I don't believe in Human Rights

Eamon from Boston emails in response to my piece on the war in Afghanistan, saying: 'I know you believe in human rights, so I fail to understand why you do not support the removal of the Taliban - a regime that couldn't even spell human rights.'

Now leaving aside the question of whether the Afghan war was really about defending human rights, which I deal with here, the most striking thing about Eamon's email is his assumption that I support human rights. He just knows I do. This got me thinking.

There are a number of political positions today that we are all supposed to be in favour of, that we are all expected to support. They are almost like a new Ten Commandments, and people will look at you funny if you don't accept them. But the fact is, I do not support human rights - nor am I an environmentalist, a multiculturalist, anti-war, pro-consensus or many of the other 'correct' things to be in our Third Way age. And here's why you shouldn't be either.

I don't support human rights, particularly the use of human rights talk in international affairs, because it bolsters Western domination over the third world. In the name of 'defending human rights' in third world nations, like Afghanistan, Western forces invade foreign territories, install occupying armies, dictate who should run the country and how they should run it, and create division and further conflict - all of which seriously undermines political and democratic rights.

Human rights has become a byword for Western governments getting rid of regimes they don't like and installing pro-Western, pro-human rights regimes in their place. As a result, the right to self-determination - as enshrined in the United Nations' Charter and once the defining right in international affairs - has been consigned to the dustbin of history.

I am not an environmentalist, because I support man's further domination of nature. Civilisation was only possible as a result of humans taking control of and shaping their natural surroundings - by literally making the world human-centred. Envinronmentalism, by contrast, tells us we should live in 'harmony' with nature and not 'upset the natural balance'.

Environmentalists encourage us to hold back from scientific developments, to be 'cautious' with new technologies, and to measure every potential advancement by the impact it has on the environment. The disastrous consequences of such an approach can already be seen in the DDT debacle and the way that third world nations are increasingly being denied potentially live-saving GM technologies. Environmentalism is a philosophy of restraint and caution, which warns humans to stop being so 'arrogant' and to avoid 'playing God'. But as one scientist recently asked, 'Who else is going to play God?'

I am not an anti-capitalist. Today's so-called anti-capitalists - those protesters who descend on G8 and World Bank meetings - are not interested in moving us towards a better and more rational way of running society, but in holding back development and encouraging us to live simpler, less money-oriented lives.

Don't get me wrong - I am opposed to capitalism. But in the past, genuine anti-capitalists hated capitalism for its failure to develop society and to realise humanity's true potential. In short, they wanted more than capitalism could offer, a system better and more developed than the capitalist system. By contrast, the new 'anti-capitalists' demand less - less industrialisation, less development in the third world (otherwise known as calling for 'sustainable development'), and less modernity in general. Theirs is a Luddite approach, which promises us nothing but a return to an over-idealised past.

I am not anti-war, because being anti-war today seems to sit perfectly well with being pro-imperialist. Often, it is precisely those who profess to be anti-war who most vocally demand Western intervention everywhere from the Middle East to Central Asia to Africa. Anti-war protesters claim that we in the West have a 'moral responsibility' to stop conflicts in the third world, which more often than not means we should intervene, knock a few heads together, and if necessary send in some peacekeeping forces.

This reflects a patronising view of third world nations, where the assumption always seems to be that the civilised West should tell the not-so-civilised rest how to run their affairs. As I have argued before, 'The sooner the left and the anti-war movement realise that Western interference causes conflicts, and that further intervention always makes them worse, the better'.

I am not a multiculturalist, because multiculturalism is dangerous and divisive. We seem to have abandoned demands for universal rights and equality for all people, in favour of 'celebrating difference' and accepting that we are all 'different, but equal'. In the West, ethnic minorities are positively encouraged to embrace and celebrate their heritage and to see themselves as distinct and different from the mainstream.

This is a recipe for a divided society. In the past, anti-racists demanded equal rights for all, whatever their colour - today, multiculturalists demand equal respect for all, and encourage the existence of 'many others'. Multiculturalism undermines the ideas of equality and universalism that have defined Enlightenment thinking for the past two centuries.

I do not support consensus politics. In our Third Way age, conflict and debate are frowned upon as outdated and backward, and 'consensus' and 'agreement' are seen as far more preferable. Here in the UK, the House of Commons is slated for its old-fashioned bickering and barracking between politicians, and many, including prime minister Tony Blair himself, want to see a more consensual approach to politics.

But what about democracy? Surely debate, disagreement and winning the argument are the lifeblood of democratic politics, where we end up with the best policies and ideas by arguing for them in a public arena? The problem with the politics of consensus is that democracy is undermined, and heated debates about the big issues are sidelined in favour of 'agreeing to disagree'.

No doubt I have left out some modern political givens that we would be better off rejecting. If you can think of some more, email me.

I admire O'Neill's willingness to come out with his contrarian views. However, he is a picture of self-contradiction. He supports rationalism, human progress and human control over the environment but he opposes the conditions that make all that possible. You can call that foundation human rights or the true basis is freedom combined with secure property rights, everything else follows from that.

I just thought this was interesting enough to publish. O'Neill now writes for "Spiked", an online journal, which grew out of LM (Living Marxism) Magazine in Great Britain. In the past decade, they weren't very Marxist. In fact, LM was put out of business in a libel suit by a UK tv station, when LM exposed the lies about the Serbian concentration camps. You remember the pictures of the skeletal Croats behind barbed-wire, which the Euros and Clintonistas used to justify intervention in Bosnia.

The condition that makes prosperity all possible is upholding individual rights and private property rights. When those rights are abused prosperity is diminished. For every thousand mentions of 'human rights' we here from politicians, bureaucrats and big media there is perhaps one mention of individual rights.

"Human rights" is but one of a long list of group-think, collectivist traps. The smallest minority is the individual. Protect individual rights and all larger than one minorities are protected as is the majority.

Protect individual rights...

What are rights?

Who's suppose to protect your rights for you?

How will they get paid?

Ah, so much for rights!

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