The end of human rights

When an icon of the 20th century’s strivings against oppression passes away, it is an appropriate time to take freedom’s audit.

The language of human rights is a language of protest and resistance, not of authority and discrimination. In a religious world, secular human rights of recent heritage and ambiguous origin increasingly compete with long-standing cultural claims legitimated by traditions and gods. Where strong faith meets human rights, the classic modernizing assumption — that secular rights trump religion — no longer holds.

A more multipolar world, America’s ambivalence, Europe’s decline and more competition from faith-based movements — all these forces put extreme pressure on a human rights model that is heavily Westernized and centralized in funding and organization. And so a paradox emerges. Achieving progress in civil and political rights, for example, might mean ceding ground in other areas such as social justice and women’s rights. All rights are equally important to the global human rights regime with which we are familiar. But for many of those who are poor, or committed to socialist politics, or deeply religious and/or conservative, both inside and outside the West, which rights deserve primacy requires discussion and compromise, not diktats from New York and Geneva.

Must read.

This Washington Post OpEd will (should} be getting a lot of comment and discussion. I can see Limbaugh dissecting it.

The author is counting on the Pope's influence, concerned about radical Islam (he's a bit coy about naming it) -- he "explains" Western civilization, Europe, human rights,.....the whole package and this man's reasoning of why things are going to hell in a hand basket.

He cannot (will not) connect that why and how of the U.S. Bill of Rights and our Constitution allowed freedom and liberty and success (based on Judo-Christian teachings) and why we're losing these freedoms and rights.

He says Russia and China are slipping into more authoritarian patterns and that the U.S. has left their post (paraphrasing). No kidding! Is that by chance? I say, hardly.

On the same Washington Post front page as the OpEd above:

"Conflicts entwine Iraq and Syria as extremists rise" - Rebels battle al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters across northern Syria "BEIRUT — Syrian rebels battled al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters across northern Syria on Saturday in an attempt to stem the sudden rise in influence of the extremists who have been staging attacks and conquering territory from Baghdad to Beirut.

At the same time, Iraqi government forces fought to contain an expanding revolt in the western province of Anbar by Sunni tribes, some of which have linked up with al-Qaeda militants to score significant gains in recent days........"

more competition from faith-based movements

Thats kind of a cute turn of phrase. Maybe gutless too, but cute.

If we seem to have moved beyond “drama and moral clarity,” it is only because we no longer know where we are going.

I don't know about the drama, but we've moved beyond moral clarity and that includes this writer.

“the global divide” that splits the West from the rest on social acceptance of homosexuality... In a world where eight in 10 people identify with a religious group, and where conservative forms of all major faiths — Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism — are increasingly prominent and politically salient, the outlook for radical change in social attitudes outside the West and elite enclaves in developing countries looks bleak.

This upsets him because for him homosexuality is one of the great issues of our time. Like Liberty for the Founders, for the current generation of lost souls have found their righteous cause in homosexual couplings.

He tuts about Guantanamo but fails to mention the fact that the enemy saws off peoples' heads. We send them to Guantanamo to play soccer, their guys saw off heads.

Where strong faith meets human rights, the classic modernizing assumption — that secular rights trump religion — no longer holds.

Here again he is being cute. Which secular rights trump which religions? It this is code for his anger about the world's failure to unite and celebrate homosexuality, then again he is letting his obsessions rule his political and philosophical judgement. What he seems to be doing, correct me if I'm wrong, is comparing a 3000 year old judeo-christian moral code with Sharia law.

Keeping in mind that homosexuality is not outlawed in Christian countries but it can get you the death penalty in muslim ones.

conservative-religious backlash against the language and practices of secular human rights

Really, he keeps equating the Christian world that developed the whole notion of human rights in the first place, with the Sharia world simply on the basis of his obsession with homosexual couplings.

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