{"id":23418,"date":"2024-12-11T17:34:13","date_gmt":"2024-12-12T01:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=23418"},"modified":"2024-12-13T10:02:32","modified_gmt":"2024-12-13T18:02:32","slug":"human-rights-and-those-who-would-restrict-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2024\/12\/11\/human-rights-and-those-who-would-restrict-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Human Rights, and Those Who Would Restrict Them"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s been 76 years since the UN&#8217;s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in America, conservatives prevent or keep trying to reverse many of those rights;<\/li>\n<li>Example of their latest bugaboo: transgenders;<\/li>\n<li>How Trump&#8217;s cabinet picks would please Putin, whose ambition is to sow distrust within Western democracies;<\/li>\n<li>And why so many voters think Republicans manage the economy better than Democrats, despite all the evidence.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/UNlogo.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/UNlogo.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Last night&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/heathercoxrichardson.substack.com\/p\/december-10-2024\">column by Heather Cox Richardson<\/a> reminds us about Human Rights Day, celebrated internationally since the United Nations, 76 years ago, announced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the years just after World War II. (Which can be found <a href=\"https:\/\/www.un.org\/en\/about-us\/universal-declaration-of-human-rights\">here<\/a>.) Richardson sketches the state of the world at the time. Many principles of the UDHR are familiar from American&#8217;s own Bill of Rights and various amendments, but we don&#8217;t have many of them &#8212; notably not &#8220;equal rights of men and women&#8221; since American conservatives, essentially tribal in their thinking, do not actually approve of rights for those beyond their immediate kind. Sad but true.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.un.org\/en\/about-us\/universal-declaration-of-human-rights\">UDHR<\/a> is an example, considering all of human history before it, of how morality has evolved, the circle of common humanity expanding to include more and more people and situations. (And potentially sentient non-humans.) Skimming this piece, I note many items that American conservatives still resist: not only equal rights for women, but equal pay for equal work; rights to health and well-being; rights to a free education that &#8220;shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations&#8230;&#8221; South Africa (then under apartheid), Saudi Arabia, and six Soviet countries abstained back in 1948.<\/p>\n<p>Morality evolves because we keep realizing that ancient prejudices were driven by tribal competition and have no basis in reality, and because we keep discovering new categories of human beings that conservatives latch on to diminish people unlike themselves. Richardson:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In a proclamation today, the White House recommitted to \u201cupholding the equal and inalienable rights of all people.\u201d It noted that in the U.S., the Biden administration established \u201cthe White House Gender Policy Council to advance the rights and opportunities of women and girls across domestic and foreign policy [and] rejoined the United Nations Human Rights Council to highlight and address pressing human rights concerns.\u201d It has \u201cworked to protect the rights of LGBTQI+ people\u201d and to expand \u201caccessibility for people with disabilities.\u201d Crucially, the administration has also worked to stop the misuse of commercial spyware, which has enabled human rights abuses around the world as authoritarian governments surveil their populations, and to fight back against transnational repression targeting human rights defenders.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Despite American conservatives, and religions in general, the world is a better place than it was a century ago.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>The political seesaw continues, liberals making progress, conservatives trying to reverse it, each in their turn.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.alternet.org\/media-library\/image.jpg?id=55290015&amp;width=1245&amp;height=700&amp;quality=85&amp;coordinates=0%2C66%2C0%2C67\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>AlterNet, Alex Henderson, 11 Dec 2024<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alternet.org\/harmeet-dhillon-doj-cnn\/\">&#8216;Ideological shift&#8217;: Trump taps conservative lawyer to eviscerate DOJ\u2019s Biden-era civil rights initiatives<\/a><\/p>\n<p>What civil rights does she want to reverse? Why, those concerning the latest conservative bugaboo: transgender people.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;If confirmed, Dhillon would be in a position to upend the division&#8217;s work on a range of hot-button areas, including transgender rights, voting and policing. In particular, the division is expected to try to dismantle DEI policies at schools, government agencies and other public institutions, according to the sources familiar with the planning.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Because conservatives would very much prefer that no one exist except for straight, white Christians, with males in charge. Overton window: you have to suppose they would repeal laws against slavery, and for women&#8217;s suffrage, if they could still get away with it. Again see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2024\/11\/02\/prothero-why-liberals-win-the-culture-wars\/\">Prothero<\/a>. Conservatives struggle and struggle, but surely they know they&#8217;re on, as the saying goes, the wrong side of history. That&#8217;s the trend that history shows.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>And so the conservatives&#8217; perennial call: retreat! Reinstate the values of tribes led by strongmen! Enough with this human rights nonsense!<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/compote.slate.com\/images\/9bd9df6f-326d-4116-98df-a0fafec1ccea.jpeg?crop=1560%2C1040%2Cx0%2Cy0&amp;width=1280\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Slate, Fred Kaplan, 11 Dec 2024<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/news-and-politics\/2024\/12\/trump-cabinet-putin-russia-pete-hegseth-kash-patel-tulsi-gabbard-mehmet-oz.html\">Trump\u2019s Cabinet Picks Are Great News for Putin<\/a>. The title on Slate&#8217;s homepage is the first line of the article, here:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"slate-paragraph slate-graf\" data-word-count=\"19\" data-uri=\"slate.com\/_components\/slate-paragraph\/instances\/cm4kbfqi1006ibvky6crfh209@published\">Donald Trump probably isn\u2019t a Russian agent, but he wouldn\u2019t be behaving much differently right now if he were.<\/p>\n<p class=\"slate-paragraph slate-graf\" data-word-count=\"69\" data-uri=\"slate.com\/_components\/slate-paragraph\/instances\/cm4kbkxlx001n3b72uxrvc8nc@published\">Among the main goals of the Kremlin\u2019s foreign policy are to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gzeromedia.com\/who-would-putin-vote-for\">sow chaos<\/a> and distrust within Western democracies and to <a href=\"https:\/\/ecfr.eu\/publication\/controlling_chaos_how_russia_manages_its_political_war_in_europe\/\">disrupt<\/a> the alliances that join those countries together, especially the links between the United States and Europe. The idea is that a weaker West makes for a stronger Russia\u2014a connection all the more important as the measures of Russia\u2019s strength on its own (economic, political, and military) are diminishing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"slate-paragraph slate-graf\" data-word-count=\"21\" data-uri=\"slate.com\/_components\/slate-paragraph\/instances\/cm4kbkxlx001o3b720yo8wcq1@published\">Many have noted Trump\u2019s open <a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/news-and-politics\/2024\/11\/trump-election-foreign-policy-ukraine-gaza-nuclear-weapons.html\">antipathy toward alliances<\/a> and his aversion to any foreign commitments that don\u2019t yield immediate transactional gains.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Trump&#8217;s desire is to sow distrust <em>within<\/em> the American political system, for his own purposes, never mind the consequences.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Trump is not stupid. He must know that many of his nominees to be Cabinet secretaries, agency directors, and ambassadors have no apparent qualifications to run vast bureaucracies, parse complex problems, or engage in delicate diplomacy. That\u2019s not the point. He <em>wants<\/em> them to empty out the bureaucracies or run them into the ground. He <em>wants<\/em> them to twist the agencies into empty shells or blunt instruments of his vendettas. He <em>wants<\/em> to insult the diplomatic corps and to show foreign leaders how slight he regards their status.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Trump is thus a chaos agent. Examples of Hegseth, Patel, Gabbard, Oz and Noem, e.g.:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>He named Dr. Mehmet Oz, an orthopedist turned TV doctor with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/health\/2024\/12\/02\/dr-oz-medicare-medicaid-ozempic-conflicts\/\">financial interests galore<\/a> to run Medicare and Medicaid, because he <em>wants<\/em> to gut Medicare and Medicaid. He named Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, to run the Department of Homeland Security\u2014a hodgepodge of 22 once independent departments and agencies with a combined <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dhs.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2024-04\/2024_0311_fy_2025_budget_in_brief.pdf\">budget of $108 billion<\/a> (more than 16 times that of <a href=\"https:\/\/bfm.sd.gov\/budget\/FY2026\/SD_Rec_2026_entire.pdf\">South Dakota\u2019s state budget<\/a>)\u2014because he <em>wants<\/em> to gut homeland security.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And Trump&#8217;s voters, I think, are intimidated by the complexity of modern life, and society, and yearn to return to a simpler life.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Many of Trump\u2019s voters think it\u2019s great that he plans to blow up the system. That\u2019s a big reason why many of them voted for him. No doubt, much of the system could use reforms or outright overhaul. But the people Trump wants to put in charge have no idea how to improve the system, nor are they expected to.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Back to Putin and his plan to show chaos in the West; concluding:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It may not be Trump\u2019s intention, but as the Trump Cabinet takes shape, Putin is no doubt smiling, Putin\u2019s propagandists are laughing (the hosts of the main Kremlin-run TV news show gleefully welcomed Trump\u2019s nominees as \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/russian-tv-hosts-fawn-over-donald-trumps-cabinet-picks-totally-wonderful-1985587\">totally wonderful<\/a>\u201c), and much of the rest of the world\u2014those who rely on the United States\u2014sigh and <span class=\"slate-paragraph--tombstone\">tremble.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\\<\/p>\n<p>A similar piece:<\/p>\n<p><strong>NY Times, Jamelle Bouie, 11 Dec 2024<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/12\/11\/opinion\/trump-republican-party-cabinet.html\">A Political Reckoning Will Come for Trump, Too<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>A perennial topic, not just about economics, but about how so many people do not perceive reality correctly, and why is that? (Well, we know the answer.)<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.vox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/12\/gettyimages-1723101642.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;crop=0.0072170900692896%2C0%2C99.985565819861%2C100&amp;w=750\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Vox, Abdallah Fayyad, 11 Dec 2024<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/explain-it-to-me\/390454\/democrats-republicans-economic-performance-gdp-growth\">Why do people think Republicans are better for the economy?<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Since World War II, the economy has, on average, fared better when Democrats are in the White House.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>But there\u2019s a disconnect between how voters feel about Republicans\u2019 management of the economy and the historical record. Since World War II, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.belfercenter.org\/publication\/historical-puzzle-us-economic-performance-under-democrats-vs-republicans\">there\u2019s been a consistent pattern<\/a> of the economy faring better under Democratic presidents than Republican ones. More jobs have been created under Democrats, for example, who also saw higher rates of GDP growth. And economic downturns tend to happen under Republicans: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2020\/09\/23\/investing\/stock-market-election-trump-biden\/index.html\">Ten of the last 11 recessions<\/a> started under a Republican administration.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>With details about the numbers. Are the numbers just a coincidence? Well, this piece claims no clear answer; the world is complicated.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>You might think it\u2019s hard to argue with numbers. When you look at the past 80 years, it\u2019s clear that the economy has performed better when Democrats are in the White House. But the reality is that it\u2019s difficult to pinpoint exactly why that is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Well, here&#8217;s a possible answer, that&#8217;s plain as day: Republicans prioritize policies that favor the wealthy, because the wealthy fund the Republicans. Tit for tat. While Democrats really do believe in the &#8220;common good&#8221; (and would raise taxes on the wealthy, to reverse the trend toward extreme inequality).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been 76 years since the UN&#8217;s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in America, conservatives prevent or keep trying to reverse many of those rights; Example of their latest bugaboo: transgenders; How Trump&#8217;s cabinet picks would please Putin, whose &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2024\/12\/11\/human-rights-and-those-who-would-restrict-them\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,34,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservative-resistance","category-economics","category-progress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23418"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23443,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23418\/revisions\/23443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}