Here's another proposal that's sure to be controversial: we should create the right not to be made a participant in a war of aggression, as a soldier, contractor, or taxpayer. After all, wars of aggression are already illegal, so there ought not to be anything dangerous in giving individuals the right to obey the law. We should also update the Third Amendment to give us the right to live in towns and cities free from any public presence of military force. In fact, we should create the right to live in a nation either not armed for aggressive war or actively working toward disarmament and actively working toward global disarmament.
9. Freedom of the Press, and Freedom from War Lies
We should expand the First Amendment to require meaningful freedom of the press. We might consider one strictly limited restriction on our First Amendment rights. This would involve the establishment of a right to protection from war propaganda, including any false, misleading, or fraudulent information intended to create support for war, with criminal penalties for violators. We should never underestimate the danger of restricting free speech or of opening up the possibility of further restricting free speech, but the clear fact is that war is much more destructive than any other human activity (with the possible exception of long term environmental destruction). It is already forbidden to falsely scream "Fire!" in a crowded building, so it might makes sense to forbid effectively drenching crowded buildings in lighter fluid. I would, however, expand the right to free speech to include the right to be a whistleblower and expose violations of the law by superiors, in public or private work places, without negative consequences.
Finally, I think that we need enshrined in explicit terms in our Constitution, as well as perhaps elaborated in a book called "Self-Government for Dummies," the right to know what the laws are, and to have the laws applied equally to everyone.
III. CHANGES WE CAN MAKE
Fortunately, we do not have to start from scratch in constructing new human rights. Much work has already been done, some of it by that 95.5 percent of humans who are not Americans. Many of the rights proposed above I have taken word for word, or nearly word for word, from existing international treaties. Where we think it makes sense, we can ratify and enforce international treaties that establish rights for all human beings. Shouldn't Americans have, at a minimum, the rights that others around the world have or strive for? Shouldn't we provide those rights to foreigners visiting our country and expect those rights to be maintained for our citizens traveling abroad? Shouldn't we abide by those treaties that we have already signed, and join other nations in developing these rights, rather than standing in the way? Isn't there something fundamentally wrong with what we did to the people of New Orleans in 2005 and subsequent years that requires a reworking of the system that permitted it?
A major influence on the establishment of international rights was the work of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor Roosevelt, who served as delegate to the UN General Assembly and chair of the committee that drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In his annual address to Congress in 1941, President Roosevelt said,
"In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want -- which, translated into universal terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear -- which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb."
That kind of world has still not been attained, but it is still attainable. Progress has been made here at home, although we've also taken significant steps backward. The same is true abroad. International rights and restrictions have developed over the decades, inspired by documents like the US Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). These new ideas have been incorporated into treaties to which the United States is, in some cases, already a party, treaties like the Geneva Conventions and the UDHR. According to the US Constitution, those treaties and every other treaty to which the United States is a party are the law of the land:
". . . This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
In looking for ways to expand our Bill of Rights, we can turn to the International Bill of Rights, which consists of three major treaties:
1. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which the United States voted in favor of when it was unanimously passed by the United Nations in 1948
2. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which went into effect in 1976 and has been ratified by 159 nations but not the United States; and
3. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which went into effect in 1976 and has been ratified by 162 nations including the United States, although the US ratification included major exceptions and qualifications that rendered it toothless. There are also two additions to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights called optional protocols. The first has been ratified by 111 nations, but not the United States, the second by sixty-six nations but not the United States.
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