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You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

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Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#101

Post by softwaredoug »

dgellow wrote: post #82
gpvos wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first one I can understand from history (although I do not agree for modern times). But the right to accurate information from public officials, I thought that was indeed an absolute and basic right in a democracy, and it should very strongly be and always have been. (Exceptions like "national security" notwithstanding, and those should probably be more narrowly restricted than they are now.)

Time to stop considering the US a democracy? It feels the country is it’s own weird system now, not sure how to classify it but something I would call Trumpocracy. The democratic processes don’t seem to serve the people, it’s all hacks to try to use the system against itself to entrench the administration ideology (some might draw parallels to history here)

The US is returning to its pre WW2 norm. The postwar era was the exception. US democracy has long been tenuous or for the “right people”.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#102

Post by sagarm »

TFNA wrote: post #84
passwordreset wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's covered under that "right to life" section of the Constitution. Deliberately poisoning people through their water supply seems like a sure-fire way to deny the right to life of your citizens.

As the other poster mentions, "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is not from the Constitution but from the Declaration of Independence. As much as it might be part of American civic lore, the Declaration of Independence is not legally binding, it is a product from two whole legal regimes before the USA's current one was founded.

The current court has made it clear "civic lore" is fundamental to interpreting the Constitution, though curiously this seems to only apply to certain causes.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#103

Post by slibhb »

gpvos wrote: post #72
themgt wrote: post #30

Plaintiffs ... seek recognition of two new constitutional rights lacking any foundation in the history and tradition of our Nation—the right to be free from exposure to contaminated water and the right to accurate information from public officials. This is like filing a bug report that the Linux kernel allowed your Thunderbird to receive SPAM email containing false information. It's just a fundamental misunderstandin…

The first one I can understand from history (although I do not agree for modern times). But the right to accurate information from public officials, I thought that was indeed an absolute and basic right in a democracy, and it should very strongly be and always have been. (Exceptions like "national security" notwithstanding, and those should probably be more narrowly restricted than they are now.)

> But the right to accurate information from public officials, I thought that was indeed an absolute and basic right in a democracy

That's a misunderstanding on your part. You can't have a "right to accurate information" because officials might simply be wrong. "Being wrong" can't be against the law. Additionally, people simply disagree about lots of things and often there's no procedure to resolve this.

However, you can't lie under oath, or in front of Congress. But lying is not the same as providing inaccurate information. In most other contexts, lying is legal.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#104

Post by elcritch »

rayiner wrote: post #98
gpvos wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first one I can understand from history (although I do not agree for modern times). But the right to accurate information from public officials, I thought that was indeed an absolute and basic right in a democracy, and it should very strongly be and always have been. (Exceptions like "national security" notwithstanding, and those should probably be more narrowly restricted than they are now.)

I implore people to think about separation of powers. Just because something is desirable in the abstract doesn’t mean the judiciary should be doing it. Who decides what information is “accurate?” What are the implications of having the judiciary start policing the other two branches over such a fuzzy concept?

Congress is supposed to be the forum wherein this happens. It's intentionally a broader forum of people's representatives from the entire nation. If congress can't agree to a law then the federal government probably shouldn't be doing it, even if something is desirable.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#105

Post by cucumber3732842 »

softwaredoug wrote: post #101
dgellow wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time to stop considering the US a democracy? It feels the country is it’s own weird system now, not sure how to classify it but something I would call Trumpocracy. The democratic processes don’t seem to serve the people, it’s all hacks to try to use the system against itself to entrench the administration ideology (some might draw parallels to history here)

The US is returning to its pre WW2 norm. The postwar era was the exception. US democracy has long been tenuous or for the “right people”.

Pre (like 20+yr) WW2 the scope of the activities that the government laid claim to was infinity smaller so the blast radius was likewise infinitely more limited.

This is how you wound up with historically ethnic banks, universities, etc, etc. Black guy, pole, whatever, can't get a loan (well they can, at a "fuck you" price) from the wasp bank so they go to the lending group they know through their church or whatever. After a few years of that the guys who are doing that lending say fuggit, quit their day jobs and start a bank. Wash rinse repeat to varying extents for just about every sector business.

They'd never allow that today. The incumbents would get the enforcers to kill that before it becomes a legitimate standalone business. And the enforcers have a lot more ammo today because of past 70yr of (mostly civil) law and jurisprudence.

But any modern equivalent isn't done along racial/ethnic lines and so the useful idiots will think it's all fine and dandy and defend it out of one side of their mouth while complaining about a lack of opportunity out of the other.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#106

Post by dgellow »

softwaredoug wrote: post #101
dgellow wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time to stop considering the US a democracy? It feels the country is it’s own weird system now, not sure how to classify it but something I would call Trumpocracy. The democratic processes don’t seem to serve the people, it’s all hacks to try to use the system against itself to entrench the administration ideology (some might draw parallels to history here)

The US is returning to its pre WW2 norm. The postwar era was the exception. US democracy has long been tenuous or for the “right people”.

An 80y exception in a 250y timeline?

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#107

Post by icedrift »

rayiner wrote: post #98
gpvos wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first one I can understand from history (although I do not agree for modern times). But the right to accurate information from public officials, I thought that was indeed an absolute and basic right in a democracy, and it should very strongly be and always have been. (Exceptions like "national security" notwithstanding, and those should probably be more narrowly restricted than they are now.)

I implore people to think about separation of powers. Just because something is desirable in the abstract doesn’t mean the judiciary should be doing it. Who decides what information is “accurate?” What are the implications of having the judiciary start policing the other two branches over such a fuzzy concept?

"Who decides what information is “accurate?”"

Previously agencies. Now everything bubbles up to the supreme court.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#108

Post by shiandow »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #71
themgt wrote: post #30

Plaintiffs ... seek recognition of two new constitutional rights lacking any foundation in the history and tradition of our Nation—the right to be free from exposure to contaminated water and the right to accurate information from public officials. This is like filing a bug report that the Linux kernel allowed your Thunderbird to receive SPAM email containing false information. It's just a fundamental misunderstandin…

Generally, I've seen courts derive this kind of right from general rights like "the state cannot just arbitrarily kill or maim you", which (hopefully) are explicitly written down. So it doesn't feel that unreasonable to ask the court to specify that "the state cannot just arbitrarily kill or maim you" extends to "the state cannot arbitrarily lie to you in ways that will endanger your life/health".

And in all reasonable circumstances the court would agree. Poisoning the water supply is an act of war let alone an illegal act of violence.

Re: You Don't Have a Right to Safe Drinking Water, US Court Rules

#109

Post by gpvos »

rayiner wrote: post #98
gpvos wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first one I can understand from history (although I do not agree for modern times). But the right to accurate information from public officials, I thought that was indeed an absolute and basic right in a democracy, and it should very strongly be and always have been. (Exceptions like "national security" notwithstanding, and those should probably be more narrowly restricted than they are now.)

I implore people to think about separation of powers. Just because something is desirable in the abstract doesn’t mean the judiciary should be doing it. Who decides what information is “accurate?” What are the implications of having the judiciary start policing the other two branches over such a fuzzy concept?

To be sure, there's a good discussion to be had about this, whether it should be the parliament or the judiciary that can rule over this, or both, and different countries have different balances in this area.

Generally speaking however, the law and especially the constitution is full of abstract and fuzzy concepts, and judges have ample experience in adjudicating those, as well as balancing them against each other. And don't come to me with alt-right reasoning about what is accurate, true or false. Basic truth isn't too hard to determine.

The main thing is that there should be checks and balances, especially on the executive branch, and currently the US is dismantling them in bulk.

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