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Amnesty International

Discussion in 'Free-For-All Archives' started by Joseph_Botwinick, Dec 20, 2004.

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  1. Baptist in Richmond

    Baptist in Richmond Active Member

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    It would still solve the problem, whether they are coming or going........
     
    #41 Baptist in Richmond, Dec 21, 2004
  2. Baptist in Richmond

    Baptist in Richmond Active Member

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    Not suprisingly, you didn't re-read my post.
     
    #42 Baptist in Richmond, Dec 21, 2004
  3. Joseph_Botwinick

    Joseph_Botwinick <img src=/532.jpg>Banned

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    It would still solve the problem, whether they are coming or going........ </font>[/QUOTE]I have no idea what you are talking about.

    Joseph Botwinick
     
    #43 Joseph_Botwinick, Dec 21, 2004
  4. Joseph_Botwinick

    Joseph_Botwinick <img src=/532.jpg>Banned

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    Not suprisingly, you didn't re-read my post. </font>[/QUOTE]You're right. I didn't. Sorry about that. You must have realized the error of your comparison and edited the statement. Just so I can put my comments in context, in response to me making the comment that human rights violations are not likely to occur in democratic governments, you asked me about the McCarthy hearings, presumably making a comparison between that and what happens in tyrannical dictatorships. I then proceeded to show the difference in the way free and fear societies deal with issues like that. As an even wider point, I would say that this is another reason that their indifference of differing political systems is a bad policy. In free societies, the free press brings out every possible human right violation to the forefront because they have no fear of being imprisoned, tortured, and killed for excercising free speech. Fear societies don't have this advantage. It is wrong to put a free society and a fear society on the same level when dealing with possible human rights violations, as a free society is more likely to have open debate about the violation and more likely to be moved by public pressure to correct the violation when it does occur. There is no such open debate or public pressure in fear societies. I woiuld argue, that one government is morally superior, and more legitimate than the other. AI makes no such distinction.

    Joseph Botwinick
     
    #44 Joseph_Botwinick, Dec 22, 2004
  5. ScottEmerson

    ScottEmerson Active Member

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    I don't care which government is morally superior - I just know that for the greater good of those who are victims of human rights violations, AI remains neutral in their advocacy of a specific brand of government.
     
    #45 ScottEmerson, Dec 22, 2004
  6. Joseph_Botwinick

    Joseph_Botwinick <img src=/532.jpg>Banned

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    Exactly how is it for the greater good of those who are victims of human rights violations not to advocate democracy which tends to respect human rights, and not condemn tyrannical dictatorships which tend to violate human rights? How is it better for them to give moral equivalence to good and evil? How is it for the greater good to give legitimacy to tyranny by refusing to condemn it? I honestly don't understand that.

    Joseph Botwinick
     
    #46 Joseph_Botwinick, Dec 22, 2004
  7. Joseph_Botwinick

    Joseph_Botwinick <img src=/532.jpg>Banned

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    Just re-posting these questions for Scott in case he didn't see them.

    Joseph Botwinick
     
    #47 Joseph_Botwinick, Dec 22, 2004
  8. Baptist in Richmond

    Baptist in Richmond Active Member

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    Fair enough.

    No, as I stated in that post, the point I was making was taking up too much bandwidth, so I deleted it. Unfortunately, I left the initial sentence.

    No, actually that was not what I doing, but like I said, my reply was turning into a novella, so I deleted it.

    So are you ready to condemn one of our allies in the war on terror?

    You are correct, and as both of us have noted, AI has made this point abundantly clear. You are entitled to have this opinion, and AI is not necessarily obligated to share it. After all, they have made it clear that they are only concerned with human rights violations.
     
    #48 Baptist in Richmond, Dec 22, 2004
  9. Joseph_Botwinick

    Joseph_Botwinick <img src=/532.jpg>Banned

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    BiR,

    Can you give a short version of your novella point about McCarthy? Say like in 3 to 4 sentences?

    Joseph Botwinick
     
    #49 Joseph_Botwinick, Dec 22, 2004
  10. ScottEmerson

    ScottEmerson Active Member

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    My guess is that not all democracies have stellar human rights histories. The US is a democracy and we have a history of enslaving our own people, while currently we are among the few who will execute people who committed crimes as minors. AI is against the death penalty across the board, as I am.

    If a Communist has his rights taken away, AI would fight for them. If a Neo-Nazi has his rights taken away, AI would fight for him as well. Neutrality is a great place to come from, as it makes AI as non-biased as possible. In actuality the UDHR is a pretty democratically based document, but we must fight for the rights of even those who disagree with us.
     
    #50 ScottEmerson, Dec 22, 2004
  11. Joseph_Botwinick

    Joseph_Botwinick <img src=/532.jpg>Banned

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    Of course the difference is that in a democracy, we have freedom of speech and have free elections. If we truly didn't like our treatment, we have some avenues of redress and a way to change the system. The same cannot be said of tyrannical dictatorships. Slavery was wrong. But we actually fought a war with ourselves, as least as a secondary reason, to free the slaves. And free the slaves we did. The death penalty is not a human rights violation, it is justice. Of course, we don't execute people for excercising their rights to free speech. We have had witch hunts in our country. We have lots of bad things in our country, nobody disputes that. But, we also have a way to change that and a way to hold our freely elected leaders accountable for their actions. And if any of us were truly unhappy with our leaders and felt disenfranchised or oppressed, we also have the right of emmigration, which is also something fear societies don't have. If we were truly as bad as Iran, we would not have much of a country anymore. And yet, we are still the strongest nation on earth. There is no moral equivallence between fear and free societies. And even you cannot dispute the fact that a free society is more likely to respect human rights than a fear society because of the way it holds their leaders accountable for the way they treat the people they govern.

    Joseph Botwinick
     
    #51 Joseph_Botwinick, Dec 22, 2004
  12. ScottEmerson

    ScottEmerson Active Member

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    The death penalty is, indeed, a human rights violation, as it takes away a life. I am strong opponent of capital punishment. I echo AI when they say, "The death penalty is the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights. By working towards the abolition of the death penalty worldwide, Amnesty International USA's Program to Abolish the Death Penalty looks to end the cycle of violence created by a system riddled with economic and racial bias and tainted by human error." Even yesterday, I was watching a man who had been wrongly accused and was exonerated after spending several years on death row. Especially when courts seek to take the life of minors who commit crimes - we must stand up for human rights.

    Just because the majority of an organization believes that a certain way is true does not mean that human rights violations cannot take place. A democratic republic, such as the US, is not a utopian government. We had almost 100 years of slavery as a democratic republic, and the history books are filled with terrible, terrible violations of human rights among slaves, including beating, rape, and murder.

    That is why the AI maintains their neutrality - all countries are capable of committing human rights violations. All of them. Even us.
     
    #52 ScottEmerson, Dec 22, 2004
  13. ScottEmerson

    ScottEmerson Active Member

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    #53 ScottEmerson, Dec 22, 2004
  14. Joseph_Botwinick

    Joseph_Botwinick <img src=/532.jpg>Banned

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    Of course the difference is, how we deal with those issues. We are allowed to dissent and hold our leaders accountable if they abuse their powers. Fear societies have no such recourse. You cannot honestly believe there is any moral equivalence between America and Iran when it comes to human rights. This policy, though, makes that very claim.

    Joseph Botwinick
     
    #54 Joseph_Botwinick, Dec 22, 2004
  15. ScottEmerson

    ScottEmerson Active Member

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    Any violation of human rights should be addressed, whether it happens in the most free of societies or the most repressive. Even in America, as we saw in the last election, many people decided to hold President Bush accountable by voting for someobe else, and he still won. Many people think that the president abused his powers, and yet he remains in power and his policies still stand. There can be terrible oppression, even in a democracy - one need only look at India to realize that a democracy can still tolerate human rights violations.
     
    #55 ScottEmerson, Dec 22, 2004
  16. Joseph_Botwinick

    Joseph_Botwinick <img src=/532.jpg>Banned

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    But many more people disagreed. The dissenters are still dissenting, nobody is going to prison for their vote, they were allowed to vote their conscience, and they have the right to emmigrate. Political disagreement in and of itself does not a human rights violation or oppression make. The election is not a good example of oppression. Nobody is denying that there are human rights in free countries every now and then. The difference, however, is that in free countries, they are not as commonplace due to the accountability of the governed for their leaders and how it is dealt with within free societies. Why don't you recognize that?

    Joseph Botwinick
     
    #56 Joseph_Botwinick, Dec 22, 2004
  17. ScottEmerson

    ScottEmerson Active Member

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    It's not a matter of "which government has the least human rights violations." It's a matter of addressing ALL human rights violations. I'm sorry you disagree with that, but no one is forcing you to be a member of that.

    The fact is that in a democracy, slavery was allowed for many, many years in our country. That's a huge human rights infringement that cannot be ignored, no matter what the governmental system is.

    The election illustration merely indicates that many million people expressed their views and their view wasn't spoken of. You could have a democracy that has 51% men, and they could all support the enslavement of women, and constantly win that vote.

    Again, just look at India for an example of how democracy is not preventing human rights violations from occurring. Or look on our death row.
     
    #57 ScottEmerson, Dec 22, 2004
  18. Joseph_Botwinick

    Joseph_Botwinick <img src=/532.jpg>Banned

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    I would dispute that America was a democracy then as slaves did not have freedom of speech, were not allowed to vote, and were not allowed the right to emmigrate. We fought a war. The tyranny of the time was overthrown, and democratic reforms were increased. Every time democracy increases, human rights violations decrease. That is the whole point. Were things perfect after that? No. But to compare America to Iran is silly. There is no moral equivalence and to try and say there is only gives legitimacy to tyranny and the human rights violations that tyranny creates. Tyranny has never created respect for human rights. Democracy has. Therefore, if AI is truly concerned with human rights, they should champion freedom and confront tyranny.

    Joseph Botwinick
     
    #58 Joseph_Botwinick, Dec 22, 2004
  19. ScottEmerson

    ScottEmerson Active Member

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    America was indeed a democracy - even if they were not, there would not have been enough national votes (at least state votes) to outlaw slavery. Your argument doesn't stand. It took a war - not democracy - to end the practice of slavery.

    I don't see that AI is equivocating the government of Iran with the government of the US. They are saying that human rights violations happen all over the world, both in democracies and tyrannies and everywhere in between. They do everything they can to prevent such tragedies and right wrongs that have occurred. AI does champion freedom, as seem in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that they espouse. And they do so while still remaining neutral on governmental types.
     
    #59 ScottEmerson, Dec 23, 2004
  20. Joseph_Botwinick

    Joseph_Botwinick <img src=/532.jpg>Banned

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    Scott,

    Democracies, by definition, have open free elections. America, at that time did not allow the slaves to vote. Democracies, by definition, allow the right to emmigrate. America, at that time, did not allow the slaves to emmigrate. Democracies, by definition, allow freedom of speech. America, at that time, did not allow freedom of speech for the slaves. America, at the time was not a true democracy. It took a war to overcome tyranny in our nation, and once democratic reforms were instituted, human rights improved. The more democracy you have, the more human rights you have. They do go hand in hand. Tyrannical governments never respect human rights. They are opposed to each other.

    You cannot remain neutral about freedom and be as effective in advocating human rights as you could be.

    Joseph Botwinick
     
    #60 Joseph_Botwinick, Dec 23, 2004
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