[Catria]

Oh so individual rights and freedoms are a conservative idea?

How deluded you are...it's quite sad. Perhaps you are confusing the conservative mantra of "rights of the individual" with "individual human rights".


Really the seeds for the concept of human rights and freedoms began in ancient Greece but it was from the ideas of the secular intellectuals of the Enlightenment that the true fundamental philosophy of human rights arose. Political philosophers in the 17th and 18th centuries, such as John Locke, Voltaire and Thomas Paine, developed the idea that all human beings had certain inherent rights that cannot be taken or given away. Conservatives and the clergy had to be dragged kicking and screaming into a new era of enlightenment. We had to stop the burning of witches and heretics, secular laws had to be created. The church, though still very powerful, had begun to lose its rigid grip over the state and we began to think about a morality based on reason rather than religious doctrine. The tools of logic had been more fully realised.

The intellectuals of the enlightenment believed that human reason could be used to combat ignorance, superstition, and tyranny and to build a better world. Their principal targets were religion (embodied in France in the Catholic Church) and the domination of society by a hereditary aristocracy. They celebrated the worth and capacity of the human race[a novelty at that time, since christianity had replaced the pride of ancient Greece and Rome with the *miserable sinner* view of humanity] and challenged the moral absolutism of the day. Incidentally, this challenge to absolutism is the opposite philosophy to what James Kalb subscribes to in his essay. He would seek to impose conservative values and have them verified by a religious authority...a backward step.

Eventually these secular ideas led to the following:

British Magna Carta 1215
French Declaration of the Rights of Man 1789
American Bill of Rights 1789
The Geneva Convention 1864

Today discussion about the the protection of human rights generally starts with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, passed by the United Nations in 1948. In its preamble the Declaration emphasises protection of human rights:

"...recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world..."

It's strange when I hear you claim individual human rights as a conservative notion, when I so often hear conservatives bagging the United Nations...the foremost organization in the world concerned with human rights. Even on this forum you claim "UNDHR is not applicable with Capitalism and conservatism". What a joke!


I think the conservative notion of "rights and freedoms" is something very different to the UN one. They are more concerned with the right and freedom to pay low taxes, the right and freedom to reek environmental havoc in the pursuit of profit, the right and freedom to keep government regulation out of their lives, the right and freedom to create monopolies, the right and freedom to be racist and sexist[see Kalb], the right and freedom to pay low wages, the right and freedom to harangue the pro-choice lobby, the right and freedom to deny gays and others their own version of family....ad nauseum.

Now let me out of here....I need some air.

[Comrade Ogilvy]

United Nations...the foremost organization in the world concerned with human rights.

Did you know Libya is currently the head of the United Nations Human Rights commision? Kind of puts the UN into perspective doesnt it?

[Catria]

The UN's not a perfect organization....I know that. It was the South African government that actively promoted Libya's candidacy. South African diplomats nominated Libya for the chairmanship and then mustered the necessary votes from among the African and Arab blocs. It's a democratic process.

There is no country on this Earth without a record of some human rights violations. Nothing is black and white...for example Libya opposed South African Apartheid, while many western countries were actively supporting the South African regime. I know it is seriously blemished, but should we just leave a country like Libya in the corner to fester? Exclusion is no answer and this may even help Libya improve its human rights record...show them the Light.

Libya has assumed some attitude of reconciliation in the last decade and a desire to better its image in the world community.

[Freedom]

It's strange when I hear you claim individual human rights as a conservative notion, when I so often hear conservatives bagging the United Nations...the foremost organization in the world concerned with human rights. Even on this forum you claim "UNDHR is not applicable with Capitalism and conservatism". What a joke!

Nah the UN is the joke and the UNDHR is the joke...the UN is not the foremost organisation involved with Human Rights...the UN is a joke and only the deluded think otherwise...All i was asking in that post was that the UN be politically neutral rather than over-emphasising big government tyrannies as a "Human Right"...also how can a UNDHR have involved the "Soviet Union" thats a fucking dispicable joke. The UN has a shitty record "defending human rights" you only need to look at their "interventions" in Rwanda, Cambodia, Congo and Sierra Leone all almost complete disasters.

As for the rest:

Pure Reason

Pure reason is a joke! You cant use "pure reason"...Aristotle championed the idea and scientifically he has been proven wrong on many ocassions...this is shit...the only real reason comes from Facts, history and heavy planning...not "pure reason".

For instance, Enviromentalism, did you even question it? Did you ever use that brain of yours and question it? Why was there heat waves thousands of years ago? why is all research showing "Global Warming as man-made" full of the same holes and sloppy research? Why dont they take into consideration all questions and other possibilities? If this is pure reason...count me out.

racist

Now this is interesting, while i dont really agree with Kalb...this is funny. "Liberal" lobbies in America would include Civil Rights groups and Feminists...well if "Affirmative Action" is racist then i dunno what is if a qoute like this isnt "racist" i dunno what is:

Civil rights laws were not passed to protect the rights of white men and do not apply to them -- Mary Frances Berry, Chairman, US Commission on Civil Rights

The list of racist, anti-semite and ludicrous statements from "civil rights" people in America is sickening and long. See these "Civil Rights groups" want to see white people as lower in the eyes of the law,they want un-equality when it suits them. Its really sick if you ask me...

As for the Feminazis...well i guess i cant comment because i'm obviously a potential rapist and a sexists because i'm a man...well fucking done now through "liberal" ideologue i can no longer talk in an "un politically correct manner" i can no longer hold an unpopular view and i sure as hell cannot practice my religion because "we hate women"...wow thats great long live Liberalism!!!

Liberals have the audacity to believe they have a right to change the views of the Church and its followers, they dont want the Catholics to have opposing views to them so we get tagged as sexists rapists murderers or some other shit made up by Feminists and their "research"...Liberalism =Free Speech for Women and Minorities and screw those stupid White Men...how dare they attempt to be individuals.

Your coming from this rose tinted glasses view that "Liberalism" is the sole source of good in the world and its sickening and so stupid and lacking in any facts(just like every left-wing movement popular today)

By the way i dont have to be Pro Choice if i dont want...see your already forgetting your "liberal roots"-

willing to respect and accept behaviour or opinions different from one’s own

Dont make me sick with your modern Civil Rights and your Feminism...Republicans emancipated the slaves and pushed forward the Civil Rights movement...dont try and cover up the history...Democrats in America had to be coerced into the Civil War and had to be pushed to support the Civil Rights movement...Get a clue all these modern Liberal Institutions are sorry shamefull rapings of what they once stood for, and i'm only happy that conservatives are standing up to the "Big Conscience" lobby groups and trying to expose them for what they are...hate groups.

[Freedom]

Liberals can have todays Civil Rights activists if they want, i'll take Martin Luther King over these people anyday...warning you will be offended...but its all in the name of Civil Rights...right?

Quotes From Today's Civil Rights Movement


Since the 1960's the Civil Rights Movement has grown into a loathsome parody of itself. A movement that was once defined by Martin Luther King's fight against intolerance and unjust laws is today known for shakedowns of major corporations, never ending claims to victimhood, the Reparations Movement, institutionalizing discrimination against whites, anti-semitism, divisive racial rhetoric, & virulent denunciations of anyone who dares to disagree with their agenda.

Fortunately, men like Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, David Horowitz, Bill O'Reilly, Alan Keyes, Clarence Thomas, Larry Elder, & Jessie Lee Peterson among others have spoken out against the hate speech, inequality under the law, & group think that has come to be identified with the Civil Rights movement today.

Here are just some of the offensive quotes that show how far some of the leaders and adherents of today's Civil Rights Movement has strayed from it's admirable origins....

Anti-Semitism

I am going to be like a pit bull. That is the way I'm going to be against the Jews. I am going to bite the tail of the honkies. -- Khalid Abdul Muhammad, Nation Of Islam & New Black Panther Party, at Howard University, 1994

The Jews don't like Farrakhan, so they call me Hitler. Well, that's a good name. Hitler was a very great man. He rose Germany up from the ashes -- Louis Farrakhan, 1984

Now that nation called Israel, never has had any peace in forty years and she will never have any peace because there can never be any peace structured on injustice, thievery, lying and deceit and using the name of God to shield your dirty religion under His holy and righteous name -- Louis Farrakhan, 1984

'Hymies.' 'Hymietown.' -- Jesse Jackson's description of New York City while on the 1984 presidential campaign trail.

You see everybody always talk about Hitler exterminating six million Jews. That's right. But don't nobody ever ask what did they do to Hitler...They went in there, in Germany, the way they do everywhere they go, and they supplanted, they usurped...they had undermined the very fabric of the society. -- Khalid Abdul Muhammad, Nation Of Islam & New Black Panther Party, Chicago Sun-Times, Appearance at Chicago State University, March 24, 1996

I say to Jewish America: Get ready...knuckle up, put your boots on, because we're ready and the war is going down... The real deal is this: Black youth do not want a relationship with the Jewish community or the mainstream white community or the foot shuffling, head-bowing, knee bobbing black community... All you Jews can go straight to hell. -- Quannell X, National Youth minister for the Nation Of Islam, New York Daily News, October 17, 1995

Other

(On the Bush administration) Instead of uniting us the new administration almost daily separates and divides. They selected nominees from the Taliban wing of American politics, appeased the wretched appetites of the extreme right wing and chose Cabinet officials whose devotion to the Confederacy is nearly canine in its uncritical affection -- Julian Bond

There is a right-wing conspiracy...an interlocking network of funders, groups, and activists, who coordinate their methods and their message...They are...the movement behind vouchers, the legal assault on affirmative action and other remedies for discrimination, attempts to reapportion us [blacks] out of office, and attacks on equity everywhere. They’ve had a collection of black hustlers and hucksters on their payrolls for more than twenty years, promoting them as the new generation of black leaders. They can’t deal with the leaders we choose for ourselves, so they manufacture, promote, and hire new ones. Like ventriloquists’ dummies, [these blacks] speak in their puppet-master’s voice -- Julian Bond at the 2002 NAACP Convention

(On Black Conservatives) A new breed of Uncle Tom [and] some of the biggest liars the world ever saw - Former NAACP executive director Benjamin Hooks on black Conservatives

Anthrax did not come from a cave in Afghanistan," but from "[t]he same people who blew up the building in Oklahoma City, Ruby Ridge, the terror attack in Atlanta, Georgia - those same anti-union forces....'Ashcroft is using the FBI as one weapon, the IRS as another weapon, and leaks to the right-wing media as another weapon' to 'destroy the leadership' of organized labor. -- Jesse Jackson at speech to AFL-CIO in Dec, 2001

In South Africa we'd call it Apartheid. In Nazi Germany we'd call it fascism. Here we call it conservatism. These people are attacking the poor -- Jesse Jackson

Of course, Mr. Hannity was outraged that any American would not cross her hand over her heart and repeat the hypocritical words, “one nation.” Whenever we come up on the Fourth of You Lie, I think of Frederick Douglas and his masterful oration, “The meaning of the Fourth of July to the Negro.” Pledge the flag? I think not! -- Julianne Malveaux

When white folks can’t defeat you, they’ll always find some Negro, some boot-licking, butt-licking, bamboozled, half-baked, half-fried, sissified, punkified, pasteurized, homogenized N*gger that they can trot out in front of you -- Khalid Abdul Muhammad of the Nation Of Islam

Pro-Terrorist

(On Hezbollah) They call them terrorists, I call them freedom fighters. No one asks why they would do such a thing. Why would they do such a thing? What has driven them to this point? That's what the UN, the U.S. and Europe doesn't want to deal with because the Zionists have control in England, in Europe, in the United States and around the world. -- Louis Farrakhan at District Council 33 Union Hall, Philadelphia, April 22, 1996

Qaddafi is hated because he is the leader of a small country that is rich, but he uses his money to finance liberation struggles. And since he's financing liberation struggles against imperialists and Zionists and oppressors, the Zionists hate him, the imperialists hate him, the neo-colonialists hate him, America hates him. Well, you must be all three. I love him. -- Louis Farrakhan Savior's Day Speech, Chicago, February 25, 1996

The President wants to talk about a terrorist named bin Laden. I don't want to talk about bin Laden. I want to talk about a terrorist called Christopher Columbus. I want to talk about a terrorist called George Washington. I want to talk about a terrorist called Rudy Giuliani. The real terrorists have always been the United Snakes of America. -- Malik Zulu Shabazz at reparations rally, 2002

Reparations

I want to go up to the closest white person and say: 'You can't understand this, it's a black thing' and then slap him, just for my mental health -- Charles Barron, a New York city councilman at a reparations rally, 2002

If they don't pay us reparations now, we're talking about scorched earth -- Charles Barron, a New York city councilman at a reparations rally, 2002

Reparations are a really good way for white people to admit they're wrong -- Zack Webb, University Of Kentucky NAACP

Clarence Thomas

I apologize. Exactly three years ago, we ran a cover illustration of U. S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, resplendent with an Aunt Jemima-like handkerchief on his head. In retrospect, we were far too benevolent. Hence, this month’s cover with Clarence appropriately attired as a lawn jockey. Even our latest depiction is too compassionate for a person who has done so much to turn back the clock on civil rights...During slavery, the lawn jockeys on plantations were used to let other owners know when a slave had escaped. According to slave narrative, a lantern would be placed in the jockey’s hand and would remain there as long as the escaped slave remained free. Now you know why there’s a lantern in Clarence’s hand on our cover. That’s Clarence Thomas--he’ll leave a light on for you. -- Emerge Magazine, 1996

A handkerchief-head, chicken-and-biscuit-eating Uncle Tom -- Spike Lee

I have told [Thomas] I am ashamed of him, because he is becoming to the black community what Benedict Arnold was to the nation he deserted; and what Judas Iscariot was to Jesus: a traitor; and what Brutus was to Caesar: an assassin -- Reverend Joseph Lowery of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early, like many black men do, of heart disease -- Julianne Malveaux

If you give Thomas a little flour on his face, you’d think you had [former Klansman] David Duke -- Carl Rowan

On Whites

Civil rights laws were not passed to protect the rights of white men and do not apply to them -- Mary Frances Berry, Chairman, US Commission on Civil Rights

The white man is our mortal enemy, and we cannot accept him. I will fight to see that vicious beast go down into the late of fire prepared for him from the beginning, that he never rise again to give any innocent black man, woman or child the hell that he has delighted in pouring on us for 400 years -- Louis Farrakhan, City College audience in New York

I mean, if black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people? You understand what I'm saying? In other words, white people, this government and that mayor were well aware of the fact that black people were dying every day in Los Angeles under gang violence. So if you're a gang member and you would normally be killing somebody, why not kill a white person? Do you think that somebody thinks that white people are better, or above dying, when they would kill their own kind? -- Sister Souljah In A Washington Post Interview, 1992

The white man is not only practicing racism and Zionism and with the prostitution ring, the so-called Jew man with the Jew woman all over the world to make a few dollars. He is also practicing sexism. He's a racist, he's a Zionist, a sexist, and imperialist. He's a no good bastard. He's not a devil, the white man is the Devil -- Khalid Abdul Muhammad, Nation Of Islam & New Black Panther Party,

(On the Pope) Elijah Muhammad taught that the Pope of Rome is the anti-Christ... It makes me sick to my stomach to see black people running over each other just to kiss this cracker. Who in the hell is the pope of Rome? He's an imposter, he's an idol, he's a false icon that must be torn down. -- Khalid Abdul Muhammad, Nation Of Islam & New Black Panther Party, Appearance at the "Black Holocaust Nationhood Conference," held as a prelude to the Million Man March, October 15, 1995

White folks was in caves while we was building empires... We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it. -- Rev. Al Sharpton in a 1994 speech at Kean College, NJ, cited in "Democrats Do the Dumbest Things"