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

I don't have an axe to grind. I didn't start this thread to get an answer to something specific, just to get people talking about this.

Which aspect of 'this' is it that you want to talk about? You do seem to be asking some leading questions. It's like watching a fledgling Socratic trying to find it's wings.

There was a time when Ask H2G2 was full of intelligent conversations about interesting topics. I'm just trying to get that back.

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

I don't think any possible short document could possibly go into that level of detail. I expect that one of the ways in which agreement was reached was through fudging quite a number of issues, and having the wording vague. Some countries allow cousins to marry, some don't. Interestingly, I don't think the article settles the question of gay marriage, as the wording is ambiguous.

As I said previously, it needs to be read as a response to the horrors of Fascism - ruling out a lot of stuff that they did.

Other than the 'yuck factor', worries about consent, and perhaps worries about genetics, I don't see why relatives shouldn't be allowed to marry. I don't understand why some people have that urge (though apparently something odd can happen with long lost relatives), but there are all kinds of urges that I don't understand that I don't see any good reason to prohibit...

<>

Totalitarianism of every stripe surely?

>> It's like watching a fledgling Socratic trying to find it's wings. << Hey, let's stay supportive of anyone trying to re-establish 'intelligent conversations about interesting topics'. Xanatic has come a long way since June 30, 2001 when he jumped in and took over Corinth's 'friendly girls' thread and made it his own. http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F19585?thread=124799&skip=40&show=20 He's kept it alive for more than a decade. It's been like watching a fledgling Lord Byron on the prowl. More power to him I say! ~jwf~

I think that there is a difference between a 'right not to prohibit' and a 'right to have'.

For instance regarding children, I do think that the state should not prevent people having children. They should not bar two people of different races marrying an starting a family for instance.

But I don't think that a single woman has a right to have the state provide a sperm donor if she wants to have a child,. If the state wishes to do so as part of it's national insurance policies that's really very nice. But I don't think a failure to provide a sperm donor is a breach of her human rights.

In the same way with adoption, a right not to be prevented from having children doesn't equate to a right to adopt. I don't think that every infertile couple who wishes to adopt has a right to be provided with a child by the state. At the moment in the UK there are massively more parents who wish to adopt young children than their are young children available for adoption, so their does have to be a process of choosing the most appropriate parents for the child.

<>



No, I think it needs to be understood as a particular reaction to the second world war. The focus is on the rule of law and the limits of state power, but it's pretty much silent on democracy. The Soviet Union and China had representation on the panel, and although much of the Warsaw pact abstained, China voted in favour.

~jwf~ (@ 26), that convo was/is a good one - it'll take a while to catch up, though. Thanks for pointing it up.

Oh... I haven't actually read it all Rod, just lurked
occasionally to see how Xanatic's love life progressed
across Europe and Asia over the years. Please don't
misinterpret this as a recommendation for good reading
and blame me if it proves otherwise. For what it's worth
I haven't read all of Lord Byron's adventures either, just
enough to see where his reputation arose.

~jwf~

Worrty ye not, ~jwf~ . I went through 100 or so posts then looked at the 8k odd to come & went to the end.

Rod


- - - -
sorry for the sidestep folks. As you were :


How do you feel about the UN human rights charter?

I feel that the right to food and clean water should be enforced, but first, we need a new right that enables citizens and their genuine representatives to end the abuse of the unregulated markets.

Jean Ziegler has worked in the UN and knows a lot about that issue. If someone is really interested in human rights and the criminal and catastrofic consequences of this crisis should read his book or at least this article.

http://www.zcommunications.org/hunger-is-a-weapon-of-mass-destruction-says-jean-ziegler-by-siv-oneall



"In his latest book “Mass Destruction – the Geopolitics of Hunger”, Jean Ziegler talks about the current state of the world and the neoliberal politics of starvation of the poor, which has led to a crisis situation amounting to calculated murder. What we are witnessing today is the worst hunger crisis in human history. And it is all because of human greed, colossal mismanagement for profit.""

More:

"The small farmers, the subsistence farmers who produced enough food to provide for their families and for selling at the market for a modest income, are being ruined, by careful planning.

The Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse of organized hunger, the supra-state organizations IMF, The World Bank and the WTO carry out the wishes of the major food companies. The major three are Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Bunge. These cold monsters are able to fix the prices of food through the powers they have given themselves as cartels or monopolies.""

There is more information in Oxfam and Christian Aid among others NGOs about this new kind of slavery.

No doubt a problem that needs addressing, but I'm not sure that Human Rights legislation is the right way to go about it.

Yep, rather a different issue.

That being said, can something really be a right if it has to be supplied by other people? Such as education? I can see that you can't hinder a persons access to education, viz a viz the case of needing the National Guard to ensure black students could go to high school in Little Rock. It's seems another case when other people have to supply school books, rooms, teachers and all that.

@Maria


You are right on m'dear.
Keep spreading the word.
Hopefully, enough people will finally
see what is going on and say 'NO'
before it is too late.


~jwf~

<<Yep, rather a different issue.

Not at all, because if there´s an issue related to human rights is that of basic needs.
THe issue is economical and we can´t talk about education or other rights if we don´t bear that fact in mind permanently.
What is more: what we and others are suffering is being orchestrated by those financial groups that are speculating with absolutely everything. Those are: The World Trade Organization, the IMF, the World Bank.


We can go back to education later, but please read this first:



The ‘United Nations’ is a term that appeared for the first time in 1941. It was tied to the combat against hunger. The World War was raging and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met on the battleship USS-Augusta in the Atlantic off Newfoundland. What came out of that meeting was the first major attempt to create a document declaring the basic freedoms of man, including Freedom from want and Freedom from fear.

From The Atlantic Charter which was an outcome of the meeting on the USS-Augusta, articles 4 and 6 state:


“Fourth, they will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity;
…
“Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want;” (Destruction massive, pp. 139-140)

Jean Ziegler talks about the origin of the world food programs, p. 201:

"FAO [the Food and Agriculture Organization] and the World Food Programme (WFP) are the big and beautiful legacy of Josué de Castro.[6] These two institutions are threatened with ruin.
They were born, as we have seen, when the great awakening of consciousness took place in Europe that was emerging from the night of fascism: the FAO in 1945, the WFP in 1963.

The sad fate of those two organizations, however, is that they were both rendered fairly helpless when the current economic crisis took hold of the world."

>>It's seems another case when other people have to supply school books, rooms, teachers and all that.

Well, if we're talking about the education of children, then it's always the case that "other people" have to pay for it.