Having just got into work on the train and digested the newspaper (sort of) the talking point today (terrorism aside) does seemm to be the Lord Protector's annoucements on constitutional tinkering. Some of the ideas don't seem to bad on initial inspection, for example, voting over the weekend in order to increase turnout.
Some of the other ideas seem little more than tokens that won't change anything, "citizen juries" which will be loaded with local politicos that will make decisions on fait accompli proposals doesn't really sounds particularly refreshing, and the idea of some sort confirmation process for appointments is nonsense when you consider how committees are most often loaded as well. The only reason confirmation appears to be a good process in the US is because the Senate is so often knife-edge balanced between the two parties.
However, there was one idea that we'd seen floated alreayd but was not added to just a little bit. On the weekend the "no more spin" Government leaked to the press that there would be propsoals for a Bill of Rights. Yesterday that became a "Bill of rights and duties". Some may not think this significant but essentially what is being proposed is the codification of the state as an entity that exist despite of the individuals that make it up, not because of them.
As the very core of a bill which confers not just right, but obligates duties, is the assumption that the state is greater than the sum of its parts. Which could be seen as Stalinst, but is defintely Marxist in its core assumptions. We have to wait and see of course what these "duties" will be, but we mustn't forget that by having a Bill of rights and duties, Brown is effectively doing the "Peter and Paul" trick he used with tax on freedom and liberty.
For whilst rights confer liberty, duties invariably take them away. I've been trying to rack my brains as to what sort of duties there might be. A duty to obey the law? Which of course goes without saying in a common law system such as ours. A duty to go to school? A duty to take employment (perhaps coupled with a right to state benefit?)?
Whatever is proposed we should not be fooled into thinking that it is about devolving power. Any codification of duties a citizen has to the state implies an increase in the power and conceptualisation of the state and a reduction of liberty for the individuals that came together to create it.
3 comments:
Right on the nail there, Dizzy.
Your thoughts seem very similar to mine on this, although I had missed the "and duties" bit.
On a semantics basis, I prefer duties to rights.
From the news, rights are things that whiney people demand be provided to them on a platter without any attempt to earn... from the kind of person who will happily turn around an deny that right to another. That's why I am against a bill of rights that lists all the things I am allowed to do (and when the government is allowed to take those rights away from me).
But if one reverses those into duties (e.g. I have a duty to treat all people equally...) that makes me less of a person if I fail to do so, rather than making you less of a person by denying you your right to be treated equally.
Semantics, perhaps, but it makes sense in my head. I might even try to blog this one to explain it better.
I would agree to a list of duties to my fellow man but if this is a list of my duties to the State, then I, too, will be opposed to it.
How about "We all have a duty not to abuse our rights".
For instance:
"I'm happy to pay taxes to provide you with unemployment benefit (your right) provided you don't take the piss (your duty)"
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