Your Right To...?

**drmomentum**[$] · #1 07-02-2005, 01:23 PM

What rights do you have, and where do they come from?

Often people use the phrase "I have a right to..." meaning simply that they are justified in doing something.

"I have a right to use the upstairs restroom, no matter what Jack says."

Maybe my boss told me I can use the upstairs restroom. Or maybe I'm just expressing a belief that any restroom in the building is fair game.

But, in the USA for example, we also have the idea of rights which are specifically described in the constitution. We have the idea that there are basic human rights, and that some of them are listed for us. In addition, we have an idea that there are many additional rights which may not be infringed upon by the government, unless some law is passed specifically.

What are some common rights we talk about?

A "right to privacy" -- this may be a secondary sort of right. If you own property, you can hide away on it. But when you're out in public picking your nose, you can't really announce to others that they must avert their eyes or risk violating your right to privacy. So, is this really a right?

A right to freedom of speech (within some specific limitations) is considered pretty important. And it's listed in the bill of rights, so it is codified.

The right of the public to be informed is mentioned in a different thread. Do people consider this a right, as well? If publishers have broad rights to publish information, has there been much discussion on the rights of individuals to have access to that information?

What is my right to be informed, and how far does it extend? If the only network reporting on the movements of serial killers is a pay network, is it my right to have access to that information, or do I simply have the right to pay for the privilege?

Do I have the right to eat whatever food I want... or just whatever food I can afford? Does it make sense to talk about that in the same way we discuss other rights? Is it just some attribute that naturally derives from the effect that other people's rights generate, like the right of someone to sell certain foods, and the right of someone to publish certain things?

What the heck is a right, in the end? I want to better understand our mutual use of this shorthand which we all share.

-JP

wivabef · #2 07-02-2005, 02:34 PM

This is a hard one, as it has varying degrees of meaning. It is often misused, but when it is, people understand what the user is saying. For example, when people say "I have the right to read porn" they are usually saying "mind your own business" or "what's it to you?"

This one is too hard. This one is for technical writers to tackle. There are just too many dangerous ommissions or inclusions.

**AuntieEmma**[$] · #3 07-02-2005, 03:13 PM

According to the Declaration of Independence (Happy B-Day, America!) the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are "self-evident."

But I guess that's begging JP's question.

I think it has to do with expectations. If I expect to be given something in a certain situation, then I start to feel I have a right to it. If that right gets enshrined in law, then there is a way to enforce it.

Some of it has to do with shifting classes. Who has a right to sit where in a bus? It used to be that whites, but not blacks, had a right to sit in the front. Then the notion of race-based class shifted, and a few pioneers siezed the right to sit in the front, and now the right for all races to sit in the front is both expected and enforced in law.

Can the right to information be seen in a similar light? Maybe. I expect that my government will tell me the truth on important issues, and therefore consider that I have a right to the truth, but a particular administration may believe that the right to truthful information extends only to a small class and not to the public at large.

Does a community's right to protect itself against child molesters outweigh an ex-con's right to live without being the target of vigilante violence? I don't know. (But for anyone who likes mystery novels, Harm Done by Ruth Rendell dramatized the problem, showing a town turning into a mob when they found out an ex-con child molester was living in their midst. The book made the mob seem quite scary, much scarier than the child molester who at that time was old and broken down.)

rmthunter · #4 07-04-2005, 05:18 PM

The rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights are not the complete list, as pointed out in Amendment 9, so that we have such things as a "right to privacy." Human rights advocates such as Rick Santorum to the contrary, while the argument outlining this right (I think it was in Griswold vs. Connecticut) is a little torturous, it makes good sense: many of the rights enumerated -- freedom of belief, freedom not to have soldiers quartered in your home, 5th amendment rights, etc. -- depend on such a concept. Without it, they don't really mean much.

Elyzabeth has a good point, although the example she uses is maybe not the best. As an adult, I do have a right to view pornography. That particular right can be abridged because the courts have established a standard which no longer really applies, but basically, in that regard (and many others, such as Lawrence and Garner vs. Texas -- another case that depends on the right to privacy), the "mind your own business" response, as applied to government, is in effect.

And, from JP's comments, something like a right to be informed is sort of the corollary of the right to free expression, wouldn't you think? Given that we have guarantees of the freedom of the press (which seem to be superfluous these days anyway), that would seem to imply that those of use who read the press have a right to do that.

The real touchy part is in figuring out what the government's legitimate interest is. In the most important civil rights cases of the past fifty or so years, the courts have decided that the government has to have an overwhelmingly compelling reason to abridge certain rights -- things like "safeguarding public morality" (whatever that is) just aren't going to cut it.

So think about the next Supreme Court appointment, and worry a lot.

**drmomentum**[$] · #5 07-04-2005, 07:30 PM

I like to see a government acting like it respects my rights and wants to protect them. The kind of language I hear in the talk about the next appointee to the SJC is about "protecting the constitution" which almost seems like gibberish to me. No one is trying to attack the constitution. What we need is someone who will respect and protect individual rights as the constitution ages.

The government AND the constituiton serve the people, not vice versa.

-JP

rmthunter · #6 07-05-2005, 11:02 AM

JP --

The whole point of the Bill of Rights is that no one trusted the government to respect individual rights and protect them -- it has to be made to do that.

**drmomentum**[$] · #7 07-05-2005, 01:54 PM

Right. But it has to be made to do that by people. The people we set up to interpret the document have to be committed to respecting individual rights.

rmthunter · #8 07-06-2005, 08:42 AM

Ah, the courts: it's the courts that are the guarantors that the government will behave itself. Damned activist judges!

Actually the problem is not the government so much (except now it's become fashionable in administration circles to ignore court rulings) -- the problem is corporations and other private entities. Employers, if you will, neighbors, the like. Nothing defends us against them. We don't have any rights where those are concerned.

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #9 07-06-2005, 01:34 PM

Quote:

rmthunter said

Ah, the courts: it's the courts that are the guarantors that the government will behave itself. Damned activist judges!

If you define "activist judges" as those who often vote to strike down a law passed by Congress, your "activist judges" are Thomas, Kennedy, and Scalia. NYT - OP-ED by Paul Gewirtz (professor at Yale Law School) and Chad Golder (graduated from Yale Law School in May).