Universal Declaration of Human Rights 12.10.48

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capseeboy

Social climber
portland, oregon
Topic Author's Original Post - Dec 6, 2018 - 03:40pm PT
Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Some call it Communism, entitlement, bleeding hearts. liberals, left wingers, etc.

The right to food and the right to housing have been further defined in human rights instruments.

There were hundreds of Hoovervilles across the country during the 1930s and hundreds of thousands of people lived in these slums.[probably just wanting free stuff?]

Stock crash of 1929 followed by Dust Bowl of 1930's---perfect storm.

FDR Works Progress Administration was loved by the citizens and hated by conservatives

WPA employed 8.5 million.

These ordinary men and women proved to be extraordinary beyond all expectation. They were golden threads woven in the national fabric. In this, they shamed the political philosophy that discounted their value and rewarded the one that placed its faith in them, thus fulfilling the founding vision of a government by and for its people. All its people.
— Nick Taylor, American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA[22]:530

No, there's no genocide here in America, just Bums and Krazy people wanting Free Stuff.
limpingcrab

Trad climber
the middle of CA
Dec 7, 2018 - 08:00am PT
I'm bored at work so I'll play.

I see "rights" as something that cannot (edit: legally) be taken away from you. The idea of having a "right" to have something given or service provided to you kinda freaks me out. I don't think anyone has an inalienable right to be given something, even if it is a good idea to give it to them.

If, for example, medical care is a human right, not a privilege, then you would have the rights to a doctor's knowledge and expertise. Imagine how that plays out in court if you're a practicing doctor or nurse or whatever.


*how privileges are provided is not what I'm getting at, there are good arguments for the privileges the government should or should not provide. Calling something that must be provided to you by others a "right" is kinda sketchy.
EdwardT

Trad climber
Retired
Dec 7, 2018 - 08:11am PT
Three billion people live on less than $2/day.

[Click to View YouTube Video]
capseeboy

Social climber
portland, oregon
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 7, 2018 - 08:19am PT
Help those who help themselves?

sdavidc9
sdavidc9
Cornwall Bridge, ConnecticutDec. 2
Times Pick

The swamp is not primarily a sexual one; Ross takes it that way because the major element of the swamp is free enterprise and its perhaps perversion and perhaps fullest expression. The swamp is the cigarette companies denying and concealing the evidence that smoking was unhealthy, and the energy companies denying the climate effects of burning so much fossil fuel. It is the sugar industry promoting the idea that fats are unhealthy and lead to obesity in order to distract us from the effects of corn syrup on average weight. It is the auto and airline industries crippling transcontinental passenger trains. It is the amazing success story of Purdue Pharma. It is student loans, charter schools, Amway, penny stocks, the rigging of LIBOR, money laundering, insider trading, dark money, Blackwater, untraceable campaign contributions. It is the fact that congressmen spend much of their time dialing for dollars, laws regulating industries are written by lobbyists for those industries, no one went to jail for the mortgage meltdown, the IRS does not have the resources to examine complex tax avoidance strategies, and so much more. Few besides Martha Stewart went to jail for investment scams; authorities were tipped off about Bernie Madoff and avoided catching him.

And the Donald stiffed so many investors that only the Russians would lend him money (or let him launder it for them). This is the swamp, and under its chief swamp creature it is swampier than ever before.
jaredg

climber
california
Dec 7, 2018 - 09:16am PT
Anything can be taken away from you, so there are no human rights?
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Dec 7, 2018 - 09:58am PT
http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

a subject of an editorial in Science Magazine regarding Article 27 (1)
"Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits."



Define the human right to science

Jessica M. Wyndham, Margaret Weigers Vitullo

Science
30 Nov 2018:
Vol. 362, Issue 6418, pp. 975
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6418/975

"...Unlike most other human rights, however, the right to science has never been legally defined and is often ignored in practice by the governments bound to implement it. An essential first step toward giving life to the right to science is for the UN to legally define it...

The power and potential of the right to science for empowering individuals, strengthening communities, and improving the quality of life can hardly be overstated. It is time for the UN process to reach a responsible and productive end and for the right to science to be put into practice as was intended when it was first recognized by the United Nations in 1948."


limpingcrab

Trad climber
the middle of CA
Dec 7, 2018 - 10:14am PT
Anything can be taken away from you, so there are no human rights?

I mean legal rights, so your rights are things that can’t be legally taken away.
NutAgain!

Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
Dec 7, 2018 - 11:53am PT
Limpingcrab, interesting way to parse it. I think you are getting close to ideas in tension in my value system:
1. I really liked the ideas of trading value as presented in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Folks who haven't read the book will probably have a lot of misconceptions based on how it has been subverted or misrepresented by politicians or media, but the core idea of trading value for value is a solid one, a foundation of civilization.
2. I do think we need to address how to meet people's needs, which is antithetical to Ayn Rand's position of people getting what they earn/create versus what they need. If we ignore need because people are lazy/stupid/unable/unwilling to create value in exchange for their sustenance, then we enable a cesspool that foments crime and revolution. How can the downward spiral be stopped while still creating enticements for people to make a better life for themselves?


As humanity collectively gets wealthier, I think we do need to enshrine some baseline rights that create a livable life independently of what value people actually create, with a pathway for people to exert themselves more to have a richer life. It might be nice to split out the circumstances of why people don't create value (physical or mental illness, disability, old age/infirmity, unwillingness through arrogance or over-developed sense of entitlement, etc.), but the infrastructure to define this and measure it and police it would be a monster that invites people to cheat it in any number of ways, and in the end it's probably cheaper to just give a blanket very simple and minimal standard of living (with a defined minimal set of healthcare that may not benefit from the latest advances) as an entitlement, and then have a pathway like in our modern capitalist society to find a way to create value to acquire more wealth to raise one's station and standard of living.

Example baseline rights:
 right to sufficient calories and nutrition to maintain "healthy" body weight and avoid nutrient deficiencies. Doesn't have to taste good.
 right to clothing and shelter: sufficient protection from cold, heat, precipitation, to avoid illness but not necessarily be comfortable

 right to physical space/privacy: this is a tricky one... is this a fundamental right? I see this more as a privilege. Does human dignity (however that might be defined) demand privacy? Should a person be entitled to a space where they can exist without any humans around, a room they can go and lock the door behind them to keep others out?

Answering these kinds of questions get to the heart of what is reasonable for a baseline income, or even whether there should be a baseline income. Maybe a better solution is to invest in free housing and cafeteria systems that provide a tiny space per-person with lockable privacy for themselves and whatever personal possessions they can fit in it, and access to healthy meals. The system might look not much different from a prison, in order to protect the people from each other!

So one might argue that our present society already provides a guaranteed baseline survival in prison. The main things missing are:
 freedom to come and go at will
 not being treated like a criminal- some expectation of respect from the guards, with assumption that you are a human in need of protection from criminals rather than assumption that you are a criminal that needs to be beat down to stop harming others.
 proper sanitation


Could something like this work instead of a baseline income? Just an expanded prison/hotel system that anyone can check themselves into our out of? It has a modicum of dignity (more than starving/freezing to death), but not enough for most people to settle for it. They will want to work their way to a better life.

Just brainstorming here...

I never researched what went wrong in "the projects" or public housing communities, but it seems these were a cesspool of crime and misery. Was this because of being insufficiently funded to operate at a reasonable level, or is there some other systematic thing where some people living there inevitably destroy the experience for others in spite of the best efforts of a government to offer a baseline liveable life?
capseeboy

Social climber
portland, oregon
Topic Author's Reply - Dec 7, 2018 - 06:07pm PT
Quotea tiny space per-person with lockable privacy for themselves and whatever personal possessions they can fit in it, and access to healthy meals Here

Already have them in Japan, there called sleeper cells. You crawl into them and close the hatch behind yourself. Bed, light, ventilation, secure.

mouse from merced

Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
Dec 8, 2018 - 03:07am PT
^^^ I've wondered about these cells. Might go well in Camp 4!
ecdh

climber
the east
Dec 8, 2018 - 03:30am PT
Capsule hotels. Sleeper cells are different.
And they suck. Only drunk businessmen and naive backpackers use them.
Flip Flop

climber
Earth Planet, Universe
Dec 8, 2018 - 03:53am PT
Health Care,

Hospitals, Universities and Roads are socialized.
Medical Schools too.

So, yes, if a doctor wants the privilege of practicing medicine in our hospitals, with patients and EMS who use our roads, with medicine that they didnt make, and an education froma federally funded medical school,, then they will need to provide care. They can quit, fine. But they can't take 1000 years of social contract and act like they are too special for a carpenter or homeless veteran.

You can't operate on yourself so figure it out. Why is it always the Christians who are small minded? (Bored at work? Who pays you?)


Yury

Mountain climber
T.O.
Dec 8, 2018 - 07:06am PT
Nut Again!:
I never researched what went wrong in "the projects" or public housing communities, but it seems these were a cesspool of crime and misery. Was this because of being insufficiently funded to operate at a reasonable level, or is there some other systematic thing where some people living there inevitably destroy the experience for others in spite of the best efforts of a government to offer a baseline liveable life?
It's cultural issue.
It's a collection of individuals feeling entitled for more value than they are able to provide in return.
People who do not value their own lives and lives of other people.
It's the same situation as in most modern shelters for homeless and in many modern social housing complexes.
We know that children of these people often inherit the same attitude and the same lifestyle.
So far even best (progressive) minds were not able to come with a working solution to this problem.

You inherit from your parents not only a set of genes and material wealth but also your values and cultural norms.
limpingcrab

Trad climber
the middle of CA
Dec 8, 2018 - 01:37pm PT
You can't operate on yourself so figure it out. Why is it always the Christians who are small minded? (Bored at work? Who pays you?)

Like I said, I’m not giving an opinion about what the government should or should not provide, just simply that I think having a right to have someone else’s resources given to you doesn’t sound good to me. I think people can and should have rights to not have things taken from them (free speech, life, etc...) but I don’t see rights as something that must be given to a person. It would be strange, everything that people would have a “right” to had to come from someone. Only an opinion, maybe I’m wrong.

For what it’s worth, my opinion is also that if everyone who voted for the government to help people just helped people themselves it would work a whole lot better. Helping others is awesome and everyone should do it, but I don’t believe it should be legally required. A dollar donated to a hospital or most charities goes a lot further than a dollar taxed and used for for similar work.

Again, opinion only, but that’s roughly what guides my use of money and voting power.

Edit to add: you do make a good point about government funding for training influencing what people should do with that training.
limpingcrab

Trad climber
the middle of CA
Dec 8, 2018 - 08:35pm PT
(Bored at work? Who pays you?)
Missed this part. I am a teacher, which is a great example of what I'm saying. Education is a privilege provided by the government, not a right. That's why you can lose the privilege. If you commit a crime you cannot lose your right to free speech. If you commit a crime you can be booted and lose your privilege of education. Calling privileges "rights" is a fun things for my millennial generation to do, but I disagree.
Ricky D

Trad climber
Sierra Westside
Dec 8, 2018 - 10:54pm PT
Maslow came up with seven needs.

He never promised all of them to everyone.
limpingcrab

Trad climber
the middle of CA
Dec 8, 2018 - 11:47pm PT
Good points moose. I don't think I know enough to form a strong opinion of what the government should provide. I do have my opinions but I'm not totally set on them.

All I'm trying to say here is that I don't like the idea of calling something that you're given a "right." Slippery slope of entitlement unless it's considered a privilege.
Messages 1 - 17 of total 17 in this topic
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