# Against Civil Liberties creep **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 7, 2015, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180 "2015-01-07T01:53:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2015, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180/61 "2015-01-10T18:09:16Z")
nvm ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2015, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180/62 "2015-01-10T22:48:34Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > This may seem like a semantic quibble (certainly I support many measures to restrict racist practices), but I’d classify such measures as social policy. I don’t think any citizen has the basic human right to eat in someone else’s restaurant. Frankly, I’d say the restaurant owner has the right to serve whomever he’d prefer, however abhorrent I might find his choices. If we choose to restrict his ability to do so, it should at least be done acknowledging we’ve imposed society’s will on someone, forcing him to make an accommodation to someone else. If that’s good social policy, it should be because the benefit greatly outweighs the imposition. Not because the minority has a right eat at some other guy’s restaurant. I would say that, yes, it is because the benefit greatly outweighs the imposition – but that the way in which this is expressed in public policy is that we define rights in such a way as to support that benefit. We define (or “create” if you wish) the right of the minority to eat in the other guy’s restaurant. Public policy is sometimes oddly indirect, but that is usually because we do not have access to direct means. We put people in jail for murder. We do not “prevent murder.” If we had a way in which we could use the power of the law to catch murderers just before they acted, we might explore that approach. But we don’t, so we’re stuck addressing the crime after it has been committed. If we could eliminate racism without anti-discrimination laws (how? Magically?) we probably would. Until then, we use the power of the law to prevent certain kinds of racial discrimination: in hiring, housing, commerce, and other opportunities. “Rights” aren’t some magical abstract commandments of God. They are social tools which we created in the first place to serve our needs. If anti-discrimination laws had obvious and extensive negative effects, without any benefits at all, they’d probably have been dropped long ago, or never even passed in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180/63 "2015-01-11T11:22:18Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I would say that, yes, it is because the benefit greatly outweighs the imposition – but that the way in which this is expressed in public policy is that we define rights in such a way as to support that benefit. We define (or “create” if you wish) the right of the minority to eat in the other guy’s restaurant. > > Public policy is sometimes oddly indirect, but that is usually because we do not have access to direct means. > > We put people in jail for murder. We do not “prevent murder.” If we had a way in which we could use the power of the law to catch murderers just before they acted, we might explore that approach. But we don’t, so we’re stuck addressing the crime after it has been committed. > > If we could eliminate racism without anti-discrimination laws (how? Magically?) we probably would. Until then, we use the power of the law to prevent certain kinds of racial discrimination: in hiring, housing, commerce, and other opportunities. > > “Rights” aren’t some magical abstract commandments of God. They are social tools which we created in the first place to serve our needs. If anti-discrimination laws had obvious and extensive negative effects, without any benefits at all, they’d probably have been dropped long ago, or never even passed in the first place. But you’re defining “rights” too broadly, IMO. Anything protected by law becomes a right. It’s not always. Sometimes it’s simply reflective of current (hopefully) good social policy, and tomorrow circumstances could permit us to change. Not so for a basic human right, not in the sense the OP asks for definition. Once something is deemed a basic human right (which is how “offenses” against “civil rights” are often framed), the debate is over. If we define civil rights as anything we manage to legislate, we’re back where we started. And I reject the notion that I have any inherent right for someone else to do something for me. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180/64 "2015-01-11T19:13:49Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > But you’re defining “rights” too broadly, IMO. Anything protected by law becomes a right. It’s not always. Sometimes it’s simply reflective of current (hopefully) good social policy, and tomorrow circumstances could permit us to change. Not so for a basic human right, not in the sense the OP asks for definition. . . . The only real difference is in how well-protected it is. A current zoning regulation might not be a right (although I wonder: how is it not one? I have the right to add a back porch to my house, but it is a regulated right, as I have to fill out some permit paperwork first.) And the most basic Constitutional protections can still be snatched away by one bad SC decision. Otherwise, how would you distinguish between a “basic right” and one that is merely a current legislative protection? I don’t think you’re going as far as “natural rights” in your argument, but it’s a small step in that direction to say that “rights” are different from other protections. I don’t believe they are intrinsic, or God-granted, and I certainly don’t believe they are “self-evident” (the DofI notwithstanding.) ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180/65 "2015-01-11T19:18:49Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > And the most basic Constitutional protections can still be snatched away by one bad SC decision. See also, 4th Amendment. Especially the last decade or so. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180/66 "2015-01-11T19:35:00Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I would say that, yes, it is because the benefit greatly outweighs the imposition – but that the way in which this is expressed in public policy is that we define rights in such a way as to support that benefit. We define (or “create” if you wish) the right of the minority to eat in the other guy’s restaurant… > > …Public policy is sometimes oddly indirect, but that is usually because we do not have access to direct means… > > …We put people in jail for murder. We do not “prevent murder.” If we had a way in which we could use the power of the law to catch murderers just before they acted, we might explore that approach. But we don’t, so we’re stuck addressing the crime after it has been committed… > > If we could eliminate racism without anti-discrimination laws (how? Magically?) we probably would. Until then, we use the power of the law to prevent certain kinds of racial discrimination: in hiring, housing, commerce, and other opportunities… > > …They are social tools which we created in the first place to serve our needs. You believe that “we” act. Society does not act. If even in your most strained interpretation, society does act, it most certainly does not act through government. In your view, whatever the government does and calls a right, is a right. If they declared tomorrow that the privilege of selling arms to the government was a right and Lockheed Martin had that right, you’d go right along with it and call it a right. This is a product of the ideological veil that has been cast on government action with the rise of representative democracy. If a King had strolled out onto his balcony and declared his crony to have the “right” to any pork in the kingdom, individuals influenced by Enlightenment thought would have been quick to point out the difference between this \*privilege \*and an actual _right_. The idea that rights are defined by government action is a regression to before the Enlightenment. > [@](#): > > “Rights” aren’t some magical abstract commandments of God. They do not have to be, and I’m not sure why god has entered the picture. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180/67 "2015-01-11T20:29:25Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > You believe that “we” act. Society does not act. If even in your most strained interpretation, society does act, it most certainly does not act through government. I very, very strongly disagree with you. Society does act, and it forms governments to make that process more effective. > [@](#): > > In your view . . . I’m interesting in learning what you think. Please don’t waste both our time by trying to tell me what I think. In this instance, you’re completely wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180/68 "2015-01-11T21:19:27Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > They do not have to be, and I’m not sure why god has entered the picture. God-given rights is a term popularized by Enlightenment-era thinkers as a way to define a set of rights that even Government is precluded from interfering upon. In other words, government protects these rights but is not the source of them. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180/69 "2015-01-11T21:45:33Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > God-given rights is a term popularized by Enlightenment-era thinkers as a way to define a set of rights that even Government is precluded from interfering upon. And more specifically the Declaration of Independence: _We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed_ This is more or less aligned with my view, aside from the lack of need of a Creator. These kinds of rights are just the logical conclusion when you eliminate interference. The government doesn’t _create_ rights–I already had them–it just _secures_ them. We can call other stuff rights (right to health care, etc.) but it’s really a different thing. Also, I think it’s of some relevance that this is the founding document of the US. Anyone can come up with their own personal definition, but this one is the most important when it comes to how rights function in America. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180/70 "2015-01-11T22:00:23Z")
We made them up, and we don’t have to _prove_ shit! ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180/71 "2015-01-11T22:23:59Z")
So am I to presume that you do not consider “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” intrinsic rights of man, and that government should be free to trample upon them? Do you believe that these rights did not exist prior to the creation of formal government? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180/72 "2015-01-11T22:28:55Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > So am I to presume that you do not consider “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” intrinsic rights of man, and that government should be free to trample upon them? > > Do you believe that these rights did not exist prior to the creation of formal government? How do you get from point A to point B? I believe that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not intrinsic rights – I do not believe that “intrinsic rights” exist at all – and yet I also certainly do not believe that government should be free to trample on them. Our rights are deeply valued, jealously protected, widely believed, and vigorously defended. Governments exist to defend them; governments exist to define them. One nation/state might hold that the “right to life” includes unborn babies. The next nation/state might hold otherwise, and consider the mother to have the “right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.” Which right is “intrinsic?” ETA: I do not believe that any “rights” of any sort existed before formal government…but, then, I hold tribal organizations in the most primitive of times to be “formal government.” Our rights go back about as far as the first tribal campfire council, when the first vote was taken on whether to camp by the river over the winter, or move on to the camp by the cliffs. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180/73 "2015-01-11T22:32:35Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > So am I to presume that you do not consider “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” intrinsic rights of man, and that government should be free to trample upon them? > > Do you believe that these rights did not exist prior to the creation of formal government? They may have existed as ideas in people’s heads, but that’s the extent of it. Some of those people may even have acted in ways to promulgate those ideas. For instance, defending yourself or your family against an attacker is a reasonable epression of defending your right to life. But the attacker might kill you and your family anyway. What happened to your right? If rights existed in some other fashion, please explain how. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180/74 "2015-01-11T23:13:28Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I believe that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not intrinsic rights – I do not believe that “intrinsic rights” exist at all. So Thomas Jefferson, and not incidentally, all of the Americans who died in the Revolutionary War, got it wrong? I strongly disagree. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180/75 "2015-01-11T23:30:09Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > So Thomas Jefferson, and not incidentally, all of the Americans who died in the Revolutionary War, got it wrong? > > I strongly disagree. Yes, they got it wrong. But there was a rationale for how and why they got it wrong. Kings ruled by “divine right” – God supposedly gave them the power. They weren’t arguing that King George had no God-given authority to be a king, but that he so abused his power that he no longer had the right to be America’s king – he was ignoring a God-given set of rights to every American man (let’s forget about women and blacks, as did the Founding Fathers, shall we?). The revolutionaries couldn’t get away with dissing God, so instead they made the case that it was King George and his rulings that were dissing God. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180/76 "2015-01-11T23:31:07Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > So Thomas Jefferson, and not incidentally, all of the Americans who died in the Revolutionary War, got it wrong? > > I strongly disagree. I wouldn’t say that they “got it wrong.” They were simply less sophisticated than we are in the minutiae of political science. Most of them were religious believers; I believe they were wrong in this, but I won’t say that they “got it wrong.” They could only know what they were taught. I don’t hold with condemning people in past eras for moral flaws they could not have transcended. The typical soldier in Genghis Khan’s horde didn’t have any way to comprehend the rights to life, liberty, and property which he was despoiling from his victims. It doesn’t make him a “good guy,” but it also means he isn’t a “bad guy” the way, say, Timothy McVeigh was. (As for Genghis Khan himself, I think he could have – and should have – comprehended the evil of his course, and thus I put him in the “bad guy” category.) ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180/77 "2015-01-12T00:54:53Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > They may have existed as ideas in people’s heads, but that’s the extent of it. Some of those people may even have acted in ways to promulgate those ideas. For instance, defending yourself or your family against an attacker is a reasonable epression of defending your right to life. > > But the attacker might kill you and your family anyway. What happened to your right? > > If rights existed in some other fashion, please explain how. I don’t mean to say that I agree wholeheartedly with the concept of God-given rights. God as a prerequisite adds a dimension I find unsettling. But, the concept I think you allude to is what John Locke would have called the “natural rights” of man. That man, in his proper state, has certain essential or intrinsic rights. The right to safety for himself and his family, for example. I think the Founders needed a way to codify this concept of natural rights as being superior to government intrusion, so they used God (or the “Creator”) as the pretext. In modern secular theory, I think it is better to think of them as inalienable natural rights. But I do think they exist, and should be defended. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180/78 "2015-01-12T01:22:00Z")
If one can say that “natural rights” are essentially inborn survival instincts, I can buy that, though I would say that they are common to most higher life forms. Just about every animal has some form of “fight or flight” reaction aimed toward self-preservation, and and if you want to say this constitutes life as a natural right for a hog just as much as a human, then ok. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180/79 "2015-01-12T01:34:04Z")
Well it’s not just the instinctive “right” to not be dead. “Liberty,” for example, as a natural right would preclude the owning of another human being, a la slavery. Also, the right to speak one’s mind and practice one’s religion without compulsion by authority. Natural rights, as expressed by Enlightenment thinkers, is not simply the law of the jungle. In fact, the right to security of home and bodily person is a distinctly human expression of these rights. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180/80 "2015-01-12T02:11:44Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Well it’s not just the instinctive “right” to not be dead. > > “Liberty,” for example, as a natural right would preclude the owning of another human being, a la slavery. Also, the right to speak one’s mind and practice one’s religion without compulsion by authority. > > Natural rights, as expressed by Enlightenment thinkers, is not simply the law of the jungle. In fact, the right to security of home and bodily person is a distinctly human expression of these rights. I would say wanting to be alive IS instinctive. So something can be a natural right that most people have not been aware of throughout most of history? Slavery, for example, common through most of human history, is certainly a violation of “liberty”, if it is indeed a right. But if it is a right, it’s because we as a society MAKE it so. Someone thought of it, and over a great deal time it was accepted as a good enough idea to be almost universally accepted. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/against-civil-liberties-creep/709180.md?page=5)