this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2025
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Lack of text or a link to (archived) source creates a usability issue: we can't quote the text without pointless bullshit like retyping it or OCR.
Other issues when image lacks text alternative such as link
- usability: can't reflow text to varied screen sizes or vary presentation (size, contrast) or modality (audio, braille), we can't find by text content
- accessibility: some users can't read this due to misleading alt text, users can't adapt the text for dyslexia or vision impairments, systems can't read the text to them or send it to braille devices
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- fault tolerance: no text fallback if image breaks.
Contrary to age & humble appearance, text is an advanced technology that provides all these capabilities absent from images. Text is useful.
As I wrote in a deeper comment, the post mistakes the concept of & philosophy behind inalienable rights with legal rights.
The Enlightenment Era thinkers who developed these ideas were entirely familiar with governments legally oppressing their people. The most common governments at the time were absolute monarchies justified by divine right.
To challenge unjust governments, they worked on a more rational definition for legitimate authority. They settled on the idea that governments exist for the people & have legitimate authority only when they protect the inalienable liberties & rights of all people. When a government lacks legitimacy, the people have a right to alter it to or replace it with a legitimate one.
So, while a government can suppress inalienable rights, no government can legitimately (ie, should) do so: that would be immoral (and a violation of natural law they claimed). It's moral & political philosophy concerning legitimacy.
Contrary to the post, people do have inalienable/universal/inherent rights: those inform us whether a government is legitimate. It's still up to the people to obtain legitimate government.
Rights are a human construct. They don't exist in nature.
When we fight to construct them, we must fight to keep them. In a representative democracy, our representatives are the ones who are supposed to fight for us. But when they fail, that responsibility falls back to the average, everyday, common person.
The struggle to keep our rights moreso has to do with getting people off the couch to stand up for what they believe in. In an apathetic society glued to their toys and treats, their bread and circuses, it's that much easier for other humans with wishes to collect their own power to dismantle that of the majority.
human construct
Yeah but also human constructs are objectively real. When people say human construct in a way that relegates it lower than natural phenomenon, that is a condition of alienation. A building is a human construct, so is art, so is a computer, an industry, a society.
Rights are a social construct which are no less real than physically existing constructs. Money is a social construct, so is religion. In fact religion served the same function in feudal society that money does in capitalism.
Since all these things were created by humans, and humans are a part of nature, then human constructs are a part of nature. Rights develop as society develops, as we become more advanced. The right to healthcare didn't exist before there was widely available doctors, hospitals and clinics to provide it, before modern medicine made it possible to heal many injuries and diseases. But now that the material basis for it exists, like any technology, it can be used to improve the lives of everyone or it can be used to oppress.
But both outcomes are the result of human activity.
I dig your conclusions, but I think that it becomes difficult to convince people when we ourselves are operating on a faulty basis. The reality of human alienation from nature is not an essential part of nature, it is the product of human activity. It took work to create it and it will take work to reverse it. Alienation is a condition of class rule.
But the real basis for it, which in our society is laws and culture underwritten by state violence, is not as permanent as the fact that it is the labor and time of all the workers that create what is actual. And if we want to change the conditions that alienate us from the rights and privileges that our labor creates, then we have to be able to reflect on reality as it is. We have to not just make mystified statements but really understand every step in the process of the logic that we will use to inform the actions needed for liberation.
Taking for granted our alienation as natural and not imposed, is a step in the logical process that informs our subjugation.
It tells you that concepts like rights, morality, right and wrong are all human inventions and are all relative. Nature or the universe do not enforce them. You have a certain right, if the society you live in thinks you should have that right and if circumstances allow that you have that right. That means none of these rights are unalienable or guaranteed, they have to be defended constantly. Both physically and legally, both against internal and external threats.
Mistaken reality aside, The (alternate) Janeway has a point. Everything we've painstakingly fought for previously has to be backed up by those willing to ensure those rights remain. By what means is yet to be seen, preferably by ink or, as needed, by force. Understandably, blood has already been spilled, but we hope to not need go further.
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normally you'd have a congress that flexed its power to stop the President from touching rights at all, but over time the Executive has become more and more powerful and Congress more and more impotent.
I think this is the defect of a 2 party system, and the fact that it incentivizes party above body (of government)
Congress and the executive should want to fight for their respective bodies' power, in a vacuum, to ensure they have the maximum effect in their position, whicb would lead to them fighting eachother on overreach.
But with parties, the executive and his party's members in congress have the same goals. And since congress has minority representation while the executive does not, in order to maximize those goals, a majority party with the presidency is incentivized to increase executive power at the cost of legislative, to increase the parties goals, and minimize the effect of the minority parties power to hinder them.
This would return to the norm whenever you had an opposing congress, if it werent for the executive veto/ signatory powers, meaning a president with a 1/3 minority in congress can prevent the return of power to the legislative.
And then, when the congress and president of the other party align, they have no reason to lessen the power the other side pushed towards the executive, and and continue to push for the same transfer to tbe executive to increase their efficacy.
And that needs to start with electing representatives and a President that respects and will restore our Constitution.
This goes farther than Trump. Our Constitution was damaged and tattered well before that, which is part of what enabled Trump and his admin to rip it to shreds.
The President getting to decide what laws are enforced and which aren't is kind of insane. The pardon power was generally fine before this, but was clearly open to abuse.
Hillary broke the law with her private email server, but everyone else, including W and Trump and Hegseth broke that same law. It just wasn't enforced until they decided to hit Hillary with it specifically.
If there are laws we shouldn't enforce, we should just get those laws off the books. And clearly we need to rein in Presidental power. We left a whole lot of trust that the office would be run in good faith, and regardless of party that's generally been true, with exceptions. The is the first administration that hasn't given a single fuck about the American people.
I feel like every previous President was brought in and made to understand that it's a china shop, and they need to not act like a bull, and then were given very specific and explicit reasons why for each situation. There's a reason each predecessor did what they did, and those actions were generally done under the advisement of some very smart people with solid research, and if you're going to break with that previous decision, you better be really damn sure of what you're doing.
This is the first administration that's come in and told each of those advisors to fuck right off. The biggest plate to break so far is the idea of Due Process. When I Google the phrase "Due Process", the first thing that comes up should absolutely not be about immigrants. This isn't a law centered on immigrants or anything about immigration specifically. You know the reason that immigration comes up as the top result for "due process" in 2025.
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...we did build that system. We are currently in that system, which has been corrupted by a criminal and terrorist organization called the Republican party
that's a lot of words to say what Carlin said much simpler
Yeah. This is literally just quoting Carlin and then saying we need to change the system after.
Part the OP is saying verbatim is around 3:30
It's a failure of the system as a whole. If the rights are described as inalienable as a fact of the law then any president who tries to take those rights away should ideally be stopped by the courts.
Instead we have courts that say "hmmm it's pretty clear they can't do this so how can I make up some absolute nonsense to say it's totally ok for them to do it...."
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Pretty words, but no system is self enforcing. What's going on now has taken the collective agreement of thousands of bad actors, over decades, to enact.
true, but I think the system must be afraid. we need the public to have solidarity and see beyond their privilege. the American individualist ideology is a poison.
The moment the state tries to fuck over anyone, the whole nation should stop to a halt.
Welcome to Anarchism :)
Yes. And this is why rights are lost as soon as you lower your guard.
Well if anyone is tired of posting about it and wants to do something about it message me
Absolutely incandescent!
Yup. This is the basic principle of anarchism.
See, we've been trying to do that, build an ideal system, real hard for a very long time but the only, only, absolutely tried and true only method to get there is via democracy. And people keep voting the fucking strip away all rights guys into power.
Rights are not given, they're taken.
I think this is the one key question about any elected government. We would need to make sure that representatives are truly accountable, not just replaced. We have corporate manslaughter legislation after all.
There are only two systems in which rights cannot be taken away. A system with no rights in the first place, or a system with no living beings to have rights.
The point of inalienable rights, is they are the rights which must always be fought for and protected no matter the cost.
This makes sense, there are no abuses of human rights in the US it is just that some people do not meet the conditions to receive privilages like basic healthcare, food assistance or fair treatment by state employees.
America, where everyone is equal, and some are even more equal than others!
A lot of our so-called "rights" simply express the fact that we have money.
Can we drive a car? Yes, because it costs money and we have that money. Can we go to school? Yes, again, because it costs money and we have that money. Can we go on holidays to a foreign country? Yes, again, because it costs money and we have money. Same for lots of other things.
The people have money because companies need to pay them if they want people to work at their companies. That's what gives people power. The fact that they are needed in the economy. No kind of law is causing this; simple necessity is.
It's the collapsing labor market that is causing a seeming decline in our rights. It's not Trump's fault (well, also trump's fault, since he made it much worse, but the issue started years earlier) that people are experiencing hardships, because of the collapsing labor market.
The solution would be to accept that the labor market is collapsing (because very few things can be done against that) and start accepting people for being people, independent of how much work they perform. In other words, stop glorifying "hard workers" and start seeing the value in people themselves.
Constitutions are just a "we promise we wont oppress you" pinky promise. Laws are nothing but the words of people. It wouldn't mean anything if nobody (especially those in power) respect those words anymore.
No, give me all the rights, I'm good, I swear.
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