The Second Bill of Rights

[eynon81]

[Professor]

[Saz]

[The Comrade]

yeah that's not true.

thought if you read what the economist, the cato institute, fox news, and the WSJ have to say about it, FDR practically caused the great depression.

[broken robot]

[exploited]

I believe that the concepts of negative liberty, enforced without appropriate positive rights, is fundamentally harmful to a successful, vibrant and free society. The libertarian dream world of negative liberty is an extremely undesirable one; there is literally no indication that simply adhering to a strict interpretation of rights has any sort of optimum outcomes. In fact, every great leap forward is a combination of two things: the expansion of negative liberty to include people that had previously been excluded, along with the introduction of positive right legislation to guarantee a certain standard of behaviour.

So, for instance, the idea that people shouldn't have to die on the job was first created by skilled tradesmen, who used unions and guilds to establish safety standards. Then it was expanded to include all people. Then positive legislation was created to enforce a certain standard of job safety.

Another example: the Civil Rights Act. First we enabled blacks to vote and not be enslaved and get a trial and all that, then we passed legislation that punished those who discriminated, now we have expanded that concept to include other historical victims, and are pushing that agenda forward with great success.

In the end, I believe that FDR had a fantastic idea, and that it is a shame he wasn't able to implement it. It was progressives, communists and other positive rights believers that have pushed this our society forward, from the very start. Literally every major improvement in our lives can be attributed to them, whereas almost no great steps forwards resulted from those who believe in strict negative liberty.

[broken robot]

[Professor]

[gla22]

[Professor]