[yypark]

There are some good points in here that make us question what human rights are and how we treat them.

All human rights are up to majority vote or dictatorship decree at some point. (Who created the UN, or whatever international body you want to use? Who elected the officials who appointed the courts?) And if human rights are truly universal, who gets to decide? Is it you? Or me? Is it Holland? Or the US? China? Iran?

By your definition, the right to own firearms is also a human right as defined by the US constitution. Similarly, in the United States there is a human right to free speech (including offensive speech such as Holocaust denial), but in Germany this is illegal. Would this be a human rights violation by Germany?

Similarly, one can say pro-choice people are at war with humanity, by denying the human right of the unborn child to life (the right to life is in all constititions) - stripping that right via an abortion is essentially murder. How do we reconcile these differences in moral systems?

One can say Muslim nations operate in a much "larger" space as it comes to rights. Hello sharia law!

Maybe some differences are worth going to war over, to settle the score. Is the right to vote or the right to free speech also in this category? Some agree, and have invaded countries on this basis and attempted to set up a democracy. Others disagree, and only apply sanctions. Or less. Usually, countries are not as idealistic, and require their own group to be threatened militarily for this to happen. See the US not partaking in WW2 until attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor. Or the US invading Iraq to gain advantages of oil and Middle Eastern control. And ignoring human rights violations by Saudi Arabia because it's politically expedient.

If no bill can be passed without mentioning gender, we should remove the US "Violence Against Women" act as being anti-male as well.

Basically the idealistic black and white moral analysis, while noble, fails to explain what happens in the world.

[ralfn]

>By your definition, the right to own firearms is also a human right as defined by the US constitution. Similarly, in the United States there is a human right to free speech

Yes. At the very least, those are rights, that supercede your democracy. Those rights are not 'majority preference decides'. Those rights were decided by 'who is more stubborn and willing to fight an eternal war and not give anybody peace until they get their freedom'.

>Who created the UN, or whatever international body you want to use? Who elected the officials who appointed the courts?

Whoever has the biggest gun:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(international_relation...

This is not meant to be cynical though; in practice this turns out much nicer than you would expect. It's not a biggest bully on the block kind of anarchy.

Why? Because people who just have a 'prefence' are not part of the calculation. The armchair opinion of civil debate, the talk radio, whatever. It does not matter. If they are not willing to fight/kill/die to get their way, they are not part of the negotiation. And they shouldn't be, because obviously they don't care enough. They are not invested enough. The deaf kid doesn't get to pick the music.

>Basically the idealistic black and white moral analysis, while noble, fails to explain what happens in the world.

Yes. The notion we can settle these core principles with civil debate is ridiculus. Rights are not the result of debate. They are the result of negotiation. We're all actively counting guns, bombs and bullets.

The world may debate about health-care, taxation or pot. Because whatever our position is, we consider it less important than our rights and democracies. Yet there are values we will die for. Values outside of the realm of debate.

In that light, witch hunting whatever forces are actively violating or trying to violate those rights, can be both logical and moral. It's war. The harder the pro-equality people come down, the more likely the anti-equality people are to give up, accept and surrender.

>If no bill can be passed without mentioning gender, we should remove the US "Violence Against Women" act as being anti-male as well.

I'm not aware of any nation without any law referring to gender. But i also never ever heard anybody make a rational case, that the gender of a person is anybody's bussiness. If anything, it's a reminder just how sexist we all are. So many laws referring to genitalia, yet none refer to our eye or hair color.

Here's one for the lurking spin doctors. "Stop being perverts. End genetalia-based laws now!"