Some individual rights may be forfeited if an individual
does not exercise reciprocal respect and restraint. Individual
rights are distinct from civil rights civil rights are rights
granted by government and individual rights are assumed
prior to government. Individual rights are often codified
into law so that they may be protected by impartial third
parties such as the government. Governments that respect
individual rights often provide for systemic controls that
protect individual rights such as a system of "due
process" in criminal justice. Police states are generally
considered to be oppressive because they do not respect
individual rights. With respect to individual rights the
role of the government is as a third party protecting, identifying
and enforcing the rights of the individual while attempting
to assure just remedies for transgressions.
Contents
1 Social Control and Individual Rights
2 Role of Government
3 What Rights
4 External links
Social Control and Individual Rights
In Western discourse, individual rights are commonly assumed
to be inversely related to social control. By contrast,
much of the recent political discourse on individual rights
in the People's Republic of China, particularly with respect
to due process rights and rule of law, has focused on how
protection of individual rights actually makes social control
by the government more effective. For example, it has been
argued that the people are less likely to violate the law
if they believe that the legal system is likely to punish
them if they actually violated the law and not punish them
if they did not violate the law. By contrast, if the legal
system is arbitrary then an individual has no incentive
to actually follow the law.
People who argue that individual rights are more important
than social control are called "individual rights advocates".
Advocates tend to argue for increased civil rights. This
is traditionally associated with liberalism.
|
