There are fundamental human rights which are those rights that go with being a person. There are what the Americans call "civil rights" which are those rights granted by governments. Civil rights vary somewhat by country and are whatever the legislators create. Fundamental rights are, by definition, common to every person born as at least a mentally capable human being. What are these rights?
What are human rights?
- Thread starter Higgins
- Start date
Article 1 from the UN declaration sums it up for me.
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Article 1.
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Article 1.
- All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
The Charter is a mixture of fundamental and Civil rights. It is more the product of idealists who were designing society, not enunciating fundamental rights. For example, there are no rights included for the sole right to control what one owns, nor for the security of private property although these are fundamental rights as I see it. The idealists did not want anything in there that would inhibit their intention to re-distribute wealth as they saw fit.
Re: sum of of human rights- fundamental human rights, if they have the force that accompanies their truth, are enforceable. Do you think a sum-up is sufficient for enforcability? Could the police enforce a one-line sum-up of laws?
I believe it is a little more sisnister than that, the right to own and enjoy private property was intentionally left out of the charter through a backroom deal at Ed Broadbent's insistance in order to get his support. Of course Trudeau probably didn't mind either.
If a person can't own property they have no power. The fact that property can be seized summarily also meas they have no power. Although real propety is harder to seize it still happens. The real villains are the provinces who can take your car, boat, whatever, and all things inside them immediately and on the spot merely for suspicion of contravention of provincial statutes.
Rights are things fought for and held close, they must be defended vigilantly. Rights given by governments aren't rights at all, because they can just as easily be taken away.
There are too many police.
The Universal Law of Laws
Fewer laws -> fewer infractions -> fewer police -> more natural justice
The idea that there are human rights is to a large degree, fiction, unless those rights are enforced. We, in the civilized world, (wherever that is)believe that there are certain rights that we can take for granted and we whine like hell when we perceive that our rights are being trod on. Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, is one popular phrase but as we can see, it doesn't apply to everybody. Human rights only exist if there is sufficient power, and a willingness to enforce those rights.
I grew up in a community with no police. No one broke laws. Well, poached maybe, and a little home brew, and we tore off the "New material" labels on mattresses. Most of the time, when police came, they enforced the arbitrary power of the state.
I would think that those are the rights available to pretty much any living thing: the right to continue to exist and the things enabling that right. IE, for humans; food, warmth, reproduction, shelter, air, and water.
In my book Human Rights, What Are They Really? I take issue with the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, specifically Articles 22-29. Plainly, these were invented by idealists attempting to engineer world societies. The problem with that approach is that different people will have differing notions of ideal societies, especially if they are from various cultures or religions. Such rights will not likely be universal, but those rights that go with being a person must be, by definition. These fundamental rights are discovered by analysis; they are not invented.