Democracy; " In which you say what you like and do what you're told" (Dave Barry)
I agree with George in essence,although I think calling at "right" a "privilege" is splitting hairs in pragmatic sense;EG British common law is privilege based,not rights based.
I have rights guaranteed by the Australian constitution, common law and by custom.Those rights are upheld by the rule of law,underpinned by usually only implicit threats of force and various sanctions (fines for example).
Our "rights" can be and are taken away at the whim of government.
EG:
Habeus corpus,which dates from Magna Carta (1215CE)
Ignored by the US in 1942,and again under the terms of The Patriot Act.
The US government allowed their constitution to be ignored under the communist witch hunts of Joe McCarthy in the 1950's.
Much stronger gun controls are wanted by around 70% of Americans, but this has not happened, and is not likely due largely to the influence of self serving and corrupt lobby groups such as the NRA.
Habeus corpus is currently STILL ignored by the Australian government by its treatment of asylum seekers. Indigenous Australians did not have equal rights under the law until 1967. Before that it has been assumed they were a dying race,helped along by cholera,measles,alcohol, syphylis etc,Everyone just thought if we just ignored 'em they would eventually just die off, so we didn't even bother to count them in the census.BUT they didn't bloody well die off,their population actually GREW! .Boy,were WE embarrassed! That meant we had to stop stealing their children to turn them into white children. Do you know,on some stations,(ranches) they actually began PAYING the aboriginal stockmen almost as much as a WHITE man,in the the late 1960's!
An observation is that people who spend a lot of time screaming their tits off about their rights do not seem to give equal time to the notion of their responsibilities or to the idea of equality in a free society.. These are what I call big "L" Libertarians. Their life philosophy may be summarised by a British expression; "Fuck you Jack,I'm OK"
Australia does not have a Bill of Rights
Britain does not have a written constitution
From Wiki:
Quote:The constitution of the United Kingdom is the set of laws and principles under which the United Kingdom is governed.
The UK has no single constitutional document comparable to those of other nations. It is therefore often said that the country has an "unwritten", uncodified or de facto constitution.[1] However, the majority of the British constitution does exist in the written form of statutes, court judgments and treaties. The constitution has other unwritten sources, including parliamentary constitutional conventions (more than most countries except New Zealand and Israel) and the royal prerogatives.
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Tangent
The link below is for anyone interested in how Australia has treated indigenous people here. We have no claim to any moral high ground
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutio...ed_Kingdom
