6 ms·

I've always thought of no-fly lists as completely out of place in a democracy. Either you have enough evidence to charge them with something or you have no bus

by jtome 13y ago

I've always thought of no-fly lists as completely out of place in a democracy. Either you have enough evidence to charge them with something or you have no business restricting them from doing anything.

bobwaycott 13y ago
Exactly. And if you have enough evidence to charge them with a crime, then you should do so and take the person to court. And if they are found guilty by a jury of their peers, punishment should be assessed. If not, the person is innocent and should not be inconvenienced or harassed further. No citizen should be victim of unknown charges and/or evidence that impacts their free movement through society.
- sk00byd00 13y ago
  > No citizen should be victim of unknown charges and/or evidence that impacts their free movement through society. Why should I need to be a citizen to not have my human rights violated? If it is in the UN Declaration of Human Rights[1] then chances are your country signed it, agreed that would be the minimum standard, that these rights were inalienable and most importantly, that they applied to everyone. You have to admit it seems a bit silly (at least from my side of the pond) that when it comes to human rights the US seems to ignore the UNDoHR and when it comes to it's international drug policy it enforces the UN Single Drug Convention all over the world with aggression to the point that no country in the world besides Peru can even make cannabis legal in their own nation state without violating international law (which WILL be enforced). [1] http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - bobwaycott 13y ago
    I completely agree with you. Unfortunately--unless I'm wildly mistaken--the very sad thing about American culture/politics is a lack of concern for the UNDoHR and everyone else on the planet. That being said, I specifically did not say 'US citizen' for a reason. I was being inclusive about a general human right as a citizen anywhere to freely move through a society anywhere. It was a conscious choice on my part, and was meant to be more along the lines of the UNDoHR. So, I meant human citizen, as there are very few stateless persons (yes, there are some, but I'm not really bothering to get into that issue).
    - rayiner 13y ago
      > Unfortunately--unless I'm wildly mistaken--the very sad thing about American culture/politics is a lack of concern for the UNDoHR and everyone else on the planet. It's not that Americans don't care about anyone else on the planet (I doubt they care less than people in Western European countries). It's that Americans aren't willing to bind their sovereign freedom of action. The idea of "human citizen[ship]" is anathama to American thought, because citizenship implies reciprocal rights and obligations, and Americans viscerally hate the idea of being obligated or beholden to anyone else. Hell, a lot of Americans think that the arrow should be pointed in the opposite direction: more state sovereignty (i.e. people within states should be less obligated to rules made by the federal government).
      - shpxnvz 13y ago
        To this American, you are only half right. I fully embrace the same natural rights for all people, regardless of nationality. I think my government is ethically constrained from violating the rights of all individuals, U.S. citizen or not. And yes, I support state sovereignty over the federal government. Recognition of and respect for human rights need not be bound to sovereign freedom of action, as you put it. Freedom of action does not have to imply freedom to coerce.
        rayiner 13y ago
        I don't think most Americans would think of the situation in terms of "natural rights." They might think of Christian morality, in terms of how we should treat other people, but I don't think the Bible has much to say about search and seizure, or electronic privacy, etc. And for myself, I don't like to argue in terms of any sort of thing, "natural rights" or "God's law" or whatever, that a doctor couldn't find if he cut me open and poked around. To me, the ability to act is the only thing that exists, and "rights" are just people in a community agreeing to use collective force to enforce whatever they decide to call "rights." The idea that the community as a whole can be bound to limit its ability to act with respect to people outside that compact is to me not a sensible thing. And I think that while most Americans wouldn't phrase it precisely in that way, their thinking is along similar lines. We're a country that strenuously reserves the right to do whatever the hell we want, bound only by our own collective conscience. We want to do right by people, but we get to be the final arbiters of what's right and what is justified.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    There are no signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, since it is not a legally binding document. There is however the list of countries that voted for it, and the US is among those countries. I wonder if this is still a country that would vote for such a document. We plainly have no respect for the ideas that it represents.
    - talmand 13y ago
      Do you wonder if the people would vote for it or the government? Because I see those as two different things.
      - jlgreco 13y ago
        Well, the government did vote for it, we know that much from history. I think the people would vote for it, I am optimistic and think that most people have their hearts in the right places. Would the government vote for it again, if voting for it was anything other than a meaningless gesture? I suspect not. Not if it actually had teeth.
    - baddox 13y ago
      It's worth noting that there's a big difference between appreciating and agreeing with the ideals in the UNDoHR and being willing to vote in an election or poll that explicitly or implicitly legitimizes the UN's authority to govern.
  - talmand 13y ago
    My problem with things like the UDHR is that it is worded in a way as that the document provides these freedoms to human beings. This implies that simply changing the document can possibly take these rights away. That's the idea behind the language of the US Constitution (the Bill of Rights at least), it seems to provide rights to the people but instead restricts the government from infringing on the natural rights of the people. For instance, the first article of the UDHR states that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. What it should say is something more along the lines that no form of government may make a law that prevents any human from being born free and equal in dignity and rights. Something like that. Granted, it's possible to strike the article from the document regardless of which way it is worded but I personally like documents such as this to have language that government is restricted from infringing my rights as opposed to government telling me what rights I have.
chc 13y ago
I'm not sure this principle works in reality. It seems to entail that somebody who fails their driving exam must still be allowed to drive and that somebody with no training should be able to advertise himself as a surgeon. (Just in case anybody didn't follow the above: Failing an exam or lacking training are not crimes you can be charged with, so under the principle "Either you have enough evidence to charge them with something or you have no business restricting them from doing anything," we have no business restricting anyone from doing anything on those bases.)
- HarryHirsch 13y ago
  Most constitutions include a right to speedy trial. One would think that that is because the framers had experience with secret courts, detention for political reasons &c. This institutional memory has been lost.
  - chc 13y ago
    I am not sure what this has to do with what I said. Did you mean to respond to somebody else?
- shpxnvz 13y ago
  > It seems to entail that somebody who fails their driving exam must still be allowed to drive and that somebody with no training should be able to advertise himself as a surgeon. Yes, it absolutely does. Life as a free person is dangerous, and being free necessarily means not being protected from potential harm caused by others. It means people are held responsible after the fact, but not restrained prior.
  - chc 13y ago
    If that's what you think, you are welcome to your opinion, but I don't believe you'll find a lot of popular support for the idea that unlicensed drivers and fake surgeons are things we should embrace.
    - 13y ago
shpxnvz 13y ago
Great point and agreed, with one correction. Democracy does not offer any guarantees of freedom, and fortunately we have a constitution which was intended to set limits on encroachment of individual rights. To quote Marvin Simkin, "Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights which may not be taken, not even by a 99% vote." The same argument could be made for felon's rights, by the way. Either a person is too dangerous to be free or you have no business taking away his rights.
- icebraining 13y ago
  The only reason you have a constitution is because the "wolves" (the majority) voluntarily and democratically accepts it. A constitution doesn't guarantee anything, it merely expresses the democratic consensus, and it can and is overridden when the majority really wants to.
  - shpxnvz 13y ago
    > The only reason you have a constitution is because the "wolves" (the majority) voluntarily and democratically accepts it. No, this is not the case. The power of the majority over the minority is limited by the constitution - the Bill of Rights proscribes the oppression of the minority at the hands of the voting majority. The constitution itself is protected from the majority (the government) by the credible threat of a well-armed populace who are willing to fight to protect it.
    - mullingitover 13y ago
      The constitution is a simple majority away from being nullified at all times. Simply elect a president and congress who will do the bidding of the majority, regardless of the constitution, and the judicial branch gets steamrolled. That's what's terrifying about the surveillance. While it could be genuinely benign right now, it only takes one bad election to put the equipment in the hands of very bad people who could do amazingly bad things with it.
    - 13y ago

by jtome 13y ago

bobwaycott 13y ago

Exactly. And if you have enough evidence to charge them with a crime, then you should do so and take the person to court. And if they are found guilty by a jury of their peers, punishment should be assessed. If not, the person is innocent and should not be inconvenienced or harassed further. No citizen should be victim of unknown charges and/or evidence that impacts their free movement through society.

sk00byd00 13y ago
> No citizen should be victim of unknown charges and/or evidence that impacts their free movement through society. Why should I need to be a citizen to not have my human rights violated? If it is in the UN Declaration of Human Rights[1] then chances are your country signed it, agreed that would be the minimum standard, that these rights were inalienable and most importantly, that they applied to everyone. You have to admit it seems a bit silly (at least from my side of the pond) that when it comes to human rights the US seems to ignore the UNDoHR and when it comes to it's international drug policy it enforces the UN Single Drug Convention all over the world with aggression to the point that no country in the world besides Peru can even make cannabis legal in their own nation state without violating international law (which WILL be enforced). [1] http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- bobwaycott 13y ago
  I completely agree with you. Unfortunately--unless I'm wildly mistaken--the very sad thing about American culture/politics is a lack of concern for the UNDoHR and everyone else on the planet. That being said, I specifically did not say 'US citizen' for a reason. I was being inclusive about a general human right as a citizen anywhere to freely move through a society anywhere. It was a conscious choice on my part, and was meant to be more along the lines of the UNDoHR. So, I meant human citizen, as there are very few stateless persons (yes, there are some, but I'm not really bothering to get into that issue).
  - rayiner 13y ago
    > Unfortunately--unless I'm wildly mistaken--the very sad thing about American culture/politics is a lack of concern for the UNDoHR and everyone else on the planet. It's not that Americans don't care about anyone else on the planet (I doubt they care less than people in Western European countries). It's that Americans aren't willing to bind their sovereign freedom of action. The idea of "human citizen[ship]" is anathama to American thought, because citizenship implies reciprocal rights and obligations, and Americans viscerally hate the idea of being obligated or beholden to anyone else. Hell, a lot of Americans think that the arrow should be pointed in the opposite direction: more state sovereignty (i.e. people within states should be less obligated to rules made by the federal government).
    - shpxnvz 13y ago
      To this American, you are only half right. I fully embrace the same natural rights for all people, regardless of nationality. I think my government is ethically constrained from violating the rights of all individuals, U.S. citizen or not. And yes, I support state sovereignty over the federal government. Recognition of and respect for human rights need not be bound to sovereign freedom of action, as you put it. Freedom of action does not have to imply freedom to coerce.
      - rayiner 13y ago
        I don't think most Americans would think of the situation in terms of "natural rights." They might think of Christian morality, in terms of how we should treat other people, but I don't think the Bible has much to say about search and seizure, or electronic privacy, etc. And for myself, I don't like to argue in terms of any sort of thing, "natural rights" or "God's law" or whatever, that a doctor couldn't find if he cut me open and poked around. To me, the ability to act is the only thing that exists, and "rights" are just people in a community agreeing to use collective force to enforce whatever they decide to call "rights." The idea that the community as a whole can be bound to limit its ability to act with respect to people outside that compact is to me not a sensible thing. And I think that while most Americans wouldn't phrase it precisely in that way, their thinking is along similar lines. We're a country that strenuously reserves the right to do whatever the hell we want, bound only by our own collective conscience. We want to do right by people, but we get to be the final arbiters of what's right and what is justified.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  There are no signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, since it is not a legally binding document. There is however the list of countries that voted for it, and the US is among those countries. I wonder if this is still a country that would vote for such a document. We plainly have no respect for the ideas that it represents.
  - talmand 13y ago
    Do you wonder if the people would vote for it or the government? Because I see those as two different things.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      Well, the government did vote for it, we know that much from history. I think the people would vote for it, I am optimistic and think that most people have their hearts in the right places. Would the government vote for it again, if voting for it was anything other than a meaningless gesture? I suspect not. Not if it actually had teeth.
  - baddox 13y ago
    It's worth noting that there's a big difference between appreciating and agreeing with the ideals in the UNDoHR and being willing to vote in an election or poll that explicitly or implicitly legitimizes the UN's authority to govern.
- talmand 13y ago
  My problem with things like the UDHR is that it is worded in a way as that the document provides these freedoms to human beings. This implies that simply changing the document can possibly take these rights away. That's the idea behind the language of the US Constitution (the Bill of Rights at least), it seems to provide rights to the people but instead restricts the government from infringing on the natural rights of the people. For instance, the first article of the UDHR states that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. What it should say is something more along the lines that no form of government may make a law that prevents any human from being born free and equal in dignity and rights. Something like that. Granted, it's possible to strike the article from the document regardless of which way it is worded but I personally like documents such as this to have language that government is restricted from infringing my rights as opposed to government telling me what rights I have.

chc 13y ago

I'm not sure this principle works in reality. It seems to entail that somebody who fails their driving exam must still be allowed to drive and that somebody with no training should be able to advertise himself as a surgeon. (Just in case anybody didn't follow the above: Failing an exam or lacking training are not crimes you can be charged with, so under the principle "Either you have enough evidence to charge them with something or you have no business restricting them from doing anything," we have no business restricting anyone from doing anything on those bases.)

HarryHirsch 13y ago
Most constitutions include a right to speedy trial. One would think that that is because the framers had experience with secret courts, detention for political reasons &c. This institutional memory has been lost.
- chc 13y ago
  I am not sure what this has to do with what I said. Did you mean to respond to somebody else?
shpxnvz 13y ago
> It seems to entail that somebody who fails their driving exam must still be allowed to drive and that somebody with no training should be able to advertise himself as a surgeon. Yes, it absolutely does. Life as a free person is dangerous, and being free necessarily means not being protected from potential harm caused by others. It means people are held responsible after the fact, but not restrained prior.
- chc 13y ago
  If that's what you think, you are welcome to your opinion, but I don't believe you'll find a lot of popular support for the idea that unlicensed drivers and fake surgeons are things we should embrace.
  - 13y ago

shpxnvz 13y ago

Great point and agreed, with one correction. Democracy does not offer any guarantees of freedom, and fortunately we have a constitution which was intended to set limits on encroachment of individual rights. To quote Marvin Simkin, "Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights which may not be taken, not even by a 99% vote." The same argument could be made for felon's rights, by the way. Either a person is too dangerous to be free or you have no business taking away his rights.

icebraining 13y ago
The only reason you have a constitution is because the "wolves" (the majority) voluntarily and democratically accepts it. A constitution doesn't guarantee anything, it merely expresses the democratic consensus, and it can and is overridden when the majority really wants to.
- shpxnvz 13y ago
  > The only reason you have a constitution is because the "wolves" (the majority) voluntarily and democratically accepts it. No, this is not the case. The power of the majority over the minority is limited by the constitution - the Bill of Rights proscribes the oppression of the minority at the hands of the voting majority. The constitution itself is protected from the majority (the government) by the credible threat of a well-armed populace who are willing to fight to protect it.
  - mullingitover 13y ago
    The constitution is a simple majority away from being nullified at all times. Simply elect a president and congress who will do the bidding of the majority, regardless of the constitution, and the judicial branch gets steamrolled. That's what's terrifying about the surveillance. While it could be genuinely benign right now, it only takes one bad election to put the equipment in the hands of very bad people who could do amazingly bad things with it.
  - 13y ago