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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 108.183.84.89 (talk) at 18:15, 4 August 2013 (→‎No mention of loss of rights: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Article Collaboration and Improvement DriveThis article was on the Article Collaboration and Improvement Drive for the week of May 23, 2005.

privileges?

I was struck to find rights be refered to as privileges in the first sentence of this article. A privilege implies that something is an extra or bonus ability that can justly be taken away. Isn't that contradictory to the concept of civil rights?

Perhaps the article writer made a mistake. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.133.227.37 (talk) 19:25, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Need to distinguish the term under German and American law.

In civil law jurisdictions such as Germany, the term "civil right" means something very, very different than what the term means in the United States. For example, if we have a contract, and you don't pay me, the grounds for a lawsuit in German law is that you have violated my "civil rights" (i.e. a right to demand payment from you as a result of a contract which is created under the German civil code).

The term means something very different in the United States.cash camp in the buildin

Roadrunner (talk) 21:32, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Jewish contribution

Why is there nothing in this article on the ENORMOUS Jewish contribution to the Civil Rights movement?!

this is so typical... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Topk (talk • contribs) 15:18, 22 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Because the Civil Rights pertained to the rights of us as a nation, and the person that wrote this article decided to generalize it and just make it a basic article with the basic rights and the basic 'comings' of the Civil Rights. if you would like to add the Jewish contribution to this article. go ahead. Wikipedia lets you edit the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.133.227.37 (talk) 19:23, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

vandalism

delete line: i like bananas they are good id like to fight the monkey that steals my banana. what a jerk Carolinacosmina (talk) 16:36, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Civil and political rights

I would like to propose that this article be renamed to Civil and political rights (which currently redirects here) and refocused to cover the sort of rights legislated upon by documents such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This would be in juxtaposition to the article on Economic, social and cultural rights, which in turn covers the sort of rights legislated upon by document such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. For use of "civil rights" in juxtaposition to human rights or natural rights, we should direct people to the article on legal rights; and likewise for use of "civil rights" in the sense of rights granted by civil law (as in Germany, etc), we should direct people to that article. Thoughts? -Pfhorrest (talk) 08:16, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, I would not merge this. Because people who have to do research projects (me) or write about it need a specific article JUST for civil liberties. --unsigned comment
What i would do is try to splice the article and make Civil and political rights not merge to this specific article. --unsigned comment
I disagree, they should not be merged. Civil and political rights do not necessarily overlap, as is seen in the difference between liberal autocracy and illiberal democracy. The right to vote is a political liberty, the right to not be oppressed (or whatever) is a (much more fundamental) civil liberty. -Douwe 4:44, 5 November 2008 (GMT+7) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.107.192.22 (talk)

I should point out that the proposed merger already happened last month, since nobody had commented on it in a timely manner. -Pfhorrest (talk) 22:35, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is merger absurd as I see the merge as a clear attempt by the natural rights side of the argument to use their perspective to negate the argument for civil rights. It is inherently political and an overt attempt to dominate a definition; it is not in keeping with NPOV. If I have to, I will put forward a proposal to have them split. Let's work to make this page right. -- Edunoramus (talk) 13:09, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Where are you finding anything to do with natural rights in this article? Natural rights are not opposed to civil rights as the term is used in this article; see further replies to your other comments below for more. --Pfhorrest (talk) 19:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Muslim women in Quebec

The new local law in Quebec preventing a muslim women wearing Niqab (covering her face except the eyes) from getting any government service - is or is not againest human rights and Canadian constitution?

Civil Rights and Sexual Orientation

I could not find any evidence that Sexual Orientation is related to Civil Rights. Please either add a citation or cross reference to the Civil Rights act which added it or delete it from this list. I believe the presence in this list is misleading. Curtgustafson (talk) 02:51, 17 August 2010 (UTC) Curtgustafson (talk) 18:57, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A civil right is a right given to you by your government. That's why it's called "civil". Whether you think sexual orientation is a choice or an immutable trait, any right granted to someone because of their sexual orientation is a civil right. You can't just change the definition of a word because you have your own bias. 75.221.54.4 (talk) 02:38, 29 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The civil rights defined in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 include protection from discrimination in voting, employment, and public accomodation. Numerous jurisdictions have passed additional legislation to protect (from disccrimination) some or all of those civil rights in 21 States on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, as noted in LGBT rights in the United States. A summary by state with references to specific legislation can be found at Lambda Legal. [1] Ergo, in US Laws, civil rights are protected from discrimination based on sexual orientation (and gender identity). That's the relationship. karena91 (talk) 14:50 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Civil and Political Rights Merger Rationale? Suggested Undo

I am interested in the rationale behind the merger of civil and political rights, as it is not clear to me why this was necessary. As it stands today, this article is not in keeping with npov and for this reason, I am suggesting that this merger between civil and political rights be undone. I look forward to comments and clear and concise rationales that are in keeping with, and substantiated by Wikipedia policies, especially npov and rationale. --Edunoramus (talk) 14:07, 28 August 2010 (UTC)ʳʳ[reply]

This type of merging strikes me as a type of reverse content forking that is aimed at inferring that two topic articles are treating the same subject, when in fact the topics themselves are contestable in terms of notions and ideals related to positive liberty and negative liberty. In this sense, the suggestion to merge is coming from the natural rights oriented side of the argument in an effort to neutralize the arguments in support of legal and civil rights. Please correct me if I am wrong. (See also Natural and legal rights). --Edunoramus (talk) 15:04, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am unclear on what you think is POV about this article and how you think it relates to natural and legal rights. As I see it there is little relation between the two topics, except that civil and political rights are a class of human rights and many people consider human rights to be in some way natural.
It looks like you may be conflating several senses of "civil right", and coming here because of the disambiguatory reference of that term on natural and legal rights. The term as used there does not mean the same as the term as used here.
The article that was once at civil rights (which now redirects here, though it originally went to civil rights (disambiguation)) was unclear whether it was talking about "civil rights" meaning "rights that are bestowed by nations on those within their jurisdiction" (i.e. "legal rights", as opposed to natural rights), "civil rights" meaning "rights or powers which can be exercised under civil law" (as opposed to common law), or "civil rights" in the sense of those various rights loosely clumped together and argued for by various civil rights movements around the world. Natural and legal rights discusses the first sense, and civil law discusses the second sense, and this article was left discussing the last sense.
Internationally, this loose group of rights is usually referred to as "civil and political rights" rather than simply as "civil rights"; the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights is divided into two parts, the first Civil and Political Rights part, and the second Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights part, and each of those has its own set of additional covenants. So political rights was rolled in with this article to create a single one. Are you suggesting that the grouping of civil and political rights together is somehow biased in favor of natural rights? Can you explain that line of thought more clearly, because that seems a complete non-sequitur to me; the topics are only vaguely related. --Pfhorrest (talk) 19:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I do not think I am conflating civil rights but rather I suspect that in combining these terms, civil and political rights together, you are attempting to obscure their meaning. Civil rights, for me, are not simply about rights exercised under civil law but more specifically, these rights involve equal protection of rights under the law, not just equal protection of "laws", as the article states.
By using the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights as your source, you are in a concealed way, arguing the course of natural rights on the basis of a document specific to human rights, drafted in 1948. This document does not address what was also happening in the world as a result of the burgeoning civil rights movement. As this page is the place where one ends up when the term civil rights is searched, we cannot simply ignore the changes in understanding of the term relative to what Brown v. Board of Education set in motion in the United States. So let me put it this way, there is a big difference between the approach to civil rights from the perspective in the document that you have chosen as your source and the approach to rights that might be derived from the close reading of a document like the The Race Question that was published during virtually the same time period. I understand that you are arguing that there is more than one definition of civil rights but you are also trying to conceal some definitions in favor of others. Why not just make it all clear? -- Edunoramus (talk) 20:41, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think you misunderstood me. My intention for this article is to be about the same sorts of rights that you are talking about, the kind of rights which civil rights movements advocate for the equal protection of: things like freedom of speech and the press and religion; freedom from discrimination on the basis of race, gender, etc; equal representation in government (suffrage); etc. The article which used to be here couldn't decide whether it was talking about that, or about rights under civil law, or about rights granted by states rather than belonging to all people. It was a mish-mash or all those different things.
All I did was remove those elements that weren't about the sense of "civil rights" which you are talking about, and create a disambiguation page specifying the other meanings, leaving this page about the topic you're talking about; then I renamed this article to "civil and political rights" as part of a general organization of rights-related articles, because that is the phrase used in the international discourse to distinguish these kinds of rights from the other broad category of rights called "economic, social and cultural rights".
The actual content of this article is hardly any of my own doing; there was no article at all at political rights, only a redirect to rights, which I merely re-redirected to here instead. So what you see here now is almost entirely just the old contents of the article once called Civil rights, minus the bits that weren't about this sense of civil rights, plus whatever else people have added to it since. Take a look at what the article looked like before I worked on it, and tell me you think that's more to your liking.
As for that phrase "equal protection of laws", I believe whoever wrote that (it wasn't me) meant "equal protection under the law". I would not object at all if you changed that phrase. --Pfhorrest (talk) 23:55, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As for using the UDHR as my "source" (I'm not citing it in the article, I just mentioned it in the discussion here), the UDHR is not explicitly grounded on a natural rights philosophy, any more than the various civil rights movements may be. There is significant debate amongst human rights proponents over what the basis of human rights is; see Human_rights#Philosophies for an overview, natural rights is only one theory there. I use the UDHR terminology and meaning because Wikipedia is international, so we can't use an exclusively U.S. meaning as your suggestion of Brown v BoE would indicate; the Irish civil rights movement, for example, was much more about equal rights for different religious groups than about equal rights for different races.
--Pfhorrest (talk) 23:55, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't get it, now you are saying you are agreeing with what I have stated? I am not convinced. You just reverted my edit in the intro, wherein, I attempted to clarify how civil rights are more suitably aligned with "freedom to" in positive liberty. You reverted the statement to affirm somehow that civil rights are about "freedom from" in negative liberty, adding that I was being overtly political or biased? WTH? It is possible that I need to do more homework but right now, I am not at seeing your point. I will look into this further and see if I can understand the bigger picture. -- Edunoramus (talk) 01:06, 29 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I was agreeing with your statement that "Civil rights [...] are not simply about rights exercised under civil law but more specifically, these rights involve equal protection of rights under the law"; at least, I agree with the best interpretation of that statement I can figure out, as it's still not very clear to me what you're trying to say. Mostly, I am agreeing that the focus of this article is not about rights exercised under civil law (nor about rights granted by law versus rights of some sort beyond the law), but about a class of rights generally grouped together as "civil rights". You haven't clearly stated what you consider the definition of "civil rights" to be (perhaps you can state a proposed definition of what you mean by "civil rights"?), so I can't really agree or disagree on that, but by process of elimination it seemed that we were agreeing on what this article is supposed to be about. I'm still unclear on what your objections to the current state of the article are, though, and why you have those objections.
Regarding my reversion of your edit to the lede, my objection is that as it stood before, it said that civil rights encompass both various "freedoms from", as well as concerning equal protection and lack of discrimination. The way you edited it, it basically stated the second part twice, and removed the first part, which made it less neutral, rather than more neutral as your edit summary claimed--Pfhorrest (talk) 03:52, 29 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If the UNDHR reference in the intro is not your doing, then I simply assumed it was when you brought it up. Sorry, my bad. However, I will add that the way it is being used in the intro (and in other entries that I have seen) is overtly right-leaning in that it is suggesting that the UDHR document concludes, and the statement that follows implies, that civil rights should be viewed as negative rights, along with other economic, social and cultural rights. This is a right-leaning political statement and if it is true, which I doubt it is but haven't had the time to investigate, it needs to be specifically cited from the text. Right now, the way it is dangling out there as an unsubstantiated "fact", I am very suspect of the statement and I doubt it has any substance, beyond rhetorical spin. -- Edunoramus (talk) 01:20, 29 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh yes, I did mention the UDHR in the lede, though I'm still not citing it as a source, only mentioning it. Nothing is saying that the UDHR defines what civil rights are; it's saying that the UDHR addresses civil rights in its first part, and then goes on to address economic, social, and cultural rights in its second part.
Speaking of which, your phrase "civil rights [...] along with other economic, social, and cultural rights" confuses me. In the normal language used in rights dialogue, rights are generally grouped into two broad classes: "civil and political" on the one hand, or "economic, social and cultural" on the other hand. So civil rights are not a kind of economic, social, or cultural right; so that phrase of yours sounds confused.
The kinds of rights which get called "civil rights" and "political rights" generally are the same kinds of rights which are also classified as "negative rights", and also as "first-generation rights". Saying that does not deny that other, positive, second-or-third generation, economic, social or cultural rights are valid, and so I don't see how you can construe that as right-leaning. The kinds of rights which say that you are entitled to this or that provision of goods or services or positively protecting various cultural or social things (languages, etc) are exactly the kinds of things which get lumped together as "economic, social and cultural" rights; the other kinds of rights, which say that the government or private corporations or whoever may not do this that or the other thing to you without certain due process and in a certain nondiscriminatory manner are precisely the kinds of things which get lumped together as "civil and political rights". None of that is to say that the first group (economic, social and cultural rights) are any lesser than the second (civil and political rights); they're just different kinds. The article isn't saying that economic, social, and cultural rights are invalid; it's only saying how they are different from civil and political rights.
For the purpose of clarification, could you please state something which you consider to be a civil right and also a positive (or economic, social, or cultural) right? Also, as above, please state your personal definition of civil rights in general, just so I can know what we're talking about here?--Pfhorrest (talk) 03:52, 29 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Civil rights movement

On the basis that the section of the civil rights movement section is not in keeping with NPOV, I am raising a red flag on this article. The whole thing is deeply biased and for that matter flawed. We need a balanced perspective here. I am going to be working on balancing the civil right movement section of this article and I welcome input. - Edunoramus (talk) 13:14, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How is the civil rights movement section POV? Because it is small? It is {{main}}'d to the complete article on civil rights movements, and I had been advocating that material from that article be merged into this article since that article is basically about the history of people advocating for the topic discussed in this article. But that idea got shot down. If you want to bring it up again, feel free to follow up on my comments on Talk:Civil rights movement. --Pfhorrest (talk) 19:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Civil rights and violations

Understanding civil rights and what to do if yours are violated can be confusing, especially if you can not afford an attorney. The MILLA Project did a legal outreach video focusing on civil rights and what to do if they are violated. You can view it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIgMk3A1NZ0 LT 3/10/12 — Preceding unsigned comment added by MILLAProject (talk • contribs) 14:08, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No mention of loss of rights

Just curious why there is no mention of the loss of rights and reinstatement of such? I lost my civil rights 15 years ago and never got them back. Would be good to read about that.

  1. ^ http://www.lambdalegal.org/states-regions/
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