Article

2006-06-27 Britain

Britain's Conservatives plan US-style bill of rights

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Fred 2006-06-27 00:00|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 This idea should be terribly frightening to the Eurocrats. It would bring back the English Common Law that they have been trying to erase, while putting Britain under the continent's Napoleonic Law.

A Bill of Rights implies that those rights come directly from either God or evolve naturally to mankind--that they are NOT just granted by the state. This flies in the face of Napoleonic Law, whose guiding principle is that what the state does not expressly permit is forbidden.

If the British conservatives try to push this through, it will be opposed by every force Brussels and the Europhiles can generate.

They conservatives only proposed it because it seemed right in Common Law, and it is. But they probably don't know just how right it is.

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-06-27 09:54|| 2006-06-27 09:54|| Front Page Top

#2 It is very instructive for a European to read the declaration of Independence because it is not merely a declaration of rights for the citizen but also a declaration of duties for the state (allowing the people to exert the unalienable rights of life, freedom and pursuit of happiness) and that when it doesn't assume those duties, the state has no longer a right to exist.

This is completely absent from the Constitutions and Declarations of Human Rights in Europe. In fact, the French Declaration of Human Rights explicitly states in one of its very first articles (third or fourth) that the citizen must submit when authorities try to arrest him, and that not submitting makes him guilty (in my reading this includes the mere act of fleeing). Ie the outlawing of resistance to arrest is not a mere law aimed like in the USA but in a document who is in fact above the Constitution itself and the goals are different: protecting police officers in the USA versus keeping the citizens submissive towards the state.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2006-06-27 11:03|| 2006-06-27 11:03|| Front Page Top

#3 Didn't the Founding Fathers have something to say about those who would trade freedom for security deserve NEITHER? And, weren't they mostly from england? While I back them (if specifically tied to the WoT), it always gives me the heebie-jeebies when some bureaucrat tries to "write rights" into a document. That's why I prefer the old way of "Those powers not EXPRESSLY presented here either fall to the State (as opposed to Federal) or to the individual."

Posted by BA 2006-06-27 12:46|| 2006-06-27 12:46|| Front Page Top

#4 And, I hope the right to bear arms (or arm bears for that matter) are among the tops there. Nothing else means anything if the citizen can not defend himself against ALL enemies, foreign & domestic.

Posted by BA 2006-06-27 12:47|| 2006-06-27 12:47|| Front Page Top

#5 Don't forget the Second Amendment, guys.

If you want your country to survive, as least....

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2006-06-27 14:25|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/page/15bk1/Home_Page.html]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/page/15bk1/Home_Page.html] 2006-06-27 14:25|| Front Page Top

#6 The western world will remain disarmed until the pro-gun lobby adopts the same tactic as the anti-gun lobby: incrementalism.

This means not just opposing gun restrictions, but actively campaigning for gun freedoms. Continually pushing for the rights of the citizenry to have more and better means to defend themselves. Chipping away at the restrictions, at anti-gun legislation, at anti-gun education, at anti-gun cultural bigotry.

Every win just means that a new gun freedom needs advocacy. Children must be taught that a gun is their right and responsibility as an adult. That if for no other reason, because they are the ultimate and final defenders of the law. The citizenry, not the police.

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-06-27 18:26|| 2006-06-27 18:26|| Front Page Top

#7 Don't know if the Brits are ready for the second amendment. Though the right to defend yourself with a pointy stick would be an improvement. Strike that - just having the right to defend yourself would be an improvement.

Posted by DMFD 2006-06-27 19:18|| 2006-06-27 19:18|| Front Page Top

23:59 Sock Puppet of Doom
23:52 twobyfour
23:48 Sock Puppet of Doom
23:23 Eric Jablow
23:15 Frank G
23:08 JosephMendiola
23:06 JosephMendiola
22:56 JosephMendiola
22:55 49 Pan
22:52 Barbara Skolaut
22:50 Barbara Skolaut
22:50 Frank G
22:48 Glenmore
22:47 Frank G
22:45 49 Pan
22:42 bk
22:39 49 Pan
22:38 JosephMendiola
22:37 Old Patriot
22:37 DanNY
22:34 Eric Jablow
22:34 JosephMendiola
22:33 Unavitch Unaviper3310
22:31 muck4doo