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Comment by bmelton | Hacker News Reader

I think the bigger challenge is the rhetoric that "there are no absolute rights" and its pervasive use in furthering the erosion of civil liberties.

While I'm inclined to agree with the rhetoric, it's important to understand that "not absolute" !== "not protected", and are constantly using tropes like fire in a theater as an excuse for banning insensitive speech and such.

A lot of it is willful, but if we keep believing the idea that our rights are fungible, then our rights will indeed become fungible. Every generation's erosion of civil liberties compounds to the new normal, which makes the next generation's erosion of civil liberties more possible, and in too many cases, even welcomed.

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There can't ever be absolute rights in this context, because at some level, even the most widely accepted and well-regarded rights that we want to protect will inevitably come into conflict. For example, you can't have absolute free speech and protect people's privacy against malicious disclosures, even though as general principles we might agree with both ideals. A balance must be found, and navigating that middle ground is always hard when any decision you make will necessarily be flawed.

I think the problem with the current politics of fear is that it does seek to promote one absolute right -- the right to be safe from attack by bad people -- as more important than all the others. Of course, it is impossible to truly achieve that goal no matter what you sacrifice. But in the quest to do so, more balanced "greater good" philosophies developed over centuries of human civilisation, like preferring to die on your feet than live on your knees, or preferring to risk letting a guilty man go free rather than risk imprisoning an innocent one, or refusing to negotiate in the face of threats, can be cast aside all too easily. That's what is happening today.

| There can't ever be absolute rights in this context, because at some level, even the most widely accepted and well-regarded rights that we want to protect will inevitably come into conflict. |

And people wonder why Americans love guns so much...

Yes they do. Do you really believe you're going to use your personal arsenal against the Federal Government if it decides to take some other right they agree with?

Hoarding guns makes it easier for some people to sleep at night because they think that the government is going to come for them, or they are preparing for the fall of civilization.

Guns aside I think the idea of personal sovereignty is an interesting one. It a concept that is almost completely lacking in the UK. We wrongly believe that people bodies and property are policed by social values and politeness. The greatest crime is not attacking someone's rights but breaking a taboo. This is very different to the American concept of individual liberty where people are actually allowed to be rude!

Guns no, but encryption yes. The right to "arms" includes encryption. Too bad the NRA sucks up the 2nd amendment discussion and casts it as only pertaining to guns.

not on the internet I don't.

MPs must understand this and be treating us like children.

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