> which of the rights laid down in the US constitution are guaranteed in the
> US today? what guarantees certain rights is not whether they're written in
> the constitution, or even for that matter in laws (since the gap between
> laws and their enforcement is always significant), it seems to me.
Nothing is guaranteed. But the struggle over individual economic and political rights is, in part, premised on the existence of, and struggle over, basic rights in the constitution. Kelley's example--her invocation of the right to be free from search and seizure by authorities--illustrates how this can work. Unless you're black and in the "wrong" place; particularly if you're black and driving what seems to the cops to be a fancy car. Then you're in real trouble, so much so that sometimes you have to survive a police attack before your rights can be sorted out by the courts (e.g., the well-known Jonny Gamage case in the US).
So the rights in the constitutuion have to be interpreted and enforced, and, of course the elites, and their police force at the local level hold most of the cards.
> also, struggles in the US may take the form of struggles for/against
> certain rights, but all that means is that this is the form those struggles
> take, not that there would be no struggles for a better/worse/different
> world if they did not take such a form. it just means that they would not
> be conducted via the idiom of 'the right to ____'.
No that's not all that means. The codified existence of the various rights provides a clear basis for the struggles themselves. The possibility for struggle is enhanced.
> i've no sense of how constitutions are changed in the US, but i would
> assume that it is harder to change the constitution than it is to change
> laws, in which case (and as you mention below in relation to the
> limitations on those rights), isn't the problem at the level of laws rather
> than the constitution? btw, how is your constitution changed?
A constitutional amendment requires a 2/3 vote of the federal Congress, then ratification by 3/4 of the state legislatures, the voting rules for which I assume are set by each legislature, and the ratification must be achieved within a certain time frame--about 10 years I think. Very difficult to do, which is why there have only been a few changes in 200 years.
Yes, the problem is the legion of individual laws on the books: federal, state, and local. Each law is supposed to be "constitutional", i.e., conform the principles and guidelines in the constitution. But once you are past interpretation--what does the constitution mean--just try and get a legal challenge on to the Supreme Court's agenda of cases it will hear (of cases that even make it that far, only a very small percentage are heard by the Supremes). Thus there are many "unconstitutuional" laws on the books now and being enforced at the whim of authorities.
> (we're
> about to have a referendum to change the constitution this saturday, and
> unless there's a majority of votes in a majority of states, there goes the
> republic... awful federalism; and a big wide yawn to the amendment. but,
> we have compulsory voting, so looks like i have to go scribble something on
> the ballot.)
You have compulsory voting!??!! How oppressive. May I assume voting is compulsory only for this referendum and not general elections? What happens if you don't vote? Take away your driver's license? Remove you from the Social Security rolls? Twenty lashes with a wet noodle?
We have had the opposite problem in the US. There was a long struggle to get the right to vote for those denied franchise on the basis of sex or race, culminating in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But the right *not* to vote has always been inviolate. It's a right I exercise every election.
RO