Who was it that said that childlike innocence is not a viable alternative to despair?

[sen_no_ongaku]

Is it possible for a nation or a people to lose its right to liberty and Democracy? If so, have we?

Comments

[2h2o.livejournal.com]

No. But Bush (and Kerry, and Frist, and Delay, and Schumer, ad nauseum) makes me want to throw things.

[sylvantechie.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit thrown off by the phrase 'right to' above. Does it mean 'ability to exercise' (yes,no), does it mean 'deserving-ness of' (yes,no), does it mean 'inalienable right (itself a semantic mess) of' (no,no), does it mean 'correctness to be labeled as having' (no,no)?

Except for the inalienable thing, the 'no's above should really be read as 'not yet's.

Then there's the whole question of what liberty and democracy mean, but I think we have enough of a common understanding to skip that discussion for the moment.

[sen-no-ongaku.livejournal.com]

I intentionally left "right to" vague, but I did have a specific meaning in mind. If a society is unwilling to exercise and protect its rights, is an authority justified in removing them? Or, perhaps, put another way, is it an injustice if said society loses those rights?
___

I'm not particularly interested in defining "liberty" and "democracy" right now either.

[sylvantechie.livejournal.com]

If a society is unwilling to exercise and protect its rights, is an authority justified in removing them?

In short, no. RE: defense - Removing an undefended right is at least as and possibly more morally culpable than removing a defended one. RE: exercising - The right to do something is not the same as an obligation to do that thing - rights preserve options rather than indicate actions.

There are circumstances where entity 1 may justifiable infringe on the rights of entity 2, but entity 2's simple lack of exercise and defense is not one of them.

There are complications here dealing with society vs authority in a democracy, in that the authority is granted its authoritative power and abilities by the society, and that by granting the authority the power to remove rights the society is not so much having them taken away as it is giving them up.

[ellinor.livejournal.com]

I don't think that liberty and democracy are things that one must earn, or even deserve. But they are certainly things that one may squander. I am afraid we are doing the latter.

What do you think? And was this query prompted by the State of the Union, or something else?

[sen-no-ongaku.livejournal.com]

I got up at 4:30 to feed the cat, tried to go to bed, and just started getting angry and frustrated about what I perceive as 1) the apathy and ignorance of the majority of Americans in the face of increasing pressure to dismantle their rights and 2) the inablilty of those Americans who are trying to protect those rights to affect policy.

Probably sparked by the SotU and the embarrassing impotence of opposition to Alito's confirmation.