The abuses of the term “human rights” are well known among academics. But every now and then it breaks into the public eye when the arbiters of our “rights” stretch the concept beyond all recognition. FULL ARTICLE by Ben O’Neill
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/11238/inflating-away-our-human-rights/
Inflating Away Our Human Rights
Previous post: The Greatest Economic Charity
Next post: A Case for the Inflation Camp
{ 14 comments }
I wonder if any of the State’s cheerleaders have come out in defense of this nonsense?
Do any of our statists here want to take a crack at it? I always enjoy a good joke on a Monday morning.
in western australia, one fitness chain has done good business flouting the equal opportunity charter: women-only gyms, less pressure to look good in front of the opposite sex.
it’s been left in peace. not so lucky the weld club, a gentlemen-only social club, often the target of the previous government’s attorney general. much threatening, but no actual closure.
most recognize the legislation for the crock that it is.
“In each case, the defendants and exemption applicants were forced to go to the expense and stress of court proceedings merely to defend their property rights — often unsuccessfully.”
That is the point of the whole government monopoly. Not caring to earn a living in the real world of concrete property rights, the owners of the coercive monopoly invent “fake property” rights. They pull out of their collective intellectual hindquarters a bunch of absurd, airy-fairy ideas of rights which never before existed in the real world.
They do not invent fake property and fake rights by accident, because they are lacking information or because due to an intellectual mistake they are working from false intellectual premises. They deal in the world of fake property rights because it is a convenient tool with which to separate the real property from its owners.
That is to say, once a person has decided not to trade fairly for other people’s property – either by working for it or by trading real property of their own – they require a lever with which to separate the others from their property. They invent a completely new and unheard of class of property or right, declare themselves to be its owner, protector or manager, declare that the owners of real property are infringing upon this new class of property, and then demand the other persons’ real property in compensation.
Down through history you will see these fake property rights being invented over and over again – the divine right of kings, religious tithes, feudal rights of labor and military service, copyright, patents, diversity rights, lebensraum, the promised land, and so on.
It isn’t a substitute for bashing people on the head and stealing their property, but it’s a kind of psychological softening up.
>the niche market of women looking for a “girls-only” holiday involving activities such as cooking, shopping, personal care, and crafts.
Advertising such activities would attract mostly women, ending the destructiveness of the regulation.
>Advertising such activities would attract mostly women, ending the destructiveness of the regulation.
And men trying to get laid. Of course, this is all beside the point.
This seems so rare here in the US — not the part about enforcing equality,but the part that Men are not being treated equal.Here in America “Women studies”,Woman only clubs/Gyms,custody battles,alimony,child support,abuse groups etc etc which are all in women’s favor are the norm,which is OK if it did not come at the expense of men.Have a gentlemen’s only club and you are crucified by the state,have a womans only club and you are empowering yourself.
I just got through reading the source article, entitled “Plan to Ban Bedhopping Blokes Backfired.” I think the author may have been going for alliteration but it is absurdly wrong. It is the state that is trying to ban activities.
In anycase, it reminds me of the cuban lady that finished out an article about power strains in Cuba when she said “if all the money went to the government like it should, maybe there wouldn’t be all this corruption.”
How many people would support a tour company that only allowed people of a certain race? How about a tour company or airline that banned disabled or overweight people?
The problem is that the general intelligence of the lay person finds racial and disabled discrimination so bad, that they demand laws against it. And now that the laws are in, people are beginning to see what a big mistake it has all been.
When they brought out laws against being racist, we didn’t care because we weren’t racist. When they ruled against being sexist, we don’t care, because we aren’t sexist. When they rule against our businesses choice of customers… well it will be to late.
There are ‘loop-holes’ around this type of law anyway. Insurance companies for example descriminate against the sexes all the time.
Oh Australia, you too are bringing in the human rights tribunals. Be careful what you wish for.
Anyone in Canada can file a complaint even if it is just for being offended or feeling hurt from an opinion. It is not just complaints that may incite hatred or violence against an individual or group which the judicial system is supposed to arbitrate.
Tribunals accept a complaint even if written on a napkin in pencil. The Tribunal then takes up the cause at no cost to the complaintant and the accused must hire lawyers and shoulder any costs whether proven guilty or innocent. No exaggeration but truth is not a requirement or a consideration!! Almost every Section 13 (speech) complaints in Canada has been filed by one former Tribunal employee and he has made a nice living off of it. He’s now been exposed for his manipulations and whoring the system.
It is really quite a story. The Human Rights Tribunals and Commissions are ridiculously out of control and they seem to find ways of expanding all the time by stealth.
A world of information awaits you at http://steynian.wordpress.com/
or directly from a prairie lawyer who has been a victim and activist, documenting it very well: http://www.ezralevant.com
Have to laugh – at least its a consistent application of the absurd anti-discrim laws.
Here in South Africa, theres all th eusual constitutional stuff in the books around non-discrimination, but yet Wiphold Investments ( a company for female investors) women-only gyms, women-only insurance policies, and of course such illustrious institutions as the Black Management Forum, Black Journalists Association, and other such, all find a place in the sun. But for any of those entities, if you leave their founding documents as they stand, cross out ”women’ and ‘black’ and replace them with ‘men’ and ‘white’, and its a fair bet you’ll hear the howls of outrage as far away as Australia. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
>Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Orwell noted that some sauce is more equal than others. ;<)
I love the term “conceptual inflation”. It is very insightful. Here in America it is the sexual harassment laws that have been so misused. A man (and even occasionally a woman) can be accused and convicted of committing a sexual harassment crime if the victim FEELS that she (or occasionally he) felt harassed. The law assumes that the victim has no alternatives than being harassed sexually; therefore, the state must protect the worker, who has no other choice but to “fill in the blank”. Nonsense. As a result, the workplace has become a minefield, where the slightest casual comment can and does open one up to being convicted of committing a sexual harassment crime.
Playing devil’s advocate, what is the difference between a travel agency which serves only women and a restaurant which serves only whites?
Is customer targeting based on gender acceptable but based on race is not?
Thanks for your comments everyone.
Enjoy Every Sandwich: While I haven’t seen any defence of the ruling, the Feminazis at the ABC were outraged that anti-discrimination laws are not extended even further, lamenting the fact that certain men’s clubs are allowed a “licence to discriminate†(what you and I would call freedom of association): http://abc.gov.au/unleashed/stories/s2761609.htm
Flip: Just as in the US, discrimination in Australia is allowed for affirmative action programs for “minoritiesâ€. In fact, some commentators argued that Ms Maitland may have had better success with her application had she couched it in “human rights” terms instead of relying on practical considerations.
The one-sided enforcement of the rules is every bit as blatant here in Australia as in other countries, and the hypocrisy of the commissions is palpable. However, in my view, the appropriate response is to argue against anti-discrimination laws per se, not to focus on their unequal enforcement —it is a very dangerous approach to argue for equal tyranny for men and women!
The case mentioned in the article is quite interesting in that it was ostensibly taken on to protect men. In fact, the members of the VEOHR Commission were quite shrewd in choosing this as a test case for their powers, since it allowed them to try to appease critics who focus on whose ox is gored.
Janni: Unfortunately, the “human rights†tribunals have been in Australia for quite some time. The ones here are made up of the same power-lusting statist despots as elsewhere.
AntiNeoFascist: Thanks for the question. There may well be a logical and moral difference between the two discrimination examples you mention, though both forms of discrimination should be within the legal rights of the relevant property owner, regardless of their moral status (since neither involves aggression).
In the case of the sex discrimination in the travel agency that was the subject of the article there was a plausible reason for the discrimination against men. If the merits of the policy were to be tested on the market then it would succeed or fail according to the evaluations of customers. In the case of race discrimination in restaurant service, the discrimination is unlikely to have any rational basis. Without any rational basis for the discrimination, the policy would be immoral and would be widely perceived as such. As a result, it would be highly unlikely to survive the free choices of market participants.
If you are interested, I have written a more detailed article on the inferential and moral aspects of discrimination here: http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_13_04_4_oneill.pdf
Thanks for your comments everyone.
Comments on this entry are closed.