Posts Tagged ‘ Universal human rights ’

Cameron wraps his head in the flag

Jun 17th, 2014 2:43 pm | By

Oh shut up, David Cameron.

He’s talking nationalist bullshit about “British values” again, which is a really bad idea.

People in the UK should stop being “bashful” about being British, the prime minister has urged.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, David Cameron said the country should be “far more muscular” in promoting its values and institutions.

He backed the promotion of “British values” in the classroom amid claims conservative Muslim governors had tried to influence some Birmingham schools.

This should include teaching children about Magna Carta, Mr Cameron said.

Mr Cameron wrote that in recent years, the UK had sent out a “worrying” message: “That if you don’t want to believe in democracy, that’s fine; that if

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

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Always look on the bright side of FGM

Jun 5th, 2010 12:11 pm | By

Nicholas Kristof tells off Ayaan Hirsi Ali because of course he knows far more about Islam than she does.

To those of us who have lived and traveled widely in Africa and Asia, descriptions of Islam often seem true but incomplete.

Including, apparently, descriptions by people who grew up immersed in Islam, genitally mutilated under Islam, beaten up by their teachers of Islam, issued death threats from adherents of Islam. The descriptions are true – but Kristof wants more. He wants to hear about the pretty calligraphy.

The repression of women, the persecution complexes, the lack of democracy, the volatility, the anti-Semitism, the difficulties modernizing, the disproportionate role in terrorism — those are all real. But if those were the

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Many women believe they don’t have the right to have rights

May 11th, 2010 10:33 am | By

Deepa Shankaran on the politics of religious fundamentalism:

In these politics, the key platforms are grounded in “morality”, “the family” and gender roles, and fundamentalist campaigns often call for a return to “traditional” values, speaking to the fear of social upheaval brought about by women’s growing autonomy, sexual liberation and the increasing visibility of LGBTQI people. According to women’s rights activists, a major fundamentalist strategy in every region is the use of discourse that blames social problems on a “decline in morality” or the “disintegration of the family”; and that presents rigid gender roles within the family as “natural.”…As these discourses translate into fundamentalist campaigning on specific laws, policies and practices, they give rise to concrete consequences for women’s

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As though

May 9th, 2010 12:26 pm | By

A more central part of Harris’s argument:

…it also seems quite rational for us to collectively act as though all human lives were equally valuable. Hence, most of our laws and social institutions generally ignore differences between people.

Ah but they don’t. One big social institution doesn’t, at least not necessarily: the family. Some parents believe in equality, but some don’t; sometimes it’s a matter of what the male head of household believes, because that determines the rules for everyone else.

This is why the claim that maximizing well-being for all can be scientifically shown to be moral or good does not (as far as I can see) get off the ground. It’s because some people’s well-being partly depends … Read the rest

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No you may not

Apr 19th, 2010 12:29 pm | By

So here it is again – Christian groups getting up in public and demanding the right to treat certain people badly.

In a case that pits nondiscrimination policies against freedom of religion, the Supreme Court is grappling with whether universities and colleges can deny official recognition to Christian student groups that refuse to let non-Christians and gays join…The Christian group said its constitutional freedoms of speech, religion and association were violated when it was denied recognition as a student group by the San Francisco-based school.

The group has made this argument at several universities around the nation with mixed results…

Hastings said it turned the Christian Legal Society down because all recognized campus groups, which are eligible for financing and

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