Equal rights for others can mean less rights for you

[Bumpitybumper]

This is the latest internet meme that is giving me the rage. Whilst I appreciate that it's well intentioned, I find it horribly naive and simplistic.

Actually sometimes some privileged groups will have to accept that they have to lose some of the rights and privileges they have previously enjoyed to achieve equality. Trying to pretend otherwise is horribly disingenuous and will just prevent true equality being achieved.

Also it completely ignores cases where there are conflicting rights, where one group gaining rights will directly impact on another group's rights. Sometimes actually rights are very much "like pie" and you can only cut it so many ways. We don't live in a world with infinite resources and influence available so equalising rights in every area will inevitably lead to some vulnerable groups missing out as they need extra protection and rights to be able to access resource and influence.

[RoosterPie]

Of course you’re right OP.

See for example the rights of the gay couple who wanted to stay in the Christian B and B, but the B and B owners didn’t allow it because of their Christian beliefs. The case engaged the right not to be discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation, which conflicted with the right of the B and B owners to freedom to manifest their religious belief.

These are both rights of the respective parties, as enshrined by law. The rights conflict. Giving one party their right takes away from the rights of the other. The Supreme Court discussed this at length in the judgment (Called Preddy v Bill if anyone wants to read).

This is one example but there are many. Clashes of rights such as this happen a lot and I’m so surprised there are people on this thread disputing this.

[Bumpitybumper]

@user1972548274
Comparing a disabled person's human rights to another person's privileges/desires and claiming the two are "competing rights" is also disingenuous
Who did that?

[Bumpitybumper]

@user1972548274
As the meme did not limit itself to discussing basic human rights neither have I.

I take issue with your suggestion that married women being restored the right to be humans capable of owning property individually rather than being chattels to be owned is an example of men "losing rights"
Of course it is an example of women gaining rights and men losing rights. Prior to the legislation, married men had an automatic legal right to own their wife's property. After the legislation was passed this right was removed and women were able to own property in their own right. It has nothing to do with basic human rights and what morally should or shouldn't be the case. The fact of the matter is there was a clear transfer of rights and this would have had a material impact on women's rights and lives.

Your posts don't seem to be about the complexities of balancing human rights, so much as frustration that the world is not a simple place
My argument is that the effective balancing of rights requires us to accept that the world is complex and full of groups with competing wants, needs and yes, rights. Sometimes increasing the rights of one group will adversely impact the rights of another.

Yes, it gets more complicated when you widen the scope of "rights" under consideration, but even basic human rights aren't immune to competing pressures. For example, the right to freedom of religion can oppose the right to equality between the sexes etc.

[Snowdown24]

Agreed! Whilst not all cases, but in some cases giving one group equal rights to another CAN mean less rights for you.

[TheRealMcKenna]

Sometimes there are very legitimate reasons why an individual or group of individuals may be denied the rights that others have. This is usually for the protection of the rest of society.

There are very legitimate reasons, for example, why some people cannot hold driving licenses.

[user1972548274]

Comparing a disabled person's human rights to another person's privileges/desires and claiming the two are "competing rights" is also disingenuous.

[user1972548274]

Are you talking about human rights or power/privileges people feel they should be entitled to as rights or just any arbitrary legal right in a given legal system at the present time?

The distinction matters, and affects how you deal with complex scenarios.

I take issue with your suggestion that married women being restored the right to be humans capable of owning property individually rather than being chattels to be owned is an example of men "losing rights". Men in that scenario lost their abuse of power, they did not lose a human right. Conflating the two positions as both being about "rights" worthy of equal merit and consideration is misleading and unhelpful.

Some police officers are now discovering their previous "right" to murder with impunity has been revoked, but it would be pretty crass to suggest their cultural/legal "right" to murder is validly in competition with other people's human right to life, or that it deserves debate or consideration about which "right" takes precedence.

Your posts don't seem to be about the complexities of balancing human rights, so much as frustration that the world is not a simple place.

[dontdisturbmenow]

Private school kids should not be guaranteed a uni place over a more intelligent but disadvantaged state school pupil who could make better use of it. It should be given on potential and merit
This goes without saying and I would hope that just about everyone would agree with it.

The issue comes about when say a privately educated kid with some good potential and merit is loosing out to a state school pupil with lower potential and merit because they should have an equal chance of getting a place to that Uni than a privately educated pupil.

Is it right the privately kid should lose out? Do you decide that his potential and merit is only above the other kid because he benefited from private education?

What if it had made no difference if he'd gone to a state school?

Of course, you can't make assumptions on what could have been which is why I don't think the answer is black or white.

[Samtsirch]

Reminds me of Animal Farm
‘’All animals are equal.
But some animals are more equal than others.’’

[Bumpitybumper]

@PuffinShop
This annoys me too, OP. Some people just hear the catchphrase which has made sense for some civil rights campaigns and thoughtlessly accept it for other issues where it really doesn't apply
I also think it automatically makes any objections to the furtherance of a group's rights look discriminatory in nature. The reason why you don't want a group to get a set of rights must be because you want to deny them those rights, whereas in actual fact people are often concerned about the implications that this will have on other groups and their rights.

[PuffinShop]

YANBU. This catchphrase works really nicely in a few cases, e.g. marriage equality. The right to marry another consenting adult is not a pie and it makes no difference to heterosexual couples if homosexual couples can also marry.

But in a lot of other cases, rights absolutely ARE like a pie.

This annoys me too, OP. Some people just hear the catchphrase which has made sense for some civil rights campaigns and thoughtlessly accept it for other issues where it really doesn't apply.

[ComeBy]

It depends.

Equal Rights don’t necessarily affect another person’s rights, but they may well affect the size of their slice of the pie: jobs allocated in a strictly Equal Opps basis don’t diminish my rights as a white person but may we’ll make the pool of jobs more competitive. And rightly so.

Same for women’s votes: didn’t affect men’s rights but hopefully affected the outcome of elections.

Self Id as Trans? Yes there is a clash with sex based rights. It does affect rights. The question is whether people think this matters. Clearly many women do.

[Dramalady52]

Everyone is always talking about rights but forget they also come with responsibilities and that is the missing link here. I have the right to play the trumpet at three in the morning, but I have a responsibility not to wake the neighbours. If we looked at these as well it might make life better for all.

[Bumpitybumper]

@CathyComesHome
No, of course not but I also don't want him placed at additional harm due to other people not wearing a mask and potentially infecting him with a virus that will most likely kill him. The reason he is more susceptible to the virus is because of his disability but it's also the reason he would find it difficult to wear a mask.

I'm not really advocating for either option as they're both incredibly difficult. I was more mentioning it as an example where rights really do compete to the extent that an individual can have two conflicting issues related to a right and how that right is exercised. It's a very shitty situation tbh.

[CathyComesHome]

But Bumpitybumper would you want your relative to be banned from using public transport, on the grounds that his existence is compromising other people’s rights?

[DappledOliveGroves]

Everything that Babdoc said so eloquently.

[Babdoc]

Of course rights compete with the rights of others. How could they not.
When certain restricted jobs were opened to women for the first time, it necessarily meant that every job we took was depriving a man of a place he had previously taken for granted. If universities set a percentage target for state school pupil admissions, they will by definition be taking fewer privately educated pupils.
In terms of transgender rights, they compete directly against women’s right to safety in sex segregated sports, prisons, changing rooms etc, turning all those into unisex spaces. We have seen the results - rapist “Karen” White, claiming to be a female, and sexually assaulting inmates in a women’s prison.
Sometimes rights ARE a pie, and you cannot give to one group without depriving another.
The choice has to be made as to whose rights take precedence.
Usually an easy decision. Private school kids should not be guaranteed a uni place over a more intelligent but disadvantaged state school pupil who could make better use of it. It should be given on potential and merit.
Similarly, mediocre men cannot be allowed to exclude better qualified capable women from lucrative careers - it should be on merit.
With transgender rights, they should have “third spaces” available where necessary, and not face discrimination for jobs etc, unless the job specifically requires a woman, not a transwoman - eg for rape counselling or domestic violence refuges, where women victims will be triggered and suffer post traumatic stress by a male bodied person invading their refuge.
Similarly, they need separate trans sports, so they do not injure women opponents or deprive all women of the chance to ever win a medal, by being forced to compete against male bodied athletes, who retain all their male advantage of cardiac output, lung capacity, oxygen uptake etc despite hormone treatment.
Saying that rights aren’t a pie and don’t compete - it’s gaslighting, pure and simple. To groom you into giving yours up.

[Bumpitybumper]

Btw I should add that I have a disabled relative who would struggle to wear a mask on public transport but equally is extremely high risk so would really need others to wear masks to minimise the already sizeable risk that he would be exposed to when using public transport. He is unable to drive due to his disability so he doesn't really have any other way of getting around independently.

[Bumpitybumper]

@CathyComesHome
But a faction of able-bodied or disabled might be medically vulnerable and could (arguably quite fairly) feel that they can't take the risk of using public facilities if others aren't wearing masks. This basically means that they are unable to exercise their right to access these services due to the actions of others.

Of course, the disabled who can't wear masks could argue that enforcing a rule to only allow mask wearers to access the facilities prevents them exercising their rights too.

[tectonicplates]

What about smokers? For example the rights of smokers to smoke in their own back garden, vs the rights of their neighbours to breathe clean air. We've seen numerous threads on here with people saying they can smell their neighbour's smoke, even when sitting indoors, or that they can't open their windows because of it. Personally I believe the rights of non-smokers should always take precedence, and I strongly support employers who legally reserve the right to discriminate against smokers during recruitment. It's not so bad if someone smokes 2 or 3 per day, but I have worked in places where certain people constantly went out for cigarette breaks and it caused a lot of resentment.

[cologne4711]

I do agree that equal rights means fewer rights for others - that's why men fought against womens' rights for so long (and still do - if a Saudi woman can drive, her male relatives have that little less power over her). In fact maybe it is a power thing rather than a "rights" thing - ie when slavery was abolished white people had (a bit) less power over black people. If women can work and earn their own money, men have less power over them.

[GenerateUsername]

My neighbours have a right to sleep at night without noise.
I have the right to have noisy twin babies who cry loudly during the night.
Competing rights.

---

That's not quite correct though - it's not about your right to have a baby who makes noise, it's about the baby's right to be a baby.

Your neighbours have the right to enjoy peace and quiet without unnecessary disturbance. But the babies' right to be babies isn't 'unnecessary disturbance'.

So their rights aren't actually competing. (Fairly obviously I haven't explained this in legal terms!)

[CathyComesHome]

I don’t agree. Being allowed to access public services is a right. Not voluntarily being in the same area as someone not wearing a mask is not a “right.”

Disabled people are a protected class.

Pretending the two are equal, and pretending that the existence of disabled people presents a real physical threat to able bodied people (when the majority of non-mask wearers are not disabled) is just whatsboutery and scapegoating.

[HugeAckmansWife]

Shouldn't it be 'fewer' not 'less' ? I teach this at secondary school (rights, not grammar)! And we do discuss that in order for someone to have the right to not be verbally abused, someone else has to lose the right to absolute freedom of speech and so on. The meme works if it's talking about opportunity perhaps, but not rights.