By law, men, women and children, everybody, are equal. We obviously need laws that afford women and minorities extra protection, that is for each country to resolve according to need, but we must not accept laws that serve to keep women and minors "in their place" meaning subdued. Such laws provide the exact opposite of protection since it delivers them into the hands of others — meaning men. Such discriminatory laws very often have a religious implications. We should neither accept such laws nor accept the advice of people who ask us to accept such laws. Because religion claims the moral high-ground, it means that allowing abuse and discrimination to take place in a religious setting gives such infringements the appearance of moral righteousness. By tolerating it, we are accepting it and thus making it appear in some way justifiable, inevitable and fair. Religion does not have "carte blanche" to set aside human rights despite the fact that freedom of worship is in itself a human right. The conflict occurs when religion goes from being a matter of private convictions of faith to being an instrument for shaping society. Note that we often have laws forbidding certain practices, they are simply not being applied, which means they serve only as face savers.
Similarly, when people ask me to accept politically motivated abuse in other countries, I start to wonder who will ever do anything about it, if we are so busy being tolerant? We are letting commercial interests at home and abroad decide who gets to enjoy basic human rights. While the WTO is looking for hidden subsidies and breaches of copyright laws, we permit business people to stomp on the human rights of factory workers and farmers in other countries, something that incidentally gives their businesses a competitive edge. Typically, business enterprises love places where labour unions are forbidden or totally corrupt. Once these bilateral business connections have been established, voices are heard that promote lenience toward breaches of human rights, at home as well as abroad, by preaching the gospel of competitiveness — claiming that human rights are too costly for good business. Commercial interests all through the established democracies will start working to reduce social benefits and human rights at home, so as to create conditions similar to the ones they enjoy abroad. Firstly, producers profit by exploiting the cost differences based on breaches of human rights in one locale then selling in another where wealth is created within a democratic framework. No reason to think business people will strive to undermine this sweet deal, its a win-win situation for business. Secondly, the threat of taking their profits elsewhere is used as leverage at home. The destruction of a century's worth of social reforms is the price to be paid. The myth being promoted is that human rights and welfare will eventually reach the developing nations as soon as their standard of living rises, but without the underlying democratic structure in place, how can they? Instead we are destroying what we have built at home and are supplying the abusing governments abroad with the arguments they need: "Why change things when everything is going so well" and "Our abuses have now been accepted".
In principle nothing should be secret in a democracy, since "the people" is boss. But we have told to accept that "national security" comes before all else. This has grown to include a wide range of information, and being secret we can't verify the legitimacy of the need for secrecy. We are statistically safe in assuming that documents outside the realm of national defense should not be secret and that secrecy is not truly required. By this reasoning it should be perfectly legitimate for citizens to seek out and read so called secret documents because there is no other way of telling whether they actually have anything to do with national security or that they have not already been divulged. On the other hand it is the duty of governments to keep all strategic information safe. By this line of argument, it is the people who fail in keeping the secret who is committing a crime, that of negligence, not the person seeking the information. Bad losers generally see this differently. Transparency may be painful for some, but generally a society profits by he free flow of information.
At present, religions are coming to the fore. It should be noted that none of the world's religions make democracy an article of faith — that is to say, democracy is only promoted by clergy when this in turn is conducive to the spread of their own message. As to power: No state is more utterly unreal in it's composition than the Vatican, a country with no children, totally dependent on other countries supplying it with citizens. How many human rights are denied? All of them, I think. Some religions are being used as instruments of social repression and for lending government policies a mantle of righteousness. Democracy spread victoriously through Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, borne by the spirit of humanitarianism, not on the wings of cherubs.
Criminal gangs are permitted to exist even though their habitats are known to the police, to governments, to aid organisations and the media. Thousands upon thousands are made to suffer needlessly through trafficking, slavery, piracy, extortion, abductions, narcotics trade, black market racketeering and arms smuggling. The rule of law and openness is being used as a weapon against society, thus you and I who live in democratic societies are also victims, because criminals subvert and overload the police and judicial systems. It is hard to fight the god fight within the confines of the law. This fact is an argument much used by those that wish to pervert democracy. Thus we cast a vote for the police state the minute we look the other way when any criminal act takes place or enjoy some portion of the fruits of criminal acts. Since the amounts being extracted from ordinary commerce are so huge, cutting off the financial paths of criminal syndicates is an interesting way to fight these leaches on society, though this may be easier said than done. Another threat to democratic rule are lawmakers making laws that are pure politics and good intentions, for instance by declaring that every person has a right to gainful employment. Laws that no democratic authority can hope to implement or enforce serve to create disrespect for laws in general and also for the people who make them.
We must not regard our human rights as something like a gift from a ruler, but learn to view them as birth rights that can't be sold, doled out, cancelled, forfeited, transferred or donated. Rights must be guaranteed by irrevocable laws. We are not served by such ambivalent words as "freedom" to cover this field, it needs to be replaced by a sturdier pillar — I think "justice" will do. A prison sentence implies confinement, nothing else. It does not include degradation, rape and torture, nor the loss of civil rights or repercussions for friends and family. We must demand that people are equal before the law , enjoy integrity of the body, that our minority rights are protected in the broadest sense, and that we have the right of access to information and freedom of expression — the list goes on. Only by protecting these rights can democracy survive in real terms. In three major powers — the US, Russia and China, important democratic controls are disabled. We observe the growth of unbridled capitalism, the spread of gangsterism, and threat of nationalism. Independent media is dying, is dead or never saw the light of day in the first place. The EU has some trouble applying democratic principles since the right of veto still applies, but we have to keep in mind that the EU isn't a nation. As an international organization the extent of co-operation and integration goes beyond anything the world has ever seen, but because of this, it does have a negative effect on democratic rule within each of the member states.
Is democracy failing? I think maybe it is — surely it is true to say that democratic rule is being undermined and distorted. One apparent cause is the trend toward unofficial but real bonding of government to private capital strategies, one becoming the instrument of the other. A disquieting similarity between American authorities and businesses appears as authorities export prisoners of war to countries where laws are lax and inspections non-existent, so as to avoid taking account of American laws, much in the manner of companies using off-shore tax havens. This coalition is making power monolithic, every measure judged by competitiveness and profitability. If a similar bonding were to take place between church and state, the disaster would be complete. Churches are often demanding exceptions from various human rights laws on religious grounds. Furthermore, religious convictions have a negative influence on educational content. This has already happened in many muslim countries and should serve as warning to others. No academic research of value emanates from these countries. Fortunately, important work goes on elsewhere.
We may pass any number of laws, still we must depend on people seeing the sense in them and hope that they will abide by them without rigorous police enforcement. Thus democratic societies require both faith and good will — the faith of the legislators and the good will of the citizens. This may be asking too much. The power by the people is fading. We witness the rituals of democracy on TV and confuse ritual for reality, but in the halls of power the democracy game is just one of many ploys at readiness for keeping us distracted — fear, insecurity, lies, collusion, manipulation, circumvention, subversion, threats and disinformation are others. The political choices we are given are not many, spanning but a few degrees on the length and width of the political spectrum. Protecting us against ourselves, I suppose. International law and human rights are spurned by nation after nation. The news is turned into entertainment, propaganda and vehicles of advertising, confusing us with manipulated images, misleading catch phrases and incomplete facts. The rights of citizens are curtailed in the name of national security. My friends distort their e-mail messages and hesitate expressing opinions of their own. Are they fearing that their lawful acts of today may be turned against them tomorrow? On the other hand, even the most ruthless of dictators understand that elections provide legitimacy. They still want to make it to look right. The flames of democracy and human rights burn slightly brighter in those nations that feel they must hide their transgressions — they at least know what is right, even though they disregard it. Places where transgressions are openly practiced and defended are worse off, their rulers have not yet read the writing on the wall. We see pressures being brought to bear on governments that won't abide by some level of human rights. This gives reason for hope, so does the number of democracies in the world. The mere size of populations, the mass of data and the speed of innovation should make rule by manipulation unsustainable. Shutting down the flow of inter-personal communications is getting increasingly hard. As of this writing [2005] a giant battle of wits is taking place between 50 000 Chinese government web censors and the hackers of the Chinese diaspora trying to penetrate the self-contained mainland web. In the long run no one can't keep people from talking to each other, comparing notes. We even have a common language now. Such things may prove a better defense of democracy and the freedom of the individual than all our laws. Maybe the reason for this is that — often as not — our laws just go to confirm already existing attitudes. Only free men and women are in a position to pass laws safeguarding liberty, equality and solidarity.
We may pass any number of laws, still we must depend on people seeing the sense in them and hope that they will abide by them without rigorous police enforcement. Thus democratic societies require both faith and good will — the faith of the legislators and the good will of the citizens. This may be asking too much. The power by the people is fading. We witness the rituals of democracy on TV and confuse ritual for reality, but in the halls of power the democracy game is just one of many ploys at readiness for keeping us distracted — fear, insecurity, lies, collusion, manipulation, circumvention, subversion, threats and disinformation are others. The political choices we are given are not many, spanning but a few degrees on the length and width of the political spectrum. Protecting us against ourselves, I suppose. International law and human rights are spurned by nation after nation. The news is turned into entertainment, propaganda and vehicles of advertising, confusing us with manipulated images, misleading catch phrases and incomplete facts. The rights of citizens are curtailed in the name of national security. My friends distort their e-mail messages and hesitate expressing opinions of their own. Are they fearing that their lawful acts of today may be turned against them tomorrow? On the other hand, even the most ruthless of dictators understand that elections provide legitimacy. They still want to make it to look right. The flames of democracy and human rights burn slightly brighter in those nations that feel they must hide their transgressions — they at least know what is right, even though they disregard it. Places where transgressions are openly practiced and defended are worse off, their rulers have not yet read the writing on the wall. We see pressures being brought to bear on governments that won't abide by some level of human rights. This gives reason for hope, so does the number of democracies in the world. The mere size of populations, the mass of data and the speed of innovation should make rule by manipulation unsustainable. Shutting down the flow of inter-personal communications is getting increasingly hard. As of this writing [2005] a giant battle of wits is taking place between 50 000 Chinese government web censors and the hackers of the Chinese diaspora trying to penetrate the self-contained mainland web. In the long run no one can't keep people from talking to each other, comparing notes. We even have a common language now. Such things may prove a better defense of democracy and the freedom of the individual than all our laws. Maybe the reason for this is that — often as not — our laws just go to confirm already existing attitudes. Only free men and women are in a position to pass laws safeguarding liberty, equality and solidarity.