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Comment by canoebuilder | Hacker News Reader

and in fact, for rights to be meaningful at all, they must be qualified, since there are always cases where a right reaches a point of tension with another right

What? I have never heard anything like that at all. Rights are absolute.

That sounds like it is coming from the "Sure free speech is fine, so long as it doesn't offend me," crowd.

it's proposing vaccination as a condition of participating in things that people can opt out of.

People here are generally highly attuned to one of the big surveillance ad corps trying to massage people into accepting some invasion of their personal sovereignty, how is this different? You think if something like this is accepted there won't be pushes to go further?

If this infrastructure is put in place, it will be abused, and it will coopted for other things.

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> What? I have never heard anything like that at all.

Sure you have. It's embedded in the common phrase (invoked earlier) about the right to swing a fist ending at the edge of people's noses. Or in the oft-invoked expression about yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Or the frequent refrain about rights being paired with responsibilities.

> You think if something like this is accepted there won't be pushes to go further?

We don't have to "think" it, we can point to historic and present examples where like compulsory actions existed without devolving into totalitarianism because we have a society shaped by people who understood it's possible to have both substantial general protections and specific exceptions.

>We don't have to "think" it, we can point to historic and present examples where like compulsory actions existed without devolving into totalitarianism...

If there are, that should be the exceptions, rather than the norm.

Also, the parent asked if there won't be "pushes". So the implication is that there will be an overwhelming push in that direction, and very weak countering "pull" in the opposite direction.

And it is clear what direction it will ultimately go. So that is the danger in setting a precedent. So that further pushes in a "bad" direction will require much less effort, and only matter of time it is accepted to be the "new normal"..

The precedents you're invoking as fearsome are scattered over a century old, some older. Past vaccination requirements have been examined and upheld -- all without leading to an overwhelming push to eliminate general autonomy.

So the idea that "it is clear what direction it will ultimately go" is... kinda correct, actually. It is clear that general autonomy can remain a valued principle with specific exceptions. It is clear that they are the exceptions rather than the norm. And that the pull in the other direction isn't weak.

> It is clear that general autonomy can remain a valued principle with specific exceptions.

Sure. It is the ever increasing number of "specific exceptions" that people should be worried about.

> What? I have never heard anything like that at all. Rights are absolute.

1A text: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." [0]

So is the right to the freedom of speech absolute? Not according to the body authorized to definitively interpret the law, the Supreme Court, which ruled that laws abridging the freedom to defame people through speech or press are constitutional.

Thus the right to the freedom of speech has limits and is not absolute.

"In United States constitutional law, false statements of fact are statements of fact (as opposed to points of law) that are false. Such statements are not always protected by the First Amendment. This is usually due to laws against defamation, that is making statements that harm the reputation of another." [1]

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_Unite...

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_statements_of_fact

There is a rich literature about the origins/generation/properties of “human rights.”

As an easy example: how do you reconcile that rights are absolute with the over-used “can’t shout fire in a theatre” case that curtails freedom of speech. Many would argue that rights must be qualified, or exist in relationship with each other. All of these are humanist arguments, mind you. Nobody is trying to throw human rights out with the humans.

> Rights are absolute.

Incorrect.

https://www.theusconstitution.org/news/there-are-no-absolute...

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