Universal Declaration of Human Rights = WRONG, not right

There is a serious shortage of knowledge about rights, what they are, and what they are not, in North America, the U.K., and Europe. To the extent that their governments even acknowledge the exitence of rights in the Middle East, Russia, China, Korea, and other centers of barbarism, their notion of rights fits the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) best.

Too many of the chattering class prattle about "human rights," as if they know what they are saying. What they mean by "human rights" is a mix of authentic rights and collectivist statism, in which the latter provide the means to destroy the former. Prattlers about "human rights" usually also prattle about "social justice," which is a code term for collectivism, statism, the total state, i.e., socialism. There are some good people and organizations which believe themselves to be opposed to Islamic domination of the world, and they do very good work. But part of their belfry remains utterly cluttered by lack of knowledge about rights and their ignorant affirmation of the UDHR. Unknowingly, they are nullifying the very fine work they are doing by their advocacy and acceptance of the UDHR. If they knew better, they would stop advocating the wrong rights and advocate the correct rights.

Understanding rights is not hard, but it takes some time, and the rewards are plentiful. Once grasped, one has the feeling of having one's brain scrubbed to squeeky clean.

To follow is a reprinting of part one of an article first published on the website 6TH COLUMN AGAINST JIHAD. Next week, we will publish the concluding part two.

DO NOT SUPPORT THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS (UNITED NATIONS)

(Part I of Two Parts)

Some excellent anti-Islamic, anti-jihad, pro-freedom and pro-rights groups and individuals seriously damage themselves by their public dedication to the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). They believe they are taking a moral stand for rights, but they do not grasp the profound contradiction and violation to morality that they create by supporting documents like the UDHR. Little do they realize that they are opening the door to the very horrors, miseries, and degradations that made them leave Islam.

I found one excellent example of such a problem from a group that I like, and I want to be very clear that I present this only in the spirit of wanting this group—and all others making the same error--to expunge this terrible contradiction. The group is the Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society (ISIS)[1] founded by Ibn Warraq, a former Muslim, and a man greatly and properly revered.

This group’s Mission Statement says in part: “We believe that Islamic society has been held back by an unwillingness to subject its beliefs, laws and practices to critical examination, by a lack of respect for the rights of the individual…The Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society (ISIS) has been formed to promote the ideas of rationalism, secularism, democracy and human rights within Islamic society.” This is a powerful statement.

ISIS then offers a five-part “Statement of Principles.”

Statement Three inserts the deadly virus into their principles: “We endorse the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenants without qualification.”

Had ISIS properly qualified its endorsement of UDHR, it would have avoided the damage. The qualification might accept part of the UDHR as is, but would totally reject the counterfeit “rights.” However, ISIS states its endorsement “without qualification,” thus it drinks the entire draught of poison.

What is the UDHR?

THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

The United Nations makes information about UDHR available on its website[2]. It also gives UDHR history and background information. For example, the UN states that UDHR was adopted on 10 December 1948, and that Eleanor Roosevelt was the American “key contributor.” At the end of the question and answer section it has for children, it asks, “Why is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights important to you?” And, it answers, “Because it protects and promotes your individual rights.”

Protecting and promoting anyone’s individual rights is exactly what it DOES NOT DO.

How does UDHR say that it “protects” and “promotes” persons’ individual rights?

Following an eight paragraph preamble, UDHR specifies thirty “rights.” The UN authors who created this document knew little to nothing about rights; because of this ignorance, the issue is fogged and allows bogus rights to go undetected. Judging from the quality of the thirty “rights,” the list reads like a committee creation. The language is often as fuzzy as the document is definition-free. Enumerated “rights” vary from the fundamental to the derivative to frank anti-rights; no guide delineates which are which.

The worst stuff shows up in the last third of the UN “rights” list. Item 21 says in part, “The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of the government…” This imprecision opens the door to ochlocracy because government is neither defined nor constrained in any way from any tyranny.

Item 29, paragraph 3, states, “These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.” Which of the applicable individuals, governments, or nations, then, is the supreme entity? It is, of course, the United Nations, from which are dispensed the UN’s versions of rights and responsibilities. What the UN giveth, the UN can taketh away—unlike authentic rights which come from human requirements for existence, as we will elaborate.

THE BOGUS RIGHTS OF THE UDHR

ITEM 22 “right to social security’ “economic, social and cultural
rights”

ITEM 23 “protection against unemployment” “Everyone who works
has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his
family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by
other means of social protection.”

ITEM 24 “periodic holidays with pay”

ITEM 25 “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the
health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing,
housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to
security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age
or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

ITEM
26 “right to education” and “Education shall be free”
Education “shall
further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.”

(All emphases mine)



It would be easy to nitpick Items 21 – 30 severely, but we will focus only on the items in the foregoing table because these items completely undo all of the rest of the UDHR.

The real meaning of these bogus rights comes from understanding the meaning of rights.

RIGHTS PER SE

Many Americans “sort of know” what “rights” are. Those who were able to learn enough general knowledge, despite “public” or “government” schools, can usually parrot “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” but they seldom go further. Confusion clouds their minds as they try to tease out “the right to ____ [you fill in the blank].” Politicians, educators, and cultural sources are both confused and up to no good in providing bad answers. Most accept that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are compatible “somehow” with the “right to education, right to unemployment checks, social security, welfare, and health care,” among others.

The term “rights” gets tossed about like some kind of largess, particularly during election cycles. As a result of profound ignorance, a “right,” to most people, means something along the line of an entitlement.

There is a price to pay for this ignorance—ultimately, reality always wins. Sometimes, victory takes time as the logical consequences move inexorably to conclusion, but logic and reality always hold the upper hand. The price being paid for mixing up real rights with bogus rights is the replacement of real rights with the bogus ones, as we will demonstrate, and the unhappy consequences resulting from it. This replacement process applies to all societies which move from greater individual freedom progressively to fewer and fewer freedoms, and finally to no freedom. For example, contrast free America as a young republic with the semi-statist America of today. Then contrast the latter with Islamic and other totalitarian societies, where no individual rights are respected, where the life of the individual is subordinated to the whims of the state.

The “package deal” of the UNUDHR tries to mix real rights–both fundamental and derivative--with counterfeit rights such as social security, education, health, guaranteed income, and so on, as though the two were interchangeable.

Few terms reflect the confusion better than does the expression “human rights.” Many intelligent people think that they have said something useful when they use that expression. Jimmy Carter, as an example, has prattled often, but not eloquently, about “human rights” for decades, and to this day does not know anything about the “rights” he talks about.

“Human rights” is a qualified term. “Human,” when used as a modifier, implies that there are other “rights.” To a socialist like Carter, there are lots of rights. There are “property rights, economic rights, environmental rights, voting rights,” and so on, ad infinitum, and all are assumed to be equal. In reality, however, there is just ONE fundamental right and three derivative rights.

THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS

The fundamental right is the RIGHT TO LIFE. The derivative rights are the RIGHTS TO LIBERTY, PROPERTY, and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. (Please note the exactness of the terminology: “pursuit of happiness,” which acknowledges that there can be no guarantee of happiness). No other fundamental rights exist because these four spawn all authentic rights as derivatives and specializations of these four.

Philosopher Ayn Rand, THE great clarifier of rights, illustrates the trap made by contrasting “human rights” with “property rights,” which all manner of leftists (i.e., collectivists) love to do:

Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality—to think, to work and to keep the results—which means: the right of property…Only a ghost can exist without material property; only a slave can work with no right to the product of his effort. The doctrine that "human rights" are superior to "property rights" simply means that some human beings have the right to make property out of others; since the competent have nothing to gain from the incompetent, it means the right of the incompetent to own their betters and to use them as productive cattle. Whoever regards this as human and right, has no right to the title of "human."[3]

(Emphasis mine)

Think of “right of way.” A “right” is just that. It is an ACTION. Better said, it is a freedom of action.

Who acts? Individual humans do. What kind of actions do they take? They take actions to support their lives. What are they acting to do? They are acquiring the material means to sustain and further their lives. All people live in a material world, and they need physical materials to keep living. Without these physical materials, their physical bodies cannot survive, and their lives end. The obvious basic physical materials are food, water, clothing, and shelter. People need the freedom to act to acquire these and many other things. They need to have full authority to use what they earn. They need to have full use of the materials they acquire to own--PROPERTY.

Each person needs the freedom to act on his own behalf in order to fulfill his life as much as possible. People need the freedom to determine which actions fulfill their lives and to make changes when they think they can fulfill themselves in better ways. They must be free to PURSUE their HAPPINESS.

A "right" is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context.
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.[4]

(Emphases mine)

Rights are moral principles derived from the need for each person to support his own life by his own actions.

SOURCE OF RIGHTS

Confusion pops up here because of two misconceptions people hold. These misconceptions come in the form of two questions: (1) Where do rights come from? And (2), who gives us our rights? The proper answers are, to question (1): You are born with your rights and retain them forever; the Founders understood this when they wrote that rights are “unalienable.” Rights are an integral part of our nature as humans and cannot be separated from that nature. The answer to question (2) is: Because rights are an integral part of our nature; no one can give them to us, take them away, or give them away.

If rights “come from” anything, it is from the demands of REALITY. Rights come with every human at birth in every era and in every culture. Our fundamental nature as human beings is the same for all humans everywhere. Any social system faces just one HUGE basic decision: to protect individual rights or not.

The second question which confuses so many people pertains to the source of rights. Conservatives say that rights are given by a supreme deity. Liberals say that rights come from society. Neither is correct.

Rights come from the nature of human beings. As Ayn Rand said it so well:

The source of man's rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A—and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work.[5]


A human is what he is. His nature and the requirements that enable him to live are inseparable parts of his identity. Whether one believes in God or not, rights are integral to the identity of humankind, and because of this, they are inalienable. This means that neither society, groups, collectives, nor governments can “give” rights. Similarly, and we will elaborate more later, rights cannot be taken away; nor can one give one’s rights away. RIGHTS CAN ONLY BE VIOLATED! Reality sets these requirements, and there is no way around them.

INALIENABILITY

America’s Founders were absolutely correct when they said that the Rights of Man are inalienable. Rights can be violated, but they remain, even if unrealized because some people deny others their freedom to act.

Rights translate morality into the social (political) realm. Living together can be very valuable to people, in the proper kind of society, or horribly dangerous in the wrong kind of society. A society is legitimate only when it does not interfere with people’s freedom of action, provided their actions do not violate the same rights held by others. A moral society protects the rights of its citizens, who delegate the use of force to that government (society) in order to have their rights protected.[6]

[1] http://www.secularislam.org/,
[2] http://www.un.org/
[3] Peikoff, L.: Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand; Meridian Books, NY, ISBN: 0-452-01101-9, 1991, page 353
[4] Rand, A: The Virtue of Selfishness; Signet Books, NY; ISBN:0-451-12931-8, 1964; page 93
[5] Ibid, page 94
[6] Peikoff, op. cit., page 350
[7] Rand, op. cit., page 92-93
[8] Ibid, page 96

Click here to continue to Part II