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this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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Eh. Just because some compromise is bad does not mean all compromises are bad. Every situation is unique, and it's not like compromise is murder or something.
Democracy outranks human rights. The human rights were put there in the first place by the democracy, and can be amended by it as well. It completely outranks them, unless you believe they are "god-given" or something.
This is why compromise within your own political system, in certain cases, retains value. If your faction is not strong enough, as trans folks in international chess probably aren't, then it's a tacit acknowledgement of your right to exist.
Assuming the previous position was an outright ban, anyway. I don't actually know if it was or not.
Just have to chime in here.
Human rights are fundamental and intrinsic. They can't be "outranked."
Legislating for them and enforcing them is due to institutions such as governments (and in an international context the ICC if, say, the government has become genocidal).
Right. Which is why they're doing the uyghurs so much good right now. Those intrinsic rights sure are protecting them.
Point being, they're only intrinsic because we say so.
I think I see what's going wrong in this conversation.
By definition, "rights" can be legal, social, or ethical.
To you, they are only a legal thing and if they don't exist in law or custom, then to you they don't exist.
But to me, (and others here) they also have an ethical dimension and exist as an ethical value independent of the legal or social useage.
Saying ethics depend on laws and customs would be moral relativism (which is a tricky thing to hold for most people, because of the implications around stuff like child rape and murder being ok if everyone was doing it).
I agree. I explicitly said I'm only referring to which one is functionally more powerful.
I would point to history though, to show thousands of years where rape and child murder were considered just fine, in certain circumstances. You had to be conquering a city or something, but then it wasn't too unusual to murder and sell the population into slavery.
Ethics, in its entirety, is also one of our creations. We all tacitly agree to something of a unified code of ethics that we follow to keep our societies running smoothly. This code, unless it was given by some divine structure, though, remains one of our constructions, through whatever governmental/organizational structure we exist in.
Just curious, are you pointing to history because you are adhering to moral relativism (i.e you think that doing those things was just fine because so many people thought it was)?
No, I am not describing my personal beliefs, merely arguing what I perceive to be an objective position. I think the idea that right and wrong can exist outside of people's judgements is a little silly, honestly. I am not a philosopher though, admittedly.
I'm actually not trying to argue with you, @Candelestine, just trying to work out what your perceived "objective position" is so I can understand you. It does kind of sound like moral relativism if you think "wrong" is only a construct.
If that's the case, I can see why you don't believe in inalienable human rights.
So, I guess I don't. I give people inalienable rights, but I do not think they exist outside of our opinions. We choose the things we value, and some things make more sense to value than others.
This is why it remains so important to fight for the rights of people. Because otherwise we will not necessarily receive them.
Thanks for explaining your position. One nitpick, if rights only exist when/where they are given, then they can't be "inalienable". You believe rights are alienable (able to be removed).
But I agree with you totally about the importance of fighting for rights to be extended politically, recognised and not violated.
In the end, it doesn't much matter whether you think people have rights from an ethical point of view or if you just think they should be given them - we both want the same outcome.
The only problem arises if there is a group of people you want to take human rights away from.
Those Uyghurs had and have rights whether the Chinese government knows it or not. Bad things happening doesn't make those things suddenly not-bad.
The sky is only blue because we decided on the word "blue" for that frequency of light, and there's plenty of other things that are the way they are just because we say so.
And if this isn't just a "I just don't think 'rights' are the correct word" semantic argument for you here, please refer back to the first two sentences.
I don't recall any part of the bill of rights saying "this doesn't apply in cases where it's unpopular"
The whole thing was put there via voting. It's the first ten amendments to the constitution.
It's the law of the land. Democracy does not mean you can ignore laws you disagree with.
I mean, a) no, a whole ass war's worth of violence was a necessary element, b) we don't let a simple majority vote change those fundamental human rights, we make amending our constitution very difficult and put important stuff in there that probably shouldn't be changed for a reason
Well, yea, the war put the voting system in place. After some initial hiccups getting started, the bill of rights was one of the first things voted on.
Just because the amendment process is difficult does not make it undemocratic. Note, I'm trying to be objective here, not say that one is more valuable or important than another. Simply that one is functionally more powerful.