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Comment by joe_the_user | Hacker News Reader

I only support civil disobedience for "human rights issues". That is the only thing really merits the term.

Things appearing as civil disobedience for money issue are virtually always terrible - as soon as "radicalism" or "iconoclastism" becomes a business, it's worst business.

Prohibition was a terrible policy but the people that fueled the defiance of prohibition were mobsters, scum that had a terrible and arguably on-going terrible effect on the country.

Even 1960s drug proponents became awful at the point they became drug dealers.

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Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights defines the right to work.

I'm not interested in casting Elon Musk as some sort of heroic figure, and if it turns out he has coerced his workers or endangered them in practice, not just theoretically, he should pay for that.

But the freedom to work is absolutely a human rights issue.

So, this quoting of Article 23 seems to considerably distort the intention of the article:

(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

What is described is something like the right to be considered for work if one is qualified. Maybe to the provision of work. But saying that this article guarantees a factory owner the right to restart that factory when they feel they'll be providing work along with making a profit, does not ring true.

In practice, meaning, let's let him kill a few of them before we jump to conclusions?

The ability to earn a living is a human right that no government can deprive you of without a good, specific reason and due process.

Oddly enough, in this case the local and state government does have a reason and did follow due process. A company that disagrees can sue -- more due process.

It all hinges on the reason and due process of course.

I read an amusing analogy, we have what we call the "Schrodinger's disease".

The government tries to protect me from the disease and suspects me of spreading the disease - all at the same time.

Even though I don't want that protection and I am not sick. Doesnt' matter, I have to oblige.

Have you been tested? Every day? You can't confidently say you're not infectious when a large proportion of cases are asymptomatic, or very mild. By all means be gung-ho about your own life, but your rights stop at the point they risk other people.

this is like saying have you regularly proven that you are not guilty of crimes?

It is really not how it should work at all.

Assuming everyone is infected at all times is both absurd and most importantly unworkable and counterproductive. The net effect is the opposite of what it wants to achieve.

You will never be able to confidently say you are not infectious of some disease.

Exactly. Which is why, when there is an epidemic of a dangerous disease, measures need to be implemented that assume that everybody is infectious unless proven otherwise.

No, that's not the point. If the small risk of someone dying from covid19 is enough to take away everyone's rights, what keeps your state from taking away your rights for a similarly flimsy reason, such as the risk that you will commit a crime?

Laws, constitutions, the legal system, and the ballot box.

Mature democracies should have the ability to carefully and responsibly limit some rights in times of great crisis, such as wars and pandemics.

This is essentially the same principle that says restaurants have to follow health regulations to prevent spreading disease.

Yes, you do. It's honestly not that complicated.

Depriving people of the right to earn a living regardless of their health status and regardless of their health practices (PPE, distancing in the workplace, sanitizing surfaces, air filtration) is absolutely not due process. It is the sort of arbitrary and absurd regulation which is quintessentially Californian. California has a history of depriving people of human rights without rhyme or reason; this is just furthering the trend.

> California has a history of depriving people of human rights without rhyme or reason; this is just furthering the trend.

[citation needed]

Why point the finger at California? The federal government has done so too.

Here are some examples:

* making it illegal for homeless people to exist in cities (loitering laws etc. when the homeless cannot help but break the law)

* taking away the right to bear arms as soon as black people started carrying firearms for self defense

* a long history of police brutality in the LAPD against minorities

* Los Angeles refusing to protect Asian Americans during race riots

* The California Dept of Labor refusing to enforce minimum wage laws regardless of the citizenship status of workers (only the federal government has to enforce border and immigration laws)

We're talking about California in this thread. If you want to talk about the federal government you're free to do so.

It is not a human right to earn a living.

And it is absolutely the right of a government to prevent you from working.

Many jobs requiring government approval for example a doctor, lawyer, builder.

"It is not a human right to earn a living."

The UNCHR has begged to differ since 1948. Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:

"Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human...

> to just and favourable conditions

One could argue that putting yourself or others at risk of infection is not a “just and favorable condition”

Governments do not have rights, period. They exist solely at the consent and continued pleasure of the governed (or should at least). That is to say, every human has rights, because they are an individual human. The rights of people are self-evident and stem solely from the fact that people are human.

Governments have no rights. There is nothing that is owed to them due to their existence as governments. Were a particular set of people not to form a government, no other government could rightfully enter to assert their 'right' to govern.

I'd love to hear black or brown people adopt this as their motto.

Same

Gandhi was brown, and his policy of civil disobedience was essentially based on the premise that a government only derives its legitimacy from the will of the people to be governed by it. Leading to the act of mass civil disobedience.

It shouldn't, unless your only purpose is damaging that individual, which sounds to me like a not very humane purpose.

Work is one of the main purposes and goals an individual may have, together with family. Denying that to anyone is simple and plain tyranny.

>It is not a human right to earn a living.

What gives you the right to decide that?

Governments have no rights.

Human beings have rights.

Well, the UN definition of "Human Rights" includes the "right to work"[1]. So one could argue that this is, in fact, a Human Rights issue. Just because this guy is a billionaire does not mean that these rights do not apply to him.

[1]https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/human-rights/

The full phrase is "the right to work in just and favourable conditions". Which concerns his workers too.

Though suggesting that Musk's "human rights" are being violated through closure of his car factory in the middle of a pandemic is making a complete joke out of both his argument and out of the concept of human rights.

Howard Roarke might disagree.

Yes I read the link before I posted it, I just didn't think the full phrase added anything to my response to the OP. :)

Anyway, I would think that being unable to open your own factory while your competitors are allowed to be open when you have done nothing wrong, would be quite "unjust and unfavorable". I mean it isn't like he can conduct this type of business from home instead.

Edit:

Here is the full sentence according to Article 23 from the Universal Declaration of Human rights:

1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. [1]

[1] https://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/en...

You are being completely disingenuous.

"Right to work" has a completely different meaning than "Right to work in just and favourable conditions".

The latter refers to the fact that IF you are working then it should be in a safe environment not that you have the right to work at all.

I am not being disingenuous in the least. I believe you are mis-interpreting the phrase.

Here it is in full form under Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. [1]

[1] https://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/en...

Paraphrasing here, but I very much read that as "Every human has the right to work in just and favourable conditions", not "Every corporation has a right to operate under equal economic treatment."

if your factory is closed while your competitors are allowed to be open that would definitely be unfair if all other relevant conditions about the factories were the same, in this case if they were in proximity to each other.

And just in case you're going to ask what proximity has to do with the matter of justice, it is because as his competitor's factories are located elsewhere than Alameda they fall under different jurisdiction, do his competitors ever have any regulation based on where they are located that they can then refuse to obey because Tesla's Alameda factory doesn't have to do it that way?

If there is unfairness here it is of the same sort of unfairness engendered by the world being a large globe with different climates, countries, governments, currencies, and cultures and where you choose to place your factory means your natural greatness of being must be hampered by the base restrictions of existence.

The irony of bringing up the right to work in a discussion about a US corporation wanting to reopen their plant. So is Tesla going to offer everyone who wants to work a job, because it's a human right? Exactly, that's not what the right to work is, neither does it mean that corporations can just be restart plants without care about regulations.

> Well, the UN definition of "Human Rights" includes the "right to work"[1]. So one could argue that this is, in fact, a Human Rights issue. Just because this guy is a billionaire does not mean that these rights do not apply to him

This nicely illustrates the folly of trying to reason about a situation from a pithy statement of some cherry-picked "right." Are we violating the "right to work"[1] of young children when we forbid them from quitting school getting a a factory job? Maybe, but it's pretty obvious that overriding factors are more important in that case. It's the same when we consider an employer who wants to "to work" employing his employees in conditions that some may consider unsafe.

No, because children don't have a right to work.

> No, because children don't have a right to work.

I'm not sure what point that's meant to make, but it supports what I was saying. You'd never be able to derive that exception from:

>>> Well, the UN definition of "Human Rights" includes the "right to work"[1].

There's loads of different competing rights, exceptions to those rights, and other social practices that need to be weighed to make a judgement a situation like this. Focusing too closely on reasoning about this one "right to work" ignores all that, and thus leads to less than enlightening conclusions.

Just as Freedom of Speech doesn't give one free license to spout hate speech or shout "fire" in a crowded theatre, one persons right to work isn't more important than another's right to life (or safety from a deadly pandemic).

I'm always amused to see people use the "fire in a crowded theater" analogy. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. coined the phrase in Schenck v. United States.[1] In that case, he sent a man to prison for the crime of leafleting against the draft in World War I.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States#The_C...

Minor nitpick: he didn’t send Schenck to prison. He was already in prison. The Supreme Court just kept him there.

The court case that gave us the "fire in a crowded theater" example was partially overturned by brandenburg vs ohio. It's not entirely clear which direction the court would come down right now.

Your first example is also impacted by this. General advocacy of violence was upheld as constitutionally protected speech, it's very unlikely that hate speech could ever meet the brandenburg test.

That's not to say that your point about one person's right to work vs another person's right to live is wrong. In fact, I think the court would likely agree with you on that matter. I just think your first couple of examples are flawed.

The ability to make money and to produce things is a basic human right though.

You can continue to make money and produce things in the food service industry. You cannot continue to do so in a nonessential industry in a manner that puts others at risk in a way that is costly to the state. Don't produce meth, and don't run a car factory before a pandemic has been contained.

That’s very much a false equivalency.

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