Quote:
Originally Posted by AtLastHome
As human beings, we have NO rights. If we did, there would be no need for a Bill of Rights or a Constitution.
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I have to say that I disagree with this strenuously. In fact, I would say that the case is *precisely* the opposite. If we had no rights there would BE no Bill of Rights or Constitution. Even a casual survey of Western history will show that we have gained rights. Think about the condition of your ancestors circa, say, 1010 CE (or AD if you prefer). The local Prince or Lord could come and say that he'd heard your daughter had just gotten married and he wanted to sleep with her. She would have NO right to refuse. If she did, her life and yours could well be forfeit. The Prince or Lord could, on a whim, take your land. Not because you'd done something, simply because it was his pleasure to do so. Or because the Sun rose that morning. If war came, your husband or son could be pressed into service. If a noble cut one of your relatives down in cold blood, you had no legal recourse. You could be imprisoned, indefinitely, at the whim of a noble. To speak out against the Prince or King or Lord was to court, at best, painful torture and the same followed by death. To speak out against the church was to sign one's own death warrant.
THAT, Susan, is having no rights.
As it stands you have quite a few rights. But that was a thousand years ago. So let's try 500 years ago? Significantly better? Well, there's been improvement and, at least, in England there now exists some limits on what the monarchy and the nobles can do. However, most of the above *still* applies 500 years ago. It isn't until the English Civil War, the American Revolution and the French Revolution that things improve significantly. By that point, Constitutional Republicanism is getting booted up. You get things like the Bill of Rights which lays out boundaries which the government cannot cross. If you still think we have no rights, I direct you to contemplate the following. Many of us here called the last POTUS everything but a child of God. Others here have said things about the current POTUS that are worse than that. NONE of us have given the least amount of worry that there will be a knock on the door and we will be dragged into the night. None of us have worried that we will simply not come home one night and our bodies found in a park or at the bottom of a river, the victim of an apparent 'suicide'.
I can, without the benefit of coffee, name half-a-dozen states where this isn't true. Ready? They are: North Korea, People's Republic of China, Russian Federation, Egypt, Iran, Syria. Like I said, that list is just off the top of my head and I haven't had my first cup of java yet.
I'm not saying either America or the Western Democracies are perfect. They are anything but. I am saying that your claim tosses out the fact that we can HAVE this discussion at all and demonstrates that, in fact, you DO have rights. Your rights are not in spite of the Constitution, but BECAUSE of it. If you think that non-Constitutional government would be better, would give you more rights, there's an example for that too: Somalia.
I will take the *worst* day in a modern Western Democracy, over the best *possible* day in either North Korea or Somalia. In the first case, people have no rights what-so-ever and in the second case, people have all the rights that they have the firepower to protect. No guns? No rights. Lots of guns? Lots of rights--as long as you have more guns than the next person.
Cheers
Aj