normally you’d have a congress that flexed its power to stop the President from touching rights at all, but over time the Executive has become more and more powerful and Congress more and more impotent.
…we did build that system. We are currently in that system, which has been corrupted by a criminal and terrorist organization called the Republican party
This makes sense, there are no abuses of human rights in the US it is just that some people do not meet the conditions to receive privilages like basic healthcare, food assistance or fair treatment by state employees.
America, where everyone is equal, and some are even more equal than others!
I think this is the one key question about any elected government. We would need to make sure that representatives are truly accountable, not just replaced. We have corporate manslaughter legislation after all.
Welcome to Anarchism :)
There are only two systems in which rights cannot be taken away. A system with no rights in the first place, or a system with no living beings to have rights.
The point of inalienable rights, is they are the rights which must always be fought for and protected no matter the cost.
Pretty words, but no system is self enforcing. What’s going on now has taken the collective agreement of thousands of bad actors, over decades, to enact.
true, but I think the system must be afraid. we need the public to have solidarity and see beyond their privilege. the American individualist ideology is a poison.
The moment the state tries to fuck over anyone, the whole nation should stop to a halt.
Rights are a human construct. They don’t exist in nature.
When we fight to construct them, we must fight to keep them. In a representative democracy, our representatives are the ones who are supposed to fight for us. But when they fail, that responsibility falls back to the average, everyday, common person.
The struggle to keep our rights moreso has to do with getting people off the couch to stand up for what they believe in. In an apathetic society glued to their toys and treats, their bread and circuses, it’s that much easier for other humans with wishes to collect their own power to dismantle that of the majority.
human construct
Yeah but also human constructs are objectively real. When people say human construct in a way that relegates it lower than natural phenomenon, that is a condition of alienation. A building is a human construct, so is art, so is a computer, an industry, a society.
Rights are a social construct which are no less real than physically existing constructs. Money is a social construct, so is religion. In fact religion served the same function in feudal society that money does in capitalism.
Since all these things were created by humans, and humans are a part of nature, then human constructs are a part of nature. Rights develop as society develops, as we become more advanced. The right to healthcare didn’t exist before there was widely available doctors, hospitals and clinics to provide it, before modern medicine made it possible to heal many injuries and diseases. But now that the material basis for it exists, like any technology, it can be used to improve the lives of everyone or it can be used to oppress.
But both outcomes are the result of human activity.
I dig your conclusions, but I think that it becomes difficult to convince people when we ourselves are operating on a faulty basis. The reality of human alienation from nature is not an essential part of nature, it is the product of human activity. It took work to create it and it will take work to reverse it. Alienation is a condition of class rule.
But the real basis for it, which in our society is laws and culture underwritten by state violence, is not as permanent as the fact that it is the labor and time of all the workers that create what is actual. And if we want to change the conditions that alienate us from the rights and privileges that our labor creates, then we have to be able to reflect on reality as it is. We have to not just make mystified statements but really understand every step in the process of the logic that we will use to inform the actions needed for liberation.
Taking for granted our alienation as natural and not imposed, is a step in the logical process that informs our subjugation.
We need amendments to restrict the power over civil rights. Essentially no civil rights law can be removed or superseded by additional laws. And that no laws can be passed to allow exception to this law.
Also we need clear penalties for failing to follow laws. Not just for presidents but any members of any level of political seats. Specific infraction and penalties.
A 3 strike policy. 3 such acts and removal of office followed by a new election in 6 months or a year.
Also laws against aipac and corporate money in politics. Banned. Permanently. No exceptions. No ability to change laws to change this either.
We keep learning that when we don’t have strict laws and strict guidelines for insuring those laws are followed, bad actors will (always) take advantage. And the laws are useless unless they are enforced in an unbiased way.
Also Congress members for states cannot override voted on laws. The people supercede the elected officials whims.
We also need ways to remove people from office during their term.
George Carlin put it pretty well, imo.
Someone woke up? Good thing and welcome
A lot of our so-called “rights” simply express the fact that we have money.
Can we drive a car? Yes, because it costs money and we have that money. Can we go to school? Yes, again, because it costs money and we have that money. Can we go on holidays to a foreign country? Yes, again, because it costs money and we have money. Same for lots of other things.
The people have money because companies need to pay them if they want people to work at their companies. That’s what gives people power. The fact that they are needed in the economy. No kind of law is causing this; simple necessity is.
It’s the collapsing labor market that is causing a seeming decline in our rights. It’s not Trump’s fault (well, also trump’s fault, since he made it much worse, but the issue started years earlier) that people are experiencing hardships, because of the collapsing labor market.
The solution would be to accept that the labor market is collapsing (because very few things can be done against that) and start accepting people for being people, independent of how much work they perform. In other words, stop glorifying “hard workers” and start seeing the value in people themselves.
This reminds me of the riddle that Varys tells Tyrion Lannister in the ASOIAF books.
A King, a priest, a rich man and a sellsword are in a room. Those three men tell the sellsword to kill the other two. Who lives and who dies?
The conversation continues in another chapter:
“The king, the priest, the rich man - who lives and who dies? Who will the swordsman obey? It’s a riddle without an answer, or rather, too many answers. All depends on the man with the sword.’
‘And yet he is no one,’ Varys said. ‘He has neither crown nor gold nor favor of the gods, only a piece of pointed steel.’
‘That piece of steel is the power of life and death.’
‘Just so … yet if it is the swordsmen who rule us in truth, why we pretend our kings hold the power? Why should a strong man with a sword ever obey a child king like Joffrey, or a wine-sodden oaf like his father?’
‘Because these child kings and druken oafs can call other strong men, with other swords.’
‘Then these other swordsmen have the true power. Or do they? Whence came their swords? Why do they obey?’ Varys smiled.
[…]
Tyrion cocked his head sideways. ‘Did you mean to answer your damned riddle, or only to make my head ache worse?’
Varys smiled. ‘Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more no less.’
Oh I remember when GRRM used to write GoT. Those were the days.
I don’t joke when I say the books were what turned me left more than anything else (there’s literally an allusion to The Conquest of Bread in ACOK). He wrote the peasant struggle really well. It’s a shame that he seems to have forgotten that aspect of the books, and now just writes Targaryen nobility fanfics.
I read your abbreviation as IASIP and was thinking that this was pretty deep compared to their usual content.
The whole purpose of buying the crown in the first place was to get the plebs nice and tipsy so we can take 'em to a nice comfortable place in the fields and, you know, they can’t refuse, because of the implication.
Hah
Danny DeVito as both Tyrion and Daenerys. 😭
(I only know of IASIP through the memes.)
“stick 'em with the pointy end”
Constitutions are just a “we promise we wont oppress you” pinky promise. Laws are nothing but the words of people. It wouldn’t mean anything if nobody (especially those in power) respect those words anymore.
