What do human rights include?

[oberstgreup]

Assume we agree that positive human rights (that is, the right to have something, as opposed to the right not to have something done to or taken from you) include the right to everything necessary to preserve life - food, water, air, a basic minimum of shelter and medical care - and thus an obligation on society's part to provide those thing to

Comments

What do human rights include?

[the_gimlet_eye]

When it comes to legal matters, precise language is paramount

Re: What do human rights include?

[oberstgreup]

1) What part of "assuming" don't you understand? I'm not interested in debating that point at this time, not because anyone's views offend me, but because you'll never get everyone who reads this to agree on it, so we'd never be able to get to the point I do want to discuss.

2) You are confusing human rights with civil or legal rights. Human rights do not derive from the US Constitution or anyone else's: people whose governments recognize no rights still have them. What else do you think Locke and Jefferson were going on about?

3) The other rights you list are either derivative or negative. In any event, that list was a list of examples to help distinguish the categories, not a comprehensive survey of every individual right.

You're nitpicking away at everything but the topic of discussion and it's quite boorish. This is a conversation, not a debate or dissertation.

[greycat]

Ugh. I've been sick and my brain is not working properly and you are talking about serious shit here and I want to respond, but I'm hitting a thought wall. Hell, half the words in the last sentence were misspelled before spell check, that's how bad it is.

[siani_hedgehog]

human rights is a blatantly ridiculous concept when viewed in any view other than that of a very affluent western society, extracted from the larger global society that supports it. no one has ever had the right to life, and no one ever will. they just have a legal structure which values life relatively highly.

[oddlystrange]

I think the reason the replies to this have been slow is that it's actually a lot to think about. It's a good question, to be honest.

I don't really know if it's a litmus test, but I think there may be some bits of it that are.

One could argue that folks like Shaivo were denied this criteria (on a feeding tube, laying in bed etc. etc.). Though the fight for her "human rights" was merely "doing everything and anything to keep her alive."

I don't know the answer, it's too philosophical for me, too theoretical.

That and I'm so fucking tired from being up all night with back pain and a hungry infant. Those fuckers in guantanamo got nothing on that.