Quote:
Originally Posted by realcity
Interestingly public congregation has been a maniacal fear in N.A. For some reason we actually had to fight for a RIGHT to Assemble. As if this wasn't a human right, but only a civil right -- one that could be taken away. In Europe this is part of civic life. In N.A. our public space has been designed to discourage any kind of loitering, socializing and congregating. Even passing laws on both public and private space against "Loitering". 30 minutes or more and you must be up to no good, planning a bank robbery or 'staking out the place'. It's at the point now that we see 4 or 5 people doing just that in Gage Park and automatically suspect "They're up to something" with fear. In Europe a group would see 4 or 5 people talking and then join them.
The fear dates back to labour movements and fear of communist uprising.
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You're right - in North America it does go back to establishment concerns over labour uprisings in the 19th and early 20th centuries. However, virtually every government in continental Europe - whether in France, Germany, Italy, or Spain - has at some point in its history tried to limit the right of the people to organize. So to say that it has been recognized as a "human right" as opposed to a "civil right" in those countries is not quite accurate (moreover, the legal philosophy of these countries has always been firmly positivist so perforce skeptical of naturalist/universalist concepts like human rights). However, English law has consistently been profoundly circumspect when it comes to rights of free assembly, which explains why the right has traditionally been a rather impoverished one in both Canada and the US (since both countries largely adopt the traditions and conventions of the English common law).
I would agree in general that North American (but also British) societies have always been much more timorous when it comes to the possibility of social disorder than have continental European societies. Anglo societies have always been much, much less communitarian; consequently their focus has usually been upon stability of social order and preservation of individual rights.