catwho wrote:
Normally I don't link to DKos because it is the Great Orange Satan, but this one is relevant:
When Men Were FreeYou have found a satirically posed thesis: that to create a freedom
for something, you have to
simultaneously remove a freedom to suppress the former one. Like having and possessing the freedom to life means
your freedom to kill other people is taken away or curtailed.
It reminds me of this straight version of the same thesis:
What are Conservatives trying to Conserve?. The question being posed and answered by a liberal/progressive.
Ira Glasser wrote:
Because all rights are by definition a limitation on power: the right to a secret ballot implies a limit on the government's authority to peek; the right not to be unreasonably searched, absent a judicial warrant, in your home is a limit on the power of the police to do so. The right to marry someone with different skin color is a limit on the police power of the state to prohibit it. The right to march in the street is a limit on the power of the state to stop you. The right to buy contraceptives is a limit on the power of the state to prohibit it. And the right not to be forced to participate in a public school prayer ceremony that is not in accordance with your religious beliefs, or the right not to be singled out and stigmatized for your refusal, is a limit on the power of a state school to require it. The explosion of rights between 1954 and 1973 radically altered the rules of the game and, perhaps more importantly, the perceptions of those who lost their privileges (many of whom had little else).