The only way to stop it is to have positive rights written in law, like right to online privacy and privacy of communications.
The only way to stop it is to have positive rights written in law, like right to online privacy and privacy of communications.
Yes, like the Soviet Union.
Whereas the West has predominantly negative rights, the USSR had positive rights. And due to their campaign, even got the UN declaration of human rights to mostly include USSR's positive rights.
https://spice.fsi.stanford.edu/docs/regional_perspectives_on...
Part of USSR constition indicating positive rights: https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/77cons02....
Women and men have equal rights in the USSR.
Citizens of the USSR of different races and nationalities have equal rights.
Citizens of the USSR have the right to work (that is, to guaranteed employment and pay in accordance wit the quantity and quality of their work, and not below the state-established minimum), including the right to choose their trade or profession, type of job and work in accordance with their inclinations, abilities, training and education, with due account of the needs of society.
Citizens of the USSR have the right to rest and leisure.
Now, that isn't to say the USSR was blameless. We know it wasn't. However, we can take their successes and failures in what we propose and build next. Negative and positive rights both are needed. But the West is allergic to those.
While the idea is great I'm not convinced that the Soviet Union is the best example to demonstrate the concept. Yes they had a "right for leisure", unless the State decided that you were a slave and sent you in Siberia to knock hard rocks for the rest of your life. Or your "rest days" were in fact forced, unpaid labor (subbotnik), no different than their previous feudal serf system.
Same for a "right to a house", where the State provided you with a filthy, overcrowded slum and call it a day.
>While the idea is great I'm not convinced that the Soviet Union is the best example to demonstrate the concept.
I am sure Soviet Union is THE BEST example to demonstrate the concept.
It shows perfectly that you can have anything, anywhere and as much as you want - but it won't mean anything if you take away people's economic freedom.
It depends if you discuss about practical things - right for housing or things that are more abstract - right for privacy from the government's prying eyes, banking secrecy or in the US, freedom of speech. In the later case, I don't think that it affects the economic life.
I don't think the USSR is the best example of a constitution protecting the rights and freedoms of the people.
> Citizens of the USSR of different races and nationalities have equal rights
This rings pretty hollow when you look at the history of Russification. And no doubt this clause is in the constitution because of the Russification policies of the Russian Empire, yet that didn't stop the Soviet Union from doing very much the same thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification
[dead]
Article 35: Citizens of the People’s Republic of China shall enjoy freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, procession and demonstration.
https://english.www.gov.cn/archive/lawsregulations/201911/20...
Constitutions are just paper. It doesn't matter how they're written if the guys with the guns don't care to respect it.
Yeah, when reading about the collapse of the Roman republic recently I was struck by how unimportant the law (about not crossing the Rubicon with an army) was. For a long time, the law wasn't meaningful because nobody would think of bringing an army into Rome, it just wasn't done! Then eventually Sulla said "fuck this, I'm bringing in an army to enforce my will", and the law didn't do a thing to constrain him (or anyone who came after him). It seems to me that it was the social norms of Roman society which kept people from using military force to get their way, and that the law served no purpose except perhaps a very visible way to reinforce the social norm.
Historically, the window to enshrine broad positive rights like those is only briefly open in the wake of a revolution, civil war, or at best significant civil unrest. It’s not a pleasant future to look forward to, we all have a lot of work to do!