UHC Should Be Recognized As A Fundamental Birthright.

[emacknight]

@Contrapuntal

We are not talking about remotely the same thing, then.

How much do I have to pay on site to vote? That’s the question. The question isn’t whether “government costs money.”

Well, the assertion within this thread is that UHC cannot be a right because rights are passive. UHC would require someone to pay for someone else. We have the right to vote, regardless of whether or not we pay taxes. Voting isn’t free, someone has to pay for it.

90 years ago I could say, “women should have the right to vote.” And the same arguments could be applied, “Women? But who is going to pay for it? We’ll have to double the cost of an election. Women don’t even work, who is going to pay for all those extra services?!”

@Contrapuntal

I’ll wait for the cite before I answer.

It’s a twofer: Iraq and Afghanistan. If I remember correctly, Nigeria also had a hard time with polling stations being attacked recently.

@Contrapuntal

I’m looking for a cite that countries that are too poor for UHC are *necessarily *too poor for basic human rights. That was your assertion.

Show me a poor country WITH rights. What was wrong with the countries I listed? Are they too poor? I can show you some rich countries without rights too if you’d like.

Hell, even Cuba considers health care a right, and they’re as poor as it gets. They skipped right over speech, guns, assembly, and voting and decided to provide health care to everyone on the island. Sad thing is that they’re healthier than Americans.

@Contrapuntal

Do you know what access means? Who in this country does not have access to health care?

If everyone has equal access, then what is the problem making it a right? If everyone already has a gun, why do you need a right to own them?

The simple fact of the matter is that lots of countries have government funded UHC WITHOUT making it a right, some of them are extremely poor. They don’t necessarily have to go hand in hand. I guess it’s just a matter of priorities. I have a friend that cheaps out on her insurance because she says it’s expensive, but they own a boat and four cars. Priorities I guess.

[Stratocaster]

All true rights are some form of the right to be left alone. Anything that must be provided by someone else is not a right. How could it be? It may or may not be good public policy, but it isn’t a right. And the desert island test is not as described by emacknight. It is that a right is a right if it can be violated with a couple of people on a desert island; rights are that fundamental, requiring no special infrastructure as a context to make it real. Rights are violated by some specific, direct act, an act that interrupts someone acting in a manner that he sees fit (so long as that act does not interfere with someone else who just wants to be left alone). Rights can’t be violated because some shapeless mass of people haven’t collectively or individually acted to give you something.

If we’re shipwrecked on our desert island, can I violate your right to express yourself? Your right to worship God as you see fit? Your right to keep your own personal property? Of course I could. Suppose you got cancer. Are your rights being violated because you aren’t getting treatment? Who is violating them? Do you have the right to police protection? Who is violating your rights since you aren’t getting any? If you’re a minor, do you have the right to an education? Who is violating your right if you aren’t getting one? That’s the desert island test. Rights don’t disappear on the desert island; they exist everywhere. Any right that can’t be violated there, doesn’t exist anywhere.

[emacknight]

@Stratocaster

All true rights are some form of the right to be left alone. Anything that must be provided by someone else is not a right. How could it be? It may or may not be good public policy, but it isn’t a right. And the desert island test is not as described by emacknight. It is that a right is a right if it can be violated with a couple of people on a desert island; rights are that fundamental, requiring no special infrastructure as a context to make it real. Rights are violated by some specific, direct act, an act that interrupts someone acting in a manner that he sees fit (so long as that act does not interfere with someone else who just wants to be left alone). Rights can’t be violated because some shapeless mass of people haven’t collectively or individually acted to give you something.

No, that’s YOUR definition of a right, it’s you transposing your desire to be left alone. We have the right to vote, we have the right to own property. The government has rights too, like taxation and putting the military in your guest bedroom. Very few of our rights actually have anything to do with being left alone.

@Stratocaster

If we’re shipwrecked on our desert island, can I violate your right to express yourself? Your right to worship God as you see fit? Your right to keep your own personal property? Of course I could. Suppose you got cancer. Are your rights being violated because you aren’t getting treatment? Who is violating them? Do you have the right to police protection? Who is violating your rights since you aren’t getting any? If you’re a minor, do you have the right to an education? Who is violating your right if you aren’t getting one? That’s the desert island test. Rights don’t disappear on the desert island; they exist everywhere. Any right that can’t be violated there, doesn’t exist anywhere.

Sure enough, let’s go with it. I think we get left with the list you described: free speech, assembly, and religion. Here is the list of rights you just lost, because they don’t exist on an island, and have to be provided for you:

• gun ownership and militias
• quartering of the military in your house
• search and seizure
• due process
• trial by jury
• cruel and unusual punishment

I’m beginning to think you aren’t entirely familiar with the bill of rights.

Rights were a concept GIVEN to us by the government, which is why they are different from one country to another, and why they don’t exist WITHOUT a government. It was a concept made up, and that was the list they came up with during their corporate retreat. Given a bit more time they probably could have come up with more.

Why don’t people in China have the right to free speech? Why should get they get it?

As an example, take a look through Universal Declaration of Human Rights | United Nations and ask if the US should ditch it’s bill of rights in favour of this.

[msmith537]

@Stratocaster

If we’re shipwrecked on our desert island, can I violate your right to express yourself? Your right to worship God as you see fit? Your right to keep your own personal property? Of course I could.

You could certainly try. And I would be justified in smashing your skull with a coconut in order to protect those rights. An ability to violate someone’s rights does not invalidate them as rights.

[Shodan]

@emacknight

The government has rights too, like taxation and putting the military in your guest bedroom.

No, the government doesn’t have rights; it has powers.

Very few of our rights actually have anything to do with being left alone.

Actually, most of them do - freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, the right not to have the military quartered in your home, the right to bear arms, the right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures, etc. All of these involve the right to be left alone - they require the government not to do something to you.

I’m beginning to think you aren’t entirely familiar with the bill of rights.

Well, one of us isn’t.

Rights were a concept GIVEN to us by the government

The Declaration of Independence says otherwise. According to the foundational document of the USA, men are endowed by their Creator with rights, and governments exist to secure those rights. And the Ninth and Tenth Amendments say rather clearly that there may be rights other than those enumerated in the Constitution, and that the power to enumerate those rights belongs to the states or the people.

Why don’t people in China have the right to free speech? Why should get they get it?

They do have that right. Their government is interfering with that right - IOW, the Chinese are not being left alone by their government.

Regards,
Shodan

[emacknight]

@Shodan

The Declaration of Independence says otherwise. According to the foundational document of the USA, men are endowed by their Creator with rights, and governments exist to secure those rights.

A, perfect, a creator. My point proven. Who is to argue with that your creator gave you?

[emacknight]

@Shodan

All of these involve the right to be left alone - they require the government not to do something to you. Well, one of us isn’t.
The Declaration of Independence says otherwise. According to the foundational document of the USA, men are endowed by their Creator with rights, and governments exist to secure those rights.

Okay, now that I’ve stopped laughing.

First problem I have is that some how our Creator forgot to endow us with quite a few rights, that we later had to go back and correct. Why is it that The Creator forgot to include African Americans? We were wrong to give them rights? Why weren’t women allowed to vote? Again, was The Creator wrong or just forgetful? Is it possible that the original document forgot to include a few things, and now we’re just filling in the gaps?

Why can’t access to health care be a right? What is so wrong with that concept that it scares conservatives so much? It’s pretty clear to me that if it was in there with the rest of the amendments conservatives would be more than happy to use it to keep government OUT of health care.

Secondly, the right to be left alone, sounds good. So let’s allow same sex marriage. Why is the government standing in the way? Let’s make access to abortion faculties a right, why is the government standing in the way?

The problem with trying to refuse a right is that the idiotic language used tends to apply equally well to past and future rights.

[Shodan]

@emacknight

Is it possible that the original document forgot to include a few things, and now we’re just filling in the gaps?

YOu might want to read my response to your post about Chinese free speech. It might make it clear.

Why can’t access to health care be a right?

I don’t think you are getting it.

It is perfectly possible to amend the Constitution to include health care as a right. What we have been trying to make clear to you, apparently without great success, is that it makes a difference what kind of right we make it.

Suppose we add it to the Constitution, and make it clear that it is a passive right, like the right to keep and bear arms. The right to keep and bear arms means that the government may not interfere with you if you choose to buy a firearm. It does not mean that the government has to pay for a firearm if you cannot afford to buy it. In that sense, the right to keep and bear arms is like most of the rest of the rights in the Constitution, like the right to free speech and freedom of assembly and so forth. I can speak my mind, but the government does not have to pay for a microphone for me to do so. I have the right to assemble, but the government does not have to pay the rent on the hall. Etc.

If we were to define health care as a right in hthat sense, it doesn’t help you very much, if at all. It would mean that you have the right to buy health care if you want to, and the government would not be able to stop you from doing so. However, just like the right to free speech and free religion and so forth, the government does not have to pay for your healthcare if you cannot afford it. About the only difference would be that Obama’s idea of compelling people to buy health insurance or pay a fine would be un-Constitutional.

I am getting the feeling that you don’t get this. Do you understand the concept of a passive right, where the government does not act?

It seems you are trying to play the game of “haha, I am so smart that I am laughing at your silly arguments” when you don’t understand them.

Let’s make access to abortion faculties a right, why is the government standing in the way?

Like I say, I don’t think you get it. How is the government stopping anyone from access to an abortion clinic?

Regards,
Shodan

[Acsenray]

@emacknight

I am not free to buy the prescription medications I want. They have to be allowed by the FDA. Their manufacture is protected by copyright law.

Just to clarify here: There are a lot of laws that regulated the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, including sometimes (but not always) patent law, which grants a temporary monopoly to an inventor of something novel, useful, and not obvious. Copyright law, on the other hand, which gives certain rights to an author or creator of an original and creative work (of literature, music, etc.), does not regulate the manufacture of pharmaceuticals.

[Sam_Stone]

@emacknight

A, perfect, a creator. My point proven. Who is to argue with that your creator gave you?

I think your education in philosophy needs to be shored up. The notion that man was endowed with rights by his creator is just another way of saying that man is born with fundamental rights.

You need to understand the difference between natural rights and political rights. I suggest reading some Hobbes, and some Locke. In Hobbes’ formulation, man is born with natural rights - a right being something he can will himself to do. But when man enters society, he voluntarily gives up some of those rights with the expectation that others will give up the same rights, in order to maximize the freedom of both.

For example, I have the right to swing my fist. But if I exercise that right blindly, I may impact your face. And you have the same right. But we both have an interest in not being punched in the face, so we enter a social contract - my right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins, and vice versa. Without such a contract, Hobbes felt that man would be in a never-ending state of conflict, and our freedom would be severely curtailed.

Therefore, we create a sovereign, and we set political limits on our natural rights. We give the sovereign the power to enforce the social contract - using force if necessary. This prevents people from reneging on the social contract.

John Locke expanded on this by saying that our intrinsic rights are an end to themselves - men are born free, and have the right to live as equals - the social contract is more than just an agreement to trade freedoms for personal safety and comort - it needs to fundamentally acknowledge that society is composed of free individuals allowed to live life as they see fit, and no one has a right to control them, direct them, or treat them as subservient to others. Therefore, government should be limited, and should have strong boundaries beyond which it cannot pass. Each citizen is entitled to a maximal sphere of private action, up to the point where he starts interfering with the rights of others.

Therefore, the constitution recognize the rights are so important that they cannot be bargained away. These rights are said to be inalienable. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for example. The social contract cannot require me to be a slave, or to sacrifice my life for others. The right to liberty means that the political rights we enshrine in our constitutions are for the purpose of maximizing personal liberty. A ‘right’ which seeks to redistribute wealth or provide comfort at the expense of liberty is anathema to the constitution.

It is a fundamental contradiction to suggest that a ‘right’ can be created which can only be implemented through the destruction of other rights. A ‘right’ to health care makes sense if it is defined by saying that no one has a right to stop you from looking after your own health, or from negotiating with someone else to help you improve your health. But you cannot have a right to a service, because other humans have to provide that service. Forcing people to provide service against their will is a violation of their own rights.

You don’t need to go to extremes to see this - the health care bill forces people to buy insurance even if they don’t want it. It forces price controls on doctors. In countries like Canada, it breaks our right to freely negotiate for services outside a government program - a doctor can be punished in Canada for simply agreeing to accept an offer to provide his services for compensation mutually agreed upon, if it’s not done through the sanctioned government system.

Progressives have sought to enshrine all kinds of ‘positive’ rights - a right to a job, a right to an education, a right to a living wage, etc. None of these rights are valid in a philosophical sense - they are simply an attempt to enshrine the welfare state as an inviolable feature of government. Let me ask you - if you had a ‘right’ to a job, then who should be punished for violating the rights of the 9.7% of Americans who can’t find one? If I have a ‘right’ to health care, who is to be punished for not allowing me to see a specialist for a year, as happens in countries with socialized medicine?

The attempt to call health care a ‘right’ is simply a political ploy to co-opt an enshrined principle in the effort to force your idea of proper government on everyone else.

[emacknight]

Okay, here is what you guys are not quite getting. By letting your blind ideology and fear of UHC, you havet created a system where you also fear allowing health care to be a right. You have wrongly (as in Stratocaster’s famous first post) assumed that it means the government HAS to give you something, and that something will be paid for by other people.

You think I’m making this case so that the US will get UHC, but you’re wrong. The US WILL get UHC eventually, it’s just a matter of time. Slavery was eventually abolished, women got the right to vote, eventually even same sex marriage will be allowed.

So what is my goal? Well, it’s actually a bit back handed, and I probably should have been more clear about this. Canada has UHC, but we do not have the right to health care. Do you see how the two do not exist together.

The problem in Canada is that because we don’t have that right, the government is able to FORBID us from providing and purchasing private health care.

To put that into a language you’ll understand, we can have all the government issued guns that we want. But if we want to upgrade, or avoid an excessively long wait time, we are NOT allowed by buy a private gun.

So here is an opportunity for conservatives to get ahead of the game. If health care is a right, the government CAN’T interfere, the same way they can’t obstruct the purchase of guns. So when UHC is eventually adopted, you’ll want to have this in place to PROTECT your right to PRIVATE health care. IT IS a passive right that we’re talking about. You are cutting off your nose to spite your face.

[Sam_Stone]

I think you’re just changing the argument now.

But let’s go with that. You want to make health care a passive right - everyone has a right to seek out their own health care as they see fit. The government shall not interfere in a citizen’s right to determine his own health care choices. Is that what you’re advocating now?

If so, then it’s fundamentally incompatible with UHC. Because UHC means universal. Everyone must do it. The right you seek would also invalidate Obama’s health care plan, because it would allow people to choose to go without insurance coverage without penalty, it would not require health insurance to be offered as part of employment or have the employer suffer a fine,

But if you truly mean what you say, then I wouldn’t be opposed to it. I think it’s an abomination that people can’t negotiate their own health care in my country of Canada. I think it’s a violation of doctors’ rights to prevent them from treating patients without the government’s approval and against a government fee schedule.

But if we had such a right in Canada, it would probably bring down the public health care system.

[emacknight]

@Sam_Stone

I think your education in philosophy needs to be shored up.

Here, what how my education in philosophy makes your post seem silly.

@Sam_Stone

Therefore, the constitution recognize the rights are so important that they cannot be bargained away. These rights are said to be inalienable. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for example. The social contract cannot require me to be a slave, or to sacrifice my life for others. The right to liberty means that the political rights we enshrine in our constitutions are for the purpose of maximizing personal liberty. A ‘right’ which seeks to redistribute wealth or provide comfort at the expense of liberty is anathema to the constitution.

Wow that all sounds great, what a truly revolutionary concept. So when they made that, everyone got to be equal right?

Oh wait, it turns out when that was written, the Creator only meant white people. Blacks would continue to be slaves for another 100 years. And then segregation would continue for another hundred years after that.

So some how, an entire constitution was drawn up, that was meant to prevent slavery, and avoid redistribution of wealth, but at the same time force people to work for free to make other people rich.

Like I said, sounds like the Creator and the Founding Fathers might have overlooked a few key aspects to natural rights.

@Sam_Stone

It is a fundamental contradiction to suggest that a ‘right’ can be created which can only be implemented through the destruction of other rights. A ‘right’ to health care makes sense if it is defined by saying that no one has a right to stop you from looking after your own health, or from negotiating with someone else to help you improve your health. But you cannot have a right to a service, because other humans have to provide that service. Forcing people to provide service against their will is a violation of their own rights.

So define it as that. No one is forcing anyone to provide a service without compensation. UHC doesn’t mean doctors are forced to work for free.

Like you said, in a society in makes sense to give up a few small rights in order to gain bigger ones. We’re okay giving up a bit of our income to have a series of interstate highways. We’re okay providing legal council for free to criminals. We decided that were all better off by doing that.

We also decided that it was cruel and unusual punishment to deny convicts medical attention. So we’re okay providing them food, water, shelter, and medical attention.

@Sam_Stone

You don’t need to go to extremes to see this - the health care bill forces people to buy insurance even if they don’t want it. It forces price controls on doctors. In countries like Canada, it breaks our right to freely negotiate for services outside a government program - a doctor can be punished in Canada for simply agreeing to accept an offer to provide his services for compensation mutually agreed upon, if it’s not done through the sanctioned government system.

Exactly, the health care bill sucks because health care is not a right. The government is able to, the government is FORCED to step in, and require people to buy health insurance. That shouldn’t have been allowed. But it is allowed because health care is not a right, and the government can step in.

@Sam_Stone

Progressives have sought to enshrine all kinds of ‘positive’ rights - a right to a job, a right to an education, a right to a living wage, etc. None of these rights are valid in a philosophical sense - they are simply an attempt to enshrine the welfare state as an inviolable feature of government. Let me ask you - if you had a ‘right’ to a job, then who should be punished for violating the rights of the 9.7% of Americans who can’t find one? If I have a ‘right’ to health care, who is to be punished for not allowing me to see a specialist for a year, as happens in countries with socialized medicine?

Wow, that was the biggest strawman I’ve ever seen. I think this is the first time I get hit quote and say, damn that is a big strawman. It feels good, I can see why people are so quick to use the term. Are there any other rights you’d like to attribute to me?

@Sam_Stone

The attempt to call health care a ‘right’ is simply a political ploy to co-opt an enshrined principle in the effort to force your idea of proper government on everyone else.

Is it? Or is your refusal simply a ploy to force your political ideals onto the rest of us?

So in conclusion, you started out strong, threw around a lot of big terms and deep philosophy. Then took the exit to crazytown.

Like I said before, think about the transition through previous changes in rights. If you find your arguments put you on the side of the KKK you might want to rethink things.

[emacknight]

@Sam_Stone

I think you’re just changing the argument now.

But let’s go with that. You want to make health care a passive right - everyone has a right to seek out their own health care as they see fit. The government shall not interfere in a citizen’s right to determine his own health care choices. Is that what you’re advocating now?

If so, then it’s fundamentally incompatible with UHC. Because UHC means universal. Everyone must do it. The right you seek would also invalidate Obama’s health care plan, because it would allow people to choose to go without insurance coverage without penalty, it would not require health insurance to be offered as part of employment or have the employer suffer a fine,

But if you truly mean what you say, then I wouldn’t be opposed to it. I think it’s an abomination that people can’t negotiate their own health care in my country of Canada. I think it’s a violation of doctors’ rights to prevent them from treating patients without the government’s approval and against a government fee schedule.

But if we had such a right in Canada, it would probably bring down the public health care system.

There you go, you got it. The right to health care goes both ways.

You can have UHC with or with out it.

You can have the right to health care with or with out UHC.

Canada’s system is fucked, government took control and ran with it; that’s what can happen.
Obama’s health care bill is also fucked, it’s a patch on a very large problem.
And the current system of health care in the US is fucked.

People need the right to health care, without government or private industry violating that right. It needs to be universal, so that EVERYONE has equal access. None of this in-network bullshit, none of the group plans that only allow 3M employees. It also means you can’t have a government provided health system that excludes people under 64 or making more than $12,000 a year, that’s just fucked.

Equal access for all.

[Sam_Stone]

@emacknight

There you go, you got it. The right to health care goes both ways.

You can have UHC with or with out it.

You can have the right to health care with or with out UHC.

Canada’s system is fucked, government took control and ran with it; that’s what can happen.
Obama’s health care bill is also fucked, it’s a patch on a very large problem.
And the current system of health care in the US is fucked.

People need the right to health care, without government or private industry violating that right. It needs to be universal, so that EVERYONE has equal access. None of this in-network bullshit, none of the group plans that only allow 3M employees. It also means you can’t have a government provided health system that excludes people under 64 or making more than $12,000 a year, that’s just fucked.

Equal access for all.

Wait a minute… Where did private industry come from in this debate? Rights are part of the social contract between government and the citizen. Whether 3M decides to provide health care or not has nothing to do with your ‘rights’. You have a right to free speech - that doesn’t mean that you can publish articles in a magazine at your whim, or that you don’t have to submit to an editor. You have a right to a gun, but that does not imply that there must be ‘equal access to guns’ for all. If the cheapest gun costs $500, and I’ve only got $100, then guess what? No gun for Sam. And no rights violated.

This is where you go wrong. The minute you shift the debate into the area of requiring that health care services be available to everyone, you move into the realm of the same kind of positive rights as “The right to a job”, which is why my digression along those lines was not a strawman.

Equal access to all is simply not part of the social contract. Equal protection is. My company reserves the right to refuse service. If I’m the only doctor in town, I can choose to sell my services to the guy who looks like he can pay me, and refuse to sell them to the guy without a job. Or I can choose to take care of the non-smoker and tell the smoker to take a hike. It’s my labor, and I’m free to sell it to whoever I wish. None of this violates anyone’s ‘rights’.

[UltraVires]

@emacknight

If I call the police, they will come to my house, how is that not me demanding individual treatment?

If there is grounds to believe my house will be attacked, the police will in fact, extend to me individual protection. If I fear for my life, with justifiable cause, the police will protect me.

See the way it’s based on an actual NEED. Not a made up need, not a wishful hope, but need. If my house is being burglarized I have the right to demand a police response.

Here is where I don’t understand what the source is for your rights. You are saying that you have a right to call the cops and they be at your house in a reasonable time.

So, from antiquity until the invention of the telephone, every person’s rights were being violated? Since there was no telephone to be called?

Of course you don’t believe that, but apparantly there was some point in time where inventions such as the telephone, automobile transportation, and others came along to the point that it became economically feasible for communities to have police forces on call to respond at a moment’s notice.

Then at some point, in your mind, this became a human right instead of a nice public service.

My idea of a right is one that is basic, universal, and timeless. There is a huge difference in these statements:

1. I have a right to health care.
2. In our wealthy society, health care should be provided to all.

Is that the distinction we are discussing in this thread?

[emacknight]

@Sam_Stone

Wait a minute… Where did private industry come from in this debate? Rights are part of the social contract between government and the citizen. Whether 3M decides to provide health care or not has nothing to do with your ‘rights’. You have a right to free speech - that doesn’t mean that you can publish articles in a magazine at your whim, or that you don’t have to submit to an editor. You have a right to a gun, but that does not imply that there must be ‘equal access to guns’ for all. If the cheapest gun costs $500, and I’ve only got $100, then guess what? No gun for Sam. And no rights violated.

This is where you go wrong. The minute you shift the debate into the area of requiring that health care services be available to everyone, you move into the realm of the same kind of positive rights as “The right to a job”, which is why my digression along those lines was not a strawman.

Equal access to all is simply not part of the social contract. Equal protection is. My company reserves the right to refuse service. If I’m the only doctor in town, I can choose to sell my services to the guy who looks like he can pay me, and refuse to sell them to the guy without a job. Or I can choose to take care of the non-smoker and tell the smoker to take a hike. It’s my labor, and I’m free to sell it to whoever I wish. None of this violates anyone’s ‘rights’.

So we can go back to white only restaurants?

Or how about the restaurant has two menus, a $1 menu for whites, and a $100 menu for non-whites.

Rights go both ways, it’s not just your fear of government, it also includes my fear of private industry. The government can’t violate my rights, and neither can private industry.

The government can’t prevent me from posting on this board, and neither can my boss. Rights go both ways. You want freedom from the government, I want freedom from private industry.

You don’t want the government to force doctors to treat people, I don’t want doctors to discriminate against me.

It goes both ways.

And yes, that was the worst strawman I’ve ever seen. Unless you have me on recorded advocating the right to a job, then you’re entire argument gets thrown out.

[Voyager]

@jtgain

Here is where I don’t understand what the source is for your rights. You are saying that you have a right to call the cops and they be at your house in a reasonable time.

So, from antiquity until the invention of the telephone, every person’s rights were being violated? Since there was no telephone to be called?

Did the right to be free not exist back when slavery was legal?

Rights can be recognized only imperfectly, and are subject to constraints of practicality. But not being able to provide for them under our constraints (and from clashes with other rights) does not mean they don’t exist.

[mazinger_z]

You know, I only post now when I have time and when someone else hasn’t stated that I was going to say anyway (I try to avoid those “me-too posts.”) Sometimes, that leaves one poster to do all the work (but then again, I have work to do and I don’t get paid to post here). Since I have time…

@emacknight

So we can go back to white only restaurants?

Or how about the restaurant has two menus, a $1 menu for whites, and a $100 menu for non-whites.

And you want to complain about strawmen? :rolleyes: This is not possible under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. If people bargained for two different prices, that itself is not illegal or unconstitutional.

@emacknight

Rights go both ways, it’s not just your fear of government, it also includes my fear of private industry. The government can’t violate my rights, and neither can private industry. The government can’t prevent me from posting on this board, and neither can my boss. Rights go both ways. You want freedom from the government, I want freedom from private industry.

Yes they can in the US. Your work can censor your work email and monitor your phone calls on work phones when they inform you that they have that ability. They can track anything you do on their equipment or through their portals or using their infrastructure. Your only recourse is that you are free to choose to work somewhere else.

Furthermore, ISPs owe you no privacy in the US. Anyone looking for info can get it if ISP privacy policy allows it. I know, I’ve read and negotiate them (privacy policies). Anyone with a subpoena can get your info (if that’s how your ISP chooses to proceed), and the ISP still has no legal requirement or obligation to tell you.

Do you, your company, or your ISP use filtering software or service of any kind? There is no foundation or standards by which to use filtering content in the US. Filtering services can have their own agenda to limit free speech and no one can stop this. But, if the US government were to do this, they would most likely be violating the Constitution, so it doesn’t censor (in the general sense, not unlike say, China) the internet.

@emacknight

You don’t want the government to force doctors to treat people, I don’t want doctors to discriminate against me.

It goes both ways.

And yes, that was the worst strawman I’ve ever seen. Unless you have me on recorded advocating the right to a job, then you’re entire argument gets thrown out.

Doctors cannot discriminate against you for any reason if you are a paying Customer. Again, see the 14th Amendment. Such actions would go against the local discrimination law. If the doctor told you that he was not selling his services to you because he didn’t think you could pay him, how would you sue?

[emacknight]

@mazinger_z

Yes they can in the US. Your work can censor your work email and monitor your phone calls on work phones when they inform you that they have that ability. They can track anything you do on their equipment or through their portals or using their infrastructure. Your only recourse is that you are free to choose to work somewhere else.

I should have been more clear, obviously they can filter at work. The point was that they cannot violate my right to free speech on my own time, on my own computer, on my own internet connection.

@mazinger_z

And you want to complain about strawmen? :rolleyes: This is not possible under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. If people bargained for two different prices, that itself is not illegal or unconstitutional.

All the rolleyes aside, let’s look at this 14th amendment: It was enacted in 1868, but didn’t our Creator give us our inalienable rights 1789?

What do you suppose the discussion was like before 1868? Well, aside from the civil war, do you suppose it involved a lot of, “it’s too expensive, we already have all the rights we need, that would be an active right, rights are passive…”

It should be clear how flawed the Bill of Rights was at it’s conception, and continues to need refinement. Occasionally it misses things like Miranda rights, which are decidedly NOT passive.

This whole mess started when Stratocaster insinuated that we can’t make health care a right because the government would have to give us something. I disagree.