Human Rights

The original intent of this blog was to call attention to and give my perspective on human rights abuses around the world. Over the years United States politics has taken center stage as the United States, its mere existence, is the greatest defender of human rights the world has ever seen. This free and still Christian nation has been the platform for many to stand upon to speak out against abuses around the world. It has been a refuge for many who have escaped tyranny and persecution from its very founding. The United States’ economy and free market capitalist system has been a driving force in bringing relief and prosperity to nations near and far, raising the living standards of all people.

So the political and economic state of this great nation is a human rights issue. When we lose our moral compass, our moral fortitude, and ignore the plight of the rest of the world we only empower tyrants to act more boldly. When our economy fails, so will the economies of most the world bringing utter devastation to some.

As we end this year with many putting together lists of the biggest events of 2012 and pondering the lives of significant people who have passed trying to make us all feel special just for being here, let me share my perspective on the human condition. Let me give you my understanding of the condition of human rights as I see it from what a common man can glean from the various forms of media available in this modern age.

Russia certainly allows the freedom to assemble and religious freedom. People are free to build businesses, a life for themselves, but become too successful or locate in a desirable area and the government will take over all your assets and most likely throw you in prison whether you are Russian or foreign born. The courts rubber stamp the governments agenda and journalists are murdered on a regular basis if they dare print the truth or question authority.

Russia still persecutes and harasses break away republics and is a supporter of Syria which has now murdered tens of thousands of its own citizens in order to hold onto power. Why are we so incapable of removing a murderer who kills openly before the eyes of the world?

The Arab Spring has unseated tyrants of various levels of infamy but has opened the door for even greater tyrants to take over. The struggle goes on. Piracy, slavery, corruption, genocide and the ravages of war and starvation still persist in Africa.

China is persecuting and murdering Christians as well as other religious groups and political dissidents. Little is said because they are China and their economic growth has been considered a miracle, something to aspire in the opinion of some. Though the environmental and human disasters unfolding would never be tolerated in the developed world they are given a pass. Now adding an aircraft carrier to their navy, with more to come, their talk of expansion via military is becoming recognized as a real threat.

But why take China seriously if we will not take Iran seriously as they pursue nuclear weapons, weapons they have said over and over they will use to wipe Israel off the face of the earth? We have been warned. The Iranians themselves suffer from a brutal and objective form of justice under Islamic rule.

The evils of North Korea are rising into the consciousness of the general public through the research and work of authors who have taken up the cause of the few who have escaped. The brutal imprisonment of political prisoners along with three generations of their families is being uncovered. Prison camps as large as cities where living conditions are below subsistence where murderous execution is commonplace are being exposed. The media has begun to inform the larger public of these realities because of the books and no one looks to whitewash over these atrocities because they are Korea. Though the government may convey their works as miracles before its people, no one else is insane enough to see them that way.

Mexico, Central and South America are still ravaged by drug gangs and the remnants of communist insurgencies. Many of the murderous rampages that have become commonplace across our southern border were fueled with arms from our very own President Obama through his Fast and Furious campaign leading to scores of deaths if not more.

Human trafficking and the sexual abuse of women and children are epidemic in our society. Cuba is awash with child prostitutes. The Internet is filled with every dehumanizing perversion one can imagine and then some. Significant historic cultures centered on Islam and older religions relegate women to the status of material. The Taliban and other Islamic groups maim and murder women for seeking an education. In India we have the recent gang rape and murder of a medical college student while on what was thought to be a public bus. If anything could be a catalyst for women’s rights around the world to become front and center in 2013 it will be this women’s horrific struggle and death.

What is more important, more central to life than our duty to our fellow man, women included? What is more central to a good and righteous world, for us to be a single family of man, than the dignity of women in society to anchor the institution of family in safe harbor?