Human rights should always be universal and immutable, we can’t go around deciding who does or doesn’t have basic human rights. Antifa has to be the better people because unfortunately we have to be the adults in the room and show the children what it means to be a decent human being. But, having your human rights respected doesn’t mean that you’re immune to the consequences of your actions like getting the shit kicked out of you for being a Nazi prick, or getting locked up in prison for the rest of your life.
Those aren’t Human Rights, those are Freedoms. Freedoms are often included as part of Human Rights decrees but they are usually merely subsections of Human Rights decrees and can be restricted by governments if there is just cause, but never or rarely removed outright.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights identifies a few key things like the Right to Life including protections from slavery and torture. The Freedom of Movement is one that can be restricted if you prove dangerous. The big one that most people are referring to when they mention Human Rights is all of the “constitutional liberties”, here’s a quote from the article I linked about that:
the so-called “constitutional liberties” and spiritual, public, and political freedoms, such as freedom of thought, opinion, expression, religion and conscience, word, peaceful association of the individual, and receiving and imparting information and ideas through any media.
The above linked declaration hasn’t been ratified in every country, and it’s sort of a basic boilerplate that countries may use to form their own Human Rights decrees. But again the big one that is quite universal is the constitutional liberties which are basically the freedom from discrimination and oppression.
My point being, restricting a person’s Freedoms isn’t necessarily the same as violating their Human Rights.
Human rights are bigger than just the United States. What happens there is a pretty atrocious infringement on the rights of inmates. It’s not surprising though, considering the US prison system is essentially just modern slavery and that there are corporations who have a vested interest in dehumanizing the inmates so they can exploit them as slave labor without anyone objecting.
No, there are real adults with these opinions. Real adults that perform real actions based on their opinions. If they can’t stop themselves from being uncivilized animals based on bigotry and discrimination then we need to protect the rest of our society that is peaceful and tolerant. The only way to be decent to absolute villains is to relinquish them of their ability to take action. Otherwise everything we’ve built since Babylon comes tumbling down.
Let’s walk through an example. Please note that I absolutely do not mean anything of what I’m about to say. Imagine someone were to say the following things.
I’m going to kill you. I don’t think you have a right to exist. I’m going to torture, dismember, and end you because I personally believe this is morally right. You do not deserve life. I will come to your home. I will take you in the night. I will make you watch as your family screams in terror while I take them all away. I will do this to everyone like you. I will destroy you because I believe it is the right thing to do. I will experiment on you. You will be like cattle for my whims because I do not believe you are human like me. You are just a meat sack. I will abuse you simply for my enjoyment because you hold no value beyond the value I give you. You are worthless, and I will dispose of you.
If someone legitimately said these things to you, if they really meant it, would you want the government to just be like, “hey man, they can say whatever they want. Human rights?” This is a Nazi’s inner monologue.
Uttering death threats is a crime in most nations. So they would hopefully be put in jail long before they acted upon those thoughts. If someone is that disturbed then there’s something wrong with them on a fundamental level – be that nature or nurture. What I would hope for that person is that they’re locked away from society, but treated as well as they can be considering some safety measures need to be in place for even prison guards to interact with someone like that.
I’m not arguing at all that we never lock anyone up, that’s absurd and anyone who thinks that is probably intentionally misunderstanding my meaning. I just think that treating people with as much dignity and respect as we can is the right thing to do in all circumstances. Dehumanizing and othering people is what fascists do, if we want to call ourselves the good guys, we can’t act like fascists. It’s just plain wrong, and it’s evil.
Solved simply by treating tolerance as a social contract instead of an absolute moral doctrine.
Break the contract, lose the protections.
Well put.
It really is just as simple as “don’t do mental gymnastics”, there’s only a paradox here if you make one
Human rights should always be universal and immutable, we can’t go around deciding who does or doesn’t have basic human rights. Antifa has to be the better people because unfortunately we have to be the adults in the room and show the children what it means to be a decent human being. But, having your human rights respected doesn’t mean that you’re immune to the consequences of your actions like getting the shit kicked out of you for being a Nazi prick, or getting locked up in prison for the rest of your life.
We do decide who doesn’t get all their rights all the time. It’s called jail.
Those aren’t Human Rights, those are Freedoms. Freedoms are often included as part of Human Rights decrees but they are usually merely subsections of Human Rights decrees and can be restricted by governments if there is just cause, but never or rarely removed outright.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights identifies a few key things like the Right to Life including protections from slavery and torture. The Freedom of Movement is one that can be restricted if you prove dangerous. The big one that most people are referring to when they mention Human Rights is all of the “constitutional liberties”, here’s a quote from the article I linked about that:
The above linked declaration hasn’t been ratified in every country, and it’s sort of a basic boilerplate that countries may use to form their own Human Rights decrees. But again the big one that is quite universal is the constitutional liberties which are basically the freedom from discrimination and oppression.
My point being, restricting a person’s Freedoms isn’t necessarily the same as violating their Human Rights.
I mean, there is the right to bear arms, people in jail and felons don’t have that right. Felons can’t even vote.
Human rights are bigger than just the United States. What happens there is a pretty atrocious infringement on the rights of inmates. It’s not surprising though, considering the US prison system is essentially just modern slavery and that there are corporations who have a vested interest in dehumanizing the inmates so they can exploit them as slave labor without anyone objecting.
People in jail can’t do that.
They can’t do that either.
I mean, how do you define persecution? Because we help find people sometimes, which seems like the opposite.
No, there are real adults with these opinions. Real adults that perform real actions based on their opinions. If they can’t stop themselves from being uncivilized animals based on bigotry and discrimination then we need to protect the rest of our society that is peaceful and tolerant. The only way to be decent to absolute villains is to relinquish them of their ability to take action. Otherwise everything we’ve built since Babylon comes tumbling down.
Let’s walk through an example. Please note that I absolutely do not mean anything of what I’m about to say. Imagine someone were to say the following things.
I’m going to kill you. I don’t think you have a right to exist. I’m going to torture, dismember, and end you because I personally believe this is morally right. You do not deserve life. I will come to your home. I will take you in the night. I will make you watch as your family screams in terror while I take them all away. I will do this to everyone like you. I will destroy you because I believe it is the right thing to do. I will experiment on you. You will be like cattle for my whims because I do not believe you are human like me. You are just a meat sack. I will abuse you simply for my enjoyment because you hold no value beyond the value I give you. You are worthless, and I will dispose of you.
If someone legitimately said these things to you, if they really meant it, would you want the government to just be like, “hey man, they can say whatever they want. Human rights?” This is a Nazi’s inner monologue.
Uttering death threats is a crime in most nations. So they would hopefully be put in jail long before they acted upon those thoughts. If someone is that disturbed then there’s something wrong with them on a fundamental level – be that nature or nurture. What I would hope for that person is that they’re locked away from society, but treated as well as they can be considering some safety measures need to be in place for even prison guards to interact with someone like that.
I’m not arguing at all that we never lock anyone up, that’s absurd and anyone who thinks that is probably intentionally misunderstanding my meaning. I just think that treating people with as much dignity and respect as we can is the right thing to do in all circumstances. Dehumanizing and othering people is what fascists do, if we want to call ourselves the good guys, we can’t act like fascists. It’s just plain wrong, and it’s evil.