aside from the trade-off discussion above, it looks like you also have opinions about the constitutionality of this move
it is, of course, totally okay to have an opinion on that, but an opinion does not necessarily grant decision power, or even veto power, so ultimately you aren't the one who gets to decide what constitutes a right, and you aren't the one who gets to decide what constitutes a violation or an infringement of a right
I'm not trying to slam you here, because I am also not the one who gets to decide that -- I'm just one of hundreds of millions of Americans, the majority of which do not have a problem with this move
now, of course, if someone/you believes this move is an unconstitutional violation of rights, they/you can bring it to SCOTUS, who will let them/you know if they/you are right
and if SCOTUS does ultimately say that this specific mandate is unconstitutional, then of course I agree with you that such a decision should be respected unless and until We The People change the constitution, which would be okay, too
No I’m simply rejecting your framing of the discussion. Rights are not a question of votes. It is not up for deciding democratically. To frame the question this way is to fundamentally misunderstand how rights work.
it does -- SCOTUS is the one who will decide whether or not you are correct when claiming this move is a violation or an infringement on constitutional rights
I can't keep repeating the same thing over and over again
Just to be extra clear — the constitution does not grant rights. It acknowledges rights that were “endowed by our creator.” They exist by default, and they… oh, you know, the thing…
> Just to be extra clear — the constitution does not grant rights
Just to be clear, it absolutely does establish such rights in law and thereby grant them as legal rights. It may be that some of authors and ratifiers (and some current constituents) of the Constitution have a (quasi- or literally) religious belief about the metaphysical preexistence of and/or independent ethical universal necessity of exactly such rights (or a super- or subset of them) against any legitimate government, but that's...largely immaterial except in terms of arguments between people sharing such views as to what rights should be established in law, or social science analysis of why the particular rights chosen were established in the Constitution.
That is certainly one theory of government, but it is not the only one, or probably even the most popular one. For instance, we have many laws that infringe free speech rights, and the great majority of people are perfectly fine with that. Your platonic ideal of “rights” isn’t the way rights actually work in the real world.
> For instance, we have many laws that infringe free speech rights, and the great majority of people are perfectly fine with that.
I think you'll find that most people who are okay with the laws you are referencing likewise disagree that those laws infringe free speech rights, rather, they view them as operating in a space outside of the proper conception of the right to free speech; the complexity isn't as much in the operation of rights as in the parameters of rights.
let me weigh in as one of the above sample points to say, that sounds like "sometimes that right can be infringed" with more words, which yeah, I am okay with
an alternate interpretation with the exact same implications might be "that right isn't absolute", which, yeah, I am okay with
ultimately it's just semantics that fails to meaningfully address GP's comment
If, as real property analogy, I have fee simple title to a parcel part of which is subject to utility easement, the utility company’s access within the scope of the easement is not an infringement of my right of exclusive control, it is outside of the scope of that right.
Similarly, most people who support laws that you see as “infringing” on the right of free speech who agree that a right with that name exists view the definition of the scope of that right more narrowly than the people who see the law as an infringement.
> you've twice said "most people" don't view the "fire in a theater" analogy to be a limitation on a right,
No, I haven't.
In fact, I’ve said nothing in this thread about that analogy (and nothing at all about it, IIRC, on HN except [in summary form] that it has fuck-all to do with the actual law, either now or when it originally appeared as dicta in an abomination of a decision.)
Nor have I said anything about what “most people” view as a “limitation” on a right. What I’ve said is about that most people who support a given law that others characterize as an “infringement” of the right do bot view it as an infringement, but as an act outside the scope of the meaning of the right.
> yet here I am, one of those people
Even if literally everything you said preceding this wasn't false, “one” ≠ “most”, except in a particular degenerate case where it is also “all”.
so far, of the data you've presented plus the data we see here, the sample size is 1, me, and 100% of respondents disagree with your proposition, so it's unclear where you are getting "most" from -- but let's ignore all that and grant you the point for now
if I am understanding you correctly, you are saying there is a difference between society viewing something as outside the boundaries of a right, versus society viewing something as an allowed, permitted-by-society infringement on a right
if we assume that is true, then what are the implications to OP's post?
e.g. the vaccination mandate can be presented as either "outside the boundaries of the right" for whatever right those protesting the mandate cite, or an allowed, permitted-by-society infringement on that right
"We violate rights therefore it is fine to violate rights"
The whole idea of rights is that they cannot be violated, period. There's no reason to even have for example a UN Declaration on Human Rights if they can just be violated for Good Reasons™. Rights are absolute or they don't exist.
You miss my point. It doesn't matter if it has never happened, that just means we have failed ourselves. What matters is defining the concept of rights, exploring what they mean and what they are. I'm not talking about if they exist in practice in any specific country, I'm talking about "what are rights?"
Rights are things reserved for individuals to hold unilaterally, sovereign over them, no democratic process or other consideration can take them away. That's the whole idea. That's at the core of the definition of the concept. Without that, the concept of rights doesn't exist.
