Time for a change - Collective right vs individual right posted 12/17/2007 11:34:13 AM | 2 kudos what's this?     report abuse

thenewguy295

I intended to post this here but couldn't get onto the site so it went up on AMD...of course right after that I was able to get back on here so....here goes.

The recent blogs posted here and elsewhere throughout the web offering various opinions on diverse subjects point out the relative incompetence of most observers including myself to offer any meaningful insight into the debate. Almost none of us have studied, collected or even seen the raw data or the summaries regarding any of the issues we discuss, we don’t even have access to them. The global warming issue is one that the scientific community should be debating while the rest of us watch on with interest and yet here we are posting blogs and writing letters to the editor, expressing our opinions as if we knew anything about the subject. Imagine if the American Medical Society Journal printed every yahoo’s scientific and medical theories, we’d still be basing our medical knowledge on the four humors. Even worse, what if every idiot with an opinion got to sit in the operating theater and express that opinion while the Doctor was performing the operation?
“I would have used a bigger knife.”
“I THINK the problem isn’t her gall bladder, she just needs to re-energize her cha with these crystals.”
“You’re doing it wrong!”
"We want topless nurses!"

As a part of a general re-appraisal of our civil rights it is certainly time to re-think the idea that everyone’s opinion is of merit. I’m not talking about censorship or preventing viewpoints from being expressed but rather viewing First amendment rights as a 'collective right', a 'right held in common’. In other words as long as a viewpoint or opinion is expressed by someone, somewhere YOU don’t necessarily have the right to be the one expressing it.

Think of all the energy savings, the trees saved and the bloodshed prevented. Most people don’t think of freedom of speech as being responsible for death and yet example after example can be found. The Spanish American war was largely a result of the Hearst chain of newspapers drumming up support amongst the American people for a war that the U.S. gov’t and the President didn’t want, thousands lost their lives. The present war in Iraq, would it have been possible without FOX news supporting the idea every day? Riots, protests, strikes turning violent. Nearly all involve the misuse of free speech.

Allowing the Jerry Springer audience to offer their take on the various subjects of National and International import does nothing to further either the knowledge base or decision making process. Simply by setting up a ‘clearinghouse of ideas’ of sorts (accessable by a permitting or licensing scheme) through the government or even an independent entity we can eliminate the ‘great unwashed’ masses and tidy up the entire process.

Under the ‘collective right’ theory, we don’t have to listen to every uneducated, unqualified moron’s opinion about a subject. Though to be fair to the uneducated morons everywhere, those opinions would be available somewhere. Instead we would be able to select from the viewpoints and opinions of those in our society much better suited than ourselves to issue such opinions and then pick the one(s) that we agree with. In so doing we would streamline the collective decision making process and return relevance and the intelligence to intelligent debate in our culture.

Blog comments are on but don't make me go collective on you!

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