The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights isn't usually the stuff of comedy, but Nigel Ashford got plenty of laughs Tuesday as he discussed such provisions of the 1948 U.N. document as these:
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security ...
Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. ...
Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
"Whatever they are, they're bloody well not human rights," Ashford said, speaking at a "Conservatism on Tap" event at the District Chophouse, sponsored by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
Ashford recalled his reaction on first reading, as a schoolboy in his native England, the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, with its assertion of the "self-evident" truth that "all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Ashford said he still gets "goosebumps" when he hears those words.
However, Ashford said, the concept of human rights has been "abused by the left" to advance interests that are not actually rights. Meanwhile, real human rights are sometimes ignored, especially the right to property -- "what I call the forgotten right," Ashford said.
"When was the last time you heard a human rights activist complain about the violation of property rights?" he said.
-- Robert Stacy McCain, assistant national editor, The Washington Times
Comments (1)
Double Yawners!!Quite Frankly,The UN Can't Even Decide What To Have for Lunch,Let alone Enforce Human Rights!!
Posted by King Bushwick the Toity Toid | September 2, 2007 10:43 PM