In discussing my previous post with some friends, it occurred to me that the Declaration of Independence, which expresses the fervent hopes of the founders of this country, is famous for its phrase: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
While some people compare this phrase to the “liberté, égalité, fraternité” (liberty, equality, fraternity) of the French revolution, there are several important differences. “The pursuit of happiness” is really just a way to embody John Locke’s idea that government’s main role is to protect property, without saying it outright. The rights of non-property owners are really not of much concern, although the founders didn’t want to say that explicitely. While equality does show up, from the constitution we learn that for the founders, the “all men” to whom equality applies are only white freemen. One can conclude, in other words, that the “rule of law” in the US means “protecting property rights of a certain class.”
Notice as well that ”fraternity” is completely missing from the list. Values associated with “fraternity,” including conern for the health and welfare of one’s fellow citizens (not to speak of residents who are not citizens), along with what we now call “human rights,” are not on the list of the founders’s values. And those founding values carry on to this very day: cf. the current debate on healthcare reform.
Getting back to my previous post, the fact that prisoners have no rights is a direct result of the founding values of the US as they play out in the constitution. Prisoners are treated like slaves : “Built into the 13th Amendment was state authorization to use prison labor as a bridge between slavery and paid work. Slavery was abolished except as a punishment for crime.’” Colin Dayan points out in this book, that Bush & Co wanted the “foreign combatents” treated like US prisoners (as oppossed to prisoners of war) so they could treat them the same way we do our own prisoners – as slaves with no rights.
Fortunately, there are other societies with quite different values and attitudes, and these play out in the way they treat prisoners as well. This video provides a shining example of one such society:
Tags: Human Rights