raghu: "Second and completely unrelated to Obama's sincerity or lack thereof is the appropriateness of economic arguments on a subject that is really about basic human rights and decency."
Millions, probably billions, of people oppose torture and imprisonment without trial. Those can be among the principles of unity for a huge global movement. Why all this redundant babble about "basic" human rights? It makes no sense. Where do those (or any) rights come from? How do you defend the abstract proposition, "Rights exist." Where do they exist ? What legitimizes them? I agree we (radicals, leftists, whatever) should demand and fight for certain rights, but those rights have no existence in abstraction from our struggle for them. It adds nothing but merely confuses the matter to babble about "basic rights." Now if you say they are endowed by The Creator, and that The Creator must be obeyed by mortals, I have no argument with you. But do you believe in a Creator? I don't. Carrol _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
