[Vision2020] Rights, Guns, Abortion, Speech, and Death

[Nick Gier]

Hi Joe,

Thanks for this fine and clear exposition on our 
rights.  It demonstrates once again why for 
centuries people have turned to philosophers as 
consultants on how to legislate properly.  As a 
historical precedent I note the cooperation of 
James Mill, Jeremy Bentham, and J. S. Mill for 
English law in the 19th Century and the synergy 
between John Locke, Edward Coke, and English Common Law in an earlier century.

Nick

At 05:10 PM 11/10/2008, Glenn Schwaller wrote:
>Dr. Campbell - so taking this one more step, 
>should and would these "rights" be extended to 
>those who choose death with dignity?  Does not 
>the right to privacy similarly ground the 
>"right" to choose the timing of one's death as well?
>
>Thank you for your reply
>
>GS
>
>On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 12:23 PM, Campbell, 
>Joseph <<mailto:josephc at wsu.edu>josephc at wsu.edu> wrote:
>
>Scott,
>
>
>
>I've been reading your posts lately about the 
>possible threat to the 2nd amendment given the 
>recent Obama election and, although I find your 
>thoughts and arguments interesting, I am in firm 
>disagreement with your view. So I'd like to say 
>what I think about the issues. I've made these 
>points before but I don't think I've made them all to you.
>
>
>
>First, you mention a lack of consistency between 
>liberal views on abortion rights and liberal 
>views on gun rights. Some of the confusion may 
>be settled if, instead of talking about abortion 
>"rights," we talked about the right to privacy, 
>the right upon which the "right" to abortion is 
>founded. Granted the right to privacy is not an 
>explicit right, not explicitly noted in the bill 
>of rights, for instance. But the argument is 
>that several of those rights would make no sense 
>were there not a prior right to privacy. We 
>could talk about whether this argument is good 
>or bad at a later point but for now let's just 
>assume that there is a right to privacy that grounds the "right" to abortion.
>
>
>
>No one thinks that we have an absolute right to 
>privacy, one that should not be infringed under 
>any circumstance. In a court of law, for 
>instance, a lawyer might ask a defendant 
>questions about his private life that might be 
>deemed inappropriate under normal circumstances. 
>Yet the defendant cannot, or cannot always, 
>refuse to answer on the basis of his right to 
>privacy. A search warrant allows police to 
>investigate the drawers containing your undergarments. Similar examples abound.
>
>
>
>Consider next the right to free speech. That 
>right is not absolute either. I do not have the 
>right to slander you, to libel you, to tell lies 
>about you, or even (I would say) to insult you. 
>I have a right to speak freely and in so doing I 
>might insult you but that does not mean that I 
>have a right to insult you. I looked up 'human 
>rights' in an on-line dictionary and got: "The 
>basic rights and freedoms to which all humans 
>are entitled, often held to include the right to 
>life and liberty, freedom of thought and 
>expression, and equality before the law." I am 
>entitled to speak freely but I'm not entitled to 
>insult you. Still, in an effort to ensure the 
>former we might have to put up with the instances of the latter.
>
>
>
>I would say the same about the "right" to 
>abortion, which I would not call a right at all. 
>I have a right to privacy and what that ensures 
>is that the government cannot tell me when I 
>should and when I should not have a child. That 
>is my decision. Provisions should be made that 
>allow me to make that decision on my own, 
>without government intrusion. That gives me 
>limited access to abortion. The "right" to 
>abortion is founded on the right to privacy, and 
>since no one thinks that the right to privacy is 
>unrestricted, no one should be in favor of 
>unrestricted abortion "rights," though as in the 
>case of free speech the initial right may be 
>important enough to allow for behaviors that 
>others would deem offensive. Such is the price of freedom.
>
>
>
>It is no mystery when rights should be 
>restricted, for no one has the right to deprive 
>another of his right. My right to free speech 
>cannot restrict your right to privacy, so 
>restrictions against, say, my broadcasting your 
>home address and phone number are appropriate. 
>In general, when my acts are likely to lead to 
>harm to other persons, the law may intervene. My 
>rights go only so far. What counts as a harm? 
>What counts as a person? These questions 
>complicate the matter but clear answers in each 
>case abound, and in those clear cases laws may 
>be made restricting certain behaviors, behaviors 
>that would otherwise be protected.
>
>
>
>Thus, your view on gun rights seems to be far 
>more extreme than what I take to be the liberal 
>view on abortion and speech and rights in 
>general. In the latter cases, we recognize 
>restrictions all the time. In fact, there are 
>many restrictions to speech and abortion that 
>are already imbedded in the law. Few liberals 
>want to do away with laws against slander or 
>laws against third trimester abortion since in 
>those cases the harms are clear. (In the latter 
>case, I am not talking about the harm to the 
>fetus, I'm talking about the harm to society in 
>general, which might override the woman's right 
>to what goes on in her own body once the fetus 
>has passed the point of viability. That is how I understand Roe v. Wade.)
>
>
>
>Someone above – I can't remember if it was you 
>or Dan or someone else – talked about the right 
>to bear arms extending to hunters and gun 
>collectors, as if we had rights to hunt or 
>rights to collect as many and as diverse a 
>collection of toys as we individually deemed 
>fit; that the second amendment protected the 
>collection of any gun by any person for whatever 
>reason. That is like saying that because I have 
>a right to privacy I'd have a right to your 
>house were that the place that I felt most 
>private. The second amendment says nothing about 
>hunting or collecting. Nothing at all, for there 
>are no such rights: not in the bill of rights, 
>not in heaven, not on earth. These are privileges at most, not rights.
>
>
>
>Nor is our right to bear arms unrestricted, as 
>you seem to suggest. If it were, why not allow 
>citizens to obtain nuclear arms? The reason is 
>that the chance for abuse and harm is great. The 
>implication is that in such cases, the 
>restriction of arms is justified. To think that 
>nuclear arms offer the only such case is absurd. 
>Ergo, there is no unrestricted right to bear arms. That is a myth.
>
>
>
>I understand that Americans have a fascination 
>with guns, just as they have a fascination with 
>privacy and with speech, and given those 
>fascinations a tolerance for pushing the bounds 
>of those rights should be respected by all 
>parties: conservatives should appreciate the 
>attempt from liberals to push the boundaries of 
>our rights to privacy and free speech, and 
>liberals should appreciate the attempt from 
>conservatives to push the boundaries of our 
>rights to guns and free speech. (It seems that 
>free speech is a right of which we all agree, 
>though how that right should be manifested is 
>something about which we don't always agree.) 
>Toward that end, I'll try to be more respectful 
>of your attempts to keep your toys. But not to 
>the extent of affording easy access to nutcases 
>like the Moscow and Virginia Tech murderers. 
>Clearly there is a problem with current gun laws 
>but one that we should be able to solve without 
>infringing on your right to protect yourself, or 
>even your "right" to have a little fun!
>
>
>
>Best,
>
>Joe Campbell
>
>
>
>=======================================================
>  List services made available by First Step Internet,
>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>               <http://www.fsr.net>http://www.fsr.net
>          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>=======================================================
>
>
>=======================================================
>  List services made available by First Step Internet,
>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>                http://www.fsr.net
>           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>=======================================================

"Truth is the summit of being; justice is the 
application of it to human affairs."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates 
in human beings who represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it."
  --Mohandas Gandhi

"Modern physics has taught us that the nature of 
any system cannot be discovered by dividing it 
into its component parts and studying each part 
by itself. . . .We must keep our attention fixed 
on the whole and on the interconnection between 
the parts. The same is true of our intellectual 
life. It is impossible to make a clear cut 
between science, religion, and art. The whole is 
never equal simply to the sum of its various parts." --Max Planck

Nicholas F. Gier
Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho
1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID 83843
http://www.home.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/home.htm
208-882-9212/FAX 885-8950
President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
http://www.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/ift.htm

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20081110/104a08d4/attachment-0001.html