Barr’s Encryption Push Is Decades in the Making

This statement is shocking to me. I guess that you intend to say people are rarely the direct individual victim of petty street crime e.g. robbing, assault, etc?

At this moment there is a thread on the front page pertaining to the widespread problem of fraudulent listings on Amazon. This kind of fraud is affecting people near-universally. It affects my decision making process every time I shop.

Corporate criminals who cheat pollutant emissions regulations affect my life with literally every breath I take.

Not sure this is how you meant it. If you mean to say that rights come from governments that is not quite correct, at least not in the US.

Rights, in the US, are not GRANTED by government, they are RECOGNIZED by the US Constitution to exist OUTSIDE OF GOVERNMENT (upper case is for emphasis only). In other words, these rights don't require government in order to exist. We are recognized to have them and government can't do a thing about it other than to respect and protect them.

This is a massive difference with other systems that lots of people, both inside and outside the US are not aware of.

Take the right to bare arms as an example. In most other nations, if it exists, this is a right granted by government to the people. In the US this is a right recognized by the constitution to exist despite and outside of government.

Here's the key difference between "grant" and "recognize": The government can't take away that which it does not own, did not and cannot grant.

An example of a right (well, a privilege) government can take away is your driver's license. They grant it and they can take it away.

In the case of firearms, the US government does not have the ability to confiscate weapons because that is not a right the government granted and, therefore, they don't have unilateral power to cancel that right with a simple bill. In fact, it takes a tremendously complex agreement across all States and the federal government to make any changes to the US Constitution (2/3 majority in the Senate, House and all 50 State Legislatures). Even that does not guarantee government to have the right to eliminate rights.

This is good. This means, among other things, that the government can't take your freedom of speech away because they do not own it, they did not grant it. It is recognized as a fundamental right. All rights in the Bill of Rights are equal in this sense (as far as I know). If we weaken one of them (as many want to do with firearms) you run the risk of opening Pandora's box and exposing the people to government control of rights.

It's an interesting problem.

Coming from this perspective it is hard to understand why people in any nation would want to live in an environment where the government owns and grants rights --and can take them away at will. If the idea is that government works for us --they are our representatives-- why in the world would it make sense that they would be able to take away our rights? Imperfect analogy: It's like a project manager hiring a worker and then having that worker fire the project manager.

PS.: A lot of anti-gun activists keep pointing at places like New Zealand and their gun confiscation and buy-back programs. The typical cry is "We should do the same". Well, we can't. Government did not grant, nor does it own that right. And it can't take it away. In many ways this kind of activism is nothing less than futile and even nonsensical. It's almost like demanding that we change the gravitational constant in that it is about as likely.

> Not sure this is how you meant it. If you mean to say that rights come from governments that is not quite correct, at least not in the US.

> Rights, in the US, are not GRANTED by government, they are RECOGNIZED by the US Constitution to exist OUTSIDE OF GOVERNMENT (upper case is for emphasis only). In other words, these rights don't require government in order to exist. We are recognized to have them and government can't do a thing about it other than to respect and protect them.

> This is a massive difference with other systems that lots of people, both inside and outside the US are not aware of.

> Take the right to bare arms as an example. In most other nations, if it exists, this is a right granted by government to the people. In the US this is a right recognized by the constitution to exist despite and outside of government.

> Here's the key difference between "grant" and "recognize": The government can't take away that which it does not own, did not and cannot grant.

> An example of a right (well, a privilege) government can take away is your driver's license. They grant it and they can take it away.

> In the case of firearms, the US government does not have the ability to confiscate weapons because that is not a right the government granted and, therefore, they don't have unilateral power to cancel that right with a simple bill. In fact, it takes a tremendously complex agreement across all States and the federal government to make any changes to the US Constitution (2/3 majority in the Senate, House and all 50 State Legislatures). Even that does not guarantee government to have the right to eliminate rights.

This argument is a prime example against the point you are trying to make. With guns, the government is constantly eroding that right by narrowing the scope of what constitutes a legally permissible gun. Wicard vs Filburn is another example of government rewriting the limits of their power without the consent of the people. Why did prohibition require an amendment but drugs are scheduled today without the necessity for constitutional amendments?

All organizations seek to expand their influence and power over time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Leeds

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/62668/6-ben-franklins-gr...

State and local governments had outlawed alcohol since the founding. If outlawing alcohol were somehow special, that wouldn't have been possible.