Opinion of the statement "human rights are not political"

[RI]

An asinine, illiterate, ahistorical, utterly infuriating quote which has been parroted like mad across the internet over the last few month, but especially lately.

[dead0man]

I've never seen it and can't even figure out which side's dummies would use it.  Are they trying to say "human rights are so important that they shouldn't be political"?  It would still be stupid, 'cause who decides which set of human rights, but at least there'd be something there.

It's an HQ statement.

[gerritcole]

there's no such thing as human rights; there are cultural rights that every nation/culutre/civilziation grants its citizens. Who knows when the galactic empire rises in the future its human rights will be?

[Ferguson97]

Dumb statement because it's wrong.

Human rights shouldn't be political, but they are because the world is filled with awful people who don't believe in human rights.

[tmthforu94]

I lean towards HQ, as what is considered a "human right" can be very subjective. I suppose the closest thing we have would be the UN's declaration of human rights, but even then, there isn't universal agreement of everything on the list, as well as some additional items that are excluded.

[John Dule]

I've never seen it and can't even figure out which side's dummies would use it.  Are they trying to say "human rights are so important that they shouldn't be political"?  It would still be stupid, 'cause who decides which set of human rights, but at least there'd be something there.

It's an HQ statement.

Um, excuse me? My rights to a flat in central San Francisco and a free four-year degree at an elite university are non-negotiable, bigot.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Whenever someone says that [given controversial issue] shouldn't be politicized because [innocuous sounding platitude with bevy of moral assumptions], that person is suspect.

[It’s so Joever]

What are these human rights you speak of?

[Damocles]

I think the main problem surrounding the discussion of human rights and the discussion of righteousness is that we in the West often perceive it in solely possessive terms. That is, rights are ought to be something that should be transferable, or grantable, or revocable, and that certain people ought to have or not to have them.

This obscures the true discussion as to whether pledges of no interference in personal affairs and active guarantee of adequate conditions ought to be considered right. Furthermore, these rights are often nebulous, often connected with some far-off aspirations for some divinely ordained set of entitlements, rather than attending to the basic needs of the country’s population.

Framed in those terms, attending to the basic needs of the population - that is, promoting the general welfare - must always take the prime position. After this, then you worry about defending the country from foreign enemies and domestic insurrections, as well as arrest and try run-of-the-mill ne’er-do-wells. After this, then you worry about promoting a good economy that provides opportunities for advancement and personal actualization.

When you look at it, we’ve really got it backwards. Instead of this Maslow-like preconception of society’s needs as analogous to that of a person, we are instead fixated on ludicrous and esoteric notions of possessives, always bickering about who is entitled to what. We get lost in the big picture, and this shortsightedness will only come back to hurt us in the long run.

[MarkD]

The process of defining any rights is inherently political.

This is why the branch of government that is supposed to be apolitical is not supposed to be in the business of defining rights without guidance from the text and the historical intentions behind the text of the Constitution, claiming that they are enforcing constitutional rights.

[Kingpoleon]

Whenever someone says that [given controversial issue] shouldn't be politicized because [innocuous sounding platitude with bevy of moral assumptions], that person is suspect.

It typically is nothing more than an attempt to sidestep arguments against your position. Kind of like, “How dare you have the government enforce morality?” or “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.”

It’s stupendously reductionist in outright opposition to even a hint of critical thinking.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Human rights are the very definition of a political issue, viz., an issue of concern to the political community that can be assessed and dealt with only through political means. Ridiculous, bleating, nonsensical, post-pious HQ.

[Santander]

It's the current year.