thoughts in and out of season
“Jaws dropped” in Pennsylvania legal circles when a lawyer filed a brief comparing ACLU demands that an 80-year-old plaque be removed from a courthouse to the Taliban destruction of the Bamyan Buddhas. After all, everyone knows that radical secularism is not an orthodoxy, removal of a plaque that mentions St. Matthew and the Ten Commandments … More ...
More on the “human rights” front: U.S. isolated at population conference over its anti-abortion stand. The “anti-abortion stand” consists in attempts to clarify language in existing UN agreements that UN bureaucrats and human rights professionals have read to require support for abortion. It appears that the U.S. is saying it won’t provide support for … More ...
Some readers might be interested in an essay of mine on human rights, or what passes for them, just published at FrontPage.
In the course of writing an article on the “human rights” movement I ran into this report from the good folks at Human Rights Watch, a prominent “watchdog” organization: Ignorance Only: HIV/AIDS, Human Rights and Federally Funded Abstinence-Only Programs in the United States. The conclusion of the report: “Federally funded abstinence-only programs interfere … More ...
Rounding out the conception of “human rights” in a part of the world in which you can be criminally prosecuted for racism if you call Islam “the stupidest religion,” U.K prisoners have won their claim that hardcore porn is a human right. It’s all part of their right to “receive information,” you see. So … More ...
Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, connects the dots and squares the circle: How does a human-rights approach help to achieve sustainable development?. An emphasis on rights might seem at odds with an emphasis on results. Not to worry—what both mean is a universal socialist commonwealth. Everyone in the world, Mrs. … More ...
More PC in Canada, the kinder, gentler part of British North America: a quota of 20% for visible minorities in hiring and promotion for Canada’s civil service. The program will be in addition to other set-asides for native people and women. Also, here’s one observance among many of the National Day of Remembrance and Action … More ...
The U.N. Commission on Human Rights is still the conscience of the world: U.N. report says racism on the rise worldwide. “The current international context should not cause [combatting racism and intolerance] to be lost from view, since they affect millions of people who are daily subjected to the horrors of discriminatory treatment.” The … More ...
More signs that everyone’s got to get on board with “human rights”: Activists win in fight to get human rights cases tried in U.S. and Corporate responsibility and human rights: A fact sheet. The practical result of the principle that everyone in the world can force anyone in the world to comply with human … More ...
A rare critical look at “human rights”: a review of The Rise and Rise of Human Rights, Kirsten Sellars, Sutton Publishing, 2002, which (it appears) treats human rights as an unprincipled attempt to rule the world in the name of principle. “[H]uman rights have not just been on the rise: they have also … More ...