In a recent discussion on another thread, Sammy G asked me the following question:
Matt, I’m wondering if you could reply with which ‘few’ inalienable rights of human beings you think are in the Bill Of Rights. I would also like to know which ‘many’ inalienable rights you feel are the greater domain of rights not listed in the Bill of Rights. I’m curious, because I see the United Nations declaration as legal overkill and out of scope with what I would consider basic human rights.
I’ll start with the three basic rights established by John Locke: “Life, Liberty, and Estate (property)”. Thomas Jefferson revised this, without explanation in his lifetime, to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. The French phrase “liberté, égalité, fraternité” (liberty, equality, fraternity) is comparable, and the Canadian phrase “peace, order and good government” expresses similar sentiments. I’ll combine the basic rights from three Western founding documents:
- Life: You should not have your life and livelihood taken from you.
- Liberty: You should be free to make whatever decisions you will where it does not infringe on the rights of others.
- Property: You should not be deprived of your possessions.
- Equality: You should not have more or fewer rights than any other person.
- Fraternity: You should be free to associate with whom you will, where you will, and how you will.
- Peace: You should not have violence done against you.
- Order: You should have input on, and recourse through, agreed-upon societal rules.
- Good Government: You should have a government which represents the will of the people.
I do not think these rights represent “nature” in any real sense. Nature is brutal, survival is difficult, and rule by the strongest is often the case. Human rights are those we can agree on which we should work to preserve as ethical ideals which lead to amiable cooperation with one another. The US Constitution obviously has some flaws in preserving certain rights. For instance, slaves were considered property, which conflicts with Liberty and Equality. Over time, however, we have made some improvements.
According to the US Constitution, any rights which are not specifically granted to the government by it are reserved to the People or the States (Amendment IX). The Bill of Rights only enumerated rights which were particularly sensitive to the People at the time at which it was passed. These rights are:
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
Amendment III
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
The Bill of Rights does not nearly cover all the rights we, as human beings, expect as a result of the basic rights I enumerated above. One institution which has been responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses is the corporation. Here are just a few examples of what I consider some of the more egregious abuses of power which have deprived us of some human rights here in the USA:
- Life:
- The recent innovation of “no knock warrants” have resulted in the taking of life from citizens by police officers recently. We conducted 50,000 of these last year, up from 3,000 just 25 years ago.
- The rise of H1B and outsourcing have deprived many Americans of their livelihood, not due to inexorable technical progress, but due to bureaucratic loopholes and rampant abuse of the system by corporations focused solely on profits.
- The death penalty remains a violation of this human right.
- We have tortured at least 46 detainees to death in our conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
- Our inability to come up with a reasonable solution with Mexico has resulted in the deaths of over 2,000 people in the past ten years along the US/Mexico border. While I acknowledge many or most of these deaths are a result of attempts to cross the border illegally, that is a symptom of the problem, not the cause.
- Liberty:
- The US “war on drugs” is a blight. It deprives people of the right to make choices regarding their own bodies which do not harm anybody else. While we should strictly regulate certain substances which are known to cause widespread harm when used unwisely — like alcohol — forbidding the use of some substances entirely increases the risk of violence and the probability of a user being deprived of liberty. No, I’ve never done any form of drugs in my life (not even alcohol, unless you count a tablespoon taste here and there or NyQuil), so I’m not trying to justify my own behavior here.
- Direct interference in national sovereignty of other nations by our government (vis: Chile, 1973. Iraq, 2003. Nicaragua, 1980.)
- Free-speech zones. I’ve talked about this before, and it still makes me angry as one of the most egregious abuses of the First Amendment by corporations (such as the LDS church regarding General Conference protesters) and presidential visits.
- SLAPP lawsuits
- We imprison more people than any other nation on the planet, most of them black.
- Property:
- Once again, as a result of the so-called War on Drugs, US police departments routinely steal property without a criminal conviction. Luckily, several states have passed laws against the sale of assets without a conviction.
- It’s become common practice to condemn otherwise habitable residences and businesses — abuse eminent domain — in urban areas in order to appropriate space for well-moneyed corporate real-estate interests. This is a symptom of the uber-citizen status of corporations.
- Equality:
- Corporations are uber-citizens.
- Multinational Corporations are above the law, in that they can, like Halliburton, move their headquarters and operations to areas where they can dodge laws designed to ensure equality.
- Blacks represent only 13% of the US population, but 65% of the prison population. What possible explanation is there for this fact other than police bias? (Note: Statistics vary by state, some are as low as 12% population with 44% incarceration.)
- Gay partners are denied common spousal rights. They can be turned away from hospital visits to their partner due to not being “family”. They have no rights regarding property upon the death of their partners. They cannot collect social security benefits for their partners. There are more, but these need to be addressed. I see this as a human rights issue.
- Fraternity:
- Peace:
- Order:
- Good Government:
There are a lot more items to address in the following categories, but I ran out of time to take care of them all. Perhaps others can fill in the blanks or I can cover them. Suffice to say, yes, a great number of our rights are being unnecessarily abridged.
Sorry that this blog entry is just not complete… I got really depressed after starting to list so many, and kind of gave up.
Cheering up
Okay, it true that your liberty is not protected by nature, but these rights can be called “natural rights” because they are logically derived, and logic is merely the laws of existence. To skim the philosophy, logic requires moral reasoning to be consistent. If I want liberty, I must grant that to all humans; otherwise, I have no claim to liberty at the hands of those other humans. This is more or less what Locke was driving at when he said that a defender could morally enslave an aggressor–if you attack me, you have demonstrated that you believe your life should be worthless to me.
Let me now define (slightly differently) the list you created above. You will see that I think the task become much simpler (and that Locke knew his stuff).
Life: You should not have your life taken from you or threatened. Liberty: You should be free to make whatever decisions you will where it does not infringe on the rights of others. Property: You should not be deprived of your possessions. This is a corollary to Liberty, in that my possessions are the result of my actions. If I cannot claim them, my actions are meaningless–I have lost my Liberty. Equality: a truism. We are discussing “human” rights. Fraternity: see Liberty Peace: see Life Order: see Liberty. Order is not a right. Good Government: see the top 3. As my rights, I have the option to defend them. If I so choose, I may delegate that right to a government. But I cannot delegate a right which I do not have (such as free health care).
Now, to cheer you up.
I guess it is a little depressing.
Basic Human Rights
Matt, you and I differ on defining human rights because we are approaching the concept from different places. I see the earth as a natural environment, and our current status as the dominant living species on earth the result of an evolutionary path. Nature is brutal, but nature defines our form and how we live. As a result, basic human rights to me are based on an environmental and a non-historical approach.
In order to share the earth peacefully, and in order to defend the purpose of human existence, being the advancement of human knowledge and the expansion of the human experience to greater understanding, basic human rights entail:
Of note is that we agree on identifying a purpose for which human rights are endowed. While our purposes of human existence may differ, it’s important to acknowledge our framework of basic human rights serves a purpose. Basic human rights are born of and function to serve this purpose.
It’s also important to acknowledge we both did not put religion in our human rights list. This is important to me for one major reason: in pursuing human advancement it occurs frequently when progress is halted by others ideologically adhering to a religious doctrine. Think Galileo. Or, more recently, think President Bush’s opposition to stem cell research. To me, these are violations of human advancement. Your post does suggest, however, that you are considering human rights in the precept of religious thinking, such that humans were created within the last XK years and that human development from that originating point has resulted, through a series of physical outlines, in a current scenario which impacts your apriorism of basic human rights.
My approach is much simpler than that. My belief is that humans have the right to be recognized and treated as an individual and that cooperative existence is not warranted or expected. To this extent, your post suggests that human rights are based on a contract, of some sort, between organized societies. Your post also suggests that humans are first bestowed rights for the exigence of cooperation, and then granted a second tier of rights, collective rights, when such peoples organize as a legally-backed nation. In previous discussions, Daniel and I have congenially ranted on the unavoidable nature and associated pitfalls of putting collective rights ahead of individual rights. Your post inherently postulates the collective right of a society is paramount to the basic rights of an individual human. Again, this propels the framework forward to contemporary situations in which a government is a legally-founded representative of collective ideals which negotiate with other governments to draw imaginary property lines in the natural environment and to rely on legal writings to dictate resource eligibility and resolution. Again, I chose not to frame my thinking of basic human rights on the dynamic of this life, of this world which we have come to know. Basic human rights are based on basic human dimensions: breath, body and bearings.
Of course, this train of thought doubles over on itself, because the purpose of listing basic human rights isn’t for the singular human happily wandering on the outpost of human population, but for the questioning of a collective society seeking to intervene. Who’s right is it to assimilate an isolated sect for the purpose of integrating into a perceived higher standard of living or perceived higher order of consciousness? Who’s to say that an integrated and harmonized collective is an expected outcome of human existence? We have choice, and while choice isn’t a basic human right unto itself, it’s a function of life, defining interrelations and pursuit of a purpose of existence.
Wow.
you’re like… smart.
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Corporations reframed
Matt,
After re-reading your post, I’m not buying how corporations are to blame for any sort of impact on modern human rights. I can’t make the connection. Let me push back on you with what I think is a reframing of your point from a broader perspective.
When this country was founded the Constitution and, subsequently, Bill Of Rights derived from a founding government that was nationalizing an ideological premise. Based on self-reliance, individuality, equal representation, and democratic process, this collective premise was rooted in ideals, driven by ideals, and further developed around ideals. The first 25 years of the United States, when these big founding documents were written, were mission-driven.
Today’s United States is not mission-driven. Today’s United States is market-driven. Is it really the corporations that are evil, taking away human rights (your argument), or is it a capitalist society that over the past 100+ years has turned every national, civic and legislative decision into a function of dollars? Profit motive is behavior influenced by a capitalist system. This behavior is beyond a corporation as you would normally consider; a corporation, LLC, LLP, etc. The government operates worse than any corporation! It sets the law that goes to protect national wealth and the general economy. Big decisions made by government have become based on creating and keeping global wealth dominance.
The Wikipedia reference is extensive, and some of it misleading (IMHO), but it does focus on the two big functions of corporations — to provide for limited liability of the operators and to provide for interminable life. As we see time and time again, however, the liability shield is a nice defensive veil, but it’s really the people running the show who become liable in both the court of public opinion and the court of criminal prosecution. Corporate operators get double-skewered, but while corporations present the public face, they have the luxury of hiding behind another wall of protection. Show me a successful business, and I’ll show you a subordinate team of attorneys and accountants, scheming to the extent government allows.
Thus, instead of rebutting your particular examples of alleged corporation-destroy-freedom examples, I wanted to reframe the thought process around a broader capitalist system which encourages the behavior of wealth-seekers. It is, after all, the great American dream.