Are your rights increasing?

[Fly320s]

If you made a list of your rights 30 years ago and today, would you say that list is increasing or decreasing?  Define "rights" in your own way.

[Perd Hapley]

I'll start by taking things piecemeal.

Rights increasing:

On gun rights, most jurisdictions are better than they were 30 years ago. My right to carry is not really respected, in that I have to ask permission, but I at least can exercise my right (very carefully  ) in most of the U.S. (not in federal buildings, Illinois as a non-resident, etc.)

On sexuality, I now have the right to bugger other dudes, or get legally married to them, in some places, and expect domestic partner benefits. I would argue that the last two aren't really rights anyone should expect to have, because reality, but I can do those things if I wish.

If I were a chick, I could serve in certain military MOSs where I couldn't before. Not sure if I regard that as an actual right, either, but there it is.

On campaign finance, Citizens United increased my rights, but I don't know if I would have had those rights in 1984. Anyone know?


Rights decreasing:

Kelo decision - nuff said

Minimum wages have increased, placing a further restriction on the rights of employers and employees to freely negotiate wages. Unless it could be argued that inflation/cost of living outpaced the increases, so it's really a net zero, or gain?

Sexual orientation, in some places, has been added to the list of untouchables, along with race, gender, etc. In the private sphere, this is a loss of freedom.

Less latitude in choosing health care plans.

Charitable organizations now barred from operating as adoption services, unless they will agree with the Priesthood the Left on same-sex issues.


Will add more as I think of them.

[Ben]

I think I have more rights, but fewer freedoms.

[Perd Hapley]

I think I have more rights, but fewer freedoms.

And you liberty has been constant? 

[Ben]

And you liberty has been constant? 

I pretty much equate liberty to freedom. What's your definition of it?

Your example of more firearms rights falls into my definition of "rights" as in constitutional rights. When I talk about freedoms, I mean day to day freedoms that I find becoming less and less as more laws, regulations, prohibitions, etc. are passed.

For instance, local laws can make it difficult or impossible for me to exercise some rights that I could freely exercise in another locale. It's more along the lines of the US changing from a place where, to paraphrase,  "unless something is strictly forbidden it is allowed", to "unless something is specifically allowed it is forbidden". You can have the same rights in either scenario,  but more difficulty exercising those rights in the latter one.

[Bigjake]

Things have gotten better since I've been old enough to notice,  but the AWB going away and our state finally getting CCW don't count as an increase in my book.  Those were freedoms that we either had at one point and lost,  or our state gov was wrong in the first place.

[Ron]

Property = even more disregard for private property rights from the all ready deplorable state they were in back then. Property rights are a joke. Most of us land owners are nothing more than renters from the government. My tax bill on "my" property is higher than my mortgage. I'm a renter paying the bank and the government. Most "owners" are in the same boat. The more valuable your land the more "uncle sugar" charges you. Even "owning" your property free and clear means a lifetime of paying rent to the government.  

Life = widespread abortion, government can kill Americans deemed enemies without due process or consequences. We (the USA) have been killing thousands of "others" per year for quite some time now. How long before "we" discover "others" amongst us?  

Liberty = mixed bag but overall liberty is down down down. It is nearly impossible to travel from point A to point B without several layers of government permission, fees and requirements for proper forms of ID. Seeking license to do something is to acknowledge you need someones permission.

While those who wish are better armed than ever before we have all had to ask permission; not really a well functioning right. It has been trending the correct direction though. Seeking license to do something is to acknowledge you need someones permission.

Many view the perversion of the word marriage to include gay couples as an expansion of rights. They are living in an Orwellian reality. Leaving aside the obvious point that marriage has been a male/female(s) relationship since the dawn of recorded history and has been primarily a religious institution; let's consider the more modern argument. Let's "keep government out of the bedroom". We do this by inviting government into having a legal standing with you and your lover by asking the governments permission and sanction to be a "legal" couple?! Seeking license to do something is to acknowledge you need someones permission.

Who ultimately has authority over your children? I think you folks blessed with children are allowed to keep them at the pleasure of the state. If you buck the state program of "socialization" and "education" too aggressively their real keepers will be a little more active in your life.

Ahh fudge it, the whole thing is just depressing  

Eat, drink, make merry, love others, doing unto them as you would have them do unto you.

All the rest is just a distraction and empty meaninglessness.        

[Perd Hapley]

I pretty much equate liberty to freedom. What's your definition of it?

I was just bringing up another word that people use interchangeably. "Rights," "freedom," and "liberty" mean the same thing to most people. There are supposed to distinctions between the words, but the differences have always been a little fuzzy to me.

Eat, drink, make merry, love others, doing unto them as you would have them do unto you.

I at first read that as "make merry love to others." You libertine.

[Ben]

I was just bringing up another word that people use interchangeably. "Rights," "freedom," and "liberty" mean the same thing to most people. There are supposed to distinctions between the words, but the differences have always been a little fuzzy to me.

To me as well. Probably an overall negative on our abilities to exercise them that we can't distinctly define them. Just a guess, but they probably weren't as nebulous some 200 years ago.

[Tallpine]

Ahh fudge it, the whole thing is just depressing 

My sentiments 

Probably most of you have more rights than 30 years ago because kindergartners don't have many rights 

Let's see ... I could drive through Canada to Alaska and back without a passport.
I could get on an airplane without being strip searched.
I could drive somewhere without checkpoints, and without being stopped and all my property stolen because I was driving the wrong color car on the wrong highway.
I could sleep at night not wondering if some goons were going the bust down my door and kidnap me because my electric bill was too high, or somebody couldn't write down an address correctly.
I could do a jillion things without wondering what arcane regulation I was infracting.........

[Monkeyleg]

In total, I'd say that I have fewer rights. A bit over 30 years ago I was doing wedding photography to get a down payment for a house. If I were doing that today, and a gay couple asked me to shoot their wedding, I wouldn't be able to say no. Maybe I would have said yes 30 years ago anyway (but would have thought it was unusual), but today I have no choice.

On gun rights, I didn't have to undergo a federal background check, and there were full-auto versions of every shoulder-fired weapon ever used by our military available for private purchase with a Form 4. Today I can't buy a real full auto M4 or other military goodies. Wisconsin finally got concealed carry after I left, but getting it was a major battle.

On property rights, it's not just Kelo. I can't have a 2 gallon toilet tank. There's a long list of other things to go with that.

I can't drive without a seatbelt, even though I was promised up and down that seat belts would never be a primary violation.

Apparently my Fourth Amendment rights have shrunken, given the actions of the NSA, and of the Boston Police during the search for the Marathon bombing suspects. Don't remember when no-knock warrants got the court okay, but it was probably within the last 30 years.

Apparently my Seventh Amendment rights have been eroded, at least as far as Obama and drones are concerned.

If I still had my photo studio, and if I still smoked, I wouldn't be able to smoke in my own building.

It goes on and on, but I'd have to say decreasing.

[Ben]

So I'm finding the definition of rights, freedoms, and liberty, as fistful and I discussed briefly above very interesting. We all seem to have different definitions that all somewhat merge the three words together in some way, yet also apply them differently. I see some people mentioning "rights" that would include things like driving a car. That, to me, is not a "right", but I should have the liberty, or freedom, to do so, and I see much of my freedom to do so eroded.

Monkeyleg's example on the 7th Amendment, is a good one (to me) of an eroded or curtailed right. Ron's example on "owning" property and yet having to give a tithe to the government to do so becomes harder for me to define. Is owning land my God given right? Or is it a freedom I should enjoy in the United States based on our constitutional and capitalist philosophy?

[Perd Hapley]

Your right to drive a car stems from your rights to life, liberty, and the purfuit of happiness. Not to mention your right to property, which would include a right to buy stuff, like cars.

You have a right to use the means to enjoy these rights. That is, driving a car from point A to point B, in order to move your property (including yourself) here and there, survey your acreage, pursue happiness (well-being, success, etc), and generally to be free (right to liberty). As a matter of civil rights, you have a right to use public thoroughfares, subject to the agreed-upon rules under which those roads are meant to operate.

Does that make sense?

[BlueStarLizzard]

I would say, as Americans, we would/should define "rights" based on that there bit of paper that got tacked on to our constitution.

And I would say decreasing. The 2nds been jeperdized since way before I was born. You guys have already illistrated the damage done to 4 and 7.

The one that scares me is 1st. It has been steadly erroded over the past decade into feel good BS and it's getting worse. Freedom of religion has been pretty much toasted. Freedom of the press, well, I don't know how much of that has been .gov influance and how much is $$ influanced, but at this point it's gotten so tangled up I doubt we could really say definitivly wiether we did this to the press or the .gov did it to them. The internet has mediated the effect, but to exercise the freedom it takes a lot more effort. Fredom of Speech? Ha! Only if the person you are speaking too doesn't get their feelings hurt or is sane enough not to call the authorities if you say something that offends them. Our speech is no longer dictated by our peers on an informal social level (e.i. You say something offensive, get ostrizised, ignored or ridiculed) but modulated by reprocussions like lawsuits, public censour from .gov officials and, in some cases, federal charges.

[Ben]

You have a right to use the means to enjoy these rights.

Does that make sense?

That makes more sense to me in the "rights" department -- as in, some property or physical construct is the device that allows me to execute a right, versus the device or physical construct being a right in itself.

[Ron]

Regarding property as a right.

Thou shalt not steal becomes a meaningless statement without some concept of ownership being a right.

Property in a certain respect is the primary form of currency or money. More often than not our property represents an investment of our time ie our very life. If you devote a certain percentage of your life to accumulate stuff and then a bunch of others come along and vote to take away that stuff from you they have stolen some of your life/time ultimately.

Of course none of us are an island and there is a social contract in civilization. At some point though that contract has been breached and it's no longer a mutual agreement but instead a coercive arrangement where the many dictate the terms to the individual, or else.

Our control over everything we "own" is at the pleasure of government; our labor, inheritance, land, investments, vehicles even our bodies and life. Everything in your household including your children are only yours until the government comes and says "no it's not". The encroaching police state and war on terror/undeclared marshal law allows suspension of many of our assumed rights if we are deemed a dangerous other or person of interest by some bureaucrat etc. All without due process of law.

Obama, Reid and Pelosi and their republican analogues own your asses.

[Doggy Daddy]

On "rights, liberty, and freedom."

Off the top of my head, I would say using the word "right" is most appropriate when it involves the possibility of my action affecting or depending upon another person providing support, or substance or forbearance for my exercise of it.

"Liberty", when it refers to a state of not being constrained in my actions by another.  And "freedom" when it refers to my state of not being controlled by another.

Again, that's just my quick take on the shades of difference.  I look forward to other insights/opinions.

[Ben]

Also I guess another way to look at it is that there is the generic definition of "rights" and there are RIGHTS as in our unalienable rights. In the latter regard, to answer the OP, we have neither gained nor lost rights. Our ability to freely exercise them without fear of physical, legal, or other repercussions has certainly been negatively affected in the years since the signing of the constitution.

Those unalienable rights have always been there and can't be taken away, nor do we haphazardly add to them because someone wants to be inclusionary about  the "right of the week".