tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post888024293207844851..comments2024-02-11T19:28:27.997+11:00Comments on Personal Reflections: Personal confusions with a bill of rightsJim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-83807858520637102732009-05-10T06:05:00.000+10:002009-05-10T06:05:00.000+10:00I think that you are probably right on your last p...I think that you are probably right on your last point, LE. There is also a problem, I think, in that discussion on so many issues has been couched in terms of rights that the word itself has lost meaning.<br /><br />If you look back at our history, the actual number of "rights" was quite small. The things that come to mind as rights are things such as trial by jury, the right to vote, equality of treatment before the law, the right of association, freedom of the press, freedom of religion.<br /><br />I suppose that these are things that we can think of as Rights with a capital R. Their evolution took a particular form in Australia because of our history - certain rights were effectively achieved here before the UK.<br /><br />The concept of rights has become greatly extended and, to a degree, conflated with the concept of entitlement. <br /><br />I am concerned in all this that in our concern with rights we are in fact losing sight of our Rights. The outcome is an erosion of civil liberties.<br /><br />To my mind, one thing that we forget at our peril is the ever growing capacity of the state to monitor and enforce. <br /><br />In the past, practical limitations on state power provided a barrier to abuse of that power. <br /><br />There are many examples in Australia where Governments have tried to do things that later generations would regard as misguided or just plain wrong. Some of these lead <br />to considerable injustice. <br /><br />In a society with poorer communications, less capacity to record or find information, fewer resources to enforce compliance, individuals had a greater ability to avoid the eye of the state.Jim Belshawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-108547644901292062009-05-09T21:19:00.000+10:002009-05-09T21:19:00.000+10:00Your thoughts about compulsion are very interestin...Your thoughts about compulsion are very interesting. Over the years I have become steadily less impressed with paternalism, although I still think paternalism is needed in some contexts.<br /><br />The interesting thing with the Howard government was that it was very paternalistic - a kind of "Father Knows Best" approach. <br /><br />I wonder if people have become inured to rights discourse, because people complain about their rights being violated all the time, so everyone just switches off - it's a case of the boy who called wolf.Legal Eaglehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01096038577529334966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-3703827108916769722009-05-09T09:23:00.000+10:002009-05-09T09:23:00.000+10:00Good morning, Lexcen. You give a good example. I a...Good morning, Lexcen. You give a good example. I agree that freedom of speech is central, yet it has also become increasingly constrained by other legislation. We have freedom of speech so long as we don't say (or write) any of an ever growing list.Jim Belshawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-76400260889586370212009-05-09T09:03:00.000+10:002009-05-09T09:03:00.000+10:00It's funny how most people assume we have the righ...It's funny how most people assume we have the right to freedom of speech. Maybe just that right would be enough reason draw up a bill of rights.Lexcenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17856993035719777231noreply@blogger.com