The principle of human rights is derived from the political doctrine of classical liberalism (not to be confused with "liberalism" in the modern American sense of left-wing political orientation).
Consistently with the liberal theory's emphasis on the individual's need to be protected from state interference and power, the concept of human rights has an originally negative connotation (permitting or obliging inaction), as the right not to be killed or physically attacked (right to life), not to be unduly restricted by the state (right to liberty), or not to be hindered in one's legitimate ambitions (right to pursuit of happiness). These are also called liberty rights, i.e. not entailing obligations on other parties, but rather only freedom or permission for the right-holder.
The human rights principle that has been used in recent times has the same name but little else in common with the liberal, original one.
It has a positive connotation (permitting or obliging action): right to a job, a house, a minimum income, free health care, free education, social security, financial support during unemployment, sickness or retirement, welfare, and many more: the list is endless. These are also called claim rights, i.e. entailing responsibilities, duties or obligations on other parties regarding the right-holder.
The state in this perspective has become a provider, like a parent, it is a "paternalistic" state. Far from trying to limit its reach and power to control, people who advocate these ideas cause the state to expand its authority, become bigger and more influential on people's lives. The state becomes more and more like, well, a socialist state.
Karl Marx's formula for communism, his final goal after the intermediate, transitional socialism of the dictatorship of the proletariat, was: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
This formula, especially in its latter part, is no other than the new re-definition of "positive" human rights by socialists.
Every need gives rise to a new human right.
The governed then expect everything from the state. But as rights are the other side of duties, and freedom is the other face of the coin of responsibility, inversely to delegate responsibility is to abdicate power and renounce some freedom. The more people expect from the state, the less control they have over their own lives.
So, what happened to "human rights" is what happens to a concept when used in a different theoretical context.
"Time" and "space" have very different meanings in Newton's classical physics than in Einstein's relativity theory.
Time and space are absolute in the former, relative in the latter. In addition, time becomes the fourth dimension of space in the theory of relativity.
Each theory redefines its concepts. So, modern-day socialists, who have virtually all ideological and doctrinal power in the Western world since the end of the Second World War, have redefined the liberal concept of human rights and transformed it into something antithetical to it.
Time and space are absolute in classical mechanics but relative in modern mechanics.
Human rights in classical liberalism are a protection from state power, but in contemporary socialist view they are a way to make that power never-ending. These two concepts, under the deceitful guise of the same name, couldn't be more in opposition to each other.
Blog of London-based Italian journalist Enza Ferreri on politics, society, religion, environment
Friday 24 August 2012
Consenting Adults, Homosexuality, Incest, Polygamy, Bestiality: Defining Acceptable Sexuality
I don't normally watch The Jeremy Kyle Show, a sort of TV programme on the British underclass and its troubles, although it can be interesting at times.
Last night I watched it. There was a homosexual couple of two men, said to love each other very much. One had been adopted as a child, so he didn't know who his family were. The couple discovered that they were in fact half brothers. This revelation caused them much grief and an emotional state which was repeatedly described as "devastation".
Now I am genuinely asking this question.
What is the moral difference between incest and homosexuality? Not many years ago homosexuality was considered reproachable, now it isn't but incest is, in a few years' time, if current visible trends continue, incest will no longer be.
Let's start from the beginning. Initially, there was a prevailing position condemning homosexuality both morally and criminally.
This was, I believe, wrong, and so started believing many people.
The idea that homosexual orientation and behaviour were not per se unethical began to prevail, leading to a liberal attitude towards them.
So far, so good. What happened next was not so good, though.
Homosexuality, in the common usage, refers to two things: the inclination or orientation of sexual attraction for people of the same sex and the behaviour that acts on that inclination.
There has been a leap from decriminalising homosexuality and considering it as a legitimate and acceptable behaviour to assuming that same-sex sexuality is not a problem, in any sense of the word: and this is a big leap.
The new concept that established itself in public opinion about sex was that everything was morally acceptable among consenting adults.
But is this simple formula really standing even a superficial scrutiny?
For instance, what about incest? If the people "committing" it (and the very fact that we can still use this verb which we couldn't use in reference to homosexuality shows the double standard) are consenting adults, what then? Is it considered OK?
An obvious objection to putting the two on the same level could concern the biological problem of the increased genetical handicaps of the offspring from two close blood relatives. This, though, is easily surmountable by assuming that a) the incestuous couple is homosexual (as in our TV show case), or b) the incestuous couple is infertile for several reasons (the woman is past menopause, or the individual(s) involved are sterile through natural or induced causes).
In that case there is nothing to object to incest, if we accept that all sex between consenting adults is right. And if we do object to incest but not homosexuality, why then? There is here a glaring contradiction, which shows how confused and inconsistent our ideas about sexual morality are.
In fact, incest will in all likelihood become acceptable probably quite soon:
In Argentina and Brazil, similarly, incest between individuals above the age of consent is permitted.
In Italy, a new law implicitly recognizes incest by recognizing children of incestuous relationships.
Once upon a time, there was a witch hunt mentality against homosexuals, now there is a witch hunt attitude against so-called "homophobes", i.e. people who disagree with the current orthodoxy and received wisdom on homosexuality. Nothing has changed ethically in this 360-degree reversal in public opinion, except the victims.
The question is: if homosexuality is accepted not simply in the sense of society's and state's non-interference with somebody's personal choices but also in the sense of suspending any judgement, moral, psychological, psychiatric and medical, about homosexuality and its consequences, that means much more than liberalism and tolerance. That means dangerous limitation to freedoms of thought and speech, fundamental human rights.
If we then move to same-sex marriage, moreover, this is no longer just a personal choice: it's a choice that concerns all society, because marriage is a social institution, as well a Christian sacrament, and is central to society, so what happens to it concerns us all and will have consequences for us all, not just homosexuals.
This is a genuine question, not a rhetorical one: is anyone capable of offering rational (I underline "rational") reasons why homosexual marriage should be allowed and not marriage of an incestuous couple, marriage of a threesome, or marriage between a man or woman and his/her pet or any other animal, or indeed any other form of marriage, if desired by the relevant parties?
If anybody has such reasons founded on rationality and logic, I'd be interested to hear them.
Last night I watched it. There was a homosexual couple of two men, said to love each other very much. One had been adopted as a child, so he didn't know who his family were. The couple discovered that they were in fact half brothers. This revelation caused them much grief and an emotional state which was repeatedly described as "devastation".
Now I am genuinely asking this question.
What is the moral difference between incest and homosexuality? Not many years ago homosexuality was considered reproachable, now it isn't but incest is, in a few years' time, if current visible trends continue, incest will no longer be.
Let's start from the beginning. Initially, there was a prevailing position condemning homosexuality both morally and criminally.
This was, I believe, wrong, and so started believing many people.
The idea that homosexual orientation and behaviour were not per se unethical began to prevail, leading to a liberal attitude towards them.
So far, so good. What happened next was not so good, though.
Homosexuality, in the common usage, refers to two things: the inclination or orientation of sexual attraction for people of the same sex and the behaviour that acts on that inclination.
There has been a leap from decriminalising homosexuality and considering it as a legitimate and acceptable behaviour to assuming that same-sex sexuality is not a problem, in any sense of the word: and this is a big leap.
The new concept that established itself in public opinion about sex was that everything was morally acceptable among consenting adults.
But is this simple formula really standing even a superficial scrutiny?
For instance, what about incest? If the people "committing" it (and the very fact that we can still use this verb which we couldn't use in reference to homosexuality shows the double standard) are consenting adults, what then? Is it considered OK?
An obvious objection to putting the two on the same level could concern the biological problem of the increased genetical handicaps of the offspring from two close blood relatives. This, though, is easily surmountable by assuming that a) the incestuous couple is homosexual (as in our TV show case), or b) the incestuous couple is infertile for several reasons (the woman is past menopause, or the individual(s) involved are sterile through natural or induced causes).
In that case there is nothing to object to incest, if we accept that all sex between consenting adults is right. And if we do object to incest but not homosexuality, why then? There is here a glaring contradiction, which shows how confused and inconsistent our ideas about sexual morality are.
In fact, incest will in all likelihood become acceptable probably quite soon:
Most European countries have laws against incest between lineal ancestors/descendants, and between full siblings. However, in most countries these laws are no longer enforced if the incest takes place between consenting adults.
... UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh has questioned the rationale behind laws prohibiting incest, at least as they apply to sex between adults.[Emphahsis added]
In Argentina and Brazil, similarly, incest between individuals above the age of consent is permitted.
In Italy, a new law implicitly recognizes incest by recognizing children of incestuous relationships.
Once upon a time, there was a witch hunt mentality against homosexuals, now there is a witch hunt attitude against so-called "homophobes", i.e. people who disagree with the current orthodoxy and received wisdom on homosexuality. Nothing has changed ethically in this 360-degree reversal in public opinion, except the victims.
The question is: if homosexuality is accepted not simply in the sense of society's and state's non-interference with somebody's personal choices but also in the sense of suspending any judgement, moral, psychological, psychiatric and medical, about homosexuality and its consequences, that means much more than liberalism and tolerance. That means dangerous limitation to freedoms of thought and speech, fundamental human rights.
If we then move to same-sex marriage, moreover, this is no longer just a personal choice: it's a choice that concerns all society, because marriage is a social institution, as well a Christian sacrament, and is central to society, so what happens to it concerns us all and will have consequences for us all, not just homosexuals.
This is a genuine question, not a rhetorical one: is anyone capable of offering rational (I underline "rational") reasons why homosexual marriage should be allowed and not marriage of an incestuous couple, marriage of a threesome, or marriage between a man or woman and his/her pet or any other animal, or indeed any other form of marriage, if desired by the relevant parties?
If anybody has such reasons founded on rationality and logic, I'd be interested to hear them.
Wednesday 22 August 2012
Can Mass Immigration and Multiculturalism End?
It's so true that, as philosopher Hegel said, the consciousness of a historical age comes at the end of it. Contemporaries usually think in terms of explanations, theories and the concepts defined by them derived from a previous epoch, which are inadequate to understand the new, developing realities.
This is related to an observation which could bring some hope.
Blogger Julia Gorin quotes James George Jatras, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer and foreign policy analyst for the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, as saying:
Journalist and author Christopher Caldwell writes in his book Reflections on the Revolution In Europe: Can Europe Be the Same with Different People in It? (Amazon US)
(Amazon UK)
:
This is related to an observation which could bring some hope.
Blogger Julia Gorin quotes James George Jatras, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer and foreign policy analyst for the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, as saying:
In some ways, we [Bukovsky, Jatras, and their friends] were the heart of the Administration’s anti-communist line and the “fathers” of the National Endowment for Democracy. (As opposed to the prevailing view that communism was forever and we needed permanent detente with the Soviet regime. Looking back from today, it’s hard to believe how ingrained that view was). [Emphasis added]Similarly, today Europeans think that mass immigration from the Third World and multiculturalism are here to stay for good.
Journalist and author Christopher Caldwell writes in his book Reflections on the Revolution In Europe: Can Europe Be the Same with Different People in It? (Amazon US)
(Amazon UK):It is often noted with shock how long it took for European natives to realize that immigrants had settled in Europe to stay. Europeans went on thinking that immigrants would simply “go home” until at least the 1970s, when France first established programs to pay immigrants to repatriate themselves, and in some cases well into the 1980s. Today, however, Europeans often make the opposite mistake. They exaggerate how well established immigrants are in Europe. In high-immigration countries like Spain and Italy, the overwhelming majority of immigrants are first generation, and even in the oldest immigration countries, the immigrant population is much less rooted than it appears. In 2000, 60 percent of Germany's vast foreign population had arrived after 1985. Plenty of immigrants are full members of the society of their new homeland, with full claims on it. Just as many are not. [Emphasis added]
Tuesday 21 August 2012
Anti-Halal-Meat Campaigns on Facebook
There is a new flurry of activity of mostly British anti-halal-meat campaigns on Facebook. I have liked, joined, friended, subscribed to all I found, signed petitions, encouraged them and posted on their walls.
I invite you to do the same if you like them. Here they are.
SAY NO TO HALAL MEAT
Say NO to Halal slaughter in Skegness - it collects signatures for a petition to the East Lindsey District Council (E.L.D.C.) to stop a new halal slaughterhouse from opening in in Skegness, Lincolnshire, England. The page started less than a month ago, on 27 July, and they have already collected 566 signatures; 434 are still needed.
E.L.D.C.: Stop the Halal slaughter house opening in Skegness - this is the petition page where to sign.
Say No To Skegness Halal Slaughter House!
Boycott Halal - liked by almost 7,000 people. It's the Facebook page of the website Boycott Halal, with the tagline "It's wrong for so many reasons", which is also the collaboration of Infidels United (United we stand in defense of freedom), Boycott Halal Cause, BOYCOTT HALAL in USA, Canada, NZ & Australia.
SAY NO to Halal MEAT at Toby Carvery - targets this restaurant chain.
Say No To Halal !
Say no to halal this is my country and thats not the way we do it
I'll update this list as new campaigns and groups are formed.
Does Madonna Care about Young Pakistani Girl Lynched and Imprisoned for Being Christian?
No protest from Madonna, Paul McCartney, Sting, Peter Gabriel and others of their ilk here.
Of course, a Christian 11-year-old girl with Down's Syndrome beaten up by a mob, arrested and put in jail in Pakistan, facing the death penalty for having allegedly burnt pages of Islam's Holy Book, under the country's blasphemy laws - portrayed as "strict" by the Western media but in fact simply following the Quran as good Muslims should - is not remotely as bad as a bunch of talentless, publicity-seeking, balaclava-wearing female hooligans trespassing into the Christian Orthodox Cathedral which is the symbol of Russia's liberation from state-imposed atheism, barging into its sanctuary containing the altar, offending the congregation with a vulgar and insulting song and dance full of expletives mocking a Christian prayer and then, after having shown their courage by denying their presence in the church, eventually having to face the consequences of their criminal actions.
First, the facts. The girl, Rimsha, living in a poor outlying district of Islamabad, is accused by her Muslim neighbours of burning pages of the Quran, of which police officials say there is little evidence.
But hundreds of angry neighbors [500 to 600, according to the police] gathered outside the girl's home last week demanding action in a case raising new concerns about religious extremism in this conservative Muslim country. [Emphasis mine; note the term "conservative" in this context]The police intervened apparently for her protection, because the angry mob wanted to set her alight. As even the BBC says, in Pakistan just being accused of blasphemy, even without solid evidence, carries a death sentence from the mob, if not the state.
Almost everyone in the girl's neighborhood insisted she had burned the Quran's pages, even though police said they had found no evidence of it. One police official, Qasim Niazi, said when the girl was brought to the police station, she had a shopping bag that contained various religious and Arabic-language papers that had been partly burned, but there was no Quran.As many as 600 Christians have fled their homes in the area where the girl lives, fearing for their lives.
Some residents claimed they actually saw burnt pages of Quran _ either at the local mosque or at the girl's house. Few people in Pakistan actually speak or read Arabic, so often assume that anything they see with Arabic script is believed to be from the Quran, sometimes the only Arabic-language book people have seen.
It is well known that in Pakistan blasphemy laws are often used to harass and persecute non-Muslims, especially Christians, and even for personal vendettas.
"It has been exploited by individuals to settle personal scores, to grab land, to violate the rights of non-Muslims, to basically harass them," said the head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Zora Yusuf.Actually, he was burnt alive
Those convicted of blasphemy can spend years in prison and often face mob justice by extremists when they finally do get out. In July, thousands of people dragged a man accused of desecrating the Quran from a police station in the central city of Bahawalpur, beat him to death and then set his body on fire.
Attempts to revoke or alter the blasphemy laws have been met with violent opposition. Last year, two prominent political figures who spoke out against the laws were killed in attacks that basically ended any attempts at reform.Pakistan's Minister for National Harmony (you need an office like that in a Muslim country) Dr Paul Bhatti is the brother of murdered Minister of Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, the country's only Christian government minister, killed for criticizing the blasphemy laws. The Minister said to the BBC that he really fears an umpteenth tragedy, and that the girl with her family should be taken to a safe place possibly out of Pakistan.
The girl's jailing terrified her Christian neighbors, many of whom left their homes in fear after the incident. One resident said Muslims used to object to the noise when Christians sang songs during their services. After the girl was accused he said senior members of the Muslim community pressured landlords to evict Christian tenants.
There are so many things to say on this, I don't even know where to start.
The media, Western and non, are incredible: they call Pakistan's blasphemy laws "strict" and Pakistan "conservative", not "Christianophobic", "racist", "fascist", "nazi", although in this case these terms, much overemployed (changing "Christianophobic" for some other "phobic") and inappropriately used in the public discourse, would for once be apt.
Somebody who, in a moment of rage during a heated row accompanied by verbal abuse on both sides, utters the word "nigger" (and, if he is the captain of the England football team, even just the word "black") is "racist" and risks being dragged to court; someone who beats up and tries to burn alive Rimsha is "conservative".
Does that sound right to you? Are you sure that the media you read and watch help you to make sense of the world we live in, or do they instead confuse the picture completely?
The behaviour of the Muslim mob in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital city, not some remote rural area, also deserves some reflections.
Who should reflect, in particular, are those who like to talk of great differences between radical and moderate Muslims, and of Islam as a jolly nice religion "highjacked" by what Robert Spencer calls its "misunderstanders".
From the many episodes of this kind that we've seen for a long time, it's obvious that in Pakistan Muslim people who hold these "extreme" views on blasphemy are not extreme at all, in the sense that either they are in effect a majority or their views are tolerated and accepted by a majority, so much so that they are reflected in the law of the country.
If you want to have an idea of the relative numbers, while fewer than 100 demonstrated in Karachi to condemn the murder in 2011 of Minister of Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, thousands rallied in major Pakistani cities demanding punishment for Asia Bibi (a Christian woman condemned to death for blasphemy) and threatening further protests and anarchy if the government moves to amend the blasphemy laws, and nearly 50,000 rallied in Karachi against the amendment of blasphemy laws and hailing Qadri, the killer of Salman Taseer, the provincial governor who was trying to achieve that amendment, as a hero.
If you want to do something about the fate of Rimsha and her family, the Asian Human Rights Commission has a sample letter and relevant email, fax, address contact details (via Jihad Watch).
Monday 20 August 2012
Muslims Demand Sharia-Controlled Enclave in Oslo, or Else
And pro-Islam leftists think that these are just nightmares dreamed up by "Islamophobes"!
On 14th August a group of Muslims living in Norway, called Ansar al-Sunna, sent an incredible (or not so much anymore) letter to several Norwegian politicians and journalists. In it they expressed their desire not to mix with infidels "and your dirty values and attitudes", including women allowed to walk around "half-naked", promiscuity, drug and alcohol abuse.
They then requested to be handed over a largely Muslim neighbourhood in Oslo, Grønland, "which we can control completely with our own ministers, border guards, police and legal system governed by Sharia law, and prohibit the wickedness you stand for which is contrary to Allah's Laws".
They continue: "We will not be part of the Norwegian society. And we don't see the need to move out of Norway since we were born and raised here. And Allah's earth belongs to everyone. But let Grønland be ours. Cordon off the area and let us control it the way we want. This is to the benefit of both parties. We do not want to live with filthy beasts like you."
The authors of the letter also threaten to carry out a new, bigger 22 July or a 9/11 on Norwegian soil:
The group Ansar al-Sunna is well known to Norway's media.
The Norwegian press, however, did not consider this letter as important enough to be reported.
Source: Document via FrontPageMag
On 14th August a group of Muslims living in Norway, called Ansar al-Sunna, sent an incredible (or not so much anymore) letter to several Norwegian politicians and journalists. In it they expressed their desire not to mix with infidels "and your dirty values and attitudes", including women allowed to walk around "half-naked", promiscuity, drug and alcohol abuse.
They then requested to be handed over a largely Muslim neighbourhood in Oslo, Grønland, "which we can control completely with our own ministers, border guards, police and legal system governed by Sharia law, and prohibit the wickedness you stand for which is contrary to Allah's Laws".
They continue: "We will not be part of the Norwegian society. And we don't see the need to move out of Norway since we were born and raised here. And Allah's earth belongs to everyone. But let Grønland be ours. Cordon off the area and let us control it the way we want. This is to the benefit of both parties. We do not want to live with filthy beasts like you."
The authors of the letter also threaten to carry out a new, bigger 22 July or a 9/11 on Norwegian soil:
Now the government must wake up and take responsibility before this war is going to Norway. Before Muslims take the necessary step. Do not confuse the Muslims' silence with weakness. Do not take advantage of the Muslim patience. Do not force us to do something that can be avoided. This is not a threat, just a word of truth. Justice words. A warning that the consequences could be fatal. A warning about a September 11 on Norwegian soil, or bigger than the July 22 attacks. This is for their own good and for their own interest.
The group Ansar al-Sunna is well known to Norway's media.
The Norwegian press, however, did not consider this letter as important enough to be reported.
Source: Document via FrontPageMag
Should Human Rights Be Rejected?
In Europe in particular, “human rights” have become dirty words.
For that we have to thank supranational bodies like the European Court of Human Rights, that have given this concept a bad name through a never-ending proliferation of entitlements that often have very little to do with the concept’s original and true meaning.
Parts of the European counterjihad have also started systematically attacking the idea of human rights. And there were some who did not sign the Brussels Declaration at the conference of July 2012 because they had problems with its human rights strategy.
The phenomenon of so-called “judicial imperialism”, by which unelected judges through their verdicts supersede laws passed by elected representatives of the people, has long been recognized by many brilliant writers, from the British journalist Melanie Phillips to the Italian philosopher Marcello Pera, former President of the Italian Senate — the second highest office in the country — author of the book Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians, and incidentally the professor with whom I prepared my undergraduate thesis, who wrote:
To bring clarity to this discussion, we need to look at the philosophical basis and origin of “rights”. People sometimes scoff at philosophy, but they probably don’t realize that practically all major views that are held today, mainstream or not, have at one point been formulated by philosophers.
Without delving too much into a historical analysis, the contemporary idea of human rights derives from the concepts of rights, natural rights and God-given rights in ethics, established by the 16th- and 17th-century thinkers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, the 18th-century Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, and other philosophers, continuing a Christian tradition.
In politics, classical liberalism is the doctrine that has at its centre the theory of the fundamental rights of human beings, namely that all humans are naturally free and equal, and their basic freedoms exist before, are independent from, and incoercible by the state.
Human rights are individual rights, not group rights. Liberalism does not recognize the right of cultures to exist or to be protected, which is one of the dogmas of multiculturalism in open contradiction with the theory of human rights, showing once again how the latter has been distorted beyond recognition — even transformed into its opposite — by its current usage and applications. Cultures that violate individual rights should not be protected at all.
The criticism levelled against human rights, that they conflict with each other so someone, usually a judge, has to decide on their relative weights, describes a situation that is common to all legal or ethical principles, so is not a good reason to reject human rights. Even a summary knowledge of the law will show you that laws constantly contradict other laws, so a balancing act is always required.
The problem, highlighted by “anti-humanrightists”, of the infinite, ever-expanding number of new “rights”, often used to help Muslims in the West, illegal immigrants and jihadists, is real, but the target here is this proliferation, not human rights.
Bear with me while I bring in philosophy again. In logic, a concept has two dimensions: meaning and sense. The former is the class of objects to which the concept refers, the latter the information it conveys. There is an inverse proportion between the two: the larger the meaning the narrower the sense and vice versa. If you ask me what happened today and I answer “everything”, this reply’s descriptive power is almost nil because its meaning is so all-comprising.
The extension of the meaning of “right” has decreased its sense, to the point that today it just describes nothing more than a desire for something. In these times of public spending cuts I found even a “right to our library”.
In fact, many of the current “human rights” policies are violating real rights. The distinction between negative and positive rights is also crucial.
But I think that we cannot do without the principle of rights.
You can see why we need the concept of human rights when you think of free speech. Presumably all counterjihadists support free speech, but what does that mean if not the “right to” free speech? It’s impossible even to formulate the idea without a reference to rights or some very similar principle.
Anti-jihad people (in the comments section of the linked post) who say they only believe in democracy, narrowly defined as majority rule, and nationalism will find it impossible to derive the case for free speech from those two beliefs alone: if a nation’s majority decided to abolish free speech, they would have nothing to oppose this undesirable result.
It is no coincidence that we need the concept of rights, and it’s not just for semantic or political reasons. It goes deeper than that, to the foundations of our beliefs. It may be true that there have been great political movements without an ethical basis theoretically formulated, but I think that, in the same way as we need ethical guidance in our personal lives, so we do in our political actions.
Throughout this debate on human rights, I have encountered many references to “gut instincts” and similar, as bases for making political decisions. I believe that it’s dangerous to leave everything to that, for a simple motive. As individuals, we all have “instincts”, feelings, emotions which are entirely subjective and not shared by anyone else.
What we have in common is reason, which is universal.
Once we do away with a rational ethical foundation, which the rights’ view provides, we can no longer be sure of what other people in the same movement really want, what are their motives behind what superficially may appear the same aspirations: different people may be for democracy for all the wrong reasons, for example, as the Muslim Brotherhood clearly shows.
There are other ethical theories, but the only real rival of the rights’ view is utilitarianism which, as I explained here, would be a worse substitute.
In conclusion, human rights should not be discarded but, far from it, returned to their original meaning. Their present use, deriving from a quasi-socialist interpretation of them, is in conflict with the liberal doctrines and the spirit from which they originated.
For that we have to thank supranational bodies like the European Court of Human Rights, that have given this concept a bad name through a never-ending proliferation of entitlements that often have very little to do with the concept’s original and true meaning.
Parts of the European counterjihad have also started systematically attacking the idea of human rights. And there were some who did not sign the Brussels Declaration at the conference of July 2012 because they had problems with its human rights strategy.
The phenomenon of so-called “judicial imperialism”, by which unelected judges through their verdicts supersede laws passed by elected representatives of the people, has long been recognized by many brilliant writers, from the British journalist Melanie Phillips to the Italian philosopher Marcello Pera, former President of the Italian Senate — the second highest office in the country — author of the book Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians, and incidentally the professor with whom I prepared my undergraduate thesis, who wrote:
It was not a law of the United States Congress that first liberalized abortion in America, but a ruling of the Supreme Court. The Italian parliament has never authorized euthanasia, but court rulings have. No public debate preceded a court decision in the Netherlands that euthanasia may be performed on twelve-year-old children. Not by parliamentary law was same-sex marriage first granted equal status to marriage between a man and a woman in some countries. Not by parliamentary vote has eugenics become a right. No parliamentary decisions allow for polygamy to be freely practiced, as often occurs, or for the recognition of transgender rights. Nor is it the will of the people that distinctions be made between terrorists and ‘resistance fighters’ who plot to carry out massacres, or that migrants be allowed to remain in a country they have entered illegally.However, these authors do not think, and I agree with them, that we should throw away the human rights baby with the bathwater of its distortions.
To bring clarity to this discussion, we need to look at the philosophical basis and origin of “rights”. People sometimes scoff at philosophy, but they probably don’t realize that practically all major views that are held today, mainstream or not, have at one point been formulated by philosophers.
Without delving too much into a historical analysis, the contemporary idea of human rights derives from the concepts of rights, natural rights and God-given rights in ethics, established by the 16th- and 17th-century thinkers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, the 18th-century Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, and other philosophers, continuing a Christian tradition.
In politics, classical liberalism is the doctrine that has at its centre the theory of the fundamental rights of human beings, namely that all humans are naturally free and equal, and their basic freedoms exist before, are independent from, and incoercible by the state.
Human rights are individual rights, not group rights. Liberalism does not recognize the right of cultures to exist or to be protected, which is one of the dogmas of multiculturalism in open contradiction with the theory of human rights, showing once again how the latter has been distorted beyond recognition — even transformed into its opposite — by its current usage and applications. Cultures that violate individual rights should not be protected at all.
The criticism levelled against human rights, that they conflict with each other so someone, usually a judge, has to decide on their relative weights, describes a situation that is common to all legal or ethical principles, so is not a good reason to reject human rights. Even a summary knowledge of the law will show you that laws constantly contradict other laws, so a balancing act is always required.
The problem, highlighted by “anti-humanrightists”, of the infinite, ever-expanding number of new “rights”, often used to help Muslims in the West, illegal immigrants and jihadists, is real, but the target here is this proliferation, not human rights.
Bear with me while I bring in philosophy again. In logic, a concept has two dimensions: meaning and sense. The former is the class of objects to which the concept refers, the latter the information it conveys. There is an inverse proportion between the two: the larger the meaning the narrower the sense and vice versa. If you ask me what happened today and I answer “everything”, this reply’s descriptive power is almost nil because its meaning is so all-comprising.
The extension of the meaning of “right” has decreased its sense, to the point that today it just describes nothing more than a desire for something. In these times of public spending cuts I found even a “right to our library”.
In fact, many of the current “human rights” policies are violating real rights. The distinction between negative and positive rights is also crucial.
But I think that we cannot do without the principle of rights.
You can see why we need the concept of human rights when you think of free speech. Presumably all counterjihadists support free speech, but what does that mean if not the “right to” free speech? It’s impossible even to formulate the idea without a reference to rights or some very similar principle.
Anti-jihad people (in the comments section of the linked post) who say they only believe in democracy, narrowly defined as majority rule, and nationalism will find it impossible to derive the case for free speech from those two beliefs alone: if a nation’s majority decided to abolish free speech, they would have nothing to oppose this undesirable result.
It is no coincidence that we need the concept of rights, and it’s not just for semantic or political reasons. It goes deeper than that, to the foundations of our beliefs. It may be true that there have been great political movements without an ethical basis theoretically formulated, but I think that, in the same way as we need ethical guidance in our personal lives, so we do in our political actions.
Throughout this debate on human rights, I have encountered many references to “gut instincts” and similar, as bases for making political decisions. I believe that it’s dangerous to leave everything to that, for a simple motive. As individuals, we all have “instincts”, feelings, emotions which are entirely subjective and not shared by anyone else.
What we have in common is reason, which is universal.
Once we do away with a rational ethical foundation, which the rights’ view provides, we can no longer be sure of what other people in the same movement really want, what are their motives behind what superficially may appear the same aspirations: different people may be for democracy for all the wrong reasons, for example, as the Muslim Brotherhood clearly shows.
There are other ethical theories, but the only real rival of the rights’ view is utilitarianism which, as I explained here, would be a worse substitute.
In conclusion, human rights should not be discarded but, far from it, returned to their original meaning. Their present use, deriving from a quasi-socialist interpretation of them, is in conflict with the liberal doctrines and the spirit from which they originated.
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