In general, what is in a written Constitution doesn’t matter much if institutions and attitudes don’t support what is there. A fair number of authoritarian countries have strong free speech and similar rights enshrined in their Constitutions, See for example the Syrian constitution. Classically authoritarian regimes either ignore such provisions or in the case of Syria use a combination of ignoring the provisions, a favorable judiciary, and using potential loopholes to minimize the actual impact of those rights. On the other hand, some countries with little to no formally documented rights are quite democratic and functional. There isn’t a great correlation between what people say in their Constitutions and what they do or intend to do.
All sorts of self-interest, repression, and tribalism gets justified by the ideals of freedom, justice, and equality. It seems that a large amount of aggression has been promoting by groups styling themselves as anti-oppression movements. I recently wrote an article about the modern notion of “social justice”, which is beginning to show similar sorts of newspeak, in my view.
In general, what is in a written Constitution doesn’t matter much if institutions and attitudes don’t support what is there. A fair number of authoritarian countries have strong free speech and similar rights enshrined in their Constitutions, See for example the Syrian constitution. Classically authoritarian regimes either ignore such provisions or in the case of Syria use a combination of ignoring the provisions, a favorable judiciary, and using potential loopholes to minimize the actual impact of those rights. On the other hand, some countries with little to no formally documented rights are quite democratic and functional. There isn’t a great correlation between what people say in their Constitutions and what they do or intend to do.
For some grimly comic reading, see the declaration of rights in the 1936 constitution of the U.S.S.R., especially the articles 124-128.
This constitution was ratified a few months before the climax of the Great Terror.
This reminds me of the People’s Republic of Tyranny Trope (TV Tropes warning).
All sorts of self-interest, repression, and tribalism gets justified by the ideals of freedom, justice, and equality. It seems that a large amount of aggression has been promoting by groups styling themselves as anti-oppression movements. I recently wrote an article about the modern notion of “social justice”, which is beginning to show similar sorts of newspeak, in my view.