----- Original Message ----- From: "Nathan Newman" <nathan at newman.org> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Monday, November 12, 2001 1:28 PM Subject: Re: are violations of rights ever right?
> The issue really is what we mean by "rights" - an often useless grabbag of
> ideological arguments that mean little more than "I get to trump any card
> you play." Almost every "right" has a limit- the real issue is usually
who
> decides where that limit should be. It is that procedural question, not
> some absolute "right" that usually is involved.
>
> Abortion arguments classically play off the "rights" of the mother against
> the "rights" of the unborn child, when the real issue is who decides
> mediation of the values involved, the mother or a judge.
>
> In the case of attorney-client privilege, we are in the realm of complete
> proceduralism. As long as the information was never misused by
> prosecutors, there would be little real harm to complain of from violating
> such a "right." However, it is precisely because we don't trust
prosecutors
> to act fairly that we take procedural control over deciding whether to
> breach that "right" from them.
This is no longer a problem once we realize that "rights" aren't supposed to run counter to the general welfare but are indeed supposed to ensure it. Of course, conflicts of interest can also be hard to resolve, but I doubt they're ever as insoluable as debates about rights.
-- Luke