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Post by ladytera on Nov 7, 2008 0:08:50 GMT -5
Okay, so this is under the Education Center, so let us be educated! There are a lot of threads in the debate forum that center around the concepts of "rights". There is a lot of attention in the media regarding "rights". First Amendment Rights, Second Amendment Rights, Fifth Amendment rights and so forth get bandied about all the time. But, how many of us actually know what is actually contained in the Bill of Rights, and what each amendment means. When reading and discussing this topic, please keep in mind that these are legal documents, and must be read as such. Those of you in other countries, feel free to chime in with questions or similar laws in your own countries. I hope this sparks a good conversation, as I think much of the muddle in our media and politics today can be put down to a lack of understanding of the Bill of Rights, and what they were designed for. Have fun and be nice.
I have to go back to work for the time being, but I'll be back later today or tomorrow to go through these individually. In the meantime, take a look, post your thoughts and questions, and feel free to break any of these out into other threads if you think one in particular warrants a great deal more discussion than the others.
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Post by ladytera on Nov 7, 2008 17:41:03 GMT -5
Let's take the 1st Amendment. It contains a lot of stuff there.
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.
So, first of all, the Federal Government (and by extension of the 14th Amendment, the state governments) can't declare a national religion, nor require specific religious beliefs to have full rights as a citizen. The Federal and State Government can't make any laws at all with regard to the free exercise of religion. This means that every law on the books that limits speaking, illustrating, writing about, or any other kind of expression or exercise or a person's faith is absolutely unconstitutional. Please note the wording, as it is important because this is a legal document, and the specific wording is required to be followed. There shall be no law prohibiting. This passage was not designed, nor does it anywhere state, that faith is to be kept out of government, but that government is to be kept out of faith.
Or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press. This means the the Federal and State Government may not make any law that in any way abridges the individual's or the press collectively ability to express their thoughts and ideas. If you look at the Federalist papers, from which the amendments eventually stemmed, political speech in particular was to be protected at all costs. To be sure we get this, the definition of abridge, as applied here is as follows:
2. to reduce or lessen in duration, scope, authority, etc.; diminish; curtail: to abridge a visit; to abridge one's freedom. 3. to deprive; cut off.
This means that the government may not impose limitations on your ability to speak your mind, nor your ability to be heard, if there are those who want to listen. The Fairness Doctrine, currently being contemplated by Congress is absolutely unconstitutional under this law, and worse, is specifically targeted at the type of speech that it was designed to give the most protection.
The only exception to this allowed for is the slander/libel laws. The legal reason for this exception is that by defaming a person, without basis for the defamation, constitutes a theft of their property in the form of their reputation, and is therefor a violation of an individual's liberty.
Or the right of the people to peaceably assemble. This one has actually been abridged already to a small degree at local levels. While the Federal and State Governments may not limit your ability to assemble, local ordinances may require you to get permits for such assemblies if they are over a certain number. The reason they can do this is because they are responsible for the safety and health of the citizens within their municipalities, and large assemblies require additional emergency personnel and sanitation facilities. However, if you were denied a permit, after meeting all the requirements listed under the city ordinances, you would be within your rights to protest the denial in court, which brings us to the last part.
to petition the government for redress of grievances. It is your right, and the government may not stop you from exercising it, nor harass you for doing so, to take your government to court for not doing it's job. If your government has abridged your freedom, failed to carry out its duties, or otherwise is in violation of its responsibilities, it is your right as a citizen to seek redress, either by having the government officials removed, or by seeking monetary compensation, or even in most cases seeking criminal prosecution. As a private citizen, you may sue your government, you may join with other private citizens to sue your government. The only exception, I believe, is that the President cannot be sued or prosecuted by individuals, only by Congress. The Congress is protected as long as they are on the floor of Congress. The Judiciary can only be prosecuted by Congress. However, you may bring pressure to bear on Congress to pursue these prosecutions.
So, that's the first amendment. It protects our right to pursue happiness and stops our government from placing limitation upon those pursuits. It also protects our right to hold our government to account when it steps out of bounds.
I'll get to the second amendment later. But I will say this. The First Amendment was put in place to make the second less necessary. The Second was put in place to assure that the first was not lost.
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Post by Bubba's Dad on Nov 7, 2008 20:59:38 GMT -5
All of the first 9 Amendments are limitations on the Government. The Tenth makes it clear that other rights, not defined, do exist and the states or people may define them. This document is the best example of how small of a government on the Federal Level the Founding Fathers had in mind, and how much our current government failed the Founders.
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Rhovanion
Apprentice
La Danse Macabre
Posts: 53
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Post by Rhovanion on Nov 8, 2008 7:40:08 GMT -5
Very interesting read. Thank you for posting ladytera.
We don't call them amendments here in Sweden but we have four Fundamental Laws here (Grundlagar in Swedish):
The Instrument of Government (Regeringsformen) The Act of Succession (Successionsordningen) The Freedom of the Press Act (Tryckfrihetsförordningen) The Fundamental Law on Freedom of Expression (Yttrandefrihetsgrundlagen)
The Instrument of Government is all about what kind of government Sweden should have and what their role is in the society. It refers to all kinds of policies, anything from the role of the parliament to how the prime minister is appointed or how elections should be run, etc.
The Act of Succession is all about who becomes the King or Queen (since Sweden is a monarchy). Apparently we went from elective to hereditary monarchy in 1544 and so the eldest child of the preceding monarch inherits the throne. Since the 1970's that is now without regard to the sex of the child. The King or Queen of Sweden, nowadays, has no formal power though.
The Freedom of the Press Act is all about, well yeah, the freedom of the press. It was first established in 1766 but has obviously been refined and updated since. The "public access to government documents" policy is also part of this act. The Principle of Publicity (Offentlighetsprincipen in Swedish), as the collection of rules are commonly referred to, provides that all information and documents created or received by a public institution (local or central government, and all publicly operated establishments) must be available to all members of the public. It also states that all public institutions must do everything in their power to give anyone access to any information that he or she might want as soon as possible.
The Fundamental Law on Freedom of Expression is all about the freedom of speech and expression. You have the right to express yourself in any media without the fear of anyone knocking on your door for it. We also don't have any censorship. If you want to say the good old F-word on TV you can without getting bleeped for it.
However, like many European countries - Hate Speech (Hets Mot Folkgrupp in Swedish) is not allowed here. Meaning as a public figure or as a common citizen appearing before the public (say on TV, at a rally etc), it's considered a criminal offense to promote or express hate against a person or a group of people for their religion, skin color, sexual orientation, gender, origin, disability etc). Granted, if you do it among friends or in the private of your home, it's a different story because then you're not set to officially and publicly promote your hate views. The Hate Speech law didn't come about so that the government can come banging on your door with torches and pitchforks demanding your crucifixion for speaking ill of the nearsighted on a wee little online community that nobody visits (because that's not what it's about at all). It's to limit politicians (and anyone else speaking publicly) and people like it from openly discriminating and expressing views of hatred (sexist, racist, homophobic etc) against people.
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Post by ladytera on Nov 8, 2008 15:02:03 GMT -5
Rhovanion, cool. The first one you mentioned I'd guess is what our Constitution does. It lays out the type of government, branches of government, specific duties of the government, the election requirements and processes. The Amendments above are actually part of the Constitution, but not part of the original draft. They were ratified by the states, and passed, in 1791, four years after the original Constitution was adopted.
Since we don't have royalty here, no matter what celebrities and politicians may think of themselves, we don't have anything about succession.
Freedom of the Press is part of hour bill of rights, but it is in conjunction with freedom of speech for the individual. It was understood by the founders that the individual should have the same protections as the collective press as a group, otherwise it would be possible for one group to try to silence another they did not agree with and use the government as a tool for that purpose. As to censorship, it's probably unconstitutional. The people agreed to it in a limited fashion, only with regard to "public" airwaves, like radio and antenna TV, where anyone can turn on the TV or radio and "accidentally" hear foul language, etc. They can make the case, tenuously, that it's for the public good. But for paid stuff, like cable, XM Radio, Satellite, etc., there us much less ability to censor, because the purchase is in essence giving consent with his check. 'Twill be interesting to see where that goes though. The same folks that are all for removing the so called censorship on bad language and sexuality on TV are the ones calling for the so called "Fairness Doctrine" in radio that limits free political speech. You've gotta wonder about folks.
As to the last part, about hate speech, I find these laws ridiculous. It is already illegal in most places to incite violence through your speech. However, to term a particular belief or idea as hate speech and criminalize it leaves the door open to the government or the majority oppressing those of differing points of view. It is also an government interference in religion, because it in essence says that unless a church violates its doctrines and beliefes and accepts that homosexuality is just as valid in God's eyes as heterosexuality, it and its pastors can be accused of hate speech, and fined or thrown in jail for their religious beliefs.
I will note too, in relation to that law, which they are trying in some places to pass here in the states, it is a violation of free speech. And you may be right that the law didn't come about so that the government can come bang on your door with torches and pitchforks, but historically speaking, that is what the law will in all likelihood eventually lead to. Once you give your government the authority to determine what kind of speech is acceptable, they then have a basis to determine something else unacceptable later. Don't believe me? What happens when your leading political party decides to silence its opponents for promoting civil unrest with its criticism against the current political policies? Sooner or later, it will happen. It always does.
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Rhovanion
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La Danse Macabre
Posts: 53
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Post by Rhovanion on Nov 8, 2008 19:49:01 GMT -5
The thing is, there is a difference between hate speech and just stating your opinion.
Opinion: I don't agree with gays or the gay culture due to my religious beliefs.
Hate Speech: Faggots should and will rot and burn in hell for all eternity! They are nothing but worthless scum and I demand genocide performed on the lot of them! (insert profanity here).
While, essentially, they mean basically the same thing they are expressed in completely different ways. There are ways to get the point across without being hateful, if you get what I mean. The Hate Speech law is not there to shut people up, it's there to keep things 'civil'.
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Post by ladytera on Nov 8, 2008 20:23:38 GMT -5
I totally understand the difference you're referring to. What I was saying is that the laws you have in place are open to abuse because there is no way to clearly define what is "hateful". What you consider acceptable is not going to be what your neighbor defines as acceptable. Sooner or later it leaves people open to prosecution for advocating an idea that pissed someone off. This type of censorship, once it begins to go wrong, usually targets first religious and political speech. We have it here too, it's just not codified in law at the moment. We call it Political Correctness, and you can see its effects even in the rules for this board. Rather than going after people on a legal basis, they are vilified and smeared in the media until their ability to function within their normal lives is harmed.
Now, there have been many in our churches that have said hateful things, that I would consider "hate speech". "God Damn America." Reverend Jeremiah Wright. I can't remember the exact quotes, but the psychotic nutball that runs the Westboro Baptist Church and invades military funerals screaming about faggots and God hating America because we allow homosexuality. Personally, I find these people vile, sorry excuses for human beings, but until they instruct their followers to break the law, I would never, ever want a law to prosecute them under. It is their right to speak their mind. It is my right to call them ignorant screwballs.
As for keeping things civil, you can't legislate morality, or in this case civilized behavior. You can try, but it generally leads to bad things happening, and more often than not fails at its original aims.
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Post by keyodie on Nov 9, 2008 11:32:42 GMT -5
Well actually, Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the Westboro Baptist Church might not count as "a public figure or as a common citizen appearing before the public" over there.
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Post by ladytera on Nov 9, 2008 17:32:19 GMT -5
I'll try to look up the information on this from Canada, where they have these laws in place. It has been a while since I saw the stories done, but there was at least a couple of instances of ministers being threatened with these laws if they continued to preach against homosexuality in their congregations. Even here we have some limitations on what preachers can preach from the pulpit, because of the tax exempt status of churches, but mostly it applies to political activism. Simply put however, Jeremiah Wright and the other guy are public figures, because they choose to speak in public before groups of people, so these types of laws would apply to them. But they would also apply to any other preacher that was speaking before an audience as part of their profession. Again, it comes back to the letter of the law, rather than the intent.
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