h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't recall seeing that discussed here. Do you feel there's some things left out? Some things that should be different?

Good in principle. Bad in practice.
The idea behind it is sound but there appears to be little resolve in upholding the charter. Just look at Syria this week, 32 kids killed in a govt bombardment of a civillian area. Look across the globe and see how ineffectual the HRA has become.
Like any law or charter, if you're not prepared to enforce it then its pointless.

I agree with BMT. It's a brilliant idea. But despots, dictators and American Presidents see fit to disregard it at will.

It always comes across as being a bit pointless, and more often than not counterproductive, as the US, UK, etc., see fit to disregard it when it suits them, and apply differing stringencies as to how its inturprited based on which country they're dealing with... If it had any meaning it wouldn't be quite so flexible in the way the 'west' abuses it when they see fit, yet then critisise others when they equally disregard it

It's nice to have principles.

Better surely to have a set of standard to aspire to than none at all.

That we live in an impwerfect world, and these tings will be imperfectly implemented is a terrible argument against trying to make things better. Whilst we should never be guided just by idealism I think the world is poorer if we abandon it completely.

FB

>>32 kids killed in a govt bombardment of a civillian area<< : BMT

Why does it always feel worse when children are involved?

Let me at the perpetrators and I'll prove myself no better than they.


What a sad, sad world

"Better surely to have a set of standard to aspire to than none at all.

That we live in an impwerfect world, and these tings will be imperfectly implemented is a terrible argument against trying to make things better. Whilst
we should never be guided just by idealism I think the world is poorer if we abandon it completely."

Would that that were the case, but the point, at least as far as I'm concerned, is that its patently obvious that those who have put in place such 'protective asperations', in the bill, are exactly those who haven't the slightest interest in thinking they might apply to them, themselves... Its one thing for a renegade dictorial authority to comitt such chrimes, but its far far worse IMO for the very same chrimes to be comitted whenever the fancy takes, by those who allergidly help founder and set up the so-called protection from such chrimes being comitted... Its a handy way of just hiding the fact, that the UK and US really want to just say 'Its alright when we do it, we're doing it to forign people, and they're not Christians, so that's alright'. Taking the moral highground, and then doing despicible things anyhow is or at least seems, worse in some ways... blood thirsty dictatorships, they're kinda meant* to do nasty stuff, as part of their job description, the 'good guys', just ain't meant too..

Stephan Hessel is one who helped write the HR Chart. He wrote recently the small booklet Indignez Vous! and now, Rebelez Vous!

What he and many people say is that the change we need will come from social movements. That has been so along history.

<<<we should never be guided just by idealism I think the world is poorer if we abandon it completely.<<<

The idealism or Utopian ideas are about what doesn´t exist but that can exist tomorrow. It´s a collective construction.

Idealists were those who asked for a 40 hours/week, women vote, homosexual rights...

What we have now is a system that goes against nature and against people. Everything, everyone has become a good to make money, speculative money nor productive wealth.
Certainly the policies of the Mundial Bank, the IMF and the International Organization of the Commerce are failing completly.

Only social movements can make things change.

As those in Porto Alegre say: Another world is possible.

I think that it should be made very clear that having children is NOT a human right and that children are never property.

How do you feel about the article saying that the basic unit of society is the family rather than the individual?

I think it's true, but it does make those of us who are single and childless feel, well even more outsider than we really are.

I do think that people have a right to a family life though, and access to fertility treatment should be equal, though not necessarily sponsored by state healthcare. After all it would be totally wrong for a government to ban people from a certain ethnic group to access fertility treatment.

On top of Xanatic's original questions* I'd like to ask a fifth: When was the last time you read it, and do you know what it says without Googling?



* 1. How do you feel about the UN human rights charter?
2.Do you feel there's some things left out?
3. Some things that should be different?
4. How do you feel about the article saying that the basic unit of society is the family rather than the individual?

If having children shouldn't be a human right, does that mean forced sterilizations are not a violation of human rights?

Enforced medical procedures against one's will? There's a bit more to that than whether having children is a human right, don't you think?

Article 16 seems to suggest that it is, in fact, a human right to have children:

<> [Article 16 (1)].

I would read "found a family" to mean have children.

This is interesting reading. I've never looked it up before. Here's a link for anyone who's interested : http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

Deb

One way to read the charter is about the rights of individuals, but another way to read it is as a statement on limitations of state power, national laws, and state behaviour towards its citizens. So, rather than saying that individuals have the right to found a family, it could be read as saying that the state cannot interfere with founding a family.

That might seem worrying, as I think everyone would argue that a state might be justified in intervening in family life in cases of abuse or neglect. But it could be argued that articles 5, 25, and 26 would not only allow this, but would require it.

I think it needs to be understood in context. It was meant as a statement of general principles, and I doubt anyone thought it would address all possible scenarios or provide all of the answers - especially in cases where rights clash. In places, it reads like a list of facets of totalitarian regimes that are not to happen again, which is not surprising given its history.

It's a tremendous achievement to get broad agreement from so many countries on principles. Even if it hasn't led to a global utopia, we have an agreed document on which criticism can be based.

It's interesting reading it again, because there are some surprises. Trade Union rights are there, as are the rights of parents to "choose the kind of education" for their children. So both secularist calls for a ban on religious schools, and neo-con attempts in the US to ban unions are against the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

Does article 16 mean that people should be entitled to marry their relatives? What would you say?

Xanatic, every time someone answers your question you ignore it and ask a new one. I fear you have an axe to grind here.

Article 16.
•(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

•(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

•(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

...

I would add that a family is a human group of at least two people who are united by affective and/or legal bonds.
With that definition, a family can be a grandmother and her grandchildren. A single mother with her child/ren. Two fathers/mothers with or without children, a man and a woman with/without children...

So, all of them are entitled to the same rights as "traditional" families are.