>Some rights we have voluntarily abrogated in order to meet what we believe to be more important responsibilities
This would be handled by our 10th amendment rights.
So I'm looking for a source of what rights Brits have and it's sort of difficult to understand... This [0] outlines several dates of ratification but I'm not really sure which currently apply. I figure at least these [1] apply but maybe you can give me better information. After looking at some of these articles of rights, I'm not overly impressed, most of these "rights" have asterisks on them. Not to mention how often these say "necessary in a democratic society" when talking about the restrictions, as if they know you're not going to be convinced when reading it.
> Article 10: 1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.
> 2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.
Notice how the conditions are vague, ambiguous and longer than the right itself? That's going to be a big fat no from me, bob.
An interesting difference with the American Bill of Rights is that it's largely full of implied rights, as it doesn't expressly grant rights to people, rather it's written in the form of "government cannot do xyz".
> Amendment 1: 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.
The end. No asterisks, no vague conditions, no ambiguity.
[0] https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/what-are-human-rights... [1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/contents
As I pointed out in my post, we are a democracy. Off the top of my head, I'm not familiar with any forms of government that require unanimity. Do you really think that's a necessary requirement?
>So I'm looking for a source of what rights Brits have and it's sort of difficult to understand...
Rich coming from someone in a country that has blatant civil forfeiture, practices extraordinary rendition, still has the death sentence, has courts which have ruled that "Innocence is not sufficient grounds for appeal", that has appalling systematic gerrymandering disenfranchising millions of citizens at the heart of the electoral process, in which monstrous levels of vote buying are routine, oh good grief I could go on and on.
Theory is great, but practical results matter. In theory a written constitution sounds great, but I'm really not impressed at all with how it seems to work out in practice. Don't take this too closely, I love the USA and have visited many times, youre is a safe, prosperous and largely free country I admire very much, but the problems you do have are so deeply ingrained into the culture and society and frozen in place by partisan interpretations of technical language that I do despair sometimes. In practical terms I genuinely feel vastly more confident in my liberty, safety and freedom over here than in the US.
True that! Thankfully our Supreme Court frequently sides with the people and their rights against the government.
You wanna know something that I think a lot of people don't really understand about America........ we're a really young country. One of the youngest. And one of the best! We haven't had much time to settle into our new diggs, ever since we fought your terrible government- and won. Our country is still settling while many other first-world countries, such as Britain, have been settled for centuries. You may not understand this but our government isn't federal top-down. The organization isn't Feds > State > Local > People. That's not how rights work in America (see A10.)
>In practical terms I genuinely feel vastly more confident in my liberty, safety and freedom over here than in the US.
I get the feeling you don't excersize contentious liberties. In which case, you're not the right person to ask if they feel confident in their liberty.
If you have only "the rights we want" then your rights are subject to the whims of the majority.
In America our tradition of civil liberties protected the Illinois Nazis' freedom of speech as they marched through Skokie, celebrating the enemies of America who, within living memory, had waged war and killed millions of our citizens. The exercise meant as an affront to our nation and everything it values. We celebrated it, because if our worst enemies can have rights we don't like, then everyone can have rights.
In the UK, you can't even tolerate Dankula, and people think it's wonderful and good that he was fined for the nazi pug incident, and no one has really has rights unless they're popular. You'd think incidents like that would wave a few red flags, given that your nations' checkered moral history includes multi-century exercises in the deliberate oppression of your religious enemies.
But in that respect, at least, our law is working as intended, the founding fathers' forethought centuries ago still supplying a recourse in the courts when the politically weak are oppressed by the powerful. In the UK, the courts are an official apparatus of the powerful's oppression, and the consensus is that this is how it should be.
He went to court and he could have tried a freedom of speech defence but he chose not to.
New Zealand is widely regarded as the most free country, and they also don’t have coronavirus.
Let's start at the bottom then:
>> The other countries you speak about have already lost their rights, or never had them to begin with.
>and New Zealand is a tiny island, very easy to control
What you're saying here is basically: "even if you back it up with source material, I'm going to claim the US is more diverse/different so it doesn't really apply."
In other words, it's US exceptionalism both ways around, that is, circular reasoning. Why should anyone bother to try and have a good faith argument here?
I've assumed good intent with my reply and included size examples of Australia and Canada referring to my linked paper, so I suppose we will find out.
I'm not saying the USA isn't generally a free place (it obviously is and has many good parts), but comparatively it's not the most free.
Also to reply directly to your point about size, Australia and Canada are both higher in the paper I provided, which are (equal sized / slightly smaller) but more sparse, so I don't think size is the issue.
[1] https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/human-freedom-inde...
Freedom House has the US at 86, most of Western Europe in the high 90s.
https://freedomhouse.org/explore-the-map?type=fiw&year=2020
While I am not going to say the US is an undemocratic hellhole, after all a score of 86 is respectable, saying that countries that score significantly higher "lost their rights" is unlikely to be correct.
>The people don't obey the "orders" nor follow advice. Then they wrap themselves in the flag and actively work against the measures in the name of freedom.
I'm strongly against big government, disagree with most R's and D's, will gladly wrap myself in the flag and I'm still quarantining for the most part. Just because you support freedom doesn't mean you're ignorant to this pandemic or methods to reduce spread. It just means you're protective of your rights because government has a very long history of using these kind of opportunities to infringe on them.
The other countries you speak about have already lost their rights, or never had them to begin with.