Freedom of speech, the First Amendment, and the Josh Hawley book Simon and Schuster doesn't want you to read!

[Matt_W]

@magnet

The counterargument is also reasonable: that you have rights even if your government doesn’t protect them. So to repeat an example, a Chinese dissident’s freedom of speech can be violated even though there is no 1A in China.

I’d say that without some kind of enforceability (this could even be cultural or social–doesn’t have to be the government), those rights aren’t real. The universal declaration of human rights is aspirational. Without a framework for redress, it’s hard to claim that one has a right at all. We’ve had this discussion before:

(Non-Political) Rights, Ethics, and Morality

First, let’s establish one rule here, which is that this thread is absolutely apolitical. There is no need for politics to enter into this discussion, as anything determined here should influence one’s politics, and not vice versa. I will request that moderators remove any such attempts to make this into a political discussion. As a result, this may provide those on the forum with differing political views to participate in P&R in an environment which is perhaps less hostile towards them. Now,…