Xref: utzoo can.politics:2100 can.francais:131
Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!watcsc!death
From: death@watcsc.uucp (Trevor Green)
Newsgroups: can.politics,can.francais
Subject: Re: Bourassa and Bill 101
Summary: We're treading on thin ice here!
Keywords: Quebec, constitution, perilously close
Message-ID: <1989Jan14.134236.5958@watcsc.uucp>
Date: 14 Jan 89 18:42:32 GMT
Expires: Jan 31 1989
References: <88Dec21.113818est.9269@ois.db.toronto.edu> <2541@looking.UUCP> <836@mannix.iros1.UUCP> <17099@onfcanim.UUCP> <762@myrias.UUCP> <17162@onfcanim.UUCP>
Reply-To: death@watcsc.UUCP (Trevor Green)
Distribution: can
Organization: University of Waterloo Computer Science Club
Lines: 33

In article <17162@onfcanim.UUCP> dave@onfcanim.UUCP (Dave Martindale) writes:
>
>Perhaps this is an interesting question:  If Quebec was a completely
>independent country, would it have the right to determine for itself
>whether the language of signs was protected by freedom of speech?
>
>If not, why not?  Can a country not determine for itself what rights
>its citizens shall have?

Did Germany 1933-45 have the right to determine for itself whether the lives,
businesses, religion, etc. of Jews and Gypsies was protected by anything?

If not, why not? Can a country not determine for itself what rights its
citizens shall have?

>If so, why is it that what it is right and "moral" for a country to
>determine these things, but it is not right or moral for a province to
>do so?

There is one fundamental right: the right of all human beings to lead human
lives as they so choose. This is IMHO the only way in which the world and all 
its citizens can be truly free. Noone nor any group, whether or not in the 
majority in the resident nation, can decide to remove any part of this 
individual determination, whether such action is as harsh as Stalin's Purges 
or as mellow as Bill 178.

...we now interrupt my pontifications and return you to your normally scheduled
flamefest...

-- 
Trev
"I know! We can make machine language Scrabble! You'd only need two kinds of 
 tiles." -- anonymous, overheard