicine is just plain evil. But I would argue it's the highest form of justice for the poor and a good measurement of the justice in any society. It's just not fair to cripple the poor with devastating private health insurance requirements! Healthcare is not a business model - the irony is Australia sees healthcare as a basic human right for the population so the government provides it. This in a country not government by a Bill of Rights. In this instance the Australian system has generated a culture that accepts 'socialised medicine' as a public good where I've heard American pastors saying it's THEFT OF THEIR MONEY! Well, that just shows where the individualistic society heads.

Look at the pandemic 'debate' in America with Republicans shouting "Take it off" to journalists wearing a mask. America is losing about as many people to Covid 19 as a 9/11 attack PER DAY. But the Australian government quickly enacted the best public health policy advice, and even with a few nasty second wave outbreaks, has had 909 deaths total! But we're a smaller country? Want a per capita statistic? America is at 1080 deaths per million people - Australia is at 35. You've lost nearly 31 TIMES the people we have.

70% of Republicans believe Trump's defeat is a deep-state conspiracy. That means 1/3rd of Americans believe a complete lie because their President is having a temper tantrum about losing, and tweeting out a bunch of lies. While Australians are not immune to tinfoil hat conspiracies, I doubt a third of us would fall for something this... blatant. (I was going to use another word!)

It seems a Bills of Rights itself is not associated with the best government policies that give the best potential for human rights.

It seems a culture of the Bill of Rights can make citizens a bit self-centred and silly.

 

[JackRT]

Would anyone agree that the Bill of Rights may have placed an undue emphasis on personal rights and liberties at the expense of personal responsibilities. The present pandemic is a case in point. There are people who believe that their civil liberties trump (ironic aint it) any responsibility to protect the health of their fellow citizens. We are at the point today where we have as many people dying every day as were killed in either Pearl Harbor or at the Twin Towers. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. And that death rate is increasing!

We are our brother's keeper! IMHO at least.

 

[eclipsenow]

Would anyone agree that the Bill of Rights may have placed an undue emphasis on personal rights and liberties at the expense of personal responsibilities. The present pandemic is a case in point. There are people who believe that their civil liberties trump (ironic aint it) any responsibility to protect the health of their fellow citizens. We are at the point today where we have as many people dying every day as were killed in either Pearl Harbor or at the Twin Towers. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. And that death rate is increasing!

We are our brother's keeper! IMHO at least.

Totally - see my previous post - the bit under the hospital photo!

 

[SoldierOfTheKing]

We are at the point today where we have as many people dying every day as were killed in either Pearl Harbor or at the Twin Towers. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. And that death rate is increasing!

...and you would blame civil liberties for this?