On May 10th UNGA said that Palestine is eligible to become a full member of the UN. Considering the massive violations of the rights of Palestinians, committed by the Hammas and PLO, UNGA's backing should seem at least surprising. A better reaction would be a total disdain for the UN as such, and for everything it represents, and to dismiss anything it says, does, demands and declares from now on. Now, of course, this is just a political maneuver to force Israel into some sort of a cease-fire. So, I'll leave that aspect aside, they've done much worse than that. But that led me to the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. What a joke!
From the get-go, Article 1 says "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." Equal in rights, yes. But in dignity? 🤣 Oxford dictionary defines dignity as "the state or quality of being worthy of honor or respect". A newly born child is not worthy of either. Only as the child grows up, it might become worthy of them, based on its character, which is determined by its choices as an adult. It's not enough to simply pass a certain age to be worthy of anything, let alone honor or respect. Those, the adult must gain. Ok, let's leave dignity, it's not that important, right? Let's turn to rights.
What are rights, according to UDHR? I offer a six pack of the beer of their choice to anyone who finds a definition in that document. There isn't one. That, of course, doesn't stop the UN from mentioning the word "right" 73 times. I guess, it sounds nice, important, authoritative, so let's empty it of any real content and abuse it at will.
This is not nit picking. The UDHR is "is a milestone document in the history of human rights" and it claims to represent "a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations". But instead of offering a real standard, it just goes wild on a list of stuff, square-pegged into the category of rights.
If Rights were correctly, objectively defined, only 3 articles would be needed:
Article 3
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person
half of Article 7
All are equal before the law and are entitled [...] to equal protection of the law
and Article 17
Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property
All the other articles deal with details, examples and methods of implementation. But since there's no definition, they must keep going into those details, in a pathetic attempt to shift the burden of clarification onto the shoulders of the reader. The result is, of course, not one objective clarification, but an infinite number of subjective interpretations of every statement in that document. The failure of this document to provide anything of substance is very well summarized by its own Article 30:
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
In other words, if anybody finds any contradictions in this document, the UN distances itself from any consequences a specific interpretation might lead to.
Are there any contradictions? Not really, says the UN, as long as the concept of right keeps shifting and floating. Let's see.
Article 13 says Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. If an individual is in a wheelchair and nobody wants to push it in the direction he wants to go, is this right violated ? Maybe, maybe not.
Article 16 says The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State. Is a person who refuses to form this fundamental group entitled to this protection? One would hope so, but maybe there is a good reason why they call them "human", and not "individual", rights. Is a woman refusing to carry her pregnancy to term protected by the State? Um... yes?
Article 18: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought (it's terrifying that the UN even deemed necessary to state this) and to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. Really!? What if a particular religion's manifestation (I'm not going to name names here) in practice is to kill non-believers? Is that protected? No, the UN hastens to say, that would violate Article 3. Ok, fine, not kill. Maybe just maim them a little? Throwing them off of rooftops of tall buildings, and letting gravity do the killing?
Article 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression [...] and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. Can The New York Times refuse to print the opinion of a Republican? Can Twitter delete posts at will? Can an atheist family refuse to let in their home a religious salesman?
Article 20: Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. Anywhere? In the middle of a public street? Inside a public University? Or a private one, for that matter?
It gets worse. A lot worse!
Article 22: Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security ... So, not everyone has this right, but only those who are members of society. Can an individual decide not to be a member? Do we need membership cards, issued by governments? Exactly what "social security" means is not clear, but all members of society have the right to it. It could mean the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality. ¡Ay, caramba! What? There is that word, again, "dignity"! But before that, it seems that now there are economic, social and cultural rights. And it's these rights that confer dignity to a (family oriented, socially approved) person, and not that person's character. It doesn't matter how horrible the person is, he has all those rights. Is it his responsibility to acquire all that stuff? No, it's the responsibility of society: through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State. So, a homeless person is entitled to free lodging? I guess he is, if he is incapable of providing it for himself. Can it simply be a heated shelter? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on how dignified he feels. Society must keep on upping the shelter's quality until he stops complaining. And the same applies to food, right? And medicine? And what else? Free movies and concerts, to satisfy his cultural rights as well? Is there a limit? Or, as long as the man's personality is still under development, we should keep on feeding, clothing and entertaining him to no end?
Article 23 is so non-sensical, they divided it into sections. Probably to make it obvious:
- Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. So, firing someone is a violation of this right?
- Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. Equal work in the sense of effort, or results?
- Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. I'm guessing social protection means what Article 22 refers to as "social security".
- Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
From here the document goes into full enumeration mode. Everyone (I guess) has the right to: rest and leisure, holidays with pay, adequate standard of living, education, health care, and enjoyment of arts. The epitome of this enumeration is Article 25 which ends with an all encompassing or other lack of livelihood. They probably got tired of enumerating and ended it with the mother-of-all-enumerations.
Who is responsible for the implementation of all these rights? Article 29 makes it clear: Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.The message is clear: No one is free. Each one of us is their brother's keeper. None of you, you evil independent thinkers, can fully develop your own personality outside society, on which you absolutely depend.
Currently, 193 member states are financing and promoting the aberration above.
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The central problem of this document is, as I said, the lack of definition of "right". The best place to see this is in Article 23: Everyone has the right to work. This sentence can have two, completely opposite, meanings, depending on what "work" is viewed as: as a noun, or as a verb. Is the right of an unemployed person violated? The answer to this question, according to UDHR, is Yes, if 'work' is a noun, and No, if it's a verb. If 'work' is a verb, it means that he is free to work, if he can find employment. Finding work is his problem. His right is not violated unless someone physically interferes with him to stop him from working. However, if 'work' is a noun, it means that someone else (society, I guess) should provide him with employment, which is his, by right. There should be no confusion about this, all UN has to do is read Ayn Rand who makes it clear: The concept of a “right” pertains only to action—specifically, to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men.
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The entire declaration should be replaced with:
A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action—which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)
The concept of a “right” pertains only to action—specifically, to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men.
Thus, for every individual, a right is the moral sanction of a positive—of his freedom to act on his own judgment, for his own goals, by his own voluntary, uncoerced choice. As to his neighbors, his rights impose no obligations on them except of a negative kind: to abstain from violating his rights.
The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.
Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action, like all the others: it is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values.
Ayn Rand
“Man’s Rights,”
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It's that simple.
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