Re:Prisons Are Quietly Building Databases of Incarcerated Pe...
by mindslight on Wednesday January 30, 2019 @03:29PM
(#19039096)
> Is this actually codified in law or just something that's practiced without anybody stopping it?
> I always thought these amendment rights are one of the most important pillars of what makes the US such an "amazing free democracy"?
You say this like the net political direction in the US is standing up for people's rights. Each political party does gather support with rhetoric about defending their constituents. But actually implementing those changes would upset some entrenched interest, so they then settle for attacking their political enemies. Then the media and the courts go to work justifying it.
The Bill of Rights itself was only meant to be a reference and legal backstop rather than a enumeration, yet even those test cases are horribly failing. For every ideal it references, the practicality is that said right been effectively nullified in every day life - it's technically possible for you to follow a narrow course of action that would preserve your right, but wholly impractical.
IMHO this came about because the desire of being able to choose is deeply ingrained in USian culture, but judging whether a choice is fallacious is not. So rather than viewing the concept of rights as qualitative assessments of actual behavior, rights are interpreted as a fundamental axiomatic base that complexity layers over. Witness how commonly it's said "A person gives up their right to X when they Y".
> I always thought these amendment rights are one of the most important pillars of what makes the US such an "amazing free democracy"?
You say this like the net political direction in the US is standing up for people's rights. Each political party does gather support with rhetoric about defending their constituents. But actually implementing those changes would upset some entrenched interest, so they then settle for attacking their political enemies. Then the media and the courts go to work justifying it.
The Bill of Rights itself was only meant to be a reference and legal backstop rather than a enumeration, yet even those test cases are horribly failing. For every ideal it references, the practicality is that said right been effectively nullified in every day life - it's technically possible for you to follow a narrow course of action that would preserve your right, but wholly impractical.
IMHO this came about because the desire of being able to choose is deeply ingrained in USian culture, but judging whether a choice is fallacious is not. So rather than viewing the concept of rights as qualitative assessments of actual behavior, rights are interpreted as a fundamental axiomatic base that complexity layers over. Witness how commonly it's said "A person gives up their right to X when they Y".