It is clear from your exposition that 'human rights' actually means the opposite of what most people take it to mean ie protecting individual freedom against the might of the state. A not accidental sleight of hand I would suggest, like calling mRNA injections 'vaccines' to lull the unwary into a false sense of security.
Pack your Government approved sandwiches and a recyclable bottle of non-alcoholic beverage and join with us on the long march towards Utopia.
Food is produced by the kind efforts of the Akme Food Co and beverage by Nuka-Cola (h/t Fallout 4) and whose corporate sponsorships paid for this message.
Because a population of mass dependency and homogenisation will be an easy blob of consumers to sell to and make money from. The New Hanseatic League and Human Rights walk hand in hand
I think this slightly misses the point with consumers. The culmination is the state providing everything to everyone, directly, as part of its justification and our total dependence. Freedom of choice of free consumers in a free market is anathema to the Princely state, because this is a relationship outside the state. One of the biggest problems we have is the state is far and away the biggest customer, warping the market, symbiotically creating the mega-corporations. They, rationally, want to sell to government: it has unlimited money; no marketing is required; it can regulate your competition out of existence; and it does not complain or leave stinking reviews online.
Your personification of Human Rights was quite a chilling read in many respects.....brought it up close and personal! It was interesting to read nonetheless. The concept of Human Rights would seem to be operable as the ultimate tool of control, something which people will accept ad infinitum because it is presented as a shield to attacks on one's humanity.
Some argue that there aren't Rights to be bestowed, that humans have 'God- given Rights'....no laws on Human Rights necessary. However, there are the vulnerable in our society who have benefited from legislation looking after their 'human rights', eg, child chimney sweeps, or, children working in factories....of course the Human Rights Act wasn't a 'thing' then. Perhaps such an act would help the children in Africa mining cobalt, or, the many children(girs) in other countries forced in to marriage.
The State's involvement in our lives has practically reached saturation point and there is growing push back....
Why don't Human Rights Acts get enacted in a variety of despotic nations elsewhere? It must be because their citizens are not deserving of such Rights not to be exploited in ways we find abhorrent.
Human Rights are important, the concept is to be valued because they make us think about how we are treated as human beings. Thus, if I were to personify Human Rights, I would say just be careful you don't resort to the rod otherwise we'll fight back.
I have just started reading Herbert Spencer's work, 'The Man versus the State', originally published in 1884. In the preface, discussing an article of his, he writes "Reduced to its simplest expression, the thesis maintained was that, unless due precautions were taken, increase of freedom in form would be followed by decrease of freedom in fact."
Human rights law would seem to be the 'form', with increasingly authoritarian and unrepresentative government, which never really changes and always adds more restrictions on our lives, being the 'fact'.
Having only very recently discovered him, my reading list has grown, just a bit.
I like 50p not £50 words and you explained it all in a way a mere pleb like me understands.
Turning a concept / idea into a human to test its internal logic is so clever. Reminds me of 2 books on my shelf - ‘The Sibling Society’ and ‘Big Mother’.
For once David, I disagree with most of what you have written here.
Just because the modern State has abused and trampled all over human rights, and flouted human rights law, does not make human rights less important. It also does not make human rights law a plot by that overweening State.
To attack human rights law is to fall for a lie told by that same State. The State often tells us that human rights law is the reason it can't govern properly, when actually human rights law is unwelcome to the State because it constrains the State from attacking us.
Just because liberalism has been largely abandoned by that same State does not make liberalism wrong.
Liberal democracy, characterised by election of government by the people, but with human rights guaranteed for the opposition, is the foundation of our way of life. The modern State has increasingly attacked its foundations, because a "princely" State does not like to be constrained. It is incumbent upon us to resist that as hard as we can, and fight to retain the freedoms that are our birthright, and the liberal democracy that made them possible.
I don't want to be misunderstood: it's not a plot. Nor has the modern state 'flouted' human rights law. The point rather is that the State's expansion has been facilitated by human rights law, because human rights law provides the justification for that process.
It is clear from your exposition that 'human rights' actually means the opposite of what most people take it to mean ie protecting individual freedom against the might of the state. A not accidental sleight of hand I would suggest, like calling mRNA injections 'vaccines' to lull the unwary into a false sense of security.
Pack your Government approved sandwiches and a recyclable bottle of non-alcoholic beverage and join with us on the long march towards Utopia.
Food is produced by the kind efforts of the Akme Food Co and beverage by Nuka-Cola (h/t Fallout 4) and whose corporate sponsorships paid for this message.
Because a population of mass dependency and homogenisation will be an easy blob of consumers to sell to and make money from. The New Hanseatic League and Human Rights walk hand in hand
I think this slightly misses the point with consumers. The culmination is the state providing everything to everyone, directly, as part of its justification and our total dependence. Freedom of choice of free consumers in a free market is anathema to the Princely state, because this is a relationship outside the state. One of the biggest problems we have is the state is far and away the biggest customer, warping the market, symbiotically creating the mega-corporations. They, rationally, want to sell to government: it has unlimited money; no marketing is required; it can regulate your competition out of existence; and it does not complain or leave stinking reviews online.
Invitation to the Masquerade
You are invited for your own sake
on pain of fine and social exile
to a display of kindly care.
It is our intention this event prove fun
but above all, safe, socially distant,
faceless, preferably mediated by text message.
Our goal is to minimize exchange of particles
as Lucretius would have advised.
You will copulate only when authorised.
Looking another in the eye is unsafe,
and embraces under the influence violate.
Restrict yourself therefore to the legal pleasure measure.
Hard liquor will be served at 6PM;
a limited buffet of state foods at 7.
Your dinner companion will be a mannequin.
Expect tracing chips and virtue badges
as party favours. Imagine the door prizes!
Please mark below if you are a visible minority
or of indigenous descent or are a survivor
of any disability or adverse experience.
You may opt not to answer of course,
but weigh advantage against forfeit.
The remote band will play at 8.
You will dance alone at the silent disco.
You will repeat: “This is the new normal.”
We are being farmed.
Great work here, David. Good luck with the speech. Curious to know how it goes. Perhaps you'll tell us.
Your personification of Human Rights was quite a chilling read in many respects.....brought it up close and personal! It was interesting to read nonetheless. The concept of Human Rights would seem to be operable as the ultimate tool of control, something which people will accept ad infinitum because it is presented as a shield to attacks on one's humanity.
Some argue that there aren't Rights to be bestowed, that humans have 'God- given Rights'....no laws on Human Rights necessary. However, there are the vulnerable in our society who have benefited from legislation looking after their 'human rights', eg, child chimney sweeps, or, children working in factories....of course the Human Rights Act wasn't a 'thing' then. Perhaps such an act would help the children in Africa mining cobalt, or, the many children(girs) in other countries forced in to marriage.
The State's involvement in our lives has practically reached saturation point and there is growing push back....
Why don't Human Rights Acts get enacted in a variety of despotic nations elsewhere? It must be because their citizens are not deserving of such Rights not to be exploited in ways we find abhorrent.
Human Rights are important, the concept is to be valued because they make us think about how we are treated as human beings. Thus, if I were to personify Human Rights, I would say just be careful you don't resort to the rod otherwise we'll fight back.
Glad to hear that you are planning to gather your thinking into a book, David. Looking forward to that.
I have just started reading Herbert Spencer's work, 'The Man versus the State', originally published in 1884. In the preface, discussing an article of his, he writes "Reduced to its simplest expression, the thesis maintained was that, unless due precautions were taken, increase of freedom in form would be followed by decrease of freedom in fact."
Human rights law would seem to be the 'form', with increasingly authoritarian and unrepresentative government, which never really changes and always adds more restrictions on our lives, being the 'fact'.
Having only very recently discovered him, my reading list has grown, just a bit.
That sounds like it has a lot to it.
Brilliant. You have clearly articulated what I have long felt in a more inchoate fashion.
Fantastic speech!
I like 50p not £50 words and you explained it all in a way a mere pleb like me understands.
Turning a concept / idea into a human to test its internal logic is so clever. Reminds me of 2 books on my shelf - ‘The Sibling Society’ and ‘Big Mother’.
May 28?
For once David, I disagree with most of what you have written here.
Just because the modern State has abused and trampled all over human rights, and flouted human rights law, does not make human rights less important. It also does not make human rights law a plot by that overweening State.
To attack human rights law is to fall for a lie told by that same State. The State often tells us that human rights law is the reason it can't govern properly, when actually human rights law is unwelcome to the State because it constrains the State from attacking us.
Just because liberalism has been largely abandoned by that same State does not make liberalism wrong.
Liberal democracy, characterised by election of government by the people, but with human rights guaranteed for the opposition, is the foundation of our way of life. The modern State has increasingly attacked its foundations, because a "princely" State does not like to be constrained. It is incumbent upon us to resist that as hard as we can, and fight to retain the freedoms that are our birthright, and the liberal democracy that made them possible.
I don't want to be misunderstood: it's not a plot. Nor has the modern state 'flouted' human rights law. The point rather is that the State's expansion has been facilitated by human rights law, because human rights law provides the justification for that process.