In the current, public discourse on marriage rights, reproductive rights and so on, what seems to be missing is a basic familiarity and understanding of Human Rights. We tend to think of one's rights as 'something,' and something known to us, and yet it is apparent that we lack this essential knowledge. As my first post on this blog, I offer this as an introductory course.
There was a time, not so very long ago in the history of Western Civilization, when Human Beings didn't have rights. Kings had rights; priests had some limited rights, and that was pretty much it. Human Beings like you and me had no rights. At that point in history, Human Beings didn't even have a vocabulary with which to contemplate such a possibility. Generations and centuries came and passed. Occasionally a King, who was concerned about keeping his head attached to his body, would extend rights to barons or noblemen, and just as often, the next King would revoke them.
In Fifteenth Century Italy, the seeds of Humanism began to germinate. In France, René Descartes famously asserted, "Cogito ergo sum (I think, therfore I am)." Medieval despotism and feudalism began to give way to the Age of Reason, French and German Enlightenment philosophies and British Empiricism. The propositions arising from these philosophical movements provided the necessary lexicon for an ongoing inquiry into Human Rights and social contracts, profoundly affecting political thought. The English Bill of Rights (1689) delineated several of the rights now familiar to us, although domestic citizens were privileged over colonial citizens and some rights were limited to Protestants. The fundamental document of the French Revolution, the French Declaration on the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789) includes this remarkable statement in Article VI,
"The law must be the same for all, whether it protects or it punishes. All citizens, being equal in its eyes, shall be equally eligible for all important offices, positions and public employments, according to their ability and without other distinction than that of their qualities and talents."
In defense of the French Revolution, Thomas Paine wrote his pamphlet, Rights of Man in 1791. Paine claims that Human Rights arise in Nature and precede government, writing:
"The fact, therefore, must be that the individuals, themselves, each, in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist."
Notice the relentless expansion of the concept of Human Rights, so much that they eventually supercede the government. The rights became more expansive, inclusive and comprehensive, as philosophy and polital theory continued to forward valuable questions and generate specific language with which to continue the conversation. When James Madison wrote the United States Bill of Rights, also in 1791 he recognized the expansive nature of Human Rights and included as the Ninth Amendment to the Constitution:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
What is the significance of all of this? Whether Human Rights arise from Nature or one's creator, or not, the concept of Human Rights did not exist just a few hundred years ago. We as a species were able to speak and write the concept of rights into existence, where those rights have grown into a reified reality. Human Rights cannot be contained or limited in scope or range. Human Rights inexorably expand to include more people, and those people become inheritors of an ever-expanding treasury of rights.
Now, we have among us certain self-interested persons and groups that believe Human Rights have expanded all that they ever need to. They feel that further extensions of rights for Human Beings would go too far. They believe that extending rights to any more people would somehow diminish their privileged position. None of that matters. What makes a difference is that Human Beings will continue to move away from authoritarianism toward liberty, and any attempt to thwart that movement is depraved and perverse.
The philosopher Hegel, said the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. We have the opportunity to look back from here to learn from history that any expansion of rights for Human Beings improves the quality of life for all of us. The rights of marriage equality and reproductive rights are both elements of the inevitable expansion and extension of Human Rights. The sooner, the better.
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Update: Here is a lovely short film that says much the same thing in different ways…
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( 3 / 548 )By what power they believe they can know my heart, they never reveal. Nevertheless, they are certain that I hate my country. The Newts, Pats and Seans in politics and the mainstream media claim to know -- for a fact -- that people who think like me hate America. I have given up resisting these accusations that I hate the country of my birth, the self-styled "greatest nation in the world," the good ol' USA.
To be honest, there are many things I hate about the United States of America. Here are ten:
10. American exceptionalism. The idea that the USA is the "greatest" invalidates all the others. (Is that really our intention?) This seems to be the 'one true religion' in the United States. Entangled and entwined with this outrageous belief is the Judeo-Christian ideology that supports it.
9. September 11, 1973: CIA led coup d'etat perpetrated on Chilean democracy. This is representative of hostile actions, both overt and covert, by which we have attempted to shape the world according to our own selfish interests. The history of America is extremely bloody.
8. Unquestioningly supporting Israel, Saudia Arabia and other oppressive regimes.
7. The devastation of Iraq, cradle of Western Civilization.
6. Undermining the Labor Movement, Unions and Guilds. Most Americans work for a living, yet very few consider themselves 'Labor.' Here's a hint at no extra charge: If you do not own a controlling interest in the company you work for, you're Labor. Join a Labor Union before it's too late!
5. Narrowness of discourse: from center to extreme right. (That's right. The people that the right-wing calls 'commies' and 'socialists' are really quite centrist, compared with leftists in other countries and cultures).
4. Unconstrained greed and laissez-faire Capitalism. They go hand-in-hand. Even Adam Smith (1723-1790), the Scottish economist who wrote The Wealth of Nations, the sacred scripture of Capitalism, warned that greed would be the downfall of Capitalist economies.
3. Acrimony and intolerance for other points-of-view. Political discourse very often devolves to ad hominem attacks.
2. Great nation? Greatest per capita imprisonment of citizens, ever!
1. Perpetuating poverty and inequality, at home and abroad. If you don't think this is so, please talk to a few random people at 79th and Cottage Grove in Chicago, or anyone in Lick Hollow, West Virginia. Or talk to the children in Honduras who make those ubiquitous t-shirts with high-minded slogans, used for fundraising in the United States, for ten cents an hour. Ask them what American wealth and consumption has done for them.
There are also things that I love about my country. Alas, I could only think of three:
1. The mountains, valleys and plains, the oceans, the seashores and lakes, Great and small. From the Atlantic coast to the Pacific, from the boundary waters to the Rio Grande and Gulf of Mexico, this is a glorious and beautiful place to Be.
2. About 307 million of the people that I love. People who struggle for answers, suffer uncertainty and doubt, experience love and tenderness, people who smile, people who cry. Human Beings like you and like me.
3. The people who, by an impressive majority, enthusiastically support a President who accepts responsibility for the damage we have done in the past, warmly greets other leaders in the world despite any differences of opinion, and is willing to listen, rather than glibly making pronouncements.
This is a country, like many others, with great possibility. Unfortunately, we have not always been responsible for who we are in the world. Perhaps we are emerging into a new age of enlightenment. I for one will stand for the possibility that we are, and operate from that principle. What may come of that?
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( 3 / 384 )Patriotism is the willingness to kill or die for trivial reasons.
-- Bertrand Russell, English Philosopher (1872-1970)
In the 1970s, The United States was perpetrating a war of imperial aggression on the people of Vietnam, with many similarities and a few differences to the current war of imperial aggression in Iraq. Although I had been taught, as we all were, to assume that the 'we' were the 'good guys,' and that patriotism was a virtue, it occurred to me that the Vietnam War, along with the Cold War and various other military skirmishes, had been going on for my entire life. By the time I entered high school, I was deeply sad and disappointed. The tragedy of all the people who had killed and been killed in a war so trivial that most of the people I knew could barely pay attention to it, was almost unbearable to me. I wore a black armband, and every morning, while the good youth of America were reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, I sat in my seat and looked at the floor. One day, a Social Studies teacher was watching the room for our homeroom teacher and flew into a rage when I refused to stand and recite the pledge. He pulled me, by my hair, into the hallway, where he beat me with a wooden bludgeon -- a pine board with a handle carved into one end, painted white, with blood red lettering that styled it the "Board of Education." The beating was long and violent and public. I was aware of my fellow students who had flooded out of their homerooms to witness this spectacle.
I may never know what effect the beating had on the students who watched in silence as I was battered for my lack of patriotism. I am fifty years old now. I can still feel the pain in my hips when the weather changes. This country is still involved in wars of imperial aggression. Human Beings are still killing and being killed for trivial reasons. I still refuse to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.
It is clear to me that the persistence of Human Being in this Universe depends on the fall of this bloodthirsty, 'patriotic' empire.
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( 3 / 443 )A documentary from the BBC, for those that are interested in seeing the original Ontologist. If we overlook the political judgments against him, this is a well-crafted retrospective.
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