15 + 10 points
The First Amendment by Marshall Electric
August 31st, 2008 1:30 PM
You have no natural rights beyond the right to think as you please, and even that is malleable given a tight enough control on what you are allowed to take in over the course of your experiences.
Rights are conditional upon the system in which you live. there can be "inalienable rights," i.e., guaranteed contractually with your citizenship in a particular nation, membership in a particular group, etc, but they are conditional upon your involvement with that organization. Hobbes said such a covenant would have to be unbreakable in order to guarantee any sort of security.
With that in mind, and the title of this task weighing in on my mind as a student of the law eager to make a difference in the lives of city-dwellers (though perhaps not strongly enough to be a card-carrying member of HC), I thought I might call up HQ with three legal descriptions of natural rights (and with them responsibilities).
The first is a pretty simple one: the aforementioned First Amendment of the United States Constitution. In reading it, I'm exercising, ostensibly, the natural right ensured / protected / enshrined / whatevered in the document itself. As a citizen, it's an inalienable right, but not a natural one, and therefore insufficient for completing this task.
Contrast that with the second recording, the First Amendment to the Chinese Constitution of 1982, which is still binding despite having gone through four amendment processes, the first in 1988. It acts as a guarantor of a right that is still rather amorphous and young in China: not free speech but the "private economy."
The third is by some hack writer, Bill Shakespeare, in what is revealed by the end of the trial in which it is uttered as a surprisingly honest attempt to dissuade a plaintiff from valuing the letter of the law over the rights it purportedly guarantees and protects.
In comparing and contrasting these documents as to the value of rights and justice, I have been able to exercise the right to think as I want to think, which, I hope, hasn't been too dampened by all this legal wrangling. Speaking of exercise, I think I'll do a few tasks outside for awhile, get to know my new city a little better.
Rights are conditional upon the system in which you live. there can be "inalienable rights," i.e., guaranteed contractually with your citizenship in a particular nation, membership in a particular group, etc, but they are conditional upon your involvement with that organization. Hobbes said such a covenant would have to be unbreakable in order to guarantee any sort of security.
With that in mind, and the title of this task weighing in on my mind as a student of the law eager to make a difference in the lives of city-dwellers (though perhaps not strongly enough to be a card-carrying member of HC), I thought I might call up HQ with three legal descriptions of natural rights (and with them responsibilities).
The first is a pretty simple one: the aforementioned First Amendment of the United States Constitution. In reading it, I'm exercising, ostensibly, the natural right ensured / protected / enshrined / whatevered in the document itself. As a citizen, it's an inalienable right, but not a natural one, and therefore insufficient for completing this task.
Contrast that with the second recording, the First Amendment to the Chinese Constitution of 1982, which is still binding despite having gone through four amendment processes, the first in 1988. It acts as a guarantor of a right that is still rather amorphous and young in China: not free speech but the "private economy."
The third is by some hack writer, Bill Shakespeare, in what is revealed by the end of the trial in which it is uttered as a surprisingly honest attempt to dissuade a plaintiff from valuing the letter of the law over the rights it purportedly guarantees and protects.
In comparing and contrasting these documents as to the value of rights and justice, I have been able to exercise the right to think as I want to think, which, I hope, hasn't been too dampened by all this legal wrangling. Speaking of exercise, I think I'll do a few tasks outside for awhile, get to know my new city a little better.
the first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
-william shakespeare, "henry vi, part 2," act iv, scene ii
Exercising your right to challenge the legitimacy of ordained rights, I like it.