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Defend Human Rights

There are four basic human rights:  Food, Clothing, Shelter, and Health Care.  As harsh as it may sound, anything beyond these needs is a luxury, defined as a want.

There are many freedoms, speech, worship, etc., but it all comes down to freedom of choice.  While freedom is a noble goal, it cannot be obtained without first meeting these four basic human rights.

As a prosperous country which has the ability to meet all of it's citizen's needs and more, we have a moral responsibility to assist as many people in the world as we can to obtain these four basic human rights. 

First we must meet tyranny which denies any of these basic human rights head on, with military force if necessary.  Dictators murdering the people of their country or others must be stopped at all costs.  Likewise, if they are causing the death of their people due to denying any of these rights, we must do whatever is within our power to rectify the use of power over the weak.

It is not up to us to determine the type of government a nation has, and that includes forcing democracy on a people.  However, the people must have the ability to change their form of government if they so choose.  If people are happy living under a dictator or in a theocracy, they should be allowed to do so as long as the ability to change the situation is allowed.  When power is used to suppress the will of the people though, intervention may be required.

Yes, there will be casualties.  Ending reigns of power and suppression has a price.  But the price now will always be less than the price later when the tyranny grows to encompass our own world.

We must remember we are not attempting to spread Democracy or Prosperity through the world.  We are only trying to protect basic human rights.

(update 1/2/08)  With the way the Iraq war is going, I believe this statement needs some clarification.  We can do everything we can to help people, but there comes a point when people just don't want to be helped.  Iraq has degenerated into a religious civil war with us there trying to keep the peace.  The dictator has been removed and the people can make their own choices.  At this point it appears their choice is civil war.  Perhaps it is time we stepped out of the way and let them decide it in their own way -- war.  Not a good solution, but we've reached the end of our ability to help.  Note that above I said "...we must do whatever is within our power..." which we have done.  We can't save the world no matter how much we want to.

  Copyright © 2005 Milo Burns Last modified: 02/11/08