LETTERS

摘要

Andrea Maltman discusses a new bill of rights for space colonists (16 May, p 36). For a right to have any meaning, society as a whole must agree it will collectively punish violators of the right, and defend those who exercise it. My right to free speech is meaningless if I can be threatened or even punished for speaking my mind -by my employer, my government or by a bully - and there is no consequence for those who are threatening me. Rights are mere philosophical fictions if the society doesn't believe in them, or if it actively protects those who violate them -as US governments notoriously have done with over-zealous, racist and sadistic police officers. In space, it shouldn't be up to "leaders" to enforce rights: they are often the main abusers of rights because they hold power. It must be the society of space travellers themselves that agree upon a Magna Carta, backed in the final analysis by their own collective forceful coercion.