Free speech and written rights.

["James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>]

At 10:06 PM 1/24/96 +0800, Bruce Murphy wrote:

> Which brings me to another point. At least [Americans] *have* a free
> speech bit in your constitution. While it's generally considered a
> right [in Australia], legally that's not really good enough.

About twenty or thirty years ago, there was big debate on in Australia
on whether Australia should have a bill of rights.

The natural rights crowd popped up from obscurity and vigorously opposed
a bill of rights.  They successfully argued that if a bill of 
rights were written down on paper, these rights would then become 
mere creations of the courts.  This same concern is voiced in Article nine
of the American bill of rights.

In my judgement, America is reasonably free despite having a bill of rights,
rather than because of a bill of rights.

The American nation derived its cohesion from the ideology of liberty, not
from a race or religion.  This is the reason America has a bill of rights,
and this is the reason it remains somewhat free despite possessing a bill
of rights.

Despite this debate and referendum in Australia, the government has 
been sneaking some rights into the Australian constitution by 
various stratagems, and I think that this will have the effect of
undermining liberty.
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