Once more into the breach, I suppose . . .
So, my (actually mistakenly!) open post on human rights just got linked to two journals. That's OK, but it does come with a history and an "ending" that isn't in the post and probably should be provided for any readers who end up wandering around here confused because we seem to be lacking the posts about nice young pianists the userpage advertises!
Here's the comment I've been leaving where folks link to my post below on human rights:
I do think it appropriate to point out to your good friends that mine here was the only open post written during a long fit of pique after waking up to a post on a community I created and moderate!!! that said this: http://www.livejournal.com/community/europeanunion/57671.html
and then following it to its logical conclusions.
Serious thinkers about human rights can only shake their heads, I think, no matter from what direction or perspective they come to the subject matter. There really is no reason those who are interested in these issues and come to them from many directions not to speak civilly and not throw tantrums. That's the use of human rights discourse, utterly inappropriately, to be anti-American, and I find that stuff just to be a bore and a half.
In the "discipline" of human rights (or constitutional law or whatever you want to call it), I see two groups. The first group is sincerely interested in getting to truth about what our condition of humanity means. One does not have to be religious to do that, though I think not being religious tends to create some analytical problems that are not easily solved. Yet one can certainly approach the discipline in good faith and let the intellectual gears whirl.
And there is a lot of useful material to come out of that. The notion that world leaders and those they lead have given thought to the content of documents such as various national constitutions, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, etc., etc. is really a good thing, and why they did so doesn't matter. As a matter of our making decisions about how we are going to hazard our fortunes together in this world, we have to do some of that from time to time. Hopefully, hopefully, those informed by those who did the work described in the paragraph above this one are leading those discussions.
Unfortunately, most human rights discourse is the worst kind of politics, ideological, cantish. It's about getting the right "language" in some document that comes out of some big conference somewhere. Or getting language into this bureaucratic decisionmaker's opinion about one of those important documents. Or about bashing one leader for not caring about the "human right of the month." We all do it. The Vatican is about the best out there at this stuff. But there's a mindless aspect to it. It matters to the extent that it may influence things but there's a seedy side to it. That seediness is what I objected to in the community discussion. It's what was driving that discussion: and no one knows the difference.
I do think the Jews are actually the chosen people to this extent: they do so often seem to be the fulcrum upon which the world turns, and that post and its commentary made it obvious. It was a post that used "human right of the month" whines to complain about Saddam Hussein being taken out, which was really a complaint about American support of Israel. Drive deep into that psyche, I guess, and you find the anti-Semitism that has been there as long as Christ walked this earth.
One more point. It is very important to distinguish between what human rights exist and what human rights can be protected. They will not be the same thing, and how we choose which we will protect is itself an important question about human rights. Because there will be winners and losers in that debate, and there is an argument that the losers may be tyrannized (have their human rights violated) if we choose wrongly. How to deal with that problem? Since only unanimous consent results in no tyranny, I cotton to the principle of subsidiarity, because it does the best job of getting us closest to that. Interestingly, however, it militates against all these "international" organizations!
Now, maybe everyone's fooled and I'm the only one who caught this. But I don't think I'm quite as quick as apparently you do. I think they are well aware, and most international institutions, including those purporting to be about human rights, are really about tyranny, and I want none of them.
Now, you'll have to read the book for the rest!
Here's the comment I've been leaving where folks link to my post below on human rights:
I do think it appropriate to point out to your good friends that mine here was the only open post written during a long fit of pique after waking up to a post on a community I created and moderate!!! that said this: http://www.livejournal.com/community/europeanunion/57671.html
and then following it to its logical conclusions.
Serious thinkers about human rights can only shake their heads, I think, no matter from what direction or perspective they come to the subject matter. There really is no reason those who are interested in these issues and come to them from many directions not to speak civilly and not throw tantrums. That's the use of human rights discourse, utterly inappropriately, to be anti-American, and I find that stuff just to be a bore and a half.
In the "discipline" of human rights (or constitutional law or whatever you want to call it), I see two groups. The first group is sincerely interested in getting to truth about what our condition of humanity means. One does not have to be religious to do that, though I think not being religious tends to create some analytical problems that are not easily solved. Yet one can certainly approach the discipline in good faith and let the intellectual gears whirl.
And there is a lot of useful material to come out of that. The notion that world leaders and those they lead have given thought to the content of documents such as various national constitutions, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, etc., etc. is really a good thing, and why they did so doesn't matter. As a matter of our making decisions about how we are going to hazard our fortunes together in this world, we have to do some of that from time to time. Hopefully, hopefully, those informed by those who did the work described in the paragraph above this one are leading those discussions.
Unfortunately, most human rights discourse is the worst kind of politics, ideological, cantish. It's about getting the right "language" in some document that comes out of some big conference somewhere. Or getting language into this bureaucratic decisionmaker's opinion about one of those important documents. Or about bashing one leader for not caring about the "human right of the month." We all do it. The Vatican is about the best out there at this stuff. But there's a mindless aspect to it. It matters to the extent that it may influence things but there's a seedy side to it. That seediness is what I objected to in the community discussion. It's what was driving that discussion: and no one knows the difference.
I do think the Jews are actually the chosen people to this extent: they do so often seem to be the fulcrum upon which the world turns, and that post and its commentary made it obvious. It was a post that used "human right of the month" whines to complain about Saddam Hussein being taken out, which was really a complaint about American support of Israel. Drive deep into that psyche, I guess, and you find the anti-Semitism that has been there as long as Christ walked this earth.
One more point. It is very important to distinguish between what human rights exist and what human rights can be protected. They will not be the same thing, and how we choose which we will protect is itself an important question about human rights. Because there will be winners and losers in that debate, and there is an argument that the losers may be tyrannized (have their human rights violated) if we choose wrongly. How to deal with that problem? Since only unanimous consent results in no tyranny, I cotton to the principle of subsidiarity, because it does the best job of getting us closest to that. Interestingly, however, it militates against all these "international" organizations!
Now, maybe everyone's fooled and I'm the only one who caught this. But I don't think I'm quite as quick as apparently you do. I think they are well aware, and most international institutions, including those purporting to be about human rights, are really about tyranny, and I want none of them.
Now, you'll have to read the book for the rest!