Tuesday, November 17, 2009

In a post-Bush world

Anyone else cringe when they read, or hear, stories like this?
Obama stresses human rights in meeting with China's Hu Jintao

...

Obama, who appeared tired, said that he had reiterated to Hu in their private meetings "America's bedrock beliefs that all men and women possess certain fundamental human rights . . . they are universal rights and that they should be available to all peoples, to all ethnic and religious minorities." He said the U.S. and China would hold additional discussions on human rights next year.
"Fundamental human rights"? You mean like the right to not be tortured or imprisoned indefinitely without trial? Those "fundamental human rights"?

Until we are willing to respect our own rule of law and to hold our own leaders legally accountable for violations of those laws with regard to "fundamental human rights", we simply have no moral authority to sanctimoniously spout off to leaders of other countries. Period.

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