Thread: Civil liberties

well i don't think england has libeties, i think they're called rights over here but it's bassically the same thing think, (my brain isn't working that well tonight).
i think that the right to free speach, beliefe and to go about with out being arrested or stopeed for no reason are things we should fight for, they allow us to be us.

For those of you not from the US.

Links:

UK Human Rights

The decision of the "New Labour" Government to enact into UK domestic law most of the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights ("the Convention") caused a certain amount of controversy among both politicians and jurists.

It should be remembered that the Convention was drafted in the period immediately following World War II and was in many ways a reaction to the state atrocities of those dark days.

The Convention was largely drafted by English lawyers and the United Kingdom was the first state to sign the Convention.

A paper from Australia: Personal Liberty Too Often Taken For Granted by Doctor Mark Cooray

It must be appreciated that personal liberty can be protected only by a combination of principles, each of which is indispensable to liberty. Freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention or punishment is of limited value if the law penalises ordinary moral conduct or non-violent political conduct. Freedom is also ineffective if there are no effective remedies for infringement or no safeguards to ensure fair trials. Procedural and evidentiary safeguards are of no avail unless there is an impartial and independent judiciary. The combined operation of these principles alone can guarantee the effective enjoyment of personal freedom.

About Japan: Personal Freedom and Civil Liberty

One of the most important areas of constitutional law that was changed in the 1946 constitution was civil liberties and rights. The old Meiji constitution placed significant limitations on all the basic rights which many countries have come to accept: freedom of speech was guaranteed subject to the limitations of laws which could be changed; freedom of assembly was guaranteed subject to the limitations of law and so on. The new constitution made rights clear and absolute. Thus, Article 19 says in its entirety 'Freedom of thought and conscience shall not be violated', and Article 21 guarantees 'freedom of assembly and association as well as speech, press and all other forms of expression' while Article 36 states 'The infliction of torture by any public officer and cruel punishments are absolutely forbidden'.

Feel free to add more links for your own country if you have any.

Civil liberty makes sense, after all life needs rules. Anarchy, though the prospect of it seems nice, will only lead to chaos in time. A country is formed under rules of a treaty that allow such ideas of anarchism to even be talked about. I believe in some countries (past or present) to talk about anarchism or a different form of government is considered a crime, as with the persecution of Pagans/Wiccans in the Dark Ages (though the context was different, the principle is basically the same).

Even still, right now you are following forum rules, the 'laws' of physics/gravity, and your body. Tell me, how many ways can your leg bend? How often can a person change the way it bends without breaking their leg?

Despite my post seeming more about the need for rules, I find that it is linked to civil liberty. I do not think personal liberty/freedom is great, because as I said, it leads to chaos, and chaos is bad (despite the word sounding cool).

In Japan my "civil Liberty's" are about the same as in america BUT I do have immense respect for the older people from the era's past. When I lived in hokkaido we had a small shrine to my ancestors in the back field.... for those who dont know hokkaido is a historic area near Sapporo. Enjoi!

Interesting, you are from Japan. Tell me about it some time in this post or another.

Back on topic, there are two kinds of freedom in my mind. I think a parable will suffice.

There is a lone shepherd in a village. He takes care of his sheep which are his only source of income and lives alone. Then one day a wolf attacks his sheep. A man walks by and must decide if he helps the wolf and lets him kill the sheep, or helps the old man. We must either allow crimes to occur, or prevent them. FOr the sake of human lives, I am willing to give up my civil liberties. For your info, I am from USA .

If you look at many laws that protect you, they are founded on the sacrifice of our people, Acts such as health and safety, humand rights etc, these where created to protect people from been treated as a commodities.

In the past if work made you ill or caused you an injury you would be replaced and you could not do anything, if you look at many of the first train tunnels here in britain many people died building it, when they died, they where replaced.

we for many years have fought to improve our way of life and we have succeeded, should we fight for it, yes, we owe it to all those people who sacrificed there time energy and lifes to give us a better future.

but it is unfourtunate we now have become a greedy nation who expect too much from our country, prime example is the strikes for pay rises.

For those firemen who went on strike here in britain, im against, they should not get a pay rise, the dangers of been a firefighter is much less these days but still, they where made aware of the dangers and the rates of pay and they signed the contract.

all though we should protect what we have we really should be greatefull and thank full that we have these rights and they are people who will protect them.

but an increasing problem is going a little overboard with human rights, specifically prisoners rights, I did electrical work at Lancaster farms young offenders prison, they get paid 30 pounds per week, access to a gym, they have 3 hot meals a day and get there own tvs dvds music etc. Its no wonder why they reoffend, rehab is getting a little ineffective because of human rights for prisoners. allthough I dont think it should revert to the staff been able to kick sh*t out of the prisoners, but they should be paid for there crimes.

conclusion: We should fight to protect what rights we have and understand that our parents and grand parents and so forth suffered and sacrifice to give us what we have. but we should draw a line on certain rights, the line should be decided by the people with all relevatant information presented to them. but still I see people take rights for granted and as for freedoms, we have the freedom to do what we want, for example, You can go out with a knife and kill someone, the law cannot prevent that, this is freedom to do so but for each freedom that we use there are conseqences, many people dont understand the full extent of the conseqence, usually they discover it when the go to prison. Or a personal example, I missinterpreted the bible and expressed these and I offended people. I have the freedom of speech, Im free to say what I want, but there are conseqences, its even worse when you realise that you where wrong in the first place.

I know theres alot to read so thank you for your patience.

i can appreciate liberties within reason, but when actually applied to society - liberties can only go so far...like political liberty - what does that mean? does this liberty give us the right to overthrow governments on a whim? if we protest, can we place police officers under arrest for political obstruction? or my personal favorite - if our political views are different from the whole nation, can we secede without consequence?

i would think that any of these acts would be considered treason...so where liberties are concerned - where is the fine line?