"You didn't build that" - Obama

[richardhutnik]

Aielyn said:

richardhutnik said:
It is important to understand Locke's views, and the ideas behind rights-based ethics, because this ethics is at the core of modern western civilization.  Decisions on what laws to pass, and so on, ar argued out of this.  The rights given by society, and laws, flow out of the basic rights seen as being core to humans.  You can have a Libertarian view where every right can be bargained away in exchange for something else though.  And in modern western civilization the rights are found primarily in individuals, and not collectively.  From these individual rights flows out collective rights also.  But in modern western civilization (classic liberal), the rights of the individual override all other rights.

Maybe in America, Locke's views are relevant. Australia doesn't actually have a formal bill of rights in our constitution. We generally use democracy and actual constitutional powers, along with real checks and balances (except Queensland state government... which, annoyingly to me, lacks a senate, for no obvious reason that I can see), to decide validity of laws, and politicians who try to pass laws that infringe on rights generally get thrown out of office pretty quickly.

Personally, I want Australia to have a bill of rights... but I want that to be a last-line-of-defence in case of severe corruption. And that bill of rights needs to be understood to be simply a check, not a listing, as so eloquently put by one of the delegates to the constitutional convention: "If we list a set of rights, some fools in the future are going to claim that people are entitled only to those rights enumerated and no others." So the bill of rights should be understood as being part of a mechanism for making a better society.

America definitely has very strong ties to the ideals of classic liberalism, and strongly put an emphasis on individual rights and freedoms.  The entire system is based around the idea of a Bill of Rights, and individuals having rights.  This is part of the tradition of western civilization, with America more strongly than other nations reflecting this.