(no subject)

[sobrique]

Here is the European Convention of Human rights on wikipedia.
Would you mind having a quick look please? Yes you. Who's reading this now.

OK, now visualise someone you dislike. Maybe they're dirty. Maybe they're smelly. Maybe they're drunk and asking you for money on the street.

Now, this person. Do you feel it within you to stand up for _their_ human rights?
Here's the thing. These are not rights applicable to you. They are ... a set of obligations. A set of things that if you agree with them, you should be standing up now and fighting for them. No one will 'give' you rights. No one will stand up for that person on the street that you imagined, and say 'this man deserves better'. Not unless you're prepared to do so.

So please, stop for a moment, and consider. Are you prepared and willing to say 'Not in my world'. To speak out against all that would consider 'human rights' an exercise in expediency?

This is not something that we can turn aside from. Not if we cannot accept that some day, it might be us that's held in question.

Comments

[malal.livejournal.com]

I'm frankly shocked at how badly the UK is doing at sticking to them. Article 7 has been broken at least once in my memory, and legislation breaking others keeps cropping up as well.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

well, the UK is kinda treating the whole thing as 'more like guidelines'. Which... well, is a bit disappointing really.

[cthulahoops.livejournal.com]

Well, that's the one I'm not so fond of. While it's a good general principle, it breaks down with regard to serious omissions in the law, particularly where the crimes are being committed by those who write the law.

The Nuremburg trials are the obvious counter example. Various legal magic was invented to try and pretend that the laws in question had always existed, the simple reality is that new laws were being invented to cover past crimes.

If it's going to be sometimes necessary to do this, then the matter should be approached honestly. Sometimes laws must be applied retrospectively.

(And before getting to off topic, go ECHR, there's been too much moaning about it in the Brtish press recently.)

[malal.livejournal.com]

OK, that is the one where I can see that there has been some cases it shouldn't apply to, though I'm tempted to argue that we've now reached a point where existing laws should be able to cope.

The problem is that this is still casually broken, and it shouldn't be. Example in case. You know how you can be ordered to hand over the encryption key of any encrypted file in your possession, and it's an offence to fail to comply? That goes back retroactively, so if you previously refused to comply, or if you have an encrypted file from before the laws date, sorry!

I think perhaps this one might need modifying. It needs to be "You can't retroactively make illegal something which isn't blatantly wrong at the time".

[cthulahoops.livejournal.com]

Yes, a fair enough modification, although "blatantly" is always going to cause arguments.

Well, the offense is not handing over the encryption key rather than using encryption so the date of encryption doesn't seem relevant. Do they really do people for failing to comply before the law? What's the point, just change the law, then order them again.

A very dangerous law regardless. I don't like the idea at all.

[mcnazgul.livejournal.com]

Expediency is what erodes human rights (see Gitmo). There is also the problem of sacrifice, do you have what it takes to give your time and compassion when there are other things to deal with.

Some confuse personal ability and self-respect with respect full stop. If you lack the first two, you don't deserve the third and it's then a question of whether you can give them that time.

Do to others as you would be done to yourself and all that.

[sobrique.livejournal.com]

In a global society, any action can have far reaching and unintended consequences. It's practically inevitable. What's important is in recognising the outcomes, and accepting that no one can know all ends to a decision. Being wrong is no shame. A decision that turns out badly isn't a cause for blame. What is though, is holding to a decision gone awry, through pride - to refuse to accept something as wrong, because of the personal consequences of a 'U turn' or 'backpedal'.

We see this all too often in politics ('real' politics and office politics) that saving face ... well, actually ever factors into the decision process.

[mcnazgul.livejournal.com]

This runs in with my point about sacrifice. Sometimes you have to go swallow your pride and fix a problem either caused by what was a choice of expedience or a lapse of judgement. Failure to do so is compounding the problem and shows a lack of honesty.

It's the irresponsibility of certain parties - what, trying to almost drown and smother someone is torture? Well I never - that gets my goat. Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, won't get fooled again as a certain simian remarked.

When you have a metric assload of evidence in favour to try and deny or weasel your way out of it is more indicative than you'd care to think and reflects on whether you should be where you are.
Few seem to care. Is this what we want our children to learn?