The rights listed in the Bill of Rights are unalienable, natural, and apply regardless of your citizenship status.
Of course this is weird from another country’s perspective, but it is the mentality that many Americans take because to us, it is right.
The ideology is that human beings ought to have some intrinsic rights. The Bill of Rights is an attempt to codify those rights in the context of how _the US government_ can interact with people (regardless of their citizenship).
The idea that a UK citizen has these rights by default because they're in the US Bill of Rights, and can then have these rights deprived of them _by their own government_ is the part of this that is hilariously American. Of course, if it was the US government taking the action then that would be a different story altogether, but the US isn't involved at any point
The side effect here is that technically, according to US lore, the situation you describe with the UK is correct. And it’s kindof how US citizens think.
You have the right to protest your government. You have the right to say whatever you want. You have the right to defend yourself. You may not agree, but that’s what US lore says, and it feeds a lot of our international behavior.
It's quite clear this isn't the actual policy of the US, though, given the existence of Guantanamo Bay.
The sentiment of the average citizen is much more inline with the ideals of the nation than the Nation itself is
It is clearly not consistent to criticize Americans for violating inalienable human rights while claiming that inalienable human rights are a concept that does not exist for non-Americans.
Particularly since they have come into conflict with the US over trying to prosecute human rights violations in the mideast.
Or are you saying that it’s bad that they have to be spelled out in the Constitution? Many of the original founders agreed with this and were concerned that the Bill of Rights would create a negative space consisting of every unlisted right, in which the government could reduce rights with impunity. (It turns out that essentially happened due to the unfortunate wording of the inter-state commerce clause.)
If you mean it’s weird that the Constitution is federal, yes, that’s due to the unusual circumstances surrounding the formation of the United States. Each state also has its own constitution where variations of these rights, and others, is repeated.
Or, more specifically, I attempt to paraphrase:
If the US doesn't respect inalienable rights, then non-citizens should have them?
I don't see any connection, and you seem to also be saying you believe in inalienable rights which are alienable.
Yes, in practice if not in principle or statute. American citizens and their citizen children have been murdered by drones without a jury trial or public hearing, or much of any due process which may be examined by the public openly. We take the US at their word when we say inalienable rights exist, but their behavior suggests that the US doesn’t respect inalienable rights or view them as an impediment to implementing unconstitutional US policy or performing acts contravening said inalienable rights.
> If the US doesn't respect inalienable rights, then non-citizens should have them?
Extradition to US has been blocked on a case-by-case basis by foreign courts due to observable effects of American courts not even meeting their own regulatory bar of speedy, fair, public trials, trials where you may confront your accuser in open court, with a jury of your peers. Parallel construction makes a mockery of the investigatory chain of evidence. Fruit of the poison tree doctrine is DOA. Secret grand juries are lied to in order to force unjustifiable, indefensible charges. Secret evidence and secret trials. Are secret convictions and secret imprisonment next? Indefinite detention without charge already gets US government 90% of the way there.
> I don't see any connection, and you seem to also be saying you believe in inalienable rights which are alienable.
I believe in inalienable rights, in that the concept is an unequivocal social good, but rights are not only what are claimed, but that which can be exercised freely and without undue restraint; I also believe that the government doesn’t act as if it has a good faith belief in ensuring that inalienable rights exist to begin with, nor does the US seem intent on defending them in all cases. In practice, inalienable rights don’t exist. This should change in my view.
You can use a word to mean multiple things, but you have to be clear and consistent in using one meaning at a time and differentiating the context.
>In practice, inalienable rights don’t exist. This should change in my view.
Inalienable rights are an abstract idea that can't exist.
Rights that were never violated could not be conceived of as rights, like "hot" wouldn't have any meaning if there wasn't "cold".
You left out the first part, where I said “in practice.” As in, it should never occur that our human rights are able to be circumvented, curtailed, or allowed to be violated. That our rights are violated in practice, in reality, is bad and should not happen, and proves that we must act as if inalienable rights are not some platonic ideal, but a lived reality, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
To the degree we are alienated from our innate human rights, it is because we as a society allow it, accommodate it, justify it, and excuse it. It is up to us all, individually and collectively, to do better. We can do better, and must, or we lack the courage of our convictions, and thus prove that the ideal remains an idea only, and not real, not a lived experience in and of reality. Arguing about the “existence” of abstract concepts is not my point. We embody these ideals with our thoughts, beliefs, and especially actions - what we do or do not do in accordance with our stated principles of inalienable rights.
We only have the rights we claim to have, rights we claim as ours by expressing them, even when others disagree, and defying any and all who would deny them to us. Inalienable rights are not up for debate to those who claim them. To have inalienable rights is to talk the talk and walk the walk.
To say inalienable rights exist is not a truth claim about the nature of reality; it is drawing a line in the sand and picking this hill to die on.
> Rights that were never violated could not be conceived of as rights, like "hot" wouldn't have any meaning if there wasn't "cold".
I agree wholeheartedly. Ironically, we discovered human rights by violating those of ourselves and of others, until the consequences of and backlash against such opprobrium became juice not worth the squeeze, deciding not to, and accepting nothing less than our continued newfound freedom.
Yes, that's what I was addressing. I am saying that "in practice" doesn't work as a modifier, because being "inalienable" is an abstract quality which does not pertain to real things or events.
Like "happy" applied to sand, or "green" applied to thoughts.
Snopes apparently debunked it, however, I was always inclined to believe it happened and was deliberate irony.
I hope your comment is in the same vein.
I'm not surprised you can't see what my comment is getting at
Locke himself was English, so it's a real shame to see the state of human rights in the UK in 2021.
So the people in the UK have the right against self-incrimination, but the state systematically violates it.