THE POLITICS OF HUMAN RIGHTS

The "human rights" culture.

Human rights.  Yeah, right.  As I see it, there's no such thing as a universal human right.  Rights, whatever category of right you care to name, are rights -- privileges, entitlements, whatever -- which any given society or group confers on its own members.  Thus, members of golf clubs have particular rights peculiar to the membership, nightclubs "reserve the right to refuse admission", the Freedom of Information Act gives us the right to access certain information and UK citizens have the right to vote in UK general elections and so on.

  No rights are automatic, self-evident rights: they are all the result of particular groups or societies defining the rights of their members. It is only by agreeing to abide by and conform with the rules of those societies that we are accepted as members OF those societies and groups. Failure – or refusal – to "follow the rules" will normally result in penalties or exclusion from that group.

 Within those groups and societies -- from the Students Union to the Bar Council, the golf club to the United Nations -- we define rules of eligibility and conduct and agree general or specific limitations to those rights and we pass laws to explicitly deny certain rights -- the right to help ourselves to other people's property, to hurt or damage other people, animals, property etc.  Many of those rights do not exist in other countries and indeed, some other countries give their citizens rights that here would be strictly illegal -- the right to carry a rifle, to own slaves, to treat animals or other humans in ways we would consider distinctly cruel or barbaric, for example.  We extend to everyone in this country some rights simply by virtue of  being here.  The right to wander the public highway, for example, to pursue their own religion, to choose one's own partner and so on. Indeed, we have the right to dress as we please, even to go naked (without outraging public decency, of course) without necessarily inviting visits from sexual predators! It's why we like to think of ourselves as a "free society". It's increasingly under threat.

Within those parameters specifically defined by a nation to protect itself and its members in general, laws and rules are made for that purpose, such as those dealing with terrorism, extremism and the preaching of sedition.  We elect parliaments, giving them the power to make laws that govern the way we live, extract money from us and commit us as a society to international undertakings or even wars. But those powers themselves are not irrevocable and they can be withdrawn if and when the electorate decide.

Some of our citizens' rights are surrendered voluntarily when, for example, joining the Armed Forces and agreeing to submit to the military code of the UK, Queen's Regulations.

Criminals can forfeit many of their rights as a consequence of their actions. They may well forfeit their freedom and spend time in prison. (Oh, and there is no "human right" to comfort! Or TV!). The greater the offence committed, the more rights are forfeited by the criminal – and for longer. Some consider that the best deterrent for would-be criminals who go armed and quite prepared to take someone else's life in order to get what they want, should be the distinct possibility that they will face the same consequence for themselves -- execution. That really WOULD be a "quid pro quo"!

Underlying all this is the concept of accountability.  There is a quid pro quo in society that affects everything.  We are responsible for our actions.  Nobody else is, as a general rule.  It used to be generally understood that if it was your fault that something went wrong, you would be subject to some adverse consequence. When you think about it, that's a distinctly Newtonian proposition -- nothing is without consequence or reciprocal, whether it is payment, an exchange of obligations, debt incurred, favour returned and so on..  The legal profession has changed everything however: today , nobody is responsible for anything.  Ever. We have a new Moral Relativism.

We have developed a culture of dependency and a moral code which seems to make every moral judgement subject to an appraisal based on its financial impact, or possibly any legal precedents, or maybe prevailing European law – and the idea that somehow, blame can be shared. Today, everything is somebody else's fault -- the girl was dressed provocatively and she led me on with her flirting so it's her fault really, claims the rapist's legal team and you know that somewhere, some idiot judge or jury will buy that defence. Increasingly, we have the "cultural offence" bandwagon. In nearly every case, the offence appears to be given by the "host" culture and the offence taken by representatives of a newer, "alien" culture.

We are all "victims" of something or other, or somebody or other, apparently. New causes of our victimhood are constantly being discovered. If it isn't something that somebody said some time that somehow offended us and hurt our feelings (even if we weren't aware of the crime at the time), it will be a new crime definition. Currently, "race" and "hate" crimes are "fashionable". What next? I'm sure there are lawyers or political activists somewhere, working it out. Be warned: lawyers will be involved – that means it will be expensive for the "perpetrators" and profitable for the lawyers.