| 
		
			| Spanky | 12-22-2005 03:21 PM |  
 No surprize here but I am confused again.....
 
	Quote: 
	
		| Originally posted by taxwonk
 And all that stuff about how all men are created equal, and endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights was just puff advertising?
 
 If that's the case, then the only argument that you can really make about Iraq is that we went there because it's more convenient for us to have a democratic (well, up to a point) state than it was to have Saddam.
 
 And if your ability to claim certain rights is based solely on an accident of birth, then what real moral basis is there for those rights?
 
 |  You have Tys disease of jumping to conclusions that are not warranted.  Just because I believe in Universal Human Rights does not mean that I believe in all the rights granted in the US constitution are universal rights.  In addition, some of the rights we grant have other purposes other than just respecting international norms of rights.  In addition, it doesn't mean that if all the governments of the world don't grant those rights then the US has to respect them from citizens of those countrys whose governments don't.
 
In a perfect world everyone would have those rights.  But in a perfect world every country in the world would have our democratic values and our economic system.  But that isn't the case is it?  And in that world Terrorism wouldn't exist.  Or wouldn't be as omnipresent as it is today.  
 
When you have a country like Saudi Arabia that doesn't respect those rights and educated their citizens to hate and want to destroy all non-muslim civilization then those citizens do not get the full weight of the US constitution.  Of course, under the Universal Human Rights I don't think anything should be done to them if they are innocent.  Innocent people should not be killed.  But don't for a second think that I think that a right to trial by Jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, the exclusionary rule etc. etc. are universal human rights that should be granted to everyone.  
 
In our country we have reasons for those rights and we let a lot of guilty people go free because of our respect for those rights.  I actually agree with that.  But that does not mean those rights are universal human rights.  But of course, innocent people have the right under the universal moral code not to be tortured, killed, raped or sold into slavery.  Every human being has the right to life, liberty, and property rights.  But those can be taken away if they are not innocent. |