Is there ever a time when personal liberties should be suspended?

Yes they are.

 

No, they aren't, hence the term unalienable.

 

Wilson suspending freedom of speech during WWI, Lincoln suspending habeas corpus during the Civil War, or FDR putting hundreds of thousands of Americans into internment camps in WWII. They can and have.

 

I accept that you are thinking from an American POV but I was posing the question from a moral standpoint.
The issue becomes more complex when on right conflicts with another. This is clear today when the rights of the vaccinated (to move about freely) are interfered with or prevented by the right not to be vaccinated (needing proof of vaccination because some choose not to). Or the rights of a nurse to have time off and not melt down on the job because some use their rights to refuse vaccination or th e right of someone to have an operation but can't because beds and nursing time is clogged up with the unvaccinated.
To be clear, I speak in times of emergencies of course. If rights are unalienable, those of the majority usually defeat those of the minority in the end when there is a conflict. More often than not, states force people to sell their homes to construct a road or railroad, the right to protest is eroded by bylaws and public pressure. The unalienable rights of ALL those who have them by dint of that Dec of Ind. ( which also says all men are created equal) they are often denied them due to public opinion based on a generally accepted moral standpoint.
There was a case in the UK a while back when a gay couple ordered a cake from a bakery owned by fundamental Christians, who refused the order. Whose rights prevail?
The preamble you quote is fine when times were simple and issues were clear cut.
I therefore asked if there was any time when you would give up appropriate rights for the good of the community.

 

Nonesense..

We even give our own life's blood.

Which Political Party Is More Charitable?

 

No.

 

You beat me to it. The notion of 'greater good' doesn't exist when people talk about their own rights. Or that's certainly the way it seems more often than not.

 

Its the governments job to uphold the Constitution, and the Constitution speaks about personal rights, but it also talks about establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, providing for common defense, promoting general Welfare.

So, they must uphold the law, and your freedoms are suspended when you break the law, but they can be suspended for other reasons too as you mention above (natural disasters, war, disease).

Lately people speak as if all laws represent tyranny and authoritarianism, but its the governments duty to create laws and enforce, them to meet the above Constitutional mandates. Insuring domestic tranquility involves law enforcement. Providing for defense is self explanatory. Promoting general welfare (Section 8 replaces 'promote' with 'provide') means promoting/providing things which improves the nation as whole. Section 8 authorizes the government to spend tax money on this, while the execution of the spending can be done at State level, but also at Federal level. Vaccinating everyone against polio is a good example, and making education available for everyone is another.

For 22 years US would not allow people with AIDS to enter the county. We created other restrictions with the mad-cow and hoof & mouth diseases, and now with Covid. Its not a power grab, or about the willingness to control people, it's done to protect the general welfare of the nation. Is it sometimes taken too far? Sure, but its not some dark conspiracy to 'control people'.

 

And to be clear, Pixie, I answered your question from a moral standpoint. Whether we realize it or not, questions concerning our inherent natural rights - which are not to be confused with privileges - invariably involve morality.

As for my POV, I freely admit that I am an American and when I speak of 'the government' and 'social contract' I am referring to our (American) own. I understand that things are different in different countries, and while I may criticize how other people choose to run their countries I do not presume that the choice is not theirs to make.

Generally speaking, I agree with you that these matters can get more complex when rights conflict with one another, but I'm not convinced that the particular example you're citing actually qualifies as such a conflict. The problem there, in my estimation, is not one concerning bodily autonomy but one concerning the effectiveness of the vaccines. In theory, when you get vaccinated you should be protected - what the unvaccinated do with themselves shouldn't affect you at all.

As for the problem concerning hospital cases and overworked staff, I will point out that government mandates here in the U.S. are actually aggravating that problem instead of remedying it, and depending on how the courts rule in these cases (our Supreme Court is hearing arguments in two of them today), the mandates could make things much worse in the future as more staff are fired and fewer doctors, nurses, et al, are left to handle the workload.

As the old saying goes, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions...

Of course, and it is during times of emergency that people have to be particularly vigilant in the defense of their rights against government overreach, and when this is all over there is going to be a serious re-assessment in many places concerning the use of emergency powers and the concentration of so much power in the hands of one individual or a small group of individuals.

In countries that make the mistake of treating rights as privileges, that most certainly is the case. Here in the U.S., our Constitution makes that determination, not the arbitrary whim and fiat of the majority.

And the free speech laws in our country are different than yours and our government is obligated to compensate property owners when it exercises eminent domain....

Again, true in many countries but thankfully not ours.

For us, the principles expressed in the Preamble of the DOI always work, and they become even more important in difficult and complex times and cases, such as the difficult and complex time and case in which it was written.

Actually, that's a different question than the one you originally asked, and my response to your latest question is this: When it comes to rights, people have the right to exercise their rights and they have the right not to exercise their rights. Of course, there have been many times when I chose not to exercise my rights, but that choice is mine to make and it is a choice I make freely. It is not a choice the government has the authority to make for me and against my will.

Speaking specifically to the vaccine mandates, I am opposed to them on both the personal and constitutional/legal level. I think the choice to get vaccinated is one that individuals and their doctors should make, not a politician in Washington, and the only role government has to play in that decision is helping to make the vaccines available to those who choose to take them.

 

I do not believe so. Wehn that happens, it reaches a point of no return.
Never assume the government knows better than the people it governs!-Yabberefugee

 

Looks like the Portland insurrection and the Seattle insurrection were all leftists.

 

NOPE! The REAL violence was instigated by RW anarchists. Read the links; want more?

 

I disagree...your answer was based on the written DOI, irrespective of the issue of moral rectitude. The two do not necessarily coincide 250 years later.

The issue is not about the effectiveness of the vaccine. Specifically It is about the conflicting rights of choice. However my OP was not specifically about the vaccine...that was an example. I am speaking far more generally.

Again, a tangential specific issue.

Again, far away from the OP and my pointing out that I was discussing the MORAL duties of an individual instead of the LEGAL ones.

ISTM it isn't the governments of nations which treats rights as privileges...it is the people. And no, the USA is not exempt from such misunderstandings.
In bith cases, I more often see people treating privileges as rights. As in the mantra "it is my RIGHT to do XYZ".

I doubt very much if free speech laws are different here than in the USA but again, I was discussing MORAL rectitude, not law. The rest of this seems to me to be irrelevant to the discussion.

Always is very difficult to prove...and once again does not answer to the personal moral choice one makes outside law.

That is your moral choice. At last you answer the OP. You don't see any friction between your moral choice and the rights of others. That is a fair enough reply on the one side of the question, though a mention about why you feel that way would have been interesting.

 

It is relatively easy to give up something you can replace...blood, money etc. especially when you have enough of it not to impact seriously on your own welfare.
I suggest giving up your rights in a moral gesture is something else.

 

Interesting point...and one I don't necessarily believe.
People are subject to information pressures...the media, the gossip, the impressions. People are fickle, indecisive, unsure, subject to personal experience, influence of family, localised and motivated by their own circumstances.
Governments have a broader less emotional view. One hopes they have a longer view too.
Which BTW does NOT mean governments always get it right. In fact they often get "it" wrong. But they get it wrong for many reasons...self interest, lobbies, influential friends, misinformation, misinterpretation of statistics, bias confirmation, poor vision, poor planning and missing vital steps (by which I mean as in the UK, letting stored PPE become obsolete due to carelessness).
I don't believe either the state or the people are the sole guardians of the "best way forward".

 

Then explain this. The Government that shuts down our schools, select businesses and Churches and mandates vaccinations at the threat of losing the livlihood for thousands of citizens, is the SAME government that has allowed millions of illegal, untested invaders from our open southern border to be shipped to the interior of the United States. That is because our Nation is extremely corrupt on the National level. It is all about power and control. The government could give a flip about the well being of it's citizens!

 

Key words

 

With respect that is a different issue.
It has to do withy particular government devisions, and not the abstract "state" which embodies relevant powers.
However for interest, I could fill your evening with the "corrupt" nature of the UK government. It really is quite extraordinary.

 

tell that to the Japanese's Americans interned during WW2 it was all "for the benefit of the community" right

Many dictators throughout history used the excuse "for the benefit of the community" to strip away ones rights
Hitler used it to justify the oppression of the Jews
Stalin used it to justify the millions he sent to the Gulags

 

That was an unfortunate response to fear and will always be a black eye for America. I'm sure you and everyone on this board have made a mistake in judgement in their life time.

 

How is that a different issue? It all comes under the edict that government is to protect it's citizens. That is it's ultimate responsibility. No where is it effective in doing that as far as COVID goes. I know nothing about the UK as I have never been there.

 

Americans did not gas Japenese in those internment camps. We did not mow down dissenters as Stalin did. Don't know why you bring that up. I don't like the fact we interned Japanese. We made a mistake, but I love America!

 

My rights are not on loan to any government. I don't care what some president did in the past. They aren't infallible.

 

Simply because the issue in the OP is whether it is ever appropriate to surrender some personal rights in order to support the community. Not whether the state has to provide health cover or whether it is honest or corrupt.

 

I agree...but does that mean that you never surrender rights to a government you elected (or not) and live under in a culture you are sure of?
This is the nub of the issue...and adds an interesting dimension.