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Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

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Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#171
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The right to free speech, conscience, affiliation , assembly and other political freedoms mean we need to tolerate and protect the proverbial nazis’ rights to try and spread their politics. Bitter pill for anyone scared of a proverbial nazi takeover. Nazi's are an easy target. The problem starts when things are not as clean cut -- when actual politics are involved, as opposed to crude stuff like "exterminate all je…

I don't see why any of those are problematic, all should be protected as free speech. Speech is not violence, it does not have victims and thus should not be in any way a crime no matter how repugnant. No speech should ever be banned.

>I don't see why any of those are problematic, all should be protected as free speech.

Well, the CPUSA wasn't.

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#172
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The right to free speech, conscience, affiliation , assembly and other political freedoms mean we need to tolerate and protect the proverbial nazis’ rights to try and spread their politics. Bitter pill for anyone scared of a proverbial nazi takeover. Nazi's are an easy target. The problem starts when things are not as clean cut -- when actual politics are involved, as opposed to crude stuff like "exterminate all je…

I don't see why any of those are problematic, all should be protected as free speech. Speech is not violence, it does not have victims and thus should not be in any way a crime no matter how repugnant. No speech should ever be banned.

Who would downvote this without explaining themselves?

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The right to free speech, conscience, affiliation , assembly and other political freedoms mean we need to tolerate and protect the proverbial nazis’ rights to try and spread their politics. I'm not convinced I know how I feel about this. I want to believe this is a false dichotomy. Can we have limits in polite society ? I keep thinking of the paradox of tolerance [1], which states, in brief, that if a society is to…

Are we really to the point where Nazi ideologies are spreading like wildfire, to the point that their "intolerance" will be seized by our "tolerance?" To me it seems like the opposite is happening. Nazi ideologies are marginalized and meaningless, yet propped up like some huge threat to us... like they might take over. And this is being used as justification for limiting free speech, in a hyper-politically correct so…

I would argue we have gone the other way: we are so busy stomping down Nazi like ideologies that the stomping it down has become as bad of hate speech as the Nazis were.

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#174
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody disputes that the Bill of Rights is not exhaustive. Unfortunately, that is not true. Robert Bork famously disputed it, even going so far as to deny the validity of the ninth amendment. Many conservatives support Bork's position today, e.g.: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/336142/judge-borks-ink... They do this because it's a logical pre-requisite for overturning Roe v. Wade.

That's not an honest depiction of the situation for 2 reasons. 1. If the 9th amendment is interpreted to mean the courts can declare anything they think is a right, it allows unlimited power. "The Ninth Amendment obviously does not create federally enforceable rights." 2. Overturning Roe v. Wade wouldn't require much legal logic, except the precedent has been upheld several times. Without that, you could question any…

> If the 9th amendment is interpreted to mean the courts can declare anything they think is a right, it allows unlimited power.

No, that's not true. The court can't just decide anything it wants. It can only decide cases that come before it. Before the court gets to decide anything there is a very long drawn-out process that filters out a lot of crap. Furthermore, the court has to decide on the basis of the arguments and evidence presented to it. The court can't just invent a new right out of whole cloth; it has to be on the basis of evidence that it is a right "retained by the people" who are, after all, the ultimate authority on everything, at least in theory.

> Overturning Roe v. Wade wouldn't require much legal logic, except the precedent has been upheld several times.

You undermine your own argument in the second half of this sentence. That's like saying, "Tearing down the pyramids at Giza wouldn't be very hard, except for moving all the stones." To overturn Roe you have to figure out why the original conclusion was wrong, and why all of the subsequent confirmations were wrong. That is not so easy.

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#175
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean?

Well, gay people cannot marry, so that's definitely not everybody.

Right, that's a big blot right now. I am hopeful this is going to change sooner than later, maybe through fierce campaigning.

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#176
post #74

A lot of conversations about expanding rights, end up with a distinction between positive and negative rights. A right to water, is different to free speech. For everyone to have a right to water, someone needs to provide the water or be held accountable for not providing it. A default, state culprit needs to be designated. Privacy though, privacy is like speech or equality before the law or presumption of innocence.…

> A lot of conversations about expanding rights, end up with a distinction between positive and negative rights. Correct. Right to a fair trail is also a positive right. To uphold it, the state must pay for a lawyer if you don't have one, the state must pay for enough judges (& associated costs) to ensure your trail isn't delayed ("Justice delayed is justice denied" and all that). > The right to free speech, conscien…

"Plenty of legal systems have those rights, and also ban nazis or similar groups. It's not an either/or."

They are mistaken. Free speech and free association are not extant when books are banned or ideas are outlawed.

It is an either/or and all historical evidence serves to confirm this.

If you want blowfish source to not be a munition you need to put up with the Westboro Baptists.

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#177
post #9

As an aside, this is a decent example of why some people oppose bills of rights. As I understand it, the argument is that a bill of rights is considered exhaustive; if it's not in the bill, it's not protected. By contrast, countries without a bill of rights are free to interpret their constitutions through implied rights, in ways that make sense in the context and allow the constitution to adapt to new or developing…

"3B. Life and personal liberty are not creations of the Constitution. These rights are recognised by the Constitution..."

Similar ideas underlie the thought of the founders of the American constitution. The most fundamental rights are inherent- they do not need to be recognized separately. By including privacy among these rights, the Indian Supreme Court is making it more fundamental than e.g. freedom of speech or assembly.

Although I am far away and unaffected, I find this enormously encouraging. In a decade or two, the most populous country in the world will be a democracy with a fundamental respect for human life and liberty.

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The right to free speech, conscience, affiliation , assembly and other political freedoms mean we need to tolerate and protect the proverbial nazis’ rights to try and spread their politics. I'm not convinced I know how I feel about this. I want to believe this is a false dichotomy. Can we have limits in polite society ? I keep thinking of the paradox of tolerance [1], which states, in brief, that if a society is to…

Are we really to the point where Nazi ideologies are spreading like wildfire, to the point that their "intolerance" will be seized by our "tolerance?" To me it seems like the opposite is happening. Nazi ideologies are marginalized and meaningless, yet propped up like some huge threat to us... like they might take over. And this is being used as justification for limiting free speech, in a hyper-politically correct so…

"Are we really to the point where Nazi ideologies are spreading like wildfire, to the point that their "intolerance" will be seized by our "tolerance?""

You're thinking about it a little backwards - here's a fascinating example of the paradox of tolerance:

Proposition 8, in California (2008)[1] was a ballet initiative that proposed that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California".

Proposition 8 passed and the post mortem indicated that black and latino/hispanic voters (who are not politically progressive in the manner of coastal californians) voted (overwhelmingly, in the case of blacks) in favor of the proposition - so much so as to be a deciding factor in its passage.[2][3][4]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008...

[2] http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2008/11/70-of-african-...

[3] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/8/blacks-hispan...

[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2013/03/26/ho...

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why any of those are problematic, all should be protected as free speech. Speech is not violence, it does not have victims and thus should not be in any way a crime no matter how repugnant. No speech should ever be banned.

> I don't see why any of those are problematic, all should be protected as free speech. Well, the CPUSA wasn't.

It should have been, but people get irrational when they're afraid.

Re: Right to Privacy a Fundamental Right, Says Indian Supreme Court

#180
post #176
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of conversations about expanding rights, end up with a distinction between positive and negative rights. Correct. Right to a fair trail is also a positive right. To uphold it, the state must pay for a lawyer if you don't have one, the state must pay for enough judges (& associated costs) to ensure your trail isn't delayed ("Justice delayed is justice denied" and all that). > The right to free speech, conscien…

"Plenty of legal systems have those rights, and also ban nazis or similar groups. It's not an either/or." They are mistaken. Free speech and free association are not extant when books are banned or ideas are outlawed. It is an either/or and all historical evidence serves to confirm this. If you want blowfish source to not be a munition you need to put up with the Westboro Baptists.

> Free speech and free association are not extant when books are banned or ideas are outlawed.

I mean, is this just arguing about the definition of the term "free speech"? It's not hard to think of easy examples, like the "shouting fire in a crowded theater" or "revealing military secrets to the enemy at times of war" or "libel" or "slander". By necessity, we accept that there are restrictions.

In general I favor a generous standard, where to disallow certain types of speech you need to carve out a compelling case -- the default should be that speech (and speech-like things) should not be forbidden. But stating it as a naked tautology is not helpful because it acknowledges none of the nuance.

> all historical evidence serves to confirm this

Once again, if we're just talking definitions, then sure, any place or time where books are banned or ideas are outlawed is not practicing free speech. But I think you'd be hard-pressed, given the exceptions above, to ever find a place in history where this was practiced.

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