> > Anyway, while the US refuses to even discuss
> abolition of
> > the death penalty,
> > she has no place on a human rights commission.
>
> I am going to try very hard not to flame you here, but
> I am positively seething at the insulting nature of
> this comment.
Flame away, please. Oh look, you are anyway.
> Your assertion that the US's record on Human Rights
> makes it unworthy of sitting on a Commission with the
> above States, is deeply insulting.
It's remarkably easy to make you feel insulted, isn't it?
> 1) Just a week or two ago, I thought we had
> established to everyone's satisfaction that while the
> UN opposes the death penalty, it does not consider the
> matter part of "human rights."
Down to America and China insisting on that stance. It's a load of manure,
and I can't believe you can even begin to defend that. The right to life is
*the* human right, and nowhere does it say that you can remove that right.
Well, nowhere that I'd consider
> Do you think that China (up for re-election in 2002)
> is more deserving of a spot on the UNHCHR than the
> USA?
Nope. But I never said that, did I?
> How about France, which will happily refrain from
> critizing your country's human rights so long as you
> give exclusive contracts to French companies?
*My* country's human rights? OK, cows and sheep don't have any rights, but
most of the people have some.
> So, exactly what standards are you using here? Or is
> it simply the standard of "Anybody But America?"
Not really. But we have to start somewhere.
> > It's not the dumping the of the treaty that pissed
> everyone
> > off. It was the
> > unilateral dumping of the treaty, without offering
> any form of other
> > suggestion, compromise, or even forewarning.
>
> No forewarning??????
>
> The US Senate voted 99-0 against the Treaty. I don't
> know how things work in Europe, but here in the United
> States, new laws must be approved by the elected
> representatives of the people. These representatives
> voted 99-0 against those laws.
So 100% of the representative voted against the treaty. Did 100% of American
oppose the treaty? The "World's Largest Democracy" isn't terribly
democratic, is it?
>
> If the Europeans did not see this as a fore-warning,
> then they are simply willfully ignoring the American
> democratic process - and I have no sympathy for
> willful ignorance. Moreover, a 99-0 landslide hardly
> suggests to any reasonable person that there is room
> for compromise, and instead suggests that a fresh
> start is needed.
And "I will not do anything to harm America's interests" is a constructive
place to start? That leaves a lot of room for manoeuvre doesn't it?
> As near as I can tell the major difference between the
> rest of the World and the United States is that we
> actually take our Treaties seriously.
Oh. Thanks for all the help in the Falklands.
> For all the resentment various Europeans on this list
> have recently heaped on American tourists for our
> inability to conform to European cultural norms,
> Europeans seem to have an equally ingrained inability
> to understand American culture, instead choosing to
> heap calumny on Americans in every instance where we
> don't act like Europeans. I'm not exactly sure who or
> what this intolerance of the differences between
> American and European culture benefits, but I do know
> that it hurts the great many people of the world that
> would stand to benefit so much from an
> American-European partnership to protect democracy,
> liberty, and human rights in the world at large.
What intolerance? I like Americans, in the main and individually.
I just think you're a complete victim of revisionist propaganda and a
peculiar blend of right-wing politics and awestruck by power. That stuff
about "The Shining City On The Hill" made me want to throw up.
Charlie
