Europe is it scared??

[vendetta]

i'd hit that! come here, doggie.

[Wolfman Walt]

Anything that infringes upon individual liberties is a no-go in my book.

So....you're anti-prison?

[SenisterDenister]

I never said that. I support prisons wholeheartedly. I don't support anarchy, but I do have liberterian ideals. Governments first and foremost are in place to protect its citizen's lives, liberty, and property. The same can be said between individuals. If anyone starts to infringe or not hold up to those three key point, then I have a problem with it.

You know, live and let live, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That kind of thing.

[Wolfman Walt]

But my job, which is a government job, is to take away both liberty and property (or atleast deny access to property) and sometimes even lives. So essentially, to support prisons, you have to support the Government's ability to take away two (or all three, depending on your point of view) key points some of the time.

Note: I'm not against your logic and I definetly see where you're coming from, but I'm curious how you logicize this in that people have these 3 inalienable rights and yet you support my job which involves suppressing those very rights.

[Kashluk]

John Locke: When an individual violates another individual's rights, the only way rights and liberties can be upheld is to have an institution (government) to punish those violators and keep everyone else in line. If, in turn, the government violates individual's rights, the individuals (the people) have the legitimate right to rebel. This ever-changing situation and never-ending turmoil is called 'society', bound by social contract. Otherwise we're talking of natural state, a form of irreal anarchy, where people have not given part of their rights (freedom to do anything, anywhere) in exchange for the security (by the government) of the rest of their rights.

[Wolfman Walt]

So in this case - the Government's job is to be a reactive force at all times? Sorry, that's a completely different subject, but one I noticed to be brought up there. I'm sure John Locke completely addressed it later as he's pretty good about covering his bases. THOUGH I will say "Punishment" is VERY vague there and in Locke's time, I'm curious as to what he ment.

In relation to SenisterDenister he said ANYTHING that infringes on personal civil liberties is a no go. Well, I infringe on civil liberties every day. It's the nature of my job. A job that he supports. In order to support it, there has to be some cases where he DOES support the government infringing on civil rights, even if it's just a reactionary infringement on case by case basis.

As for the actual topic. To the France's credit - it was a democratic decision. A decision probably based off of (ir)rational fear, but still.

[SenisterDenister]

Not necessarily, it could be proactive against societal ills through social programs and reforms.

The government has a right to the prison system because of exactly what Kash posted, if people are going to violate other people's rights, then the government can violate theirs to put them back in line, but only for that. I mean in instances where it is unprovoked or unjustified. It is justified to temporarily contain wrong-doers so they can be set straight to protect the rights of everyone around them in the mean time.

As to the democratic decision, that could very much just be an example of the tyranny of the majority. I know that if anything like that referendum would attempt to be passed in the USA the supreme court would shoot it down faster than a flare gun at the Hindenburg.

[Kashluk]

You Walt do not violate people's liberties per se, the government does. You just happen to be a gear in the system which puts government's decisions into action. And I'm using the word government quite broadly here, since in the end the government is a group of representatives of the people, who draw their power and legitimation from the (votes of the) people. So governments ARE the people. And since to protect the liberties of people, the liberties' violators need to have their liberties violated by an institution (government, police force, court and prison systems).

Government infringing people's rights is illegitimate when those rights do not cross other people's rights. It does not violate my rights if two adult people have sex in the privacy of their home, thus I (nor the government) should have nothing to say about their sex life. It does not violate my rights if someone believes in Allah, thus there is no need to restrict the belief in Allah.

Senisterdenister covered the tyranny by majority (Aristotle).

[VasikkA]

I know that if anything like that referendum would attempt to be passed in the USA the supreme court would shoot it down faster than a flare gun at the Hindenburg.

So basically you are saying that the US Supreme Court is morally superior to We the People and thus should have a veto on whatever the democratic process produces. How :tyranny:

[Kashluk]

Since constitutional laws (the form and powers of government, rights of the people) come before any other laws, the Supreme Court's duty as the strongest holder of judiciary power would be to point out any conflicts between the new bill and the constitution. If We the People contradict themselves, they need to be straightened out.

[SenisterDenister]

Vasik, what I'm saying is that since what they did clearly goes against the USA's first amendment, it would almost certainly be taken to the supreme court, where it would be ruled unconstitutional and therefore be void. Its not like banning gay marriage, its blatantly infringing on their rights of free practice.

[VasikkA]

Since constitutional laws (the form and powers of government, rights of the people) come before any other laws, the Supreme Court's duty as the strongest holder of judiciary power would be to point out any conflicts between the new bill and the constitution. If We the People contradict themselves, they need to be straightened out.

In the mythical land of Congodia, perhaps. Since members of the SC are human and political beings, the interpretations they make of the constitution are subjective(and negotiatable). Take US(or basically any country with a SC), for example, where members of the SC are appointed by the current political regime. Puppets, masqueraded in a veil of impartiality and independence. Or why do they even vote on SC cases; lack of reading comprehension?

The reality differs from a political science textbook. No level of jurisdiction is immune from the self-interested behavior of a human being.

[Kashluk]

Of course reality differs from theories, we are always dealing with ceteris paribus assumptions and simplified models. And I'm not saying jurisdiction was immune to the worse side of humanity. But the point still stands that the judiciary system needs to watch over the legislative system in case there is a conflict within the rule hierarchy. If a law is about to be passed (say, a law that makes having a red hair illegal and sentencable to death), which clearly violates the constitution and basic human rights and everyone within the parliament has lost their mind completely so they have no idea what they are doing, the judiciary system as the highest institution to interpret the law needs to step in. What they can actually -do- depends of course on the governmental system of the said country. Perhaps they can do nothing but complain, but in a working democracy their voice would at the very least affect the voters and in the next election none of those madmen would be re-elected. It's how it's supposed to work. When the system does not work, however, we end up voting ourselves a dictatorship (ie. NSDAP).

----- edit: added some new stuff -----

We had a discussion today on some of Hannah Arendt's texts, especially those that cover human rights. We included in the discussion the US Decleration of independence (all men are born equal, written by slave owners), the French Rights of Men (these rights are never-changing and they are defined by our authority -> oppression?), the UN's universal decleration of Human Rights (what is universality?) and the German laws concerning the same subject ('temporary constitution' of sorts, 1949). During the discussion it occured to me that some things, such as slavery for example, are widely considered unethical in the sense that they violate the most basic rights of equal men. Slavery cannot exist, because no man can be the property of another (in theory). But how does, say, ancient Egyptian system of slavery, where a slave could cumulate enough wealth to buy his/her freedom, differ from the consumerist society of today where the highly-debted working and middle classes are practically slaves of credit companies, banks and their employers? There is transition between the classes in both cases and we are still born into a specific set of circumstances (son of a slave / worker / noble), it still does make a difference whether your parents were minimum-wage workers or part of the national elite. So technically, does the capitalist freedom of entrepreneurship, property and money lending in itself violate personal liberties?

Oh yes, and Hannah Arendt's main point was that whenever we begin to define 'Human Rights' that are to be inviolable, we are actually just creating yet more tools of oppression that are the political reflections and illusions of what we consider universal rights, deriving from 'natural law' that has it's basis nowhere - not the people, not the state, not God, not anything; it's natural. In Nazi Germany they defined human rights as well, those were rights that were 'good for the German people'. In North Korea it's every person's right to love the Beloved Leader. In liberal western democracies (Anglo-Saxon tradition) the right to property is sacred. In Nordic countries the safety net (healthcare, education, welfare) for the people is everyone's basic right. When something is to be made inviolable, it is taken outside of the sphere of discussion (parliamentary politics), which means the people have no right to discuss what *is* their right and what is *not*. This throws us back to square one: can there be a law passed that conflicts or even violates the constitution or the human rights if it's been formed within the parliamentary institution, following it's core procedures? Shouldn't human rights in general be open for discussion and changes then as well?

This shit's interesting