By the authority of humanity: All human beings born (past, present and future) are irrevocably given and will recognize above all other written constitutions, treaties laws or imposed authority by any entity or person, the common rights to equality of justice, opportunity to knowledge, employment, entrepreneurial and/or property ownership, self-expression, the institution of marriage and the sanctuary of choice over ones own body, to be applied unbiased by any category of gender, race, age, disability or allegiance to authority or religion, to be given the highest priority uniformly, among all living human beings, without exception to ones crimes or debts.Whats so complicated about that?
-Chloe
Chloe, I agree with the spirit of your post, but not with at least one particular. To wit: To say that someone is entitled, by right, to employment is to put a constraint on employers. If we are each to be free to direct our own lives, we must be left free to direct them in ways that another might find disagreeable. I'm not advocating the initiation of force or fraud upon any individual. I'm just saying that a racist employer must retain his right to refuse to employ the race of his choice if the idea of individual freedom is to be realized. Similar arguments apply to "opportunity of knowledge" and "self-expression".
ReplyDeleteI can understand the refusal to employ someone because they are not the best qualified person for that job, but the qualification should never include something like race gender, etc
ReplyDelete"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights...."
ReplyDeleteThere's one of the tragic paradoxes of freedom and democracy: in a totally free society one is totally free to be a bigot, and if the majority wants to make it hard on a minority, then the majority rules. I must agree with the principle of Chole's beautiful manifesto but also grudgingly (with absolutely no personal hard feelings) with Rachel's pragmatic reply. My copy of of MASTERPIECES OF WORLD PHILOSPHY sums up John Locke on this subject: In order to remedy the inconveniences resulting from a state of nature in which every [person] is judge of [his/her] own acts, [people] enter into a contract, thereby creating a civil society empowered to judge [people] and to defend the natural rights of [humans]. 'Tis devoutly to be wished.
ReplyDeleteWe are not talking about "Freedom", We are talking about Equality.
ReplyDeleteFreedom is something bestowed by laws of humnity. Equality is something that human law cannot take away - only impead or confine.
An argument against equality is an argument to say that the deck is already stacked against the unborn. This is only true when we allow the ideal of "Freedom" to overshadow the basic human birth rights that all who are born already have.
No one person is more important than another - NO ONE, unless we make it wrongly so. Every person has the right to the same chance of equailty as another - no matter what.
Absolutely. Human, humility, humus all have the same origin. We all come from the earth. The chemical compostion of our bodies makes us all, the last time I heard, about $7 worth of good topsoil. The person who remembers that will not lord it over others. When Ben Franklin was trying to achieve moral perfection, one of the 13 virtues he put on his list was humility. When we achieve that virtue, it is impossible to deny the equality of all.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that humans are born with certain inalienable rights is necessarily based on the fact that we each have free will, a consciousness which can abstract knowledge from observations. In order to use that faculty, a person must be left free to act upon whatever judgments or misjudgments he makes.
ReplyDeleteThis means that however incorrect, perhaps even willfully so, a person is in judging another to be unworthy or his attention, time, or association (an example of which is employment), it is wrong to compel him by force of arms (which is what the law wields) to act against his judgment.
The only time it is appropriate to use force to compel a man is when he has already resorted to the use of force to compel another. A shop-owner who has taken no such action to earn his property does not resort to force in refusing to deal with those he finds distasteful or unworthy.
In order to live according to our nature as human beings, we must leave him alone to run his business - free to believe that he is right in being racist or homophobic, or whatever - according to his own judgment and exercise of the faculty of volition. To do otherwise is to deny the very rights you are seeking to advocate.
In fact, it is this same principle that leads to the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to assembly peacefully, and other rights wisely recognized by our constitution. And it is the principle behind the saying, "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
We're all correct, you know. We are all born equal. But, because there are individuals who would deny us this equality, we must enact a social contract that insures that equality.
ReplyDeleteThe above statement courtesy of Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau
Rachel I can appreciate your academic approach to free will, but again, I'm not defending freedom. My argument is for equality first. Freedom by definition can never be fair.
ReplyDeleteThe argument based on a platform of Freedom would never work, because it is not fair to all. Based on a platform of equality where Freedom(s) dangle from it. we can at least have fairness at birth to be treated and protected equal.
Your construct for your theory is good when realized that Freedom is the principal for which we all perpetuate too, but not when it is Equality.
Yes, if Freedom is our goal in life, YES, that shop owner has every right to do as he wishes. But in a world where Equality is used and applied by the masses (instead of Freedoms first) that shop owner would never be in business, because the interior world would be based on everyone treating everyone equal with fair opportunity.
We could draw out hundreds of arguments either way - but in the end, being Equal at birth is "fair", and being "Free" at birth, is to be unequal with inherited inequity.
This ideal and system strikes fear into those that now hold roots to control - but when presented with the idea that each of us would have equal footing in this world to start, scares the hell out of a small powerful few who influence the masses with moral, ethical and filibuster tactics to dilute us into thinking we can not live any other way, or with out their systems that are designed to fail, and keep them in power.
A seat belt is a constraint that car makers were not required to put into cars until the 70'S!! Today, it is law that cars MUST have them, along with many other things that help to protect and improve the lives of the public. Its is LAW to wear the seat belt and it is LAW to have the seat belt installed and functioning in the car.
WHY ON EARTH would we not want to take measures to protect the equality of all living human beings? (Because of MONEY)? Capitalism must NOT rule our judgment if we are to ever be higher thinking and evolved people.
Being an employer carries responsibilities and liabilities. Being an equal opportunity employer should be one of them.
Thanks for the great debate Rachel!
-Chloe
PS: Gillian, Thanks for the quote, its perfect!