Guess which Country's Constitution....

[Felicia Katt]

Guess which Country's constitution has these provisions:

Article 31:

Every citizen has the right to health care. The state takes care of public health and provide the means of prevention and treatment by building different types of hospitals and medical institutions.

Article 35:

First:

A. The liberty and dignity of man are safeguarded.

B. No person may be kept in custody or interrogated except in the context of a judicial decision.

C. All forms of psychological and physical torture and inhumane treatment shall be prohibited. Any confession coerced by force, threat, or torture shall not be relied on. The victim shall have the right to compensation in accordance with the law for material and moral damages incurred

Article 38:

The freedom of communication, and mail, telegraphic, electronic, and telephonic correspondence, and other correspondence shall be guaranteed and may not be monitored, wiretapped or disclosed except for legal and security necessity and by a judicial decision


I'll give you a hint. Its not the US. I'll give you another hint. Its Iraq.

Am I the only one who find all this more than slightly ironic?

FK

[lurker]

Ok.
The words look good in print. But it is the enforcement of law that makes a law worth the paper its written on. When their government is on solid ground and able to get the people to abide by the laws, and able to keep corrupt government officials from skirting the law for personal gain we will have something to talk about.

Man is basicly evil. Without enforment of law and willingness of people to believe in and participate in the peace and peackeeping agenda no elegantly written document of eutopic ideals will mean anything.

[Caleigh]

Lurker, couldn't we say the same about the U.S. constitution?

[Ecstatic]

Hmm, I thought Iraq might use our constitution. After all, we're not using it much these days.

[lurker]

Caleigh,

We can absolutely say the same about the US constitution. And I'm sure many other countriies have similar ideals about how their citizen's should conduct themselves.

I have never lived outside the US, and cannot comment directly on how life is "over there". But I know that over here, their are people afraid to speak up about crime in their neighborhood out of fear for retaliation. I know that there are people who turn their head away from crime, as long as thier pockects get filled. And not that long ago, there were peolpe who lost their lives trying to exercise rights explicitly outlined in the constitution while the law enforcement looked on.

i guess my point is that writing the document is the (relatively) easy part. Having the strength and the will to live up to it and enforce it is what we will have to wait and see. And just as our citizens are still fighting for their constitutional rights and for equal enforcement, the many different culture groups in Iraq will be fighting a long time for the same things.

[yourdaddy]

So what's your point Felicia. Trying to change our Constitution now?

[Felicia Katt]

I revere our Constitution. I really question whether my government still does. We have made huge sacrifices to try to establish a constiutional democracy in Iraq, and aren't really working that well within ours here in the process.

We have torture. Despite just now passing a law that makes it illegal, we have a presidential signing statement that says we still may. We have warrentless domestic spying. We have persons in detention undergoing interrogation without charges or counsel, and we don't have any assurance of health care for all.

We are leading by force or fiat when we should be leading by example.

FK

[Trogdor]

Hmm, I thought Iraq might use our constitution. After all, we're not using much these days.

Yep, so true, dude.

to quote snake Plissken from Escape from L.A.

Snake: Freedom...in America? freedom in America died a long time ago.


I feel that one day, in the near future, we'll see this happening.

http://www.snakeplissken.net/php_esc...dofthefree.mp3