Individual rights

[Admin]

When your government is incompetent as all democratic governments are having basic rights meaning limitations of government power does limit the damage an incompetent government can do. For this to work the rights has to be clearly defined and also respected. If you live in a democracy you should put effort into promoting certain freedoms to limit the impact of public stupidity.

Individual rights you have on paper will is not a good protecting if the government actually wants to harm you, if this is the case they can always find some way to hurt you or lock you up, the system can easily be rigged against you such that winning becomes practically impossible.

If you belong to the ruling class controlling a country trying to protect people from their own stupidity shouldn't be your priority and thus you want to grant people citizen rights they will have at least on paper. These rights will not really apply universally, there will be many exceptions to them and thus they only offer the people you are ruling over a false sense of security.

 

[Admin]

Circumventing individual rights
0. downgrade citizen status to one that has fewer rights or no rights at all.
1. find some crime to pin on the individual.
2. declare the individual mentally ill and thus incapable of making their own decisions.
3. government custody of young people due to socially destructive behavior (up to age 21 in sweden).
4. take into custody just for being suspected of crime, the individual will suffer a lot even if he or she is not convicted.
5. take children away from the individual into government custody as psychological torture.
6. let non government actors harm the individual without consequences.
7. selectively drafting people to dangerous wars.

A lot of government power is indirect, the government can use the mere threat of 0 to 7 to make people comply.

 

[Admin]

Medical autonomy

A: Freedom do undergo a medical inrervention such as taking fentanyl.
B: Freedom to reject a medical intervention.

These are not equivalent, without freedom B authorities will be able torture you easily, they could easily kill you too but dont get your hopes up for that.

Currently we enjoy freedom B except when you are viewed as incapable (too young, viewed as mentally ill, etc). An infant cannot say no and this allow for very harmful practices such as genital mutilations.

Usually with medical interventions it first has to be approved by FDA and later you, then you need to get approved for it by a gatekeeping doctor and lastly you need to approve it yourself. You do however have the option to move to another place or breaking the law to get access to the medical treatment you need, a lot of trans individuals just resort to buying hormones online due to gatekeeping and waiting times.

 

[Admin]

The right to bear arms
While you want this right for yourself you do not want the same for a lot of other individuals, you do not want people who wants to harm you do be armed. You having a gun yourself will not prevent anyone from killing you with a sniper rifle from a distance, a "good guy with a gun" (whatever that is) will very often die to a bad guy with a gun.

It is sometimes claimed that armed citizens is a safeguard against tyranny but that has already been tried in united states and it didn't work at all, it only makes vigilante 'justice' easier which is one of the worst forms of mob rule.

Having a gun does allow you to easily kill yourself or fight to the death, this makes it more difficult for the government to torture you.

The fair solution is to implement a licensing system where you need to pass a test to be allowed to use a gun, this test should be difficult enough to prevent the typical idiot from obtaining a gun. The unfair solution is to just give out powerful guns to people you like and disarm everyone else.

 

[Admin]

Free speech
It's a right you want for yourself and it's also a right you want to have for other people, at least to the degree that allows them to spread important information to you and to allow the spread of important information to voters as a whole.

But it's also in your interest to limit the spread of harmful information, if a competent and good judicial system is in place we do want people prosecuted for spreading false information, otherwise people will be allowed to do a lot of harm. Truth does not typically win over falsehood in the so called "free market of ideas" instead what tend to win is things that appeals to the emotions of people even if its wrong.

No country on earth have absolute free speech but a lot of countries still have something close to free speech since governments are unwilling to prosecute people over speech. You also have the option of simply hiding your identity online and there are services such as tor that can be used for this. Most censorship by far in western countries is due to private platforms such as reddit censoring people.

https://reclaimthenet.org/reddit-censorship-attract-advertisers/

 

[Admin]

Due process
What due process means is that you are not supposed to be punished unless you meet a criteria for that decided by the government. A lot of countries claim you have that but it's just a facade, you dont need to be convicted of a crime to be locked up, a lot of people are locked up just because they are suspected of a crime while waiting for a trial, they end up suffering even if they are eventually acquired, they will also have to go through the trauma and stress that come with having to go to court.

In the US a lot of people end up taking plea bargain even when innocent of what they are accused of https://abovethelaw.com/2018/07/innocent-people-who-plead-guilty/

It's the norm that the law is written in a such way that authorities can lock up anyone up if they really want to, there are just too many laws and often they are vague so you can always find a crime to pin on the individuals, otherwise there is always psychiatry where a different standard is used "danger to yourself or others".

Courts are often claimed to be independent even though they are really not, members of the US supreme court are appointed by the president and approved by the senate, it is political appointments where people are vetted before to make sure they will vote in a way people with power like. In addition congress have the power to impeach and convict members of the supreme court (removal from office) or to pack the supreme court with more members just by passing a law.

 

[Leucosticte]

Due process
What due process means is that you are not supposed to be punished unless you meet a criteria for that decided by the government. A lot of countries claim you have that but it's just a facade, you dont need to be convicted of a crime to be locked up, a lot of people are locked up just because they are suspected of a crime while waiting for a trial, they end up suffering even if they are eventually acquired, they will also have to go through the trauma and stress that come with having to go to court.

What can happen is, they detain a guy pending trial, and then find reasons to keep pushing the trial date back (e.g. in my case, they kept asking for more mental health evaluations, which stopped the clock on the constitutional speedy trial requirement); and then he figures, "Well, I've accumulated so much time served, plus I'm in such a bad position to be trying to contest my case since I'm in jail, that I might as well just plead guilty at this point." Then people say, "Well, it's not a big deal that we detained him because the fact that he ultimately pleaded guilty means that he actually committed the crime anyway so therefore deserved to be locked up; whether that was before or after he was adjudged guilty doesn't really matter."

If a defendant is in jail, it's harder for him to proceed pro se, or continue working at his job to pay the legal bills, or try to find witnesses who will testify in his behalf. A lot of defendants will say, "I have this guy's number in my cell phone, who was there when the shooting went down and can testify that I'm innocent, but I can't get to my phone because I'm in jail, and unfortunately I don't know his last name, and he doesn't have a fixed address because he was living on someone else's couch in the trailer park." A public defender is not necessarily going to go try to chase down that lead; he doesn't have time because he has too many cases, but it would be easy for the defendant himself if he weren't detained.

Now they're trying to get rid of cash bail, which means that even if you have supportive friends or family who would put up the money to help you get out of jail, it won't help, because your detention will be based on the judge's assessment of how dangerous you are, how much of a flight risk, etc. The point of cash bail was to give you an incentive not to jump bail, because your money, or your friends' or family's money, would be forfeited if you didn't show up. Now that incentive is gone.

 

[Admin]

The right to vote
While you want to have the right to vote yourself there are plenty of individual that you do not want voting in the election. More people being allowed to vote dilutes the value of your vote and thus the probability of your vote actually changing anything will be even smaller.

You being allowed to vote will incentivize politicians from trying to get your vote but you are only one of maybe 8 million people who can vote in a national elections. You only need to win a majority (such as 175 of 349 seats) to take power, the only reason politicians cannot ignore large parts of the population is because other people care about them, when that changes you will see that you never had any real rights.

The American government do put effort into taking care of their non-voting territories such as Guam, the fact that people there cannot vote in national election hasn't resulted in them losing any individual right relative to voting states, the impact has been mostly economical and even that is rather limited.

 

[Leucosticte]

The American government do put effort into taking care of their non-voting territories such as Guam, the fact that people there cannot vote in national election hasn't resulted in them losing any individual right relative to voting states, the impact has been mostly economical and even that is rather limited.

Btw, why does the U.S. hold onto Puerto Rico; is it for use as a military outpost or what? We got rid of the Philippines because it seemed like too much of a liability to allow Filipinos to enter the mainland U.S. freely (normally, colonial powers will extend that privilege to the colonized; e.g. Gandhi was allowed also to travel to London and spend three years there).

Puerto Ricans, being considered Americans, are welcome to travel to the mainland too, but do we really want that. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/09/26/yes-puerto-rico-part-united-states/703273001/

 

[Admin]

About conscription
Instead having a professional army incompetent government often directly force males to work for the so called defense of the country, this may seem to be cheaper but in reality the true cost of it is just hidden.

https://mises.org/library/conscription-and-other-draconian-taxes

It's far more efficient to pay professional soldier, this also makes war less costly politically and it rewards capable fighters financially.

Conscription does however allow the government to punish or even kill people viewed as undesirable, they can simply be sent to die in a war somewhere and thus we get rid of these individuals, this works even if they are worse than useless in said war. It can also be used as a punishment (dangerous forced labor) do deter undesirable behavior.

What actually wins the war is having good weaponary and also being able to use powerful weapons such as nukes.

 

[Admin]

Privacy
One significant limit to government power is difficulties monitoring citizens, technology is a significant factor in this.

Banning/restricting the government from collecting data may not help in practice if private companies can do the same, with internet it's easy to spread any information even if the government tries to bad it, efforts to stop piracy hasn't been very successful so far, what actually worked was providing easy and affordable legal alternatives such as netflix.

It's likely that it will be possible to also directly look into people thoughts in the future making it though crime laws enforce bile. this may lead to increased psychiatric abuse since you would no longer be able to pretend not to hear voices or think the government is targeting you.

 

[Admin]

Cruel and unusual punishments
By subjecting your citizens to cruel and unusual punishments you will be able to more efficiently control them and thus there will no longer be any need for expensive jails, few if any people will have to be locked up in institutions.

By having more tools of your disposal as a judge you will better be able to make an individual become a functional member of society, this may include forced feminization in order to drastically reduce their testosterone and allow them to live a better life as a female.

Giving out these unusual punishments will provide value in the form of entertainment for everyone else, the purpose is humiliation for public amusement and deterrent.

 

[Admin]

Consequences of successfully limiting government power
By promoting libertarian vaues you will be able to weaken the ability of a government to excess social control and this will make it easier for you to yourself gain control, you do however run the risk of the current rulers losing power to people even more problematic instead of you gaining control.

The vintologi power law dictates that while you can enjoy freedom for some time eventually it will have to come to an end.

 

[Admin]

Inclusion criteria for individual rights
Individual freedoms cannot apply to everyone. At the start of your life you will be in a state of helplessness and you will depend completely on people around you, they have to make good decisions for you, in addition you may find yourself later in life where you are incapable of proper decision making.

More clear critera for getting certain rights will make it more difficult for authorities to take freedoms away from people they view as problematic. Mental health criteria are ideal for arbitrarily depriving people of rights, if the individual disagree with his diagnosis that is a sign he lack insight in his illness and this can justify involuntary psychiatric treatments. Things such as IQ-tests are more scientific and less subjective and thus less appealing to rulers.

'human rights' are supposed to apply to all humans but it's not clear exactly what counts as a human and these things will not actually be respected by governments.