Posted on Dec 30, 2019
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Please take some time to read this article posted in The Guardian entitled - "The case against human rights". (https://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/dec/04/-sp-case-against-human-rights)
As we think about the issue of human rights at the dawn of 3rd Decade of the 21st Century the security and stability of the USA if the World in part hinges on issues of "human rights." So, the question is this:
Are human rights a topic that is in one of your TOP three concerns either in the USA or a global issue you think about frequently!
Objective: As members of the RP family, we have seen much in terms of human rights on levels that perhaps some may not direct exposure. Therefore, I am interested in thoughts and feelings about ways human rights can be improved.
Note: All opinions and insights are welcomed. If the article cited above has impacted your thinking, please specify the area in the article and address your pros & cons. History is replete with issues of human rights. Our nation, like others, has and continues to deal with various issues that have been labeled in the human rights realm. As we approach the 250 anniversary (2026) of the founding of our nation what will, or should human rights reflect in the next 250 years?
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Follow-up 22 Mar 2023
It is interesting that as of this date 923 people viewed this article, yet ONY three voted. That is sad!!!
I had hoped more would have shown the courage to at least vote. In voting I wonder if they may have felt they were taking a position but not know why they were voting as they do.
Voting on any topic takes courage! I am so sorry that 920 of the 923 who viewed this post did feel human rights were worth their time to consider and lean their voice. This result would indicate that 99.9967% of my fellow RallyPoint family don't give hoot about human rights. This I find - astounding!!!
Maybe, this is why our nation, and the world is in such turmoil fraught with the seething ignorance being displayed that leads to attitudes that diminish the whole of humanity because of the lack of caring to answer a
simple question about where the priority of dignity must always lay. The found made this simple:
"We the people..." "...in order to..." have the courage and conviction to "...form a MORE PERFECT union..." must assure and insure the human right to have the capacity to "...insure domestic tranquility..." through the capacity to "...providing for the common defense..." especially for the defenseless of those unable to defend themselves (not unwilling, but unable - a huge difference) so that as we in genuine partnership work to "...promote the general welfare..." we recognize in ourselves and in each other that the general welfare is fragile when enslaves the many in favor of the control by the few so that as we work to eliminate injustice in all its obvious and insidious forms we do eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later "...establish justice for ALL..." so that ALL can "... secure the blessing of liberty to (themselves) and (their) posterity..." so that "...any nation so 'conceived' in liberty does not perish from the earth..." thus remaining the beacon to a world searching for answers.
Just saying my 'friends', just saying.................
As we think about the issue of human rights at the dawn of 3rd Decade of the 21st Century the security and stability of the USA if the World in part hinges on issues of "human rights." So, the question is this:
Are human rights a topic that is in one of your TOP three concerns either in the USA or a global issue you think about frequently!
Objective: As members of the RP family, we have seen much in terms of human rights on levels that perhaps some may not direct exposure. Therefore, I am interested in thoughts and feelings about ways human rights can be improved.
Note: All opinions and insights are welcomed. If the article cited above has impacted your thinking, please specify the area in the article and address your pros & cons. History is replete with issues of human rights. Our nation, like others, has and continues to deal with various issues that have been labeled in the human rights realm. As we approach the 250 anniversary (2026) of the founding of our nation what will, or should human rights reflect in the next 250 years?
-------------------------------------------
Follow-up 22 Mar 2023
It is interesting that as of this date 923 people viewed this article, yet ONY three voted. That is sad!!!
I had hoped more would have shown the courage to at least vote. In voting I wonder if they may have felt they were taking a position but not know why they were voting as they do.
Voting on any topic takes courage! I am so sorry that 920 of the 923 who viewed this post did feel human rights were worth their time to consider and lean their voice. This result would indicate that 99.9967% of my fellow RallyPoint family don't give hoot about human rights. This I find - astounding!!!
Maybe, this is why our nation, and the world is in such turmoil fraught with the seething ignorance being displayed that leads to attitudes that diminish the whole of humanity because of the lack of caring to answer a
simple question about where the priority of dignity must always lay. The found made this simple:
"We the people..." "...in order to..." have the courage and conviction to "...form a MORE PERFECT union..." must assure and insure the human right to have the capacity to "...insure domestic tranquility..." through the capacity to "...providing for the common defense..." especially for the defenseless of those unable to defend themselves (not unwilling, but unable - a huge difference) so that as we in genuine partnership work to "...promote the general welfare..." we recognize in ourselves and in each other that the general welfare is fragile when enslaves the many in favor of the control by the few so that as we work to eliminate injustice in all its obvious and insidious forms we do eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later "...establish justice for ALL..." so that ALL can "... secure the blessing of liberty to (themselves) and (their) posterity..." so that "...any nation so 'conceived' in liberty does not perish from the earth..." thus remaining the beacon to a world searching for answers.
Just saying my 'friends', just saying.................
Human Rights
Bill of Rights
Resources
Edited >1 y ago
Posted 5 y ago
Responses: 4
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I wish that the choices included "Other" inasmuch as I can't rank my concerns. And if I could, the rankings would vary from day to day. I would, however, easily classify human rights as synonymous with the individual liberties enumerated in the Declaration of Independence - Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness - which ranks high for me. However, so long as my government respects those and serves to insure them, they fall off my radar. Sadly, the rising influence of the progressive Left who seek to expand government intrusion into my life keeps the issue popping up on the edges of my screen. One of the greatest weapons that the Left wields is that many of my fellow citizens, like people around the world, are all too ready and willing to surrender these rights in exchange for a tyranny that will free them from personal responsibility. And, in many cases, I believe that those who lack the same type of limited government that we enjoy, have the same right to replace it as We have, as it says in the Declaration of Independence. Reread that document and you'll find that it doesn't limit that right to Americans only. If they then choose to live in servility, who am I to deny them that right? At this point, my logic precludes me from interfering in their business. If they wish to cast off their human rights, who are We to say they can't? In other words, their choice to live in servility is not a vital interest of the United States. Their lack of human rights is an issue best addressed by them alone. (Of course, if they need help, I wouldn't mind providing it SO LONG AS we don't fight their battles for them)
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You pose a complicated question...here's my best attempt at a concise answer.
"Human Rights"; are these rights we grant ourselves as members of a society, "natural" rights inherent to all mankind,or rights given to us by a higher power? If a society grants rights...it can just as easily take them away. If we're relying solely on nature to define our "rights"...humans are no different than other "social" animals such as primates, wolves, and ants. For me, we have to determine what our true human rights are within the context of being intentionally and purposefully placed on this earth. I believe the world's "problem" (as pertains to this issue) stems from two digressive paths...either ignoring, or perverting the will of said "Higher Power". Governments who do not answer to the divine are at the mercy of the fluctuating ethics of those who rule them. Likewise, societies who have embraced false gods of vengeance and death will show no mercy. Unfortunately, the answer is one few will accept...because it is hard to believe in something you have to "feel" to "see", difficult to see through the hypocrisy of many, and harder still to reject the things we all seem to value over peace.
"Human Rights"; are these rights we grant ourselves as members of a society, "natural" rights inherent to all mankind,or rights given to us by a higher power? If a society grants rights...it can just as easily take them away. If we're relying solely on nature to define our "rights"...humans are no different than other "social" animals such as primates, wolves, and ants. For me, we have to determine what our true human rights are within the context of being intentionally and purposefully placed on this earth. I believe the world's "problem" (as pertains to this issue) stems from two digressive paths...either ignoring, or perverting the will of said "Higher Power". Governments who do not answer to the divine are at the mercy of the fluctuating ethics of those who rule them. Likewise, societies who have embraced false gods of vengeance and death will show no mercy. Unfortunately, the answer is one few will accept...because it is hard to believe in something you have to "feel" to "see", difficult to see through the hypocrisy of many, and harder still to reject the things we all seem to value over peace.
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CPO Nate S.
LCDR Joshua Gillespie this is on hell of a response. Much better than my response to SFC Casey O'Mally in response to his "A VERY long treatise bemoaning a perceived problem while offering no solution" comment.
I especially like your words "...Governments who do not answer to the divine are at the mercy of the fluctuating ethics of those who rule them..." that is followed by "...Unfortunately, the answer is one few will accept...because it is hard to believe in something you have to "feel" to "see", difficult to see through the hypocrisy of many, and harder still to reject the things we all seem to value over peace." Wow!
I especially like your words "...Governments who do not answer to the divine are at the mercy of the fluctuating ethics of those who rule them..." that is followed by "...Unfortunately, the answer is one few will accept...because it is hard to believe in something you have to "feel" to "see", difficult to see through the hypocrisy of many, and harder still to reject the things we all seem to value over peace." Wow!
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A VERY long treatise bemoaning a percieved problem while offering no solution.
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CPO Nate S.
It is an historical account of the problem. The solutions that have been proposed or attempted are often compromised by certain "self-interests" on many levels and from many angles of attack designed to assure compromise of such ideals into an intended oblivion. Solutions take place when those involved are willing to engage and assure the highest standards to make such solutions work regardless of self interest knowing they will be difficult and at times flawed requiring reassessment to take a new approach.
This said, you are correct it is VERY LONG and perhaps could have been said in simpler and more direct language. Yet, in your own last name "O'Mally" that many would assume is of an Irish origin, would argue that some of the experiences of those with Irish bloodlines have fallen into the scope of violations of human rights based solely on the fact they were - Irish or their name implied so. As a matter of record, my mother's people were of Scotch-Irish-Wales decent and my father largely of Polish descent. Her family came to the US in the 1700s, while my father arrived just after WWII. Their respective family lines felt violations of their human rights in every age from religious to their class and yet they saw the promise of America as what Lincoln called "...a new birth of freedom."
In every age in history the need to recognize human rights has had its clarion call and clarion callers from Moses in Biblical times, to Dr. King, to others too numerous to count today. Human rights is first a struggle for human dignity! It is easy to remove a person's rights if you beat them down to where they have no dignity, then blame them for a lack of dignity that (you, euphemistically speaking) beat them into submission to attain for (your, euphemistically speaking) betterment. Human trafficking, especially human sex trafficking, and especially human child sex trafficking is the cruelest form of human rights violation, next to warping the minds of 10 and 12 years olds to become killers, when they have not yet been allowed to play a simple game of chess, soccer or tag, all because a person (usually an adult) wants power at all cost, even in the narrow-minded expendability of their own people is a sickness that begs to be healed before it becomes an all consuming cancer.
The problem SFC Casey O'Mally is that each of us, you, me and others, when we use words like '...perceived problem..." are afraid of something without saying so in so many words. Often, we are afraid that we don't know the answer ourselves, much less the so called - right answer. That is OK! Yet, not knowing is a wisdom that allows us to seek an answer(s), together, even those answers where we least expect to find them, which are usually right in front us. Truths are often inconvenient!
We have to ask ourselves, "...what are we willing to tolerate, and why?" To that end, I like much of what [~78668-cpt-jack-durish] said in his response. When [~78668-cpt-jack-durish] said "... If they wish to cast off their human rights, who are We to say they can't? In other words, their choice to live in servility is not a vital interest of the United States..." I would have chosen to state it differently.
Perhaps the wording I might have chosen would be stated in this way "...If they wish to cast off their human rights (aka give up their right to live free while not denying others others the right to do the same and are will to suffer indignities for such servility), then who are We to say they can't? In other words, it is their choice is to live in servility if that is a course they have actually chosen and desire. Yet, when such choice is forced at gunpoint to impose a servility they did not want nor asked for, then we have a duty to act in the best interest of humanity itself, which includes the United States filled with 320+ human souls and on whose Statue of Liberty these word '...yearning to breathe free...' provide the very hope each human desires - the chance to be FREE of all forms of oppression." [~78668-cpt-jack-durish] may well disagree with my rewriting of his wording and that is fine. Yet, I have come to respect his opinions on many other matters.
Finally, if my response has made you uncomfortable, I am sorry! You nor I nor anyone can claim any morale high ground when we are unwilling to see that a problem does indeed exist! It may not be a problem we (individually) can do anything about, but it is something we (collectively) as stated in these three words "WE the people..." are charged with protecting (aka doing something about) in order to "...secure the blessings of Liberty for ourselves and our posterity..." I would therefore argue that the "securing" of human rights are in the best interests of the United States as part of the - human race for its enduring posterity.
Hope you receive my comments in the many they are offered!
This said, you are correct it is VERY LONG and perhaps could have been said in simpler and more direct language. Yet, in your own last name "O'Mally" that many would assume is of an Irish origin, would argue that some of the experiences of those with Irish bloodlines have fallen into the scope of violations of human rights based solely on the fact they were - Irish or their name implied so. As a matter of record, my mother's people were of Scotch-Irish-Wales decent and my father largely of Polish descent. Her family came to the US in the 1700s, while my father arrived just after WWII. Their respective family lines felt violations of their human rights in every age from religious to their class and yet they saw the promise of America as what Lincoln called "...a new birth of freedom."
In every age in history the need to recognize human rights has had its clarion call and clarion callers from Moses in Biblical times, to Dr. King, to others too numerous to count today. Human rights is first a struggle for human dignity! It is easy to remove a person's rights if you beat them down to where they have no dignity, then blame them for a lack of dignity that (you, euphemistically speaking) beat them into submission to attain for (your, euphemistically speaking) betterment. Human trafficking, especially human sex trafficking, and especially human child sex trafficking is the cruelest form of human rights violation, next to warping the minds of 10 and 12 years olds to become killers, when they have not yet been allowed to play a simple game of chess, soccer or tag, all because a person (usually an adult) wants power at all cost, even in the narrow-minded expendability of their own people is a sickness that begs to be healed before it becomes an all consuming cancer.
The problem SFC Casey O'Mally is that each of us, you, me and others, when we use words like '...perceived problem..." are afraid of something without saying so in so many words. Often, we are afraid that we don't know the answer ourselves, much less the so called - right answer. That is OK! Yet, not knowing is a wisdom that allows us to seek an answer(s), together, even those answers where we least expect to find them, which are usually right in front us. Truths are often inconvenient!
We have to ask ourselves, "...what are we willing to tolerate, and why?" To that end, I like much of what [~78668-cpt-jack-durish] said in his response. When [~78668-cpt-jack-durish] said "... If they wish to cast off their human rights, who are We to say they can't? In other words, their choice to live in servility is not a vital interest of the United States..." I would have chosen to state it differently.
Perhaps the wording I might have chosen would be stated in this way "...If they wish to cast off their human rights (aka give up their right to live free while not denying others others the right to do the same and are will to suffer indignities for such servility), then who are We to say they can't? In other words, it is their choice is to live in servility if that is a course they have actually chosen and desire. Yet, when such choice is forced at gunpoint to impose a servility they did not want nor asked for, then we have a duty to act in the best interest of humanity itself, which includes the United States filled with 320+ human souls and on whose Statue of Liberty these word '...yearning to breathe free...' provide the very hope each human desires - the chance to be FREE of all forms of oppression." [~78668-cpt-jack-durish] may well disagree with my rewriting of his wording and that is fine. Yet, I have come to respect his opinions on many other matters.
Finally, if my response has made you uncomfortable, I am sorry! You nor I nor anyone can claim any morale high ground when we are unwilling to see that a problem does indeed exist! It may not be a problem we (individually) can do anything about, but it is something we (collectively) as stated in these three words "WE the people..." are charged with protecting (aka doing something about) in order to "...secure the blessings of Liberty for ourselves and our posterity..." I would therefore argue that the "securing" of human rights are in the best interests of the United States as part of the - human race for its enduring posterity.
Hope you receive my comments in the many they are offered!
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SFC Casey O'Mally
CPO Nate S. One of the many things I learned in the military is to never go to my Commander telling him that the way he is doing things is f'ed up IF I don't have a proposal for a better way of doing things.
This essay is, in essence, telling the entire human population in general, and the leaders of the western world, in particular, that the way they are doing things is f'ed up. But rather than offer a better way of doing things, the author simply says (in essence) "figure out how to do it differently." He sees something wrong (a percieved problem) and spend a he'll of a lot of time and energy on defining tje problem and attempting to convince the reader of the problem. Rather than spending that time and energy to creating (or at least starting to create) a solution. THAT is my problem with this article.
Don't tell me what's wrong, tell me how to fix it.
This essay is, in essence, telling the entire human population in general, and the leaders of the western world, in particular, that the way they are doing things is f'ed up. But rather than offer a better way of doing things, the author simply says (in essence) "figure out how to do it differently." He sees something wrong (a percieved problem) and spend a he'll of a lot of time and energy on defining tje problem and attempting to convince the reader of the problem. Rather than spending that time and energy to creating (or at least starting to create) a solution. THAT is my problem with this article.
Don't tell me what's wrong, tell me how to fix it.
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CPO Nate S.
SFC Casey O'Mally Understood! I was trained the sameway. Commanders want to know about problems, but they want you to present options for solving those problems.
I think what would have made sense for the writer is some sort of simple matrix. Please see attached example. These writers are not trained as you and I are. So the matrix is something I would have appreciated, as you said basically "putting a little thought into things." I get it! I agree that people write long responses such as we have read and in the end don't offer any more than when they started. Like you, this frustrates me.
We are use to solving problems. They are use to creating problems with linguistic gymnastics. Had the writer looked at https://www.hrw.org/ they might have been able to insert links to solutions such as one action involving the Transparency Initiative (https://www.hrw.org/GoTransparent) for the clothing industry that Human Rights Watch appears to be keeping up with and providing tools to support their efforts.
Anyway, I don't disagree with you.
I think what would have made sense for the writer is some sort of simple matrix. Please see attached example. These writers are not trained as you and I are. So the matrix is something I would have appreciated, as you said basically "putting a little thought into things." I get it! I agree that people write long responses such as we have read and in the end don't offer any more than when they started. Like you, this frustrates me.
We are use to solving problems. They are use to creating problems with linguistic gymnastics. Had the writer looked at https://www.hrw.org/ they might have been able to insert links to solutions such as one action involving the Transparency Initiative (https://www.hrw.org/GoTransparent) for the clothing industry that Human Rights Watch appears to be keeping up with and providing tools to support their efforts.
Anyway, I don't disagree with you.
Defending Human Rights Worldwide
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