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They have the wrong rights. Many people are systematically denied the right to dignity by social programs that force them to beg for either jobs or benefits. They are denied rightful access to upward mobility by a whole raft of factors, not the least of which are the credit reporting agencies, that have a profit motive for depressing credit scores, and laws that permit employers to discriminate against applicants who have a criminal record. Invasion of privacy is rampant, particular in the financial sectors. Stealing ID is child's play, and the bankers and lenders play right into their hands. Children are required to go to school, then a whole gauntlet of restrictive and invasive regulations are placed in the way of enrolment and attendance. The police are free to, and some do, record the exact whereabouts of my car every few blocks, everywhere I go. Even due process is gone, as the state has a bottomless pit of money to use to gather evidence of a defendant's guilt, but he has no resources with which to gather evidence of his innocence. I could go on and on.
Yet, we see daily the "rights" that have been retained by commerce. 99.9 percent of all contracts are never negotiated. They are written by a corporation's or landlord's legal affairs department, and the comsumer is told to sign it or hit the road. Police have the right to drive 100 mph through residential districts, to protect us from drivers with broken tail lights. Minimum-wage workers with less than a week of training can, at their discretion, strip search citizens who have legitimate business in the county court house.
The Bill of Rightes is not about rights that citizens have---it is about rights that the government does NOT have, and these are the rights that are the most broadly abused.
Couldn't rep you but will do so publically. Excellent post. We're all being boxed in to fit. All in our name, governmental agencies and their private partners are gaining contol so we will be "safe". But who is keeping us safe *from* them?
I suspect that most of our founding fathers today would be branded as "potential terrorists" by their thoughts and beliefs and would see something much worse than 18th century America. We have lost so much of what they had already.
I thnik we need to take back more rights that are part of many social programs jsut as states and loacl governamnt have loss so much control by taking these federal programs funding.The stimuolus is a perfect example of he feds mandating certain changes in state laws to gain control of state programs and local laws.Eventaully states and especially local votes will have less and less voice in their local laws that control their lifes. that is a loss of freedom to make choices.They do it the same way that they go individuals;dangle the money in front of them and greed takes over
The 55-mph speed limit ought to be required reading for every school child.
The US government never had any authority to impose a speed limit on any state. Nor did Congress have any involvement in its institution. By executive decision, the president ordered the Commerce Department to withhold any federal highway funds from any state that did not enforce a 55-mph speed limit. A good old fashioned bribe that Huey Long would have been proud of. That was one of the most flagrant and openly dictatorial decisions ever made by a US president (they are usually sneakier than that).
Every day, you encounter many restrictions and roadblocks that came about in exactly the same way. Things that, as a citizen, you have neither advised nor consented nor even been warned about beforehand.
However, on the other side, most of those things are, on balance, good things. The 55 speed limit significantly reduced highway deaths and injuries and property damage, mitigated road repair costs, and saved billions of barrels of gasoline. The decision was made by people who were able to evaluate all the factors and make judgments about the benefits and consequences. However, even those leaders were in error, because they thought there was an oil crisis, which was a false perception created by the private sector for its own self-serving reasons.
The question of who should make decisions of state is not a simple one. Given a for-profit media free to systematically lie and deceive and misinform the telemarketer and the greeter, those voters are rendered relatively useless as scions of public policy.
The question of who should make decisions of state is not a simple one. Given a for-profit media free to systematically lie and deceive and misinform the telemarketer and the greeter, those voters are rendered relatively useless as scions of public policy.
As are the usual crop of career politicians, who are so far in debt to the corporations who finance their campaign that they are merely ambulatory votes for sale to the highest bidder.
The biggest mistake ever made was when the Supremes ruled that a corporation was legally a sovereign individual citizen, with equal rights under the law.
I'm a strong believer that we should be allowed to govern ourselves but to a certain point. After that if things get out of control and we cannot make a sensible decision then I think that a higher party/group should make that decision for us. I know that our fore-fathers died defending our freedom..but I don't think they had they had in mind people wearing shirts like "F**K AMERICA" to go on walking our streets.Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that is I think a little goverment intervention maybe what we need in today's U.S. climate. The lack of common sense sometimes needs to be shoved down our throats.
A system without some form of government is a system gone mad and if left to our own devices meaning everyone governing themselves, you get nothing more than chaos.
Anyone who walks down the street wearing a shirt with derrogatory remarks such as you mentioned runs the risk of some other self governing ******* taking the law into his own hands and hurting this anti American nit-wit. I personally would have asked the guy if he wanted me to buy him a one way ticket to North Korea, Somalia, or perhaps Iraq where he could wear his nasty-arse t-shirt and be appreciated.
Look, the government is not concerned about this one idiot with the T-shirt and is up to their neck right now with trying to figure out how to pull the country out of debt. Should they interfere in this type of thing? Absolutely not..the t-shirt guy is an idiot, nothing more.
right now, as a poor student, i dont think we have enough
once i become part of the elite, i think the rest of you have to many
My running joke stuck between liberals and conservatives is that the captains of industry were liberals before they had something to protect.
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Originally Posted by LauraC
I think the word "rights" is used to mean everything these days and not just the "rights" actually granted in the Constitution's Bill of Rights.
Another poster already specified the point of law that is geared toward limiting what a government is permitted to do, vs what citizens are permitted to do. The balancing act of individual rights offset or sacraficed in part to the greater good is a never ending battle, but one often settled by beancounters when people pay for their own lives directly. Using the arm of the law to punitively tax/ economically burden/ socially ostracize families or motherhood yields less family and less motherhood. The tools of legislating morality can be used for good and for bad. We can re-examine our rewards/ punishment system, but when it comes to devoting resources to policing what people do on their own dime with their own lives... the judgements of the masses are irrelevant.
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Originally Posted by JDTD
Q: Do people have too many rights? A: The idiots of society sure seem to. Normal people...no. It doesn't seem to matter for the people who are too busy to consistently do stupid $hit and make eveyone else say "There otta be a law".
The over reach and tactics resorted to happened on both sides of extreme ideology. Now they're both caught in their own hypocrisy having strayed so far from the original tennants of our common thread... the constitution.
I wonder to myself if we just haven't sufficiently thought through all these changes in political agenda and advances in technology relative to the constitution before commiting ourselves to writing policy. Where's the reset button on gov't??
To the OP: I don't think the problem is rights, at all. I think the problem is laws that don't get enforced consistently. And secondarily, privileges granted by the Constitution that people automatically assume to be "rights."
second point I disagree fred. The rights are most definately theirs, if only they could see that the true definition of 'rights' is actually (personal) responsibility.
In some areas we have too many rights, in some areas too few. I'll give an example of one of each:
Right we shouldn't have: Right To Bear Arms.
This post stuck out like a sore thumb. No, no, no, no, no. We NEED our guns.
The second amendment wasn't put in the constitution so that we could shoot deer and wild game, it was put there, so when government tries to overtake (read: tyrannize) us that we have at least one fall back. Without our guns, we are sheep; and sheep without a herder will be devoured by the wolves.
I don't own a firearm myself, but I fully support someone else's right to own. We NEED our guns. No if's, and's or but's about it.
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Originally Posted by k.smith904
Lets face it people, this isn't the 1800's. Guns only lead to problems. Keep firearms in the military. Don't even give them to the police. All the right-wing continues to say "I have a right to protect my family." Well you know what, if the guy threatening you doesn't have a gun, then whats the problem. People can carry tasers, mace, and other forms of non-lethal defense. Too many damn people are shot in this country every day, lots of times on accident.
Problem with this is that the person robbing, hijacking, or whatever STILL has a gun. All gun control does is take away guns from law abiding citizens. The people get guns illegally, still get them illegally! There would be a spike in the number of theft related crimes and such. If anything, just look to Britain's ban on gun's for guidance (I think their crime rate rose 40% over four years after guns were banned).
Quote:
Originally Posted by k.smith904
Right we should have: Marijuana
Before you bash me, hear me out. Who in the hell decided that the government should be able to tell me what I can and can't put in my body. It would be like one day Congress just decided to outlaw cheese. Its ridiculous. Not to mention billions of taxpayer dollars are used to chase down and send innocent teenagers to jail, ruining their futures. And in the end, the people who want to smoke weed, are going to smoke weed, whether they buy it at the store, or from a dude on the street.
Agreed. I think weed should totally be legalized (and a host of other drugs as well). More so than personal liberty, the effect that the criminalization of weed has on society calls for a change in public policy. More lives are wasted, more families are destroyed, and more gangs, and drug cartels are empowered when it is illicit. Many of the problems Mexico is having with their ridiculously strong cartels stem from us. If we didn't buy their drugs, they wouldn't have the money to go and strengthen their forces. Our extreme drug use is in direct correlation to their steroid drug cartels. Legalize the weed.
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