The Best Definition of Human Rights I Have Seen Yet
Wullu @ Sat Jan 05, 2008 5:27 pm
From today's National Post,
$1:
It's a human right to be an idiot
George Jonas, National Post
Published: Saturday, January 05, 2008
An acquaintance had a question for me. "Didn't you write something to the effect once that anyone who wouldn't hire, promote or rent an apartment to a person because of his or her race, religion, ethnicity or gender was a fool?"
"Close enough," I replied. "I think I actually used the word 'idiot.' "
"Then why are you railing against human rights commissions?" he asked. "You share their values." "Gosh, I hope not," I said.
"HRCs were set up to protect human rights against discrimination on grounds you consider idiotic," he said. "What's your beef?"
"I've news for you," I said. "Human rights commissions aren't protecting human rights. They're protecting human ambitions against human rights."
"You lost me," he said. "Alas," I replied, "you're not the only one."
On this question I lost most opinion-makers and policy-entrepreneurs 30 years ago, although the latest events involving the Western Standard and Maclean's magazine may help recapture some. A few public intellectuals finally professed a little unease when the HRCs they helped create began venturing into areas of ostensibly fundamental freedoms. "During the years when my colleagues and I were labouring to create such commissions," wrote the Canadian Civil Liberties Association's Alan Borovoy after an HRC called the Western Standard on the carpet for reprinting some cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, "we never imagined that they might ultimately be used against freedom of speech."
Unlike many civil libertarians, I feared HRCs might do just that back in the 1970s for two reasons. One, they threatened to do it; two,
A Jew who won't hire a Muslim is a fool. The worse fool is the 'human rights' czar who forces him to it seemed to me HRCs were founded on a false premise.
Human rights laws and tribunals are based on the notion that being hired, promoted, serviced and esteemed is a human right. It isn't. Being hired, promoted, serviced and esteemed is a human ambition. It's a justifiable ambition, but still just an ambition.
A human right is to be sovereign in one's legitimate sphere. A human right is to select whom to hire, promote, service or esteem. It's to decide with whom to associate. It's to have an opinion, silly as it may be. It's a human right to be an idiot.
To illustrate: A Canadian Jew who won't hire a Canadian German or Muslim is a fool. There's only one fool worse: a "human rights" commissar who would force him.
Where individuals exercise lawful choices, human rights are protected. People's motives are their own business. Most people aren't morons. When left to their own devices in a free society, most will select whom to hire, promote, service or esteem on the basis of enlightened self-interest, not prejudice.
There are attractive ambitions and ugly rights, but the ugliest right still trumps the prettiest ambition. When one protects a human ambition, no matter how noble, against a human right, no matter how ignoble, one enters the wasteland of social engineering, the barren realm of statism. At best, it's the tyranny of good intentions. While a tyranny of good intentions is better than a tyranny of evil intentions, it's still tyranny. Soon all intentions vanish, and only the tyranny endures.
Freedom is indivisible. Questioning HRCs only after they shift their aim from areas in which intellectuals have little emotional investment, such as business, to areas in which they have much, such as public discourse, is too late. So is raising one's voice when HRCs go after all-time champions like Mark Steyn, having kept mum when they singled out also-rans like the late Doug Collins.
Some argue that lapsed liberals who kept quiet while the state's commissars were targeting marginal journalists in fringe periodicals have zero moral authority to speak when they go after major commentators in mainstream magazines. Nonsense. Relapsed liberals are welcome to speak. "So foul a sky clears not without a storm," as Shakespeare had it. Hauling a leading newsmagazine before an HRC tribunal may create the storm that sweeps away these ludicrous kangaroo courts.
George Jonas, National Post
Published: Saturday, January 05, 2008
An acquaintance had a question for me. "Didn't you write something to the effect once that anyone who wouldn't hire, promote or rent an apartment to a person because of his or her race, religion, ethnicity or gender was a fool?"
"Close enough," I replied. "I think I actually used the word 'idiot.' "
"Then why are you railing against human rights commissions?" he asked. "You share their values." "Gosh, I hope not," I said.
"HRCs were set up to protect human rights against discrimination on grounds you consider idiotic," he said. "What's your beef?"
"I've news for you," I said. "Human rights commissions aren't protecting human rights. They're protecting human ambitions against human rights."
"You lost me," he said. "Alas," I replied, "you're not the only one."
On this question I lost most opinion-makers and policy-entrepreneurs 30 years ago, although the latest events involving the Western Standard and Maclean's magazine may help recapture some. A few public intellectuals finally professed a little unease when the HRCs they helped create began venturing into areas of ostensibly fundamental freedoms. "During the years when my colleagues and I were labouring to create such commissions," wrote the Canadian Civil Liberties Association's Alan Borovoy after an HRC called the Western Standard on the carpet for reprinting some cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, "we never imagined that they might ultimately be used against freedom of speech."
Unlike many civil libertarians, I feared HRCs might do just that back in the 1970s for two reasons. One, they threatened to do it; two,
A Jew who won't hire a Muslim is a fool. The worse fool is the 'human rights' czar who forces him to it seemed to me HRCs were founded on a false premise.
Human rights laws and tribunals are based on the notion that being hired, promoted, serviced and esteemed is a human right. It isn't. Being hired, promoted, serviced and esteemed is a human ambition. It's a justifiable ambition, but still just an ambition.
A human right is to be sovereign in one's legitimate sphere. A human right is to select whom to hire, promote, service or esteem. It's to decide with whom to associate. It's to have an opinion, silly as it may be. It's a human right to be an idiot.
To illustrate: A Canadian Jew who won't hire a Canadian German or Muslim is a fool. There's only one fool worse: a "human rights" commissar who would force him.
Where individuals exercise lawful choices, human rights are protected. People's motives are their own business. Most people aren't morons. When left to their own devices in a free society, most will select whom to hire, promote, service or esteem on the basis of enlightened self-interest, not prejudice.
There are attractive ambitions and ugly rights, but the ugliest right still trumps the prettiest ambition. When one protects a human ambition, no matter how noble, against a human right, no matter how ignoble, one enters the wasteland of social engineering, the barren realm of statism. At best, it's the tyranny of good intentions. While a tyranny of good intentions is better than a tyranny of evil intentions, it's still tyranny. Soon all intentions vanish, and only the tyranny endures.
Freedom is indivisible. Questioning HRCs only after they shift their aim from areas in which intellectuals have little emotional investment, such as business, to areas in which they have much, such as public discourse, is too late. So is raising one's voice when HRCs go after all-time champions like Mark Steyn, having kept mum when they singled out also-rans like the late Doug Collins.
Some argue that lapsed liberals who kept quiet while the state's commissars were targeting marginal journalists in fringe periodicals have zero moral authority to speak when they go after major commentators in mainstream magazines. Nonsense. Relapsed liberals are welcome to speak. "So foul a sky clears not without a storm," as Shakespeare had it. Hauling a leading newsmagazine before an HRC tribunal may create the storm that sweeps away these ludicrous kangaroo courts.
Link
damngrumpy @ Sat Jan 05, 2008 6:21 pm
Whether something is a right or an ambition is completely devoid of common sense today.
The forcing of people to speak up or to be quiet is foreign to our society that somehow got along quite well most of the time until we started with the pages and pages of rules putting a heavy price on what was once free.
I remember some years ago before all this silly stuff people used to be bigots and others stood up and challenged them, we didn't need a law to do that it was natural that ignorance was not tolerated.
Now a days peoples say nothing so the for fear of being challenged by some other side of the politically correct crowd. Things are actually worse now, and inter cultural tensions are higher than at any time I can remember.
Today for some reason, our society has allowed itself to trade democracy and free speech for security and that has a blueprint of disaster. It has been said that if you trade freedom for security ultimately you will end up with neither.
Often times I am appauled by what some people say, and I cannot believe that people have that much hate and bigotry inside them, yet if we are to maintain our democracy there must be some outlet for them. Yes even the most ignorant must have their say or democracy itself will not survive.
We must ultimately determine what is a right and what is an expectation of same or ultimatley the society will consume itself with all of its pent up hatred.
Instead of condemning people for their beliefs and statements we should allow them to condemn themselves from the words that come from their mouths
Wullu @ Sat Jan 05, 2008 6:31 pm
$1:
Instead of condemning people for their beliefs and statements we should allow them to condemn themselves from the words that come from their mouths
Exactly. The irony of the HRCs taking on freedom of expression issues is that it can only serve to exacerbate real issues of human rights. If a free society cannot openly debate any issue that is brought before it, then it is doomed.
The HRCs are just becoming another knife of the death by a thousand cuts.
DrCaleb @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 11:20 am
Wullu Wullu:
Exactly. The irony of the HRCs taking on freedom of expression issues is that it can only serve to exacerbate real issues of human rights. If a free society cannot openly debate any issue that is brought before it, then it is doomed.
The HRCs are just becoming another knife of the death by a thousand cuts.
The HRCs are just becoming another knife of the death by a thousand cuts.
Well said.
We see it not only in HRC's, but in 'Political Correctness'. When was anyone ever offended by a Christmas Tree, or a Menorah?
hwacker @ Sun Feb 03, 2008 5:21 pm
Charles Adler: Canada is becoming a tyranny of politeness
Posted: February 03, 2008, 9:46 AM by John Turley-Ewart
Charles Adler
It's a strange country we live in. For all the talk we hear about how brave men fought and died to keep Canada a free country, we sure don't act like a free people. In Toronto there is a problem with violence in schools - more in some than others, more in those with underprivileged than others, more in those with poor black kids than others... and a so called human rights lawyer is charged with doing a very thick report on what the problems are and what the solutions are and as it turns out the problem was Mike Harris, a premier who ran the government of Ontario for six years, and has been out of power for the last six years.
Does anybody really think that the issues Toronto is dealing with on the very important subject of young black boys and young black men doing poorly in school is about Mike Harris? Does anybody have the moral courage to talk back to this kind of larceny, this kind of deceipt, this kind of rhetorical manure? Are we really a free people?
Wouldn't a free people simply refuse to accept what they know in their hearts is nonsense, nonsense that is masking the real issues? I know we don't want to discuss problems in terms of colour, in terms of ethnicity, in terms of country of origin. We want to keep saying what the government and all agents of contemporary want us to say, that all people are the same, that all individuals are the same, that all groups are the same and when there is a problem, when that problem involves low outcomes in education, low outcomes in family unity and domestic harmony, higher rates of criminal behavior, drug addiction and violence.
When there is a problem, we must not point any fingers at the people who have the problem. If we are going to point, we must point at ourselves. We are the problem. We are the village raising the child...and if this country were a tyranny, run by a dictator, I could understand how we could just feel we have no choice but to keep sucking on this multicultural lollipop until we gag.
But I thought as a young child growing up in Canada that we a choice on speaking the truth or not speaking it. I thought that's what separated us from all those other countries where societies are under the thumb of
the evil man with his evil secret police force and corrupt judges and lying media lapdogs.
Now if I were still a child, I could still buy into the idea we are the country that I thought we were, and I guess I could go along with the idea that the troubles in certain cultural communities in this country are everybody's fault. I could swallow the idea that the family of the murder victim is as responsible for the murder as the murderer himself. If I were a child I guess I could swallow that. But as an adult I have had it up to here with the idea that I have to murder my own mind in order to fit in with a chattering class in this country that is betraying this country by chattering around issues, around problems and
participating in avoidance instead of confrontation.
Confronting people and their lies is impolite in a country that worships politeness. When did politeness conquer freedom. I don't know. There was no newspaper headline declaring this. No radio or TV bulletin. No big lunged broadcaster saying “Breaking News in Canada: Freedom of speech has been replaced by the Tyranny of politness.â€
DrCaleb @ Sun Feb 03, 2008 7:34 pm
Excellent find! I always liked this guy.
Charles Adler Charles Adler:
But I thought as a young child growing up in Canada that we a choice on speaking the truth or not speaking it. I thought that's what separated us from all those other countries where societies are under the thumb of the evil man with his evil secret police force and corrupt judges and lying media lapdogs.
And then I grew up, and saw the corrupt judges who are hidden by the lying media.