What's Next for the Ummah? Freedom or Socialism?

Humans in their primitive stages, had to survive in a wild and hostile natural world. Danger lurked under every stone and in each and any shrub. A sole individual, thrown back on his own devices, could hardly hope to live long enough to tell the tale. A lone existence was a constant existential threat. So humans sought security in numbers and shelter with each other, within the safety of the tribe.

Random individual acts, which could endanger the survival of the community as a whole were not just discouraged, but severely punished by exile, shunning and worse. Morality consisted in the common good, the well-being of the whole of the tribe; the single tribes man or woman, was dispensable.

Since the collective security is the tribe's entire reason of being, these were what we would term today, small totalitarian communities. Individuals were not supposed to have private lives, or undertake 'rogue' actions. Even today there are many peoples who do not even have a word for 'privacy', or for 'individual'.

Humanity has come a long way. In the Western world, with the onset of the Renaissance and the period of the Enlightenment, we discovered person-hood and what it means to be a man or woman. And that our prime instrument for survival in a cultivated world, are our own wits. Morality shifted from collective survival, to the survival of the individual.

It is not always appreciated how far this development has helped human progress. There are forces in the Western world today that prefer humans with tribal minds. They say, one person's wits aren't sufficient, that rationality can break down or can be fooled, or reason isn't relevant to a social being.

Some even say wits do not exist at all, and that humans live by instinct, or by synapses and secretions, or that they are steered by God, or by a fate determined in some parallel universe.

They say that in our hearts of heart we are still members of the tribe called humanity and we should share whatever we have, just as in olden days. Some say we should only share things which ensure common security, others advocate sharing the things with which we produce other things. And then there are the peddlers of ideas who come for people's souls. Their morality is altruism. They say, an individual's only use consists in his utility to be tribe.

Peoples in other parts of the world walked other historical paths. They quietly wandered off the reservations in droves, while other tribes held it together. Sometimes new ones were created based on common religion, Islam for example.

In Islam the whole of the faithful - the Ummah - is such a new tribe, replete with tribal justice - Sharia - to ensure its survival, and death for whoever dares to wander off, or pledges loyalty elsewhere. As the discovery of individualism took place in the Western context, this process from collective to individualization is often understood by Muslims as "Islam being besieged by the West".

The painful process we are witnessing before our very eyes in the Middle East and North Africa may be the death throes of the Muslim collective. Muslim men and women may find their person-hood, assuming the personal responsibility for their own body and soul - a thing impossible to achieve in a totalitarian group.

They may be fighting for the rights that a sole individual requires to survive: inalienable, universal, negative rights, leading to limited government, a public space not filled with the plasma of the tribe.

Liberties are negative rights that are inherent in human beings. It has two corollaries: free market capitalism and limited government, that is a government that protects the inalienable rights of the sovereign people.

For some, as we saw in "2001: Obama's Principles for a Socialist State (Analysis)" - these negative liberties are not enough; they cast them aside as "just the stuff that government cannot do to you", or - in our context - what the tribe cannot do to its members to prevent them from surviving on their own wits as free spirits.

The positive rights as advocated by President Obama, are the rights the tribe generously bestows upon its members, in lieu for their promise not to wander off the reservation on their own.

We see that the principles of negative and positive rights are markedly different in nature and in principle. They are opposites. Negative rights liberate individuals from the suffocating oppression of tribal existence. Obama's positive rights on the other hand, newly enslave individuals to the collectivism of the state.

We don't appreciate by half how rare and precious individual liberties really are. Wherever they exist, they are lone stars in oceans of collectives that seek to enslave free spirits to the suffocating risk-free safety of the tribes.

Each nation and each generation has its own battle with the tribes. Today, it is the Tunisians, the Egyptians, the Libyans and the Bahrainis rising up in rebellion. As Thomas Jefferson said, "From time to time, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots."

The reform process which would ensure the continuation of Islam as a faith, would have to consist in practicing it as a collection of individuals, rather than as the oppressive 'living organism' of the Ummah.

We wish the defenders of liberty all the strength they need to win their battle with the religious collective and hope they have the wisdom to resist the temptation to foist upon themselves a Socialist government that bestows and retracts positive rights. In that case they haven't found freedom, but have mere substituted one totalitarian tribe for another.

Long Live Liberty!

Related

- NRO: "The OIC and the Caliphate", by Andrew McCarthy

Related dossiers


- "The Dystopia of Paradise"

Blowback in the Human Rights Racket

Seldom in history has a subject been more abused than the human rights issue. A recent interview with a self-proclaimed human rights lawyer lays bare the extent of this racket. Needless to say that the subject of this post is not human rights, but their abuse by postmodern activist lawyers.

Wherever the terminally self-righteous find a cause to champion, first stop in the modus operandi is the establishment of a foundation. These institutes are funded by a global conglomerate of NGOs, which are in turn funded by Western tax payers. The established foundation hires self as a lawyer to take on the case in question.

The plaintiffs may or may not be aware of the proceedings going on their behalf. That they might have chosen to forget the trauma as soon as possible, is no consideration for the human rights zealots, who're smelling long-term secure remuneration, an ethically fool-proof repution and an outstanding international career. The victims are reduced to pawns and abused as tools.

The arsenal of the postmodern dialectic provides the most important weapons in this battle: the victims are always an unequal minority group in the role of the oppressed; the perpetrators invariably European or American white males representing the 'power structure', the oppressors, the aggressors.

The narrative is sanitized of any actions the victims might have taken to bring the alleged atrocity upon themselves; the actions of the alleged perpetrators on the other hand are stretched to the limit. This fundamental dishonesty is legitimized by the mechanism of the dialectic, the social justice - indeed, the moral duty - to compensate unequal 'groups' in equal proportion to their perceived inequality (please don't ask).

The violence tolerance level is reduced to zero, notwithstanding the ethical argument of the Responsibility to Protect. Any act of violence is condemned. Acts in self-defense or in the defense of others, retaliation or preemptive measures are no validations. UN peace keepers were sent into Bosnia with one white painted tank between them, so as "not to provoke the enemy".

The irrational madness of the mindset of the rights racketeers is underscored with present lawyer complaining about acts of war not being covered by insurance companies, part of their war on reality.

The next goal in the postmodern rights intifada is the production of jurisprudence on animal rights, targeted at the evil 'bio industry', and asylum seekers' rights, aimed at ending the immoral borders and national sovereignty.

- Caption: Fireworks in Nuremberg on June 4, 1650 Celebrating the Settlement of the Implementation of the Treaty of Westphalia in the Year 1648 (1650) -

Also on the program are war crimes committed by standing armies and UN blue helmets at the International Criminal Court. And don't think for a moment that they care a hoot that through their actions the cost of UN peace keeping operations, in terms of men and money, will rise to prohibitive levels, and may even come to a halt.

As far as that utter hypocrisy is concerned we may be in for a bit of lucky blow-back: it's peace keeping operations that are at the root of the UN's growing amorality and abandonment of the Westphalian principle of national sovereignty.

Related posts and articles

- "Richard Lamm on Multiculturalism"
- "May Day, Mayday! They're Deleting the Borders!"

Related dossiers

- "The Dialectics"
- "Postmodern Ravages"
- "Pomo Lingo"
- "Transnational Bankruptcy"

Turning the Tables on Hamas and Anti Zionists

Newspapers in Belgium are reporting that a number of Israeli Belgians have filed charges against Hamas leaders in Gaza and Damascus, Syria. The fifteen dual citizenship holders were either wounded themselves, sustained material damage, or lost relatives in attacks that triggered Operation Cast Lead a year ago.

The suits follow several attempts by anti-Zionists in Europe, who sought the arrest of Israeli political and military leaders for authorizing the counter terrorist operation. It is in effect, turning the tables on them. An official of the Israeli organization that helped launch the suits said that the group hopes "to shatter the myth that draws a parallel between Israel and terror organizations such as Hamas." Indeed, false moral equivalence is rife.

All plaintiffs  live in the south of Israel. They are the victims of  rocket barrages coming down on the area from Gaza between June 2008 and January 2009. Two were wounded. All are suffering emotional and psychological trauma.

The suit names ten Hamas leaders in all: political chief Khaled Mashaal residing in Damascus, 'Premier' Ismaail Haniyah in Gaza, former 'Foreign Minister' Mahmud Zahar, and leaders of  the 'military' division, Ahmed Jabri and Mohammed Def.

The cases took six months to prepare. So far six requests for their arrest have been issued, all based on clear evidence that Hamas leaders are linked to the terror attacks.

Arutz Sheva report attorney Mordechai Tzivin, representing the plaintiffs, told the French news agency AFP: "This is a first step in a broad offensive across Europe that will include Spain, Britain, Italy and other countries".

One of the Belgian attorneys involved, Roel Coveliers explains that indiscriminate attacks on civilians may constitute war crimes. "But that's up to the Judge to decide. We don't know if we will be successful in prosecuting the case in Belgium and get a conviction, but it's important to get an investigative Judge to take on the matter".

Filing the suit is only an initial step. A federal Judge will see if the complaints have standing. In the affirmative, an investigative Judge will be appointed.

Although ranging well within Israeli territory, Hamas' home made rockets are not particularly effective. Between 2005 and 2007 Hamas militants fired some 2,700 of the home made rockets on southern Israel. Towns like Sderot have come under constant barrages of fire which crippled the daily lives of the inhabitants, causing material and psychological trauma.

On December 27 Israel finally launched counter terrorist Operation Cast Lead. In the days before the maneuvers some eighty Qassam rockets landed in the area. It still happens, albeit less frequently, but effectively not much has changed. A recent article by blogger/journalist Caroline Glick explains why little was accomplished. Even top IDF commanders acknowledged this week that the army will be forced to return to Gaza in due course.

Belgian attorney Coveliers does not think the Court will reject the request. Thus far he's received six of the fifteen dossiers from Israel.

Ironically the suits charge ten Hamas leaders of war crimes on the basis of the UN Human Rights Commission's report authored by Judge Richard Goldstone, who accused Israel of war crimes but mentioned, almost in passing, that Hamas rocket attacks on civilians also constitute violations of international law.

Obama, the President of Shoddy Philosophy?

After the Bush administrations' adoption of the extraordinary neocon idea that the spread of democracy would bring peace and prosperity to all - including the recalcitrantly authoritarian Middle East - opponents ended up vilifying not just everything about George W. Bush, but also both the policy and the principle of democracy itself. A typical case of throwing the baby with the bath water ...

But democracy, embodyment of the values of the Enlightenment, traditionally always has been a Liberal enterprise, not a Leftist one. Leftism (as well as Rightism) grew from a 17th and 18th century counter movement. Set aside those who rejected violent revolution on principle, like the Fabians, it was only after the many failed revolutions of the last century that Socialists took another look at their ideology and adopted the epithet Democratic (as in Social Democrats, and as opposed to 'authoritarian' Socialists).

Present Postmodernists are the ideological heirs of said counter movement. It is therefore no small wonder that the original, pre democratic roots are again moving center stage with the present occupier of the White House, who is the quintessential Postmodernist. Clever politicians as they are, they're sacrificing democracy on the ethical platform of "social justice". If nothing else, the scions of the Counter-Enlightenment always appear to be spreading their lethal ideals with the best of intentions.

Here you can read who have already been thrown under the post democratic Obama bus ... Six months into the pomo administration and the record is already quite impressive.

The new motto of foreign policy seems to be "transnational peace through friendship among potentates".

The only doubt benefiting Obama, is the question whether he truly harks back to basics, or if he is merely pushing the softer Postmodern option of ethical relativism ("who are we to meddle (in Iran), we - the West - don't have the monopoly on truth (democracy)" - or alternatively "absolute truth does not exist" - or alternatively "truth is merely a subjective construct".

The world may consider itself lucky if official policy is merely shoddy, accidental moral equivalence, or the inability to understand that the fulfilment of positive rights is the result of the state respecting negative rights. In other words, oppression (fear) and starvation are the result of a lack of freedom, always.

It's all explained in detail and with great clarity in ...

Commentary Magazine: "The Abandonment of Democracy", by Joshua Muravchik

The most surprising thing about the first half-year of Barack Obama’s presidency, at least in the realm of foreign policy, has been its indifference to the issues of human rights and democracy. (...) The new president signaled his intent on the eve of his inauguration, when he told editors of the Washington Post that democracy was less important than “freedom from want and freedom from fear. If people aren’t secure, if people are starving, then elections may or may not address those issues, but they are not a perfect overlay.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton followed suit, in opening testimony at her Senate confirmation hearings. As summed up by the Post’s Fred Hiatt, Clinton “invoked just about every conceivable goal but democracy promotion. Building alliances, fighting terror, stopping disease, promoting women’s rights, nurturing prosperity—but hardly a peep about elections, human rights, freedom, liberty or self-rule.” (...) The State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor has put out 30 public releases, so far, and not one of them has discussed democracy promotion. Democracy, it seems, is banished from the Obama administration’s public vocabulary. (...)  >>>

- Filed on Articles in "The Pomo Presidency" - 

Of Tribes, Liberty and Its Individual Heroes

The following subject is not fully matured, but we push it out into public cyberspace anyway, because it touches a news item that simply cannot wait.

Yahoo!News: "Saudis on hunger strike to demand judiciary reform"

A group of Saudi activists began a rare public hunger strike Thursday to demand judiciary reform and draw attention to the detention without trial of 11 political reformists. The 65 mostly male protesters plan to continue the strike they are holding in their homes on Friday. Their action in a country that bans public gatherings, protests and political parties could land them in jail.

Mohammad al-Qahtani, one of 13 activists who called for the protest, said the group resorted to the strike after the government failed to respond to letters sent to influential officials asking them to release the reformists, improve prison conditions and reform the legal system (...) The jailed reformists include Matrook al-Faleh, a human rights activist who was detained in May for advocating constitutional reform, and 10 other activists jailed in Jiddah in 2007.

The 13 men posted a statement on the social networking site Facebook to announce the strike and urge other Saudis to participate. Fifty-two people have so far signed up to join the 13 activists. They include writers, lawyers and college students (...) >>>

Give the story a Buzz z

Humans in their primitive stages, had to survive in a wild and hostile natural world. Danger lurked under every stone and in each and any shrub. A sole individual, thrown back on his own devices, could hardly hope to live long enough to tell the tale. A lone existence was a constant existential threat. So humans sought security in numbers and shelter with each other, within the safety of the tribe.

Random individual acts, which could endanger the survival of the community as a whole were not just discouraged, but severely punished by exile, shunning and worse. Morality consisted in the common good, the well-being of the tribe, the lone tribes man or woman, was dispensable.

Since the collective security is the tribe's entire reason of being, these were what we would term today, small totalitarian communities. Individuals were not supposed to have private lives, or undertake 'rogue' actions. Even today there are many peoples who do not even have a word for 'privacy', or for 'individual'.

Humanity has come a long way. In the Western world, with the onset of the Renaissance and the period of the Enlightenment, we discovered person-hood and what it means to be a man or woman. We discovered that our prime instrument for survival in a cultivated world, are our own wits. Morality shifted from collective survival, to what constitutes survival of the individual.

It is not always appreciated how far this development has helped human progress. There are forces in the Western world today that prefer humans with tribal minds. They say, some person's wits can be insufficient, that they can break down or can be fooled, so we should not use them.

Some even say wits do not exist at all, and that humans live by instinct, or by synapses and secretions, or that they are steered by God, or by the fate of some parallel universe.

They say that in our hearts of heart we are still members of the tribe called humanity and we should share whatever we have, just as in olden days. Some say we should only share things which ensure common security, others advocate sharing the things with which we produce other things. And then there are the peddlers of ideas who come for people's souls. Their morality is altruism. They say, an individual's only use consists in his utility to be tribe.

Peoples in other parts of the world walked other historical paths. They quietly wandered off the reservations in droves, other tribes held it together. Sometimes new ones were created, based on common religion, for example.

In Islam the whole of the faithful - the Ummah - is such a new tribe, replete with tribal justice to ensure its survival, and death for whoever dares to wander off, or pledges loyalty elsewhere.

The painful process we see playing out before our eyes are the death throes of the new tribe called Islam. Muslim men and women are discovering their person-hood. They're fighting for the rights that a sole individual requires to survive: inalienable, universal, human rights. Since the discovery of individualism took place in the Western context, this process from collective to person-hood is often understood by Muslims as "Islam being besieged by the West".

The Reform process which would ensure the continuation of Islam as a faith, would have to consist in practicing it as a collection of individuals, rather than as the oppressive 'living organism' of the Ummah.

The liberties are the negative rights. They lie at the foundation of the United States of America, the only country founded on the philosophy of individual rights. The Founding Fathers said these rights were given to man by God. They have two corollaries: free market capitalism and democratic government.

For some, as we saw in "2001: Obama's Principles for a Socialist State (Analysis)" - these negative liberties are not enough; they cast them aside as "just the stuff that government cannot do to you", or - in our paradigm - what the tribe cannot do to its members to prevent them from surviving on their own wits as free spirits.

The positive rights as advocated by President Elect Barack Hussein Obama, are the rights the tribe generously bestows upon its members, in lieu for their promise not to wander off the reservation on their own.

We see that the principles of negative and positive rights are markedly different in nature and in principle. They are opposites. Negative rights liberate individuals from the suffocating oppression of tribal existence. Obama's positive rights on the other hand, newly enslave individuals to the collectivism of the state.

We don't appreciate by half how rare and precious individual liberties really are. Wherever they exist, they are lone stars in oceans of collectives that seek to enslave free spirits to the suffocating risk-free safety of the tribes.

Each nation and each generation has its own battle with the tribes. Today, it is the brave Saudi intellectuals with their hunger strike. As Thomas Jefferson said, "From time to time, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots."

We wish the Saudi defenders all the strength they need to win their battle with the tribal collective. Long Live Liberty!

Facebook group "48 hours hunger strike in Saudi Arabia: solidarity with detainees in KSA"

Watch an interview with Saudi journalist Ebtihal Mubarak to learn more about the background of this campaign The Hub: "Facebooking a Hunger Strike: Saudi Activists' Innovative Online Campaign"



- Filed on Articles in "The Dystopia of Paradise" -

Progress Report (2): Plugging the Holes Against Reality

~ Continued from Part I: Progress Report: the Simple Truth ~

Ayn Rand's views on ethics - whatever we may think of the Objectivist philosophy as a whole - is a rational guideline in polarising times such as ours. In the current confusion it is easy to lose sight of the imperatives. However - when people are made subservient to ideology, and when playing dice with the existence of an entire nation of fellow humans is looked upon as throwing rabid fascists a bone, this should wake us up to the fact that something is seriously rotten at the core.

Striking a compromise between two ethically, mutually exclusive propositions, is siding with evil. This has nothing to do with a lack of nuance, or a black-and-white world view, but sound reasoning. In the choice between food or poison a compromise is death. The relativism prevalent today, that denies the existence of objective reality - and consequently of morality - that recognises only social constructs, but no right or wrong, no good or evil, is leading us up the path we all hoped to have left behind us for ever with the collapse of Communism (and National Socialism decades earlier).

In order to avoid lumping the innocents with the terrorists the political Left have reversed the logic, instead lumping the terrorists with the innocent. This perversion in reasoning is a two-edged sword. It provides the radicals with a free pass, while at the same time taking of a moral stance is abdicated. But moral neutrality is fiction! The above is a fine example of the distorted rationale as a result of relativist thought patterns. There's more.

This moral cowardice, that refuses to make a decisive choice for the good, has two more far-reaching consequences: they turn against and betray those who seek to protect Western civilization from the onslaughts of a culturally sterile Third World death cult that spells the end of liberal democracy as we knew it - to say nothing of human and civil rights. Or do they suppose that the basic right to life is well protected in the hands of Osama c.s. - one culture or religion being just as good as any other?!

They also fail to make a choice for supporting the moderate, innocent Muslims who increasingly find themselves isolated in fundamentalist ghettos. They don't stand a chance of standing up to wife molesters and honor murderers, let alone effectuating the only hope for moderate Muslims and the rest of the world to ever live together in peace, the reformation of Islam from within. On all counts, no moral choice turns out be a choice for evil.

Blog after blog is filled every day with frustrated updates on the inroads and trespasses of the Third Jihad on life in the West. I have meant to tell the global counter-jihad community for some time now that their energies and efforts are largely wasted if we don't at the same time convince the politically correct facilitators, appeasers, advocates and moral cowards at home that they are backing, aiding and abetting evil.

It is by their grace that Islamization is making the advances that it does. Their short term policies are driven by the expansion of the cohorts of 'victims', thus broadening the Leftist constituencies. The source of this blunt, cynical opportunism - coupled with the tear jerking sentimentalism - is once again the relativism on which the Leftist ideologies are based.

Our quarrel is not with Ali and Aisha next door! It is advocacy groups and legislators - specifically in the transnational entities of the UN and the (unelected) politically correct politicians in the European Union (national parliaments have been made fiefdoms that are allowed to wield the rubber stamp 'approved') - that see to it that democracies are turning into post democratic, neo feudal dictatorships - secular or under Sharia law is entirely equivalent to them.

Grassroots initiatives like "Stop the Islamization of Europe" are by now in serious peril of being declared criminal organizations, together with granny taking an offence at gay parades and clergy refusing to marry persons of 'the same sexual persuasion'. This is the result of the surrogate morality that is thought up to plug the ethical holes left behind when relativist thought is embraced.

Virulent Islam is in the process of being legally insulated by the collaborators in The Unholy Alliance in power in all tiers of Western government, from the local school governing boards and town councils, to national parliaments and supranational Quangos. Terrorists and bullies need to be told in no uncertain terms where it is exactly that they get off, but as long as there's a home force standing guard over their advances, most of the energy invested is going to waste, and what's more, is on the brink of being outlawed altogether as incompatible with the prevailing surrogate morality (read ideology)!

In the present and in the upcoming post I'll present two cases that make mince-meat of our basic rights and the rule of law. As we speak, an investigator into the West's home grown branch of Al Qaeda is intimidated into silence. It is an attempt to keep him from sitting on a forum and speaking out during an upcoming police convention. The ultimate aim is to muzzle him altogether by discrediting his reputation, in the process rendering the freedom of enquiry a dead letter.

Even worse, the intimidation of investigative authorities constitutes an assault on the rule of law itself. Don't think that one isolated case of mob rule doesn't harm the principle! As explained above, 'a little pregnant' means defeat in moral cases. And if 'omerta' rules, who's to say this is indeed an isolated incident?

People like him (i.e. Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Geert Wilders to name but a few) are under threat and can only be protected via the official channels if we're not to stoop to paramilitarism. But what, if the official channels are concurrently threatening to clasp counter Jihad bloggers in irons the moment they set foot on home soil, back from 'self-imposed' exile? Read the case of Lionheart - Hat Tip 1389 Anti Jihadist Tech Blog. Debbie at Right Truth is apparently coordinating, is in touch with Lionheart by mail and has more links and information available on the dismal case.

In the next post, we'll give further details on the West's home grown branch of Al Qaeda, what it means for the investigative scholar in question, and what is the current state of liberal democracy.

~ To be continued in Part 3 of Progress Report: "the Assault of the Rule of Law" ~

- Filed on Articles in "Progress Report: Summary", cat. Balkans/E.Europe, GWOT, Moral Legislation, Neo Totalitarianism, Terrorism -

Civil Rights vs Human Rights

Dr Sam C. Holliday, director of the Armiger Cromwell Center, a valued and regular guest author in these pages, in present article is sharing with us the distinction between human rights and civil rights, the sort of confusion in terms and definitions that is all too common in Postmodernity.

HUMAN RIGHTS?

Transnationals often claim that words and actions on human rights do not match. On this they are correct. However, this mixed message is not the problem. The problem is the concept of human rights. With a fundamentally flawed concept, it was inevitable that politicians will proclaim human rights as a pillar of their foreign policy while giving priority to other interests.

Those who place emphasis on moral principles think governments must promote a moral world order in which international law is supreme. For many years they have attempted to advance their agenda of universal human rights. In 1945 this issue was debated at length in San Francisco during the writing of the multilateral treaty — which some incorrectly consider a constitution — which became the Charter for the United Nations. The advocates of universal human rights lost that debate, and the Charter included no clear authority to guarantee universal rights; instead verbal decorations, and lofty objectives of promoting human rights, were included to appease the transnationals.

But the transnationals continued to push their agenda. On 10 December 1948 the General Assembly adopted a Universal Declaration Of Human Rights. The transnationals wanted this declaration to be accepted, and enforced, as international law, but again they lost. It only became a “guideline” which sovereign states could use to determine their own civil rights - not the corner stone of world government which the transnationals desired.

In 1953 the transnationals were successful in getting the European Convention on Human Rights to establish international machinery to provide governance in matters of rights for individuals in certain European countries. In practice, however, civil rights have continued to prevail and the march to universal human rights has been slow. Yet the transnationals have never lacked vigor or skill in pushing their agenda.

Postmodernists blindly accept the concept of human rights, without awareness of its flawed nature. It sounds good, it feels good, political leaders and pundits support it rhetorically; therefore, it must be valid. Yet it cannot be defended historically, philosophically, or logically.

Historically rights have been gained through custom and tradition, status, accomplishment, or force. Only in the last 300 years, through acceptance of social contracts, have rights for all citizens of a state even been considered. Under a social contract, between citizens and their government, rights and responsibilities are specified by a constitution, or through laws determined by some legislative body. Then these rights are adjudicated by some legal system. But these are civil rights, and they are by no means universal.

Universal rights for all humans would require a world government with legislative and judicial authority. Perhaps this is the desire and dream of postmodernists; however, it is not what we have. Until that Nirvana is achieved it can be expected that governments will rhetorically advocate human rights while other interests will determine their actions.

Protestations that governments send mixed messages regarding human rights fail to address the problem. The problem is not a deficiency in policy; it is a deficiency in the concept of human rights. It would be better to forget human rights and concentrate on improving civil rights wherever they are deemed deficient.

Sam C. Holliday is a graduate of the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, a former director of Stability Studies at the Army War College, and a retired Army Colonel. He earned a Master's in Public Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh and a doctorate in International
Relations from the University of South Carolina. Currently he is Director of The Armiger Cromwell Center, a small nonprofit Internet clearinghouse for thinking "outside of the box of conventional wisdom." By means of its online essays, the ACC seeks more effective foreign policies to achieve stability through equilibrium.

Earlier by Dr Sam Holliday in Politeia:

- "Effectively Communicating Jihad: a spade is a spade"
- "The Fable of the Knife"
- "The Fable of the Water Buffalo and the Sparrow"
- "The Corruption of Patriotism"

Copyright © 2007 Armiger Cromwell Center, 3750 Peachtree Road, NE, Suite 374, Atlanta, GA 30319-1322 armigercc@comcast.net. Permission is granted to forward this essay to friends or colleagues, on a fair use basis. For reprint permission contact Armiger Cromwell Center.

Related:

- "Quick, while it's still legal ...!"
- Positive and Negative Rights