Freedom of movement

This is a right which asserts that a citizen of a state in which that citizen is present has the liberty to travel, reside in, and/or work in any part of a country where one pleases within the limits of respect for the liberty and rights of others, and to leave that Country and return at any time. Some immigrants' rights advocates assert that human beings have a fundamental human right to mobility not only within a country but between nations.

It's probably the only thing I agree with Libertarians.  People should be able to live wherever they want.

Never heard of this right?  You seem to talk a lot about rights, but somehow you missed this one?  I think somebody may have mentioned this right without understanding it, but that would be typical for that person as he doesn't really understand as much as he thinks he does.

Yes, it's actually in the US Constitution, but I could guess that you wouldn't know it since you are too fixated on the misinterpreted portion called the Second Amendment.

This right is found in the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the United States Constitution which states, "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States." As far back as the circuit court ruling in Corfield v. Coryell, 6 Fed. Cas. 546 (1823), the Supreme Court recognized freedom of movement as a fundamental Constitutional right. In Paul v. Virginia, 75 U.S. 168 (1869), the Court defined freedom of movement as "right of free ingress into other States, and egress from them."

It is a right was has been around for a long time.  In England, in 1215, the right to travel was mentioned in Article 42 of the Magna Carta:

It shall be lawful to any person, for the future, to go out of our kingdom, and to return, safely and securely, by land or by water, saving his allegiance to us, unless it be in time of war, for some short space, for the common good of the kingdom: excepting prisoners and outlaws, according to the laws of the land, and of the people of the nation at war against us, and Merchants who shall be treated as it is said above.

At one time, passports were not obligatory, but they have become part of the modern world since the 14-18 (First World) War.  I think they are kind of fun, but I miss the old blue British Passports which have been replaced by the standardised EU passports.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (AKA the International Bill of Rights) mentions this right in a couple of sections:

Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads:

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State.

(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights incorporates this right into treaty law:

(1) Everyone lawfully within the territory of a State shall, within that territory, have the right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose his residence.

(2) Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own.

(3) The above-mentioned rights shall not be subject to any restrictions except those provided by law, are necessary to protect national security, public order (ordre publique), public health or morals or the rights and freedoms of others, and are consistent with the other rights recognized in the present Covenant.

(4) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.

Technically, Palestinian refugees, especially those who were born in the country now called Israel are technically entitled to move back to their homeland under this charter--so, that means that the State of Israel violates the human rights of Palestinians to return to their homeland.

Of course, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is one of those documents promulgated by the Evil United Nations (which pays at least one blogger here's salary).

Free movement of workers is a fundamental principle of the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Union.  It is found in Article 45 of that Treaty which states:

Freedom of movement for workers shall be secured within the Community. Such freedom of movement shall entail the abolition of any discrimination based on nationality between workers of the Member States as regards employment, remuneration and other conditions of work and employment. It shall entail the right, subject to limitations justified on grounds of public policy, public security or public health: (a) to accept offers of employment actually made; (b) to move freely within the territory of Member States for this purpose; (c) to stay in a Member State for the purpose of employment in accordance with the provisions governing the employment of nationals of that State laid down by law, regulation or administrative action; (d) to remain in the territory of a Member State after having been employed in that State, subject to conditions which shall be embodied in implementing regulations to be drawn up by the Commission. The provisions of this article shall not apply to employment in the public service.

 The European Union has adopted a Directive on the right of citizens of the Union to move and reside freely within the Member States to implement this section of the treaty[1], which is a source of great consternation to people in countries such as Britain who find they now have people wanting to move to their country from the former Eastern Bloc nations which are part of the EU (e.g., Poland and Romania).

The right of free movement has actually been around for some time (subject to people's ability to pay to move).  Scholars have attempted to base a universal "right to move" on several philosophical grounds, including the idea of a common ownership of the earth, a natural right of movement existing prior to the advent of nation states, an ethics of cosmopolitanism, and utilitarian notions of the benefits of immigration to both receiving countries and immigrants.

There are a few reasons that I mention this right.  a couple are personal, as one of my passports is up for renewal (I value the right of freedom of movement above all others due to the next reason).  I also value the ability to get out of Dodge should whatever place I reside happen to become unlivable: in the case of the US due to pseudopatriots who would plunge their nation into war.  That's actually quite a good reason in that people in the US are idiots who, while talking peace, are all too willing to plunge their nation into a war.  Fortunately for them, they have been able to stay out of the way for all but a few of their wars.

Unfortunately, they tend to forget the ravages that their nation has suffered because of war.

Anyway, unlike the fictitious or misinterpreted rights I see mentioned here (e.g. "gun rights"), this one is one with serious historic, legal, and ethical bases.

That said, there is one thing that General Patton said which I can agree with and that is:

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.

 Trust me, if you want to start a war, there will be enough people who will be willing to make sure you die for your country.

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/georgespa102496.html#MlqijqW63SW5eB2c.99

I am a citizen of the world.  I can travel and live where I want.

Thinking about this after I wrote it, that was sort of a flip conclusion, but I do write about a lot of complicated topic and try to simplify them.  But, this is one with a lot of ramifications: especially for modern US society.  For example, the way that people dislike Hispanic immigration while neglecting that most of the Southwestern United States (at least Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California) were part of Mexico prior to their conquest by war.  Like the Palestinians, those people have a right to access to their homelands and travel to visit their families.  Similarly, the Native Americans have a right to their homeland under this principle.

As I said, the US has a belligerent streak which has caused it more problems than they realise.  And will continue to cause it problems as long as it is not addressed.

[1]   European Parliament and Council Directive 2004/38/EC of 29 April 2004 on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States

Is the Family Research Council Shooting a Hate Crime?

 Yahoo News reports

FBI officials said Thursday that the shooting of a security guard at the Family Research Council's D.C. headquarters on Wednesday may fall in the "hate crime/terrorism nexus," depending on the shooter's motive. 

FRC is a socially conservative Christian advocacy organization that opposes gay marriage and abortion, among its other causes. In an interview on Fox News Thursday, FRC President Tony Perkins said he thought the attack should be classified as "terrorism," but some other commentators have suggested that the shooting may also qualify as a hate crime, if it can be proven that the attacker was targeting the group's religious beliefs.

Suspected shooter Floyd Lee Corkins II "has strong opinions with respect to those he believes do not treat homosexuals in a fair manner," according to his parents, and Corkins is said to have yelled that he did not like FRC's politics before opening fire. He was also found with a backpack that contained more than a dozen Chick-Fil-a sandwiches.

This is the story about which Fat White Man quipped, "Why are Lefties so violent."

Well, I guess on the surface that's a fair question.  What do you think? Does this case prove that the lunatic gun maniacs are not limited to the Right side of the political spectrum?  Or is this the exception that proves the rule?

There's no denying that by targeting a notorious right-wing organization one probably belongs to the Left, but what about those Chick-Fil-A sandwiches in his backpack?  What could that be all about? It sounds to me like Floyd was just another mixed up gun owner.

No, I'm afraid it's not as simple as Left vs. Right.  There are plenty of fanatical gun owners who hold certain "Lefty" ideals. Some of them feel sympathetic towards homosexual cases, I suppose some of them are gay themselves.

No, the distinction when it comes to gun ownership is not whether a person is left-leaning or right-leaning politically, but whether they are of sound mind and responsible.  Guys who fail in those categories and believe the gun is the answer to whatever problem they have are a danger. And as much as the rest of the gun-loving community tries to deny it, they are too many.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Driftglass on the Left and the Right

Driftglass wrote a wonderful piece about the differences between the Left and Right over the last 40 years.

I could go on -- endlessly (as if I haven't already :-) -- but the point is this:  there is no bigger, more destructive and more commonly repeated lie in American politics today than "Both Sides Do It".  Nothing else even comes close (all of the Right's gigantic, treasonous lies about Iraq, for example, eventually had to give grudging way to the realities of the catastrophic losses and failures to which that enterprise was doomed.)

Of course, none of the Bush Administration's various war criminals and Useful Idiots were ever docked so much as a day's pay or an erg Beltway prestige once their lies caught up with them (in fact a disturbing number of America's leading Neoconservative traitors actually leveraged their treachery into lucrative career advancements).  And of course once the Bush Administration's staggering concatenation of fraud, failure and lies started to blow in their faces, the party bosses had a whole new suit of lies ready and waiting to replace the old, worn out ones.

Rights?

Sort of a repost from my blog:

I wanted to do this post after I found my copy of the Bulletin, an English language journal from Brussels, that has an article called "So you think you have rights". The basic gist of it was that Belgium had a very different take on rights compared to Anglo-American. I'll post a scan of that cover when I find it.

A personal example, which I have mentioned before, was of the Mormon Missionaries who were arrested by the Belgian police since the Police weren't sure what exactly Mormon missionaries did. Of course, this was well before the film "Orgazmo" was released (sorry, I had to put that in). Anyway, Belgian law allows for the police to arrest someone for 48 hours and hold them just to check them out. The Mormons were fed a baguette and a litre of coffee every 4 hours. Something which doesn't happen in the USA. These poor buggers are suffering since they can't drink coffee and don't understand why the police can just pull them off the street for no reason.

Personally, I thought it would be a good idea to use the Cinquantinare as a shortcut home from a meeting only to be accounsted by half the Brussels police. I stood still and answered their questions since I was only going home. I handed them my passport when they asked for my ID, which meant they had the only cop who spoke English tell me "it was very dangerous to be in the park at night". I was tempted to respond that there were enough cops there that the park should have been pretty safe. I was told to go back the way I came.

The gist of this is that I hear a lot of talk from Americans about rights of all kinds, civic, individual, collective, god given, pre-exisiting, natural, human, and so on, but what the fuck does that really mean in practise?

Rights are entitlements or permissions, usually of a legal or moral nature. Rights are of vital importance in the fields of law and ethics.

The declaration of a right is an act comparable to law-giving, in the way that kings gave law. It is essentially a command or decree: do this, don't do that. Implicitly, the law is intended for enforcement, and is assumed to create an entitlement to enforce it. So declarations of rights are 'rule', in the political science sense. Declarations of rights are therefore fundamentally political acts, acts of policy. Anyone who issues and enforces declarations of rights is exercising political power. As you would expect, it is normally governments, and inter-governmental organisations, which issue the declarations. It is not an activity of oppressed individuals, as suggested by the propaganda.

Some people in history have indeed claimed rights - but most have had their rights declared for them by others. They are not allowed to renounce these 'declared rights'. The idea that a person must accept all rights declared for them, clearly contradicts the idea of political freedom. The human-rights tradition includes no element of consent. It is these aspects, which make the doctrine of human rights a license for oppression. Generally, rights have the following characteristics:

* a right is declared by one person or organisation, for another person
* usually, a right is declared by one person or organisation, for all human beings
* the consent of the other person or persons is not necessary, for the right to be declared
* there are certain actions (or restraint from certain actions) which constitute 'respect' of the right
* these actions (or restraint from action) may legitimately be taken
* there is usually a moral duty to take these actions (or restrain from certain action)
* the person with the 'right' has no moral grounds to oppose this action of respecting - even if they have not consented to the right in the first place
* therefore there are certain actions which may legitimately be taken against another, since they fulfil a moral obligation to respect a right, and these actions do not constitute a harm
* since there is a moral obligation to these actions, they are not wrong, even if consent for them is explicitly refused, and even if the person affected considers them a harm

Those are far-reaching claims by the rights theorists, and the human rights lobby. It is obvious, even from this summary, that the logic of rights interferes with the principle of moral autonomy.

Formally, what happens when a right is declared? The standard answer is: it creates a moral duty to respect it. But that is not all that happens. A right, once its existence is recognised, effectively divides all possible human actions into three categories: actions which respect that right, violations of the right, and actions which are neutral with respect to that right. Declaring a right is a declaration of a desired course of action, not necessarily action by the holders of the right. Implicitly, the declaration of a right promotes and legitimises actions to enforce that right.

Any harm to others can be justified by claiming that it is intended to respect certain 'rights', even if the victim does not know of their existence. Likewise, the right can be misinterpreted from what was originally intended to cause social harm. This is the case with the Second Amendment, which was originally intended to guarantee a Swiss style military to prevent a large standing army.

Somehow, that original intent has been perverted to prevent any regulation of firearms. A right to armed self-defence has been found where it is not explicitly present in the text. Thus a misinterpretation of the Second Amendment works against the original intent of the text, security of the free state.

Rights are not universal, they are not even 'western' or 'European'. Rights are clearly political in their nature. They are created by humans, not god, and specific humans for a specific reason. It is not in itself good to respect a right. Every right is itself subject to ethical assessment, to moral judgment. It can be wrong to respect a right, even a right that has been allegedly consented.

Even more interesting is the case when rights conflict: for example property rights and the current interpretation of "the right to keep and bear arms". If a property owner disagrees with the use of firearms, say gun free zones in Universities or on Secure Installations, should the "right to keep and bear arms" trump the property owner's right to keep firearms from their property?

Or does the First Amendment right prevail over the Second Amendment right?

Likewise, if the current interpretation of the Second Amendment right leads to societal costs in the form of additional police hours at mass shooting sites, the cost of treating victims of mass shootings and so on, should that right be respected? Should those who claim that right be bear the societal costs in the form of increased taxation? Take Chris Rock's example:

Would it make more sense to just tax the fuck out of bullets and reloading supplies while not bothering with firearms in "deference to the Second Amendment right"?

The basic point I am making is that the US tends to make a great deal of rights. These rights impose the value system where they originate: the European liberal tradition, in particular Anglo-American liberalism. One finds that rights are not as much of an issue in other countries as they are in the United States.

Right Wing Ex-Hippies

via Get Off Our Planet. I love what this guy has to say.

As I get older it really cracks me up seeing all these people who live very liberal lifestyles developing ultra-conservative views as they get older. Hippie Republicans?? I don’t get it. If anything I’m getting more liberal as the years go by (ask most people who have known me for years if that is a good thing… in my case they will say it is).

A lot of people think that becoming more conservative as you age goes hand in hand with maturity. I just call it lame. Becoming more close-minded, intolerant, and crotchety as you get older isn’t good no matter how you look at it. And yes, that is how I see you conservatives. You don’t want the government off your backs as much as you just want the freedom to be ignorant, assholes, or both.

Should the Left Mock the Right

via Norwegianity

PZ Myers responds to Michael Lind's anti-mocking piece in Salon.

First, Lind’s charge of “constant mockery” is patently ridiculous. Rachel Maddow has committed some of the most astounding acts of journalism on a major cable network that a U.S. primetime audience could possibly hope to see. Maddow regularly does long, in-depth interviews over multiple segments for which she is extremely well-prepared, enough to swat away any bullshit a guest might dare to fling at her. Even Tweety has his moments. Lind’s implication that anyone on MSNBC fills all or even most of their airtime snickering over the jaw-droppingly stupid and inane bullshit that right-wing politicians and pundits say every day is simply absurd. I just cannot fathom how anyone — much less someone with a platform on Salon — could possibly be unaware that one can report on our devastated economy, or revolution in the Middle East, and also mock morons.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Ann Althouse Defines "Lie"

The famous Law Professor and blogger, Ann Althouse has trouble understanding three-letter words like "lie." She based her assertion that Obama is a liar on the following quote.

Nobody gets to write your destiny but you. Your future is in your hands. Your life is what you make of it. And nothing -- absolutely nothing -- is beyond your reach, so long as you’re willing to dream big, so long as you’re willing to work hard. So long as you’re willing to stay focused on your education, there is not a single thing that any of you cannot accomplish, not a single thing. I believe that.

We have some people around here who love to throw that word around. I've even been accused of lying when I was offering an opinion.

What do you think? Is this something peculiar to Republicans, righties, conservatives and pro-gun advocates. It seems like it to me.

Please leave a comment.

Conservative or Liberal; Right or Left

The L.A. Times has a wonderful article on the idea that people are pre-disposed genetically to be conservative or liberal. At first it sounds a little crazy, but the more I read, the more I thought they were talking about me.

They found to their surprise that opinions on such contentious subjects as gun control, pacifism and capital punishment are strongly associated with physiological traits that are probably present at birth.

But then I noticed that the experiment included 46 subjects. It reminded me of something I've been admonished about on this blog. I took my own individual gun experiences and tried to extrapolate a general theory from them. Of course that's a faulty proposition, or at least it's likely to be. The same problem may exist in this case.

As I read more, though, I realized the experiment was a truly incisive glimpse into the differences between conservatives and liberals. What could be more irrefutable than eye blinks?

In a second experiment, researchers measured eye blinks -- another indicator of fear -- as subjects responded to sudden blasts of noise.

People with strongly conservative views were three times more fearful than staunch liberals after the effects of gender, age, income and education were factored out.

I'm pretty much ready to write this one off as another kooky idea to come out of California. But, I do like this idea:

Fowler said the study added to the growing research suggesting that over millions of years, humans have developed two cognitive styles -- conservative and liberal. Cautious conservatives prevented societies from taking undue risks, while more flexible liberals fostered cooperation.

"For the species to survive, you need both," he said.

What's your opinion? Feel free to leave a comment.