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The Forum > Article Comments > Documenting the inherent worth of all > Comments

Documenting the inherent worth of all : Comments

By Sev Ozdowski, published 11/12/2018

Culture around human rights is not automatically acquired at the birth or through DNA. Human rights standards need to be learned.

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Sev - you wrote, "The ultimate test of our commitment to human rights as a nation, however, is not what we aspire to, not the conventions we sign, and not even the laws that are set in place. Rather it is how we treat our most vulnerable and powerless" and I agree 100%.

There are none more vulnerable or powerless than the children in the womb.

They have been virtually completely abandoned to being able to be killed on request.

As a nation we fail when it comes to respecting human rights.(And I don't recall you speaking up for the unborn children when you were Australian Human Rights Commissioner.)
Posted by JP, Tuesday, 11 December 2018 10:30:31 AM
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Human Rights are a load of crap.

The concept of Human Rights was first invented by a bunch of American slave owners, which gives a clue about just how sincere the originators of this potty idea were when they first piously declared it. Human Rights are a western idea which basically enshrine generally accepted western values, some of which conflict with each other. Logic check. If one Human Right conflicts with another, then they both can't be "rights".

The fact that this idea basically enshrines generally accepted western values, means that non western nations do not take it seriously at all. But these non western nations realize how they can use Human Rights to manipulate the western morons who have cushy jobs in the sundry UN agencies, and they can always find a way to promote their own interests by using Human Rights. When they are not doing that, they simply ignore them. Members of the UN Human Rights Committee have included China, Saudi Arabia, and Libya. Oh yair, and these guys are interpreting human rights? What sick joke.

Islamic countries think that western inspired Human Rights are so beyond their own cultural values that they have invented their own "Islamic Human Rights." Perhaps these rights are the correct ones that every member of the human race should be following?

Just how out of touch this declaration is, can be seen by the fact that the UN have also invented "Indigenous Human Rights." This is because the morons who run the UN today have figured out that many indigenous minorities will not a have a bar of western invented 'Human Rights", and the minorities want more rights. They don't want to be held to the same principles as the rest of humanity. As George Orwell stated so clearly, they want to be "more equal." And naturally, the always grovelling to minorities UN caved right in. Therefore, the entire principle of universal human rights is quite self evidently, not universal.
Posted by LEGO, Tuesday, 11 December 2018 10:39:35 AM
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Now, either Human Rights are for all humans or they are not. When you start finding reasons why some groups have to abide by these "rights" while others do not, you just blew the whole logic for them right out of the water.

Next comes the push by lefties to include a whole bunch of their favorite causes as new "Human rights." The latest being that anybody from a third world sheethole should have the Human Right to just barge into any western country, where they have another Human Right to get free room and board. Yeah, sure. Moves are underway to declare "housing" and free medical attention as "Human Rights." Got a lefty cause you want enshrined in law? Just declare your fave cause a Human Right and who cares about elections?

We in the west have secular democracies, and what constitutes a "right" and what does not, is a matter for our electorate. We are sovereign nations, not vassal states of the unelected UN.

Only stupid people believe that any right must be carved in stone. What constitutes a "right" can change with time and change with circumstances. The US Right to Bear Arms made a lot of sense in 1788. But if the founding fathers had seen what a AR 15 rifle could do in seconds to a McDonalds restaurant full of mums, dads, and kids, they might have thought differently.

Take any 'Right" to an extreme interpretation and it becomes a parody of what it was first created to protect. Unfortunately, there is a not insignificant proportion of any population who think entirely in terms of black and white morality. There can be no fifty shades of grey for them. Moral priorities and moral quandaries can't even register in their sclerotic brains. And they are the ones who want all morality carved in stone forever as Human Rights.

The best you can say about Human Rights are that they are generally good principles, but they can never apply in every circumstance, because there is no principle which can always be practical in every situation.
Posted by LEGO, Tuesday, 11 December 2018 10:40:34 AM
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Human rights should be to hold fairness, dignity, and safety to all people. But what degree of these principles are protected before adding other mandated rights to them? A good rule of thumb would be what rights would you give to a criminal so that you are not unjust in your punishment. If you can give rights to those who wrong you, then those are the bare minimum of rights that should be honored to anyone and everyone.

Beyond that, having a measure of dignity, respect, and safety for all mankind can be overwhelmed when taken out of proportion. The right to life and living in safety should be ignored when a person has become a danger themselves. A discussion a while ago about an officer who shot and killed a knife wielding murderer was discussed as if the murderer had a right to life while in the act of killing. Basically saying the officer did wrong by shooting the criminal and protecting the rest of the people nearby.

(Continued)
Posted by Not_Now.Soon, Wednesday, 12 December 2018 4:35:52 AM
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(Continued)

A right to dignity and respect by having privicy laws protect people from having their privicy and lives encroached. But that sentiment has all but gone away by movements towards "big data" collection for either cooperations and advertising firms, or for law enforcement doing their job. The same is happening in medical fields of having your health shared on a database where it can be accessed more easily and have doctors on the same page regarding your health. Is it a right to have your own privicy in your own home, or is it ok to have your phones and other devises track what you do and where you are, and send that data to whomever makes the rules or pays high enough for it. I've heard China has bade or is thinking of making mandatory laws for sending data to a Chinese government database to track the people.

Yet on the other side does a criminal have a right to privicy? Or are they scrutinized even more because of how they broke the law before being in jail.

Any human rights can come down to what is a justified measure, and what is an extreem stance on that principle of human right. After those basic minimums for rights, everything else is just complaining for not having equal luxury as others. The right to have an Internet access is not a right, it's a luxury. The same is true of being able to travel and have open borders. That's not a right, it's more or less a standard of trust to those coming to your home country. That trust has it's own standards (or it should) to be law abiding and/or be hard working. As well as possibly to adopt and accept many of the culture, history, and language of the country they are going to before having the right to stay and be considered a citizen.
Posted by Not_Now.Soon, Wednesday, 12 December 2018 4:36:29 AM
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>>The ultimate test of our commitment to human rights as a nation, however, is not what we aspire to, not the conventions we sign, and not even the laws that are set in place. Rather it is how we treat our most vulnerable and powerless.<<

The principles, aspirations and objectives behind the adoption of the UDHR represent a milestone of seemingly, as yet, no where near fully appreciated vision and proclamation for the 'evolution' of the human race to a stage where it, all of us, can really consider 'us' to be 'human', and worthy of the blessings and vast opportunities with which we have been provided on this miraculous 'blue globe'.
'We' remain only, and so very poorly, a mere 'naked ape'. (Irrespective of the seemingly marvellous technical innovations of which we are so proud, and which increasingly direct our vision inwardly, selfishly, and increasingly detrimentally away from a vision of the broader good, the fundamental good, of the custodianship of the world's finite, and increasingly strained, resources, and most importantly of the welfare and the most basic of Human Rights for the world's increasingly devastated developing nations and peoples.
And, of course, for the rights of nature and all of its inhabitants!

Wake up, world! The way things are, 'we' are looking less and less entitled to 'rights', and more and more to be flogged for our egotism.

What has happened to aspiration, to actualization:

>>" The United Nations recognized that "inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world"."<<

>>"Finally, on December 10, 1948 the UN General Assembly voted (48 in favour; eight abstentions; zero against) in favour of the Universal Declaration."<<

Eight abstained - an edict by the obtuse? Or, a warning.
Death of aspiration by ignorance, or by delusions of grandeur.
US, Russia, China - they're still at it. 'Peace', where is thy sting!

Oz: Close Manus and Nauru; negotiate to stop boats; and become a mensch!
Posted by Saltpetre, Saturday, 22 December 2018 7:01:11 AM
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