There are no human rights, only obligations.
If I strip a human of his rights and abuse him, it is me that becomes inhuman and a brute, not him.
If, therefore, the removal of rights changes me and not him, then the rights are really vested in me as an obligation.
It is my obligation to act as a human, and (dare I say it) to treat others as I would be treated.
It is sad to see that close on the heels of worldwide recognition of human rights comes the terms under which humans can be denied those rights; certain classes of felony, enemy combatants, terrorist suspect, and so on.
I wonder if the talk of human rights is merely a precursor to wider defined abuses which are legally justified and now morally acceptable.
Once we see that the rights do not exist, only as an obligation, we are free to wonder how inhuman brutes obtain positions of authority in a political democracy.
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