The US government needs to create a new fund for community media outlets that supports them and trains them to serve as a kind of humanitarian newswire, focusing on getting neighborhoods vital information. The larger media landscape will continue on the business path it has always followed, but communities in need can’t wait for that behemoth to turn its attention their way.
We don’t have to go to war-torn countries like Sri Lanka to explore the idea of information as a human right. We can do it right here, in the United States, on Indian reservations, in immigrant communities, in struggling cities. Lets stop lamenting the fall of big media entities and start supporting the survival of the small but vital community media outlets that are reaching people who need basic, targeted information to get through the day.
So "information [is] a human right." I didn't know that. In one very free country in this world the ONLY human right acknowledged is the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Nowhere in Its Constitution is mentioned the right to information, health care, a job or even an education. Who are these people who have the power to create new "rights" for others? And doesn't that imply that if a "right to...(you fill in the blank)" is not listed, then that "right" does not really exist? Once a new "right" is created (found/discovered), that action implies that "rights" are doled out by a benevolent government and therefore can be repealed at any time in the future by a less benevolent government. Our rights are sacred and should not be trivialized or diminished by loose definitions.
#1 Posted by Arthur Walsh, CJR on Sat 30 Jun 2012 at 07:34 AM
The Constitution states all kinds of rights, starting with freedom of religion (or assembly, if you don't consider a freedom a right), especially in the aptly-named Bill of Rights, but it does not mention the pursuit of happiness. Furthermore, the 9th Amendment states, "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." In other words, the rights of the people are not limited to those explicitly stated.
The Declaration (NOT the Constitution) refers to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but implies much more, including the right to revolution: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator [not the government] with certain unalienable Rights, that AMONG THESE are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to SECURE these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." Rights are by definition not just perquisites "doled out by a benevolent government."
Thomas Paine, one of our founding fathers, even introduced the concept of a guaranteed minimum income. Then there are the rights stated in international human rights instruments signed and/or ratified by the United States.
#2 Posted by Flora Riemer, CJR on Sat 30 Jun 2012 at 03:27 PM
Thank You Arthur Walsh. While I'm sympathetic to Jesse Hardman's contention that the poor "need" information (even for survival). It is not, nor should it be a "Right".
#3 Posted by mike whatley, CJR on Sun 1 Jul 2012 at 11:27 AM