I think a lot of politicians have this perspective, and I think it’s condescending and anti-democratic.
“People make bad decisions” (according to my own personal judgement of good decision making, of course) is a very week criticism of democracy. Aside from being a subjective assessment to begin with, it is always used as an excuse for some type of authoritarian policy.
In a democracy a politician should be able to articulate their policy agenda, and then be trusted to actually try and implement it. In reality such a process is always going to be mired by errors, and inefficiency, and corruption. But to say “well my politician surely knows what’s best for me, they will protect me from my human folly” is just to excuse the intentional erosion of democratic principles.
I also don’t think universal human rights are a thing that exists in any real form. I don’t believe there is a person anywhere in the world who has a single human right that their government couldn’t deprive them of if it chose to, and I think the perspective your describing is at least partly responsible for that. Governments only ever deprive people of their human rights for reasons they claim are for the benefit of society. The patriot act, and our secret FISA courts, and the laundry list of other tyrannies exist for no reason other than to “protect us”.
It's the foundation of 'democracies', which are representative. Reps can't articulate agendas and carry them out because many issues don't exist when they are elected, most others change, when they get on the job they learn more (hopefully), and they need to work with other people to get anything done (by design). It is a leading job of government, one supported strongly by voters, to protect the public.
The hyperbole and strawpeople aren't relevant. Universal human rights, while not perfect, are far beyond what you describe - including for prisoners.
“People make bad decisions” (according to my own personal judgement of good decision making, of course) is a very week criticism of democracy. Aside from being a subjective assessment to begin with, it is always used as an excuse for some type of authoritarian policy.
In a democracy a politician should be able to articulate their policy agenda, and then be trusted to actually try and implement it. In reality such a process is always going to be mired by errors, and inefficiency, and corruption. But to say “well my politician surely knows what’s best for me, they will protect me from my human folly” is just to excuse the intentional erosion of democratic principles.
I also don’t think universal human rights are a thing that exists in any real form. I don’t believe there is a person anywhere in the world who has a single human right that their government couldn’t deprive them of if it chose to, and I think the perspective your describing is at least partly responsible for that. Governments only ever deprive people of their human rights for reasons they claim are for the benefit of society. The patriot act, and our secret FISA courts, and the laundry list of other tyrannies exist for no reason other than to “protect us”.