thoughts in and out of season
The UN’s on the job, accusing Canada of racism. There may be plenty of PC in Canada, but not enough. Some problem areas: immigrants don’t earn as much as natives, compensation has not yet been paid to survivors [?] with respect to a 19th century head tax on Chinese immigrants, and Ottawa still resists … More ...
All tolerance, all the time: Ontario judges rule not recognizing gay marriage violates Charter, British National Party councillor denounced for refusing to back “no room for racism” motion, and N.Y. passes women’s health bill requiring Catholic institutions to provide contraceptives to employees. Meanwhile, the NAACP says half of Congress fails civil rights … More ...
Human rights just keep rolling: EU Parliament Votes To Establish Europe-Wide Right to Abortion . The resolution is non-binding, but nonetheless indicative. One interesting point is that it relies on The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) for the legal framework justifying assertion of the right. According to the … More ...
A new, improved Quasimodo: The Bellringer of Notre Dame. Will the revised PC title stick?
The campaign to make international capital an engine of “human rights” continues: Apartheid suit to target U.S. and German firms (if the former South African government had been unable to borrow money it wouldn’t have lasted as long), and Myanmar Human Rights Abuse Case Against US Oil Giant to Go Ahead (UNOCAL knew the Burmese … More ...
True multiculturalism—and true human rights, in accordance with original understandings—would involve finding point in common that a variety of cultures could affirm in all integrity. Here’s a splendid example: Islamic Bloc, Christian Right Team Up to Lobby U.N. Oddly, the Washington Post reporter doesn’t seem to approve, but describes the situation using the rhetoric … More ...
Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist, provides a textbook example of human rights advocacy: Women’s Rights: Why Not?. He details particular horrendous abuses, claims that’s all “human rights” is about, and attacks people for even raising questions. It annoys him that the Justice Department is examining the legal effect of American adherence … More ...
Will proceedings in the International Criminal Court preserve even the appearance of judicial decency? It’s hard to create something as evanescent as judiciousness in an institution without a network of relationships, expectations and traditions to support it, and such things seem lacking in the case of the ICC. “World society” is somewhat of a fiction, … More ...
Good news of a minor sort: British Columbia actually did shut down its human rights commission, although (as suggested in our earlier notice) something equally bad is presumably in the works.
I wonder if he could get the ACLU to help him? Union orders dues donated to ACLU over objection of employee.