"You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."
In Scotland it's different:
"You are not obliged to say anything but anything you do say will be noted down and may be used in evidence. Do you understand?"[1]
What it is referring to is a situation where you rely on some evidence that you could have fabricated, the prosecution is entitled to point out that you had the opportunity to fabricate it.
For example, you claim you were at your friend's house at the time of the crime, but you didn't mention this to the police at the time of the arrest so that they can go and interview your friend to corroborate your alibi.
A jury may take from this that your alibi is not very convincing, because you may have arranged this alibi with your friend between arrest and trial.
In neither England nor the US can someone be convicted based on silence alone. Silence isn't evidence. It is simply the lack of evidence.
This is such a hilariously weird take on how rights work. I don't want to tar all Americans with the same brush, but I think only someone from the US could possibly have come up with this
It really isn't exactly how it works though - correct me where I'm going wrong here, because I've just read all these responses and feel I must be going insane.
The ideology is that human beings ought to have some intrinsic rights. The Bill of Rights is an attempt to codify those rights in the context of how _the US government_ can interact with people (regardless of their citizenship).
The idea that a UK citizen has these rights by default because they're in the US Bill of Rights, and can then have these rights deprived of them _by their own government_ is the part of this that is hilariously American. Of course, if it was the US government taking the action then that would be a different story altogether, but the US isn't involved at any point
It works that way to say that these rights are _above_ the US government. The government isn’t “granting” them, and it can’t take them away. The bill of rights is descriptive, not prescriptive.
The side effect here is that technically, according to US lore, the situation you describe with the UK is correct. And it’s kindof how US citizens think.
You have the right to protest your government. You have the right to say whatever you want. You have the right to defend yourself. You may not agree, but that’s what US lore says, and it feeds a lot of our international behavior.
The only requirement of an abstract definition is that it be comprehensible and internally consistent.
It is clearly not consistent to criticize Americans for violating inalienable human rights while claiming that inalienable human rights are a concept that does not exist for non-Americans.
I’m trying but I don’t understand your comment. Are you saying inalienable rights are an American idea? The US imported that idea.
Or are you saying that it’s bad that they have to be spelled out in the Constitution? Many of the original founders agreed with this and were concerned that the Bill of Rights would create a negative space consisting of every unlisted right, in which the government could reduce rights with impunity. (It turns out that essentially happened due to the unfortunate wording of the inter-state commerce clause.)
If you mean it’s weird that the Constitution is federal, yes, that’s due to the unusual circumstances surrounding the formation of the United States. Each state also has its own constitution where variations of these rights, and others, is repeated.
If the US government can selectively apply Constitutional protections to citizens and noncitizens worldwide, others should be able to claim those same rights if in a jurisdiction arguably subject to US control, presence, or influence. Not sure whether a UK citizen in the UK would qualify in that case, but I don’t find the idea absurd on its face.
> You're saying that inalienable rights might exist, depending on US policy?
Yes, in practice if not in principle or statute. American citizens and their citizen children have been murdered by drones without a jury trial or public hearing, or much of any due process which may be examined by the public openly. We take the US at their word when we say inalienable rights exist, but their behavior suggests that the US doesn’t respect inalienable rights or view them as an impediment to implementing unconstitutional US policy or performing acts contravening said inalienable rights.
> If the US doesn't respect inalienable rights, then non-citizens should have them?
Extradition to US has been blocked on a case-by-case basis by foreign courts due to observable effects of American courts not even meeting their own regulatory bar of speedy, fair, public trials, trials where you may confront your accuser in open court, with a jury of your peers. Parallel construction makes a mockery of the investigatory chain of evidence. Fruit of the poison tree doctrine is DOA. Secret grand juries are lied to in order to force unjustifiable, indefensible charges. Secret evidence and secret trials. Are secret convictions and secret imprisonment next? Indefinite detention without charge already gets US government 90% of the way there.
> I don't see any connection, and you seem to also be saying you believe in inalienable rights which are alienable.
I believe in inalienable rights, in that the concept is an unequivocal social good, but rights are not only what are claimed, but that which can be exercised freely and without undue restraint; I also believe that the government doesn’t act as if it has a good faith belief in ensuring that inalienable rights exist to begin with, nor does the US seem intent on defending them in all cases. In practice, inalienable rights don’t exist. This should change in my view.
> Inalienable rights are an abstract idea that can't exist.
You left out the first part, where I said “in practice.” As in, it should never occur that our human rights are able to be circumvented, curtailed, or allowed to be violated. That our rights are violated in practice, in reality, is bad and should not happen, and proves that we must act as if inalienable rights are not some platonic ideal, but a lived reality, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
To the degree we are alienated from our innate human rights, it is because we as a society allow it, accommodate it, justify it, and excuse it. It is up to us all, individually and collectively, to do better. We can do better, and must, or we lack the courage of our convictions, and thus prove that the ideal remains an idea only, and not real, not a lived experience in and of reality. Arguing about the “existence” of abstract concepts is not my point. We embody these ideals with our thoughts, beliefs, and especially actions - what we do or do not do in accordance with our stated principles of inalienable rights.
We only have the rights we claim to have, rights we claim as ours by expressing them, even when others disagree, and defying any and all who would deny them to us. Inalienable rights are not up for debate to those who claim them. To have inalienable rights is to talk the talk and walk the walk.
To say inalienable rights exist is not a truth claim about the nature of reality; it is drawing a line in the sand and picking this hill to die on.
> Rights that were never violated could not be conceived of as rights, like "hot" wouldn't have any meaning if there wasn't "cold".
I agree wholeheartedly. Ironically, we discovered human rights by violating those of ourselves and of others, until the consequences of and backlash against such opprobrium became juice not worth the squeeze, deciding not to, and accepting nothing less than our continued newfound freedom.
>You left out the first part, where I said “in practice.”
Yes, that's what I was addressing. I am saying that "in practice" doesn't work as a modifier, because being "inalienable" is an abstract quality which does not pertain to real things or events.
Like "happy" applied to sand, or "green" applied to thoughts.
I address this when I say that rights are that which is claimed, by force if necessary. That’s what keeps the entire nation intact, folks and institutions, and legal systems are just an extension of the threat of force, and the system has now bent back on itself like an ouroboros. Rights are never given. They are taken from those who would deny them us. It’s an affirmative claim about your belief system in society to say you believe in inalienable rights. It’s patriotic to believe in this common goal, in my opinion.
The English have done alright for philosophers, but I'm not sure human rights have ever been a particularly strong suit in the UK. Sadly it's not looking like improving any time soon
