Are There Any Human Rights?
Are There Any Human Rights?
"Human Rights" is a term that has been abused and misrepresented by the politicians of today. It has been used to promote as well as undermine basic fundamental rights. Political expediency and ideologies tend to play key roles in the way human rights are used. Human rights tend to be created or certain rights are stressed on more prominently based on the use, be it political or economical. Regardless of how they are used or misused as the case may be, it is axiomatic that certain rights are fundamental for the continuation of other rights. These are the rights which are the building blocks for rights that are essential to preserving the civil liberties afforded to all regardless of age, gender and race. Among these rights, but not limited to are, life, liberty and property.
Campaigning for further human rights is growing at an alarming rate and in the process taking away from basic rights which are fundamental to those which are now considered rights. The reasons behind this occurrence are many. One of the primary reasons is the capricious nature of the increase of human rights and the inability to draw a meaningful distinction between the rights which are essential to the continuation of basic freedoms and those which have become human rights only through merit of declaration. Cranston raises a valid point when he states that it is not ideal to follow the U.N. and claim services such as social security and holidays with pay as legitimate human rights. Cranston raised the question "Are There Any Human Rights?" Of course there are; however not in the capacity that the Declaration maintains. In his paper he states "
to postulate as human rights universal claims to amenities like social security and holidays with pay. Such things are admirable as ideals, but an ideal belongs to a wholly different logical category from a right. If rights are to be reduced to the status of ideals, the whole enterprise of...
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