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Comment by ramblerman | Hacker News Reader

As a european who is not always very fond of the US, this is ridiculous, and lazy thinking.

The amount of generalization and black and white simplifications to come up with such a thing is impressive though.

And yet, in this very thread there are discussions, presumably by Americans, about whether human rights “afforded” to people only apply to citizens or all humans.

They are literally arguing if “people” only means US citizens.

The Bill of Rights affords citizens protections from their government. They weren't written as inalienable human rights. So it has long been debated whether those protections are owed to non-citizens.

Yes, those are exactly the types of disturbing discussions I was talking about.

> We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

The USA was founded on the premise that human rights applied to all. When any governing entity no longer respects those rights, it's time to turf the bums out and start again.

The current government of the USA, at the urging of a self-selected elite among its supporting citizens, believes those inalienable human rights only apply to a select few. These are the conditions outlined in the Declaration of Independence as reason to overthrow the current regime.

There is well-documented historical precedence. Tread lightly.

While I agree with your point, I need to point out that the Declaration of Independence generally isn't used in case law.

It seems like it would provide quite a bit of relevant background to originalist interpretations of the constitution, and those are fairly common.

Originalism as a legal doctrine means looking at the original meaning of words in the Constitution. It explicitly rejects as too wishy-washy trying to figure out the intent behind laws from other writings and using that to decide what they mean.

> Some people would give the Declaration greater weight, as a reflection of values that inspired the Constitution, and thus of values that we should read into the Constitution even if they are not expressly there in the Constitution's text. But I am skeptical. The two documents are very different. The Declaration is fundamentally a rhetorical document, meant to persuade the world -- and more immediately and significantly, to persuade wavering Americans -- that the revolutionaries' cause was just. The Constitution is fundamentally a legal document, meant to spell out a form of government to which Americans would be bound, and by which that government would be bound. Perhaps the Constitution implemented the rhetorical ideals of the Declaration, but perhaps it didn't (and perhaps it was the worse for that). The way to see if the Constitution implemented the ideals of the Declaration is to look at the Constitution's text, not to assume that it did.

https://originalismblog.typepad.com/the-originalism-blog/201... (Note: Blog by UC San Diego prof.)

> The USA was founded on the premise that human rights applied to all.

I agree with you, but when those words were written, slavery was still one of the cornerstones of the American economy and women didn't have the right to vote.

Should the protections afforded by the constitution apply to all people? Of course. But legally, the US has a longstanding tradition of denying certain rights to certain people.

Slavery and suffrage were eventually fixed. perhaps it's revisionist, but I'm told most founders wanted it one way, and wrote non binding language such as this, while punting legal battles to actually implement these principles in favor of diplomacy.

> When any governing entity no longer respects those rights, it's time to turf the bums out and start again.

Interesting that you read it that way. I read it as when YOUR governing entity no longer respects YOUR rights, it's time to turf the bums out and start again.

Yeah, everyone has the rights, but not everybody has the same government. The People are not random people, they are citizens.

That document declared "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights"... which part of that says only some men are created equal, or only citizens were endowed by their Creator, or that maybe some Rights are inalienable?

I see no room in the wording of the founding statement of the USA to read into it that it's OK for an administration to treat some people like shit as long as it's only certain groups. I only get the sentiment that if the administration treats anyone wrong (for a strictly definition of wrong), it's time for them to go.

As soon as it becomes OK to discriminate between those with inalienable rights and those without based on privileges like "citizenship" then it becomes easy to redefine or revoke such privileges at will. There is plenty of historic precedence for just that. The only legitimate reading of 'all' is all, not some or a few or all citizens.

No, everyone has the rights. The point isn't that only citizens do, the point is that only citizens get to say how their government functions. If you're a citizen of another country, you get to say how THAT country is governed, but not mine.

And thus slavery was legal.

Do you think slavery should be legal?

Really I am pretty sure that they do apart from oddities like restriction son roles like the president

Every country in the world makes a distinction between rights/privileges/protections they afford their own citizens vs non-citizens within their borders.

Canada's Bill of Rights does not restrict those rights and protections to citizens except for political rights such as running for office and voting. The right to due process in particular, is considered universal in Canada.

Other countries take a similar approach to rights.

Yes, there exist rights that Canada recognizes in everyone, just like there are rights the US recognizes in everyone. There are also rights it recognizes for a smaller class of persons. Just like I said before.

The US constitution makes the same delination, with the majority of the document outlining the limits of government power. It is only because some people want to strip others of constitutional protection that they argue about who it covers. Everyone gets freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, etc.

He is far from being the only one to have this feeling. I once intended to even base my business there, but at this point I do not want to have anything to do with this country. This is not lazy thinking, this is exactly the opposite. This is finally catching up with reality and moving beyond hollywood movies and the American dream propaganda.

Your comment is devoid of argument.

So is yours.

Indeed, because I'm not arguing any position in the debate, but offering an observation whose truthfulness anyone can judge on their own.

The parent, on the other hand, was responding to someone in an attempt to prove them wrong. By not saying anything that engaged with what the grandparent said, they failed at that.

So I know what I am, but what are you?

I wish the US would do better too. But the US is not that bad. It's ranked 17 on the human freedom index, along side Sweden.

Just saying, where do you live?

(I'm not American, and I wish they did better, but it's not that bad)

We are running concentration camps with 70000 children currently. We elected an almost-Nazi with routinely espoused almost-Nazi views who had a total information awareness intelligence apparatus at his fingertips. We have demonstrated legal facilities for "enemy combatants", "extraordinary rendition", offshore torture, treating an american citizen as a terrorist so they can be denied their constitutional rights.

Most of that is from the Bush administration. The parent's declaration would have been slightly paranoid in that regime, but with this one, it is arguably a bit mild. The statement should now be that no country should be dealing with the USA.

The parent's sentiment might have been somewhat outrageous

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