Lots of good answers here, but one I haven’t seen is that some people have different value systems. They would be the ones that say “yes, human rights would be nice, but at what cost?”
Typically, as everyone here has pointed out, they value their own well being and comfort. “We can’t end child slave labor because then a KitKat would cost $20.” They might cite economic priorities, national or personal security, religious beliefs, or civic pride (see: China).
The problem with human rights is that it’s not just Kitkats that will become significantly more expensive if countries stuck the the ideals they claim to uphold. Everything would be more expensive. If you think the west is in a cost of living crisis now, wait until every low wage worker in China and India is treated and paid to western standards. Imagine actually boycotting all of that cheap Asian and African labour for their countless human rights violations!
Of course some people just want to abolish human rights to pad their own wallets by hiring unreasonably cheap labour for their own companies, or to get out of the legal protections that protect minorities against their hatred, but I don’t think there’s a country in the world that actually cares about human rights outside their own borders. Your best bet for that stuff is charities and other NGOs.
So, if children aren’t used as slave laborers, everything becomes more expensive.
Isn’t that just what things cost? I mean, I could get free produce if I stole it from the local produce market. There are plenty of morally gray areas where reasonable people can have legitimate disagreements, but we can all get behind making child slaves illegal.
But you’ll say it’s a slippery slope. First the child slaves, then maybe all the slaves? What about the sex slaves? Are we just supposed to stop letting rich people have sex with unwilling humans? Where doe it end? If everyone has rights and freedom and access to food, shelter, medical care, and education, how will a tiny fraction of the population amass mountains of wealth and power? How will they manage to orgasm without squeezing the life from a poor immugrant who has been forcibly hooked on drugs?
No, I don’t think boycotting cheap goods will create human rights in China and India. People will need to fight for human rights, and we, the privileged few who can afford to vote with our dollars, should demand fair trade foreign policies from our elected officials. We should vote for people who are for human rights everywhere. We should support policies that promote equality everywhere. And if that means we can’t buy cheap jeans at Walmart, we should be prepared to accept that as an inconvenience.
Some guys I know simply think that there should be no predetermined list of rights you are entitled to upon birth, but instead you should only have a right to things that you have earned by yourself. They think most people are weaker and more lazy than them, so they deserve more and should be able to take things from those weaker people without external intervention or regulation.
The fact that for most things they have in life they did not have to fight, or that those things were simply not taken from them thanks to various public safeguards, is entirely lost on them.
It pisses me off so much.
Misunderstanding. For example it’s embarrassing how long I opposed feminism because I only read extreme scare stories about it, never realizing how much of what I took for granted in relationships between genders was a hard fought victory for feminism and all of us. Then when we had our first child, who were the only people standing up to say my company should have paternity leave? Feminists.
I have a more conservative brother who is very much against affirmative action. However he sees firsthand the results of blindly promoting people to meet diversity goals without regard to ability. Meanwhile I’ve been at companies who pay attention to both, resulting in a much more successful workplace
Or are we going political? Clearly the Palestinian situation is a crime against humanity, but do I oppose human rights by saying that is much more complex and it’s not as simple as Israel just stopping?
Or are we going political?
Not a political issue.
do I oppose human rights by saying that is much more complex and it’s not as simple as Israel just stopping?
Yes. This is a cowardly way of siding with the oppressor and (contrary to the question of this post) indirectly saying one is against not only human rights but also international law, in favor of one’s feelings, or to avoid the inconvenience of acknowledging a wrongdoing and not being moved to rectify it. In the least. Not even with words on an online forum.
There is no neutrality when it comes to human rights, you either support them or you are fine with some people not having them, in which case they are not a right.
Is it complicated for Russia to pull out of Ukraine and respect international law? Is it complicated because they have a historical right to that land? Is it complicated because Russia has the right to self defense against NATO encroachment? Do you condemn NATO? You and I personally, dear commenter, are not enemies by any definition of the word, but if the narrative has one excusing war crimes because “it’s complicated” then the narrative is our enemy. Should Hamas face an international court? Absolutely. Should Israel face an international court? Absolutely. Should all violence stop right this second? Absolutely. Our actions (or lack thereof) decide whether we live in a world of law or a world of brutal autocracy.
Yes. This is a cowardly way of siding with the oppressor and (contrary to the question of this post) indirectly saying one is against not only human rights but also international law, in favor of one’s feelings, or to avoid the inconvenience of acknowledging a wrongdoing and not being moved to rectify it. In the least. Not even with words on an online forum.
The reaching here to get an excuse to virtue signal is absolutely absurd
There have always been such (it is human nature) - but right now they feel bold enough to speak and act, whereas previously they had been too afraid and embarrassed to do so publicly.
In South Carolina, various KKK-like groups said in advance that they wanted to kill people, wrapped barbed wire around baseball bats (in order to better kill people with), showed up to kill people, then actually killed people, then bragged about having killed people… Oh right, but the other side was not successful in securing a permit for their peaceful protest, so you know, there are “many sides” to every issue I guess.
Misinformation/brainwashing techniques are powerful. Like if you believed that a particular type of human was the root of all evil in this world, then you SHOULD want them dead, under those circumstances… right? You do not bc you know better, not just about that one group but more fundamentally that it is ideas that bring about evil, not people. But the people killing people do not know that, and it is to the advantage of others who seek power, and want to use the army of sheeple to advance their own agenda, for those sheeple to not know that either.
Normally, to be honest, it’s because they want to hurt someone. Look at the Conservatives in the UK, who are desperate to repeal human rights legislation so that they can send refugees to Rwanda without right of appeal.
Note that those Conservatives still think that they have human rights. Their excuse for depriving refugees of human rights is that some of them have entered the country illegally. Yet, none of them thinks any Conservative MP should be detained arbitrarily or deported, even though they now acknowledge that they, their government and their party have broken the law in various ways. No, they want to strip rights from other people. Their argument doesn’t wash.
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect" - Frank Wilhoit
I feel like whenever a law like this is written, a coin should be flipped, and all of the people who voted to pass the law have that law applied to them based on the outcome of that coin flip. And that should be fine right? It’s a fair and equitable law, respecting human rights.
It’s like the classic traffic engineering joke, how do you get the speed limit increased? You rigorously enforce the speed limit where the The legislators live and drive
When two children are arguing about sharing something, the diplomatic adult has one of the children divide the thing into two piles, and the other child gets to choose which pile they want. We need to get more of that do unto others as you would have done unto yourself into politics
Right, it’s like when people try to justify colonialism. Would they be okay with their country being conquered and turned into a colony? No? Okay, so we’ve established colonialism is wrong. Everything after that is increasingly ludicrous special pleading. ‘Oh, but country X was more economically developed, so it was okay,’ is only a consistent argument if you actually go on to say ‘… and that’s why it would be a good thing if South Korea conquered Italy.’
This remibds of a police raid during the trump years in Kentucky. “They are hurting the wrong peole” said one woman as a mexican man was departed leaving his wife and kids behind.
Very mask off moment. Just admitting the role of law is harming some people.
religion goes a long way to dehumanizing others, even in the same household
Part of it is disagreement over what should be a right. I have genuinely met people that belive rights like protest, movment, voting, legal rep, should not given they must be earned. So they are pro rights just a very limited list.
Example say “health care is a right” in the usa.
Some people live in dangerous places and believe that treating criminals like human beings is the same as ignoring their crimes. These people believe that human rights should only be for those who deserve it by not harming the “good citizen”.
Theres a lot of different ideas of what human rights should be. Abortion is the easiest example. Its a human right to abort, which to some is murder. In that case, it would make sense to be against to be against human rights, if you believe that right is to murder.
Abortion is self defence, not murder.
Or from the other perspective, pro life people see Abortion as violating the right to life.
Because some people lack the empathetic skills to put themselves in a disadvantaged position. They can’t conceive of a world where they don’t have their current privileges.
When you have all the privilege, equal rights feels like a downgrade.
Some people even think they’re the ones in a disadvantaged position, even if they’re not, but they’ll always feel entitled to getting something when others get something.
I don’t quite understand this selfish entitlement, but I see it happen in many situations. It also applies to human rights for people on the other side of the globe, because from their perspective there is only one world, theirs.
Yeah, I think this touches upon equality of outcomes vs equality of opportunities which is always a vigerous debate.
I had this experience a short while back, and it really shook me. Granted, this was on the Internet, where people are more willing to say wild things or generally go mask-off, but I was downright flabbergasted. I’ll try to summarize the various arguments without inserting my own bias:
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because they view human rights as a social or legal concept, and not inherently more important than other social or legal principles
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because we as humans haven’t historically respected them, and don’t respect them universally even now, so demanding respect for human rights is a form of privilege
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because the idea of human rights requires a belief that humans have special dignity above that of other creatures (this one I found especially irksome, because I found the arguments denigrating to animal rights)
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because various groups advocating for human rights don’t agree on what those rights are, so blanket support for human rights is not something they can do
I’ll try to find the reddit post where this took place if I can. It was… it was something. If I’ve misrepresented any of the arguments above, it was not intentional but only because I find them so alien that I cannot understand them properly.
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There are many variations of human rights declarations. I appose this one the most: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Declaration_on_Human_Rights_in_Islam
There are also specific articles in the universal declaration of human rights that I think are wrong
There are also specific articles in the universal declaration of human rights that I think are wrong
Do you mind saying which ones?
Not OP, but there’s a handful of things that can be found problematic dependingon your beliefs.
- The concept of legal or constitutionally granted human rights.
- The right to a minimum standard of living.
- That these rights exist so long as they are used in ways approved by the United Nations.
- The right to a nationality, enshrines the concept of a nation as a human right.
- Predominantly western influence in terms of inclusion, exclusion, and language.
- The lack of any force of law.
The concept of legal or constitutionally granted human rights.
The lack of any force of law.
You oppose human right because you oppose human rights? But you also oppose them because they are not really rights?
It sounds like your position would necessitate a bit more explanation.
Human rights are things that a person has simply by existing, referring to them as granted through legal or constitutional processes is backwards. It essentially cheapens the concept of human rights, which is a totally valid criticism.
The lack of force of law is, because the charter is basically meaningless. A country can agree to it and ignore it without any real consequences.
Ah yes, that was the explanation I needed. Thanks.
I guess because they think they are superior and forget that human rights include their own rights.
So yea, the “because they’re stupid” answer sums it up nicely.
Because they have been lied to about what it means.
Some people define things differently than reality has ascribed, what are rights, while others are just cruel.
Ever wonder why ghosts keep up with modern language trends?
