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Original URL: World leaders abandoning human rights: Amnesty
World leaders are undermining human rights for millions of people with regressive policies and hate-filled rhetoric, but their actions have ignited global protest movements in response, a rights group said.
US President Donald Trump, Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and China's President Xi Jinping were among a number of politicians who rolled out regressive policies in 2017, according to Amnesty International's annual human rights report published on Thursday.
The human rights body also mentioned the leaders of Egypt, the Philippines and Venezuela.
"The spectres of hatred and fear now loom large in world affairs, and we have few governments standing up for human rights in these disturbing times," Salil Shetty, Amnesty's secretary-general, said.
"Instead, leaders such as el-Sisi, Duterte, Maduro, Putin, Trump and Xi are callously undermining the rights of millions."
[...] The regressive approach to human rights adopted by a number of world leaders has, however, inspired new waves of social activism and protest, Amnesty said, highlighting the example of the Women's March in January last year, which began in the US before becoming a global protest.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 24 2018, @03:24PM (32 children)
I'm not going to waste time badmouthing AI - they're a pretty decent bunch, as progressives go. But, the whole progressive thing?
Mankind isn't "evolving", and there is no clearly delineated path "forward". History tends to be more cyclic, than linear. The world has come a long way "forward" in the past ~70 years. But, the progressives have no reason to believe that things will continue in the direction they favor.
The so-called "alt-right" and the so-called "hate speech" in Europe and the US? Reaction to the invasions of short brown people from down south. Let us NOT call them "migrations" - they are INVASIONS.
When a people - any people - are being invaded foreigners, they tend to resist that invasion. WTF do I have to share what I have with some guy, just because he walked (or rode a camel, or a burro) a thousand miles to take it? Fek him - he can ride that camel back to where he came from.
The West, and the rest of the world, have been more than generous to those people in the southern lands. We've shared our medical discoveries, we've shared out agricultural discoveries, we've shared access to information like the need for clean water, and how to build dams. Do those southerners use it? Well, some of it, yeah. Do they reproduced responsibly? Well, hell no! Eastern or western hemisphere, those southern people believe it is their right and responsibility to produce 20 or more offspring. The more, the better for future invasions!!
Abandon human rights? Maybe some humans need to stop being so damned pushy.
Hatred and fear . . . . stay home where people who are like you will be more likely to like you!! There's no need to come here to be hated.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aiwarrior on Saturday February 24 2018, @04:46PM (13 children)
While some of your rhetoric may make sense, like the fact that mass migrations will always trigger frictions and a huge social upheaval, other parts sound like you are trying to drum up excuses for things to regress. Progressist/Regressivist does not need to be a dichotomy. Why not keep with what has worked so well so far. This argument breaks the dichotomy: No need to push for 8 nor 80.
Point one, history is cyclical indeed but last I checked we are not living like the Romans just with better tech. Things effectively changed, it's not a 0 sum game. I would say that history follows more of a spiral with certain adjustments. Technology itself allows for much less strife even on relatively poor parts of society and this creates certain baselines that by game theory would benefit not one going below.
Point 2, Why not make it a matter of national security that the correct orderly leaders "down south" behave. Damn it, so much is done to give weapons or bribes for economic favor or dick swinging. Why not make it a policy to "persuade" others leaders that they need to get their civilization level up. It may sound contradictory, but the good guys also need to go through power struggles. Support them, take nation building with brighter goals.
Point 3, North/South, brown/white reeks of covered racist shit. On the other hand I also find the current American forced equality bullshit (quotas for blacks or whatever?), an admission that America gave up on meritocracy of some kind. My idea is ironically more along the lines of what Martin Luther King said: "Do not judge by the color of skin but by the content of their character". With the current American equality movements, I cannot but be baffled at how contrary and self undermining current movements are to the actual leveling of mankind as one. It actually is so dumb that maybe there is an ultra plot-within-a-plot of haters (attempt at joke just to relax the tone)
Point 4. People do have the right to not like one another, but prejudices and hate should not be fostered nor nourished by any civilized society and again, by pure logic, any group is weaker divided. Of course through the glass of humanism and enlightenment (the founding principles of western thought) any individual or collective person stands for it's self determination, but the tide should be towards the healthy union or variety (see how union and variety can not be antipodes?)
Oh Runaway, if you were not so unbecoming about brown people, a description I am sure my appearance would fit into, I would buy you a beer just for the kicks of the arguments. I think you are just a tiny bit racist but not an idiot (again not always a dichotomy ;)
Cheers
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday February 24 2018, @04:57PM (1 child)
Rome kept its populace happy by giving them "bread and circuses".
One such circus was the Coliseum. At first it could be flooded so as to facilitate mock naval battles, then later without water where highly-trained gladiators duked it out with swords.
The losers of the naval battles as well as the gladiators were killed. That's what kept the people entertained.
I was completely unaware that crucifixion was painful until I was fifteen and played a roman soldier in my high school's production of Jesus Christ Superstar. While I always found it odd that they would drive nails through one's hands and feet, I never really thought much beyond that.
It turns out that the crucified die of asphyxiation, because they are too exhausted - or in too much pain - to hold themselves up by their nail-pierced hands.
That exhaustion takes a long time. The gospels speak of the onlookers great surprise that Jesus died so quickly.
Why did the Romans choose crosses over other implements of torture?
They were cheap and easy to build. That was helpful because at the farthest frontiers of the empire there wasn't a whole lot of technology, but wood from trees was always readily avialable.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday February 24 2018, @10:44PM
True Story:
A very religious Christian I knew from a former job attended one of those radical churches. Every Halloween they would have one of those "fright night" or whatever they are called plays which show graphically that sinners (in their case explicitly depicting homosexuals as hellbound among drug users and other sinners) face the wrath of God.
My coworker's character in the play was one of those sinners. As his "punishment" he was forced to be hanged using one of those harness-thingies for realism yet safety. Well, when he was lifted up, his harness snapped (he was very portly) so for a few seconds before everybody caught on he was actually being hanged.
When he showed up to work the next Monday every one of his spoken words was a raspy whisper and he wore a tall collar to hide his neck.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday February 24 2018, @05:01PM
The era known as The Enlightenmint was hundreds of years ago. You'd think that three or four hundred years of enlightenment would lead to web analytics being illegal.
Consider the challenges faced by closeted gay Republican politicians.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @06:13PM (8 children)
I was content to treat people fairly. Now? Fuck it.
If your idea of "progress" hurts me and my kind, I'm going to fight it. I do this everywhere I can.
For example, my workplace shows a preference for hiring women and minorities. As soon as this became clear, I stopped referring them for employment.
I used to not think very much about race. Progressives changed that. I get dragged into bullshit "diversity" sessions (hate sessions against me) and my kids get it too. I'm still sore over scholarships and a science camp that were denied to me, and now I see my kids about to suffer in a similar way. Now, I'm real happy to screw over other races. I do it on purpose.
I'm not even that severe... my brother would be KKK and neo-nazi if only he weren't atheist and capitalist.
So... is that the outcome you wanted? You started this shit. Want more and worse? Keep it up.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by arcz on Saturday February 24 2018, @06:37PM (6 children)
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:08PM (5 children)
Double standard. You want to let people discriminate based on their own opinions, but trying to balance that by using legal discrimination is bad? I'm not sure how what would be a better method to fix the problem, and I can only hope that soon enough we can remove affirmative action as it is no longer needed.
Maybe if the systemic racism in the US wasn't supported by people like you who vote in shitheads then we wouldn't be having this discussion. Nixon literally created the drug war as a covert culture war against blacks, mexicans, and liberals. Tons of cities have very racist policies, with such simple things as freeway offramps not being built for certain communities.
The reason liberals mock conservatives and treat call out racism is because it is a massive problem. It seems to be getting a little better with the new generations not buying into the hate of their parents, but we still get knee-jerk reactionaries like yourself who refuse to see the bigger picture. Come up with some alternatives to fix the problem of black kids not getting decent jobs due to the color of their skin and then you'll get respect and cooperation. Drone on about bootstraps and personal responsibility and get ignored.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Saturday February 24 2018, @09:36PM (1 child)
Liberals are not less racist than conservatives, judging by their actions. The real difference is that conservatives are a lot more honest about their prejudice. Non-whites are also not less racist than whites; the notion that only whites are racist is a great conceit that is misused for political purposes.
This is a great gift that Donald Trump has given the world: the shattering of a great many harmful illusions.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @08:26AM
I wonder what "actions" you're talking about, sounds like bullshit to me. Even if that was true then you could say that at least they're trying to do the right thing instead of celebrating their failure... Whether "non-whites" are racist or not is largely meaningless, they're not generally in a position to make decisions for others.
I'm sure you're just about as non-racist as your champion.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday February 25 2018, @12:19AM
It should be obvious that yes, that is worse because the second situation uses the instruments of the state to enforce your racism. It's Jim Crow law, not just a bunch of petty people with petty biases.
Which is a shame because that's a big part of what a healthy society needs. It is your and the grandparent's responsibility to stop screwing over your fellow people just because they happen to be the wrong race.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 25 2018, @02:01AM
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/flashback-morgan-freeman-ending-racism-stop-talking-about-it [cnsnews.com]
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Troll) by arcz on Thursday March 01 2018, @10:25PM
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:02PM
You're full of shit, just another bigot who never thought of themselves as such. Just because you don't go to klan rallies doesn't mean you don't have racist aspects. Viewing sensitivity training as hate against you really shows where your mind is at.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Saturday February 24 2018, @06:20PM
>an admission that America gave up on meritocracy of some kind
It never has been. Capitalism and meritocracy are very nearly diametrically opposed - in capitalism, possession of substantial capital is the overpowering "merit", and capital passes almost exclusively down the lines of family dynasties. There is the occasional "rags to riches" story, but they are, by the necessity of limited resources, extremely rare. And very often littered with deeply unethical behavior if you read between the lines.
>any group is weaker divided
Of course. Why do you suppose division is fostered? Keep the white, brown, and black working men at each other's throats, and they don't have the strength or energy to unify against the executive class that's screwing them all over. Hell, the entire concept of "white" was manufactured to unify opposition to the other skin colors - prior to that in the U.S. you were Polish, French, German, etc., but as cultures blended together over time a new, more obvious cause for division was needed.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday February 24 2018, @04:50PM
Enough said.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:12PM (3 children)
I mean really now, after Europeans invaded North America and genocided the fuck outta the natives you want to play that card? We even took Texas away from the Mexicans and now cry like babies when some of them sneak back to try and make a living for their families.
Speaking of hate and fear.... jesus clue grabbing christ.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Saturday February 24 2018, @10:08PM (2 children)
The massive declines were not due so much to direct action by the Europeans. The best candidate for the steep drop in population is disease, because thanks to lidar and other new techniques we know for certain that native civilizations in the Americas were far more populous and advanced than what the Europeans encountered. The Europeans themselves didn't know much about disease so they can hardly be charged with genocide because Indians died of mumps or the like after they traded.
Another candidate for the collapse of those civilizations is ecological catastrophe like drought or exhausting the carrying capacity of an area. But we don't yet know for sure.
It's popular to cast the Europeans as all-powerful, technologically advanced purveyors of evil who slaughtered the peaceful, hapless Indians, but in reality it was more like showing up in Europe just after the Black Plague had swept through, and finding the survivors pushovers.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @02:57AM
The massive declines [in indigenous peoples] were not due so much to direct action by the Europeans
Yeah. Right.
Calling them savages, heathens, pagans, and saracens because they weren't Christian, thereby giving them subhuman status making them subject to whatever, [google.com] had nothing to do with it.
Driving them like cattle from the eastern woodlands to a place with a completely unfamiliar plains ecosystem had nothing to do with it.
Buffalo Bill and his ilk shooting bison by the thousands from trains in order to deplete the main source of food for the plains Indians and starve them out had nothing to do with it.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @08:53AM
They did try their best
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_biological_warfare#North_America [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Saturday February 24 2018, @08:05PM (6 children)
They are not talking about you in particular, Runaway! You only speak for yourself. And you are correct, you do not seem to be progressing, at all.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 25 2018, @02:06AM (5 children)
Well, you haven't evolved much in 2000 years . . .
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday February 25 2018, @08:41AM (4 children)
They are not talking about me, either, Runaway! Progressivism is asserting something about the entire species! Of course there will be some throwbacks, like yourself, but it is all within the margins of error to the great statistical progress to less violence, greater reason, more technology, and fewer Republicans. And, as a personal aside, you have no idea how my ideas have progressed. Having the Heliocentric model verified? Well, OK, I already knew that would happen. But Chemistry? Microbiology? Electricity? Nuclear weapons: my ideas have progressed well beyond what I thought I knew, and now I recommend the same path to you, oh curmudgeonly Runaway. Open your mind. Not too late to get an education. Community College is particularly recommended, in spite of how much old fart students like you disrupt classes. At least you could serve as a negative example to younger students.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 25 2018, @08:51AM (3 children)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVs9psi_G5k [youtube.com]
There is some evolution for you.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday February 25 2018, @09:12AM (2 children)
I have told you many times, Runaway, that I never click on youtube links. Especially without description and explanation of how it is relevant. I expect that you, as many students these days, are only capable of taking in information if it is presented visually, what some educators call "The Fox Effect". This leaves you, and them, severely vulnerable to psychological manipulation, by corporations and especially by the Russians, who are past masters of this, even before the Internets.
So, my dear unreconstructed troglydite, you can keep your youtube link, and whatever you hoped to prove thereby remains unseen, and most likely, obscene. And once again, you are wrong.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 25 2018, @04:07PM (1 child)
Yeah, those Yoogoober links are death for a computer, you goober. I expect that in your dotage, you can't see or hear the youtube links. I'll try not to remember that you need text sites, so that your braille keyboard can read them to you.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday February 26 2018, @03:56AM
Jesus, who pissed in *your* whole-grain Oaty-Os this morning?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday February 24 2018, @09:02PM (4 children)
Of course it is: What, you thought genetic evolution stopped?
OK, please answer me honestly: Have any of the short brown people in question actually taken anything of yours? Has their so-called "invasion" robbed you of land, stuff, or money? And assuming we're talking mostly about illegal immigrants, you can't claim it's via your taxes, because the only government support these folks get is meals and a cot while they're locked up in ICE detention facilities.
So, if the answer to that question is "no", and I strongly suspect it is, then what's the problem?
Again, do you actually have to share something you own? Did some people barge into your apartment or something? Or are you instead complaining about having to share something that doesn't actually belong to you, but you've decided is "yours", like the sidewalk?
So did they, unless you've somehow never eaten corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, curry, chick peas, falafel, or lots of other agricultural or culinary discoveries that originate south of the equator.
More to the point, isn't sharing knowledge between humans good for humans as a whole? How do Europeans or USAians benefit from having millions of people dying of cholera or Ebola in Africa? The people in these areas are also often doing the actual work of making the pills, building and installing the water purification equipment, etc. So again, no skin off your back, what's the problem?
I'm guessing you're making the mistake of thinking of everything that European/American civilization has come up with as belonging to you. Well, it's not. If you didn't create it, inherit it, buy it from somebody, or didn't even go to the effort of stealing it, it's not yours.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @09:28PM
Geography isn't your strong suit, is it?
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 25 2018, @02:41AM (2 children)
You're kinda rambling there.
What have the Mexicans taken from me, and my family? Job opportunities, primarily. Tax money and medical expenses, secondarily. And, we haven't even mentioned the violent crimes committed by illegals. Funny thing about those illegals - they don't respect the law very much. They'll become gang members, if they aren't already members when they came here. They deal in drugs, and prostitution. They commit tax fraud - what, you thought that all those illegals had their own social security numbers? Tax fraud, identity theft, and related crimes are committed by the best of the illegals. Our already broken medicaid/medicare and other medical programs are strained even further, thanks to illegals who don't pay their way.
https://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11187.pdf [gao.gov]
https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/07/nearly-2-billion-spent-jailing-illegal-immigrant-criminals-america-2014/ [nationalreview.com]
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/illegal-immigrants-account-107-billion-nation-s-health-care-costs-data-show [cnsnews.com]
https://www.newsmax.com/Finance/NealAsbury/Immigration-healthcare-illegal-emergency/2013/05/09/id/503579/ [newsmax.com]
For a moment, let's forget about what illegals cost us here, in the US. Do you have any idea what happens to an illegal alien in Mexico?
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/04/28/police-state-how-mexico-treats-illegal-aliens/ [michellemalkin.com]
https://www.nationalreview.com/2010/04/how-mexico-treats-illegal-aliens-michelle-malkin/ [nationalreview.com]
How does Mexico treat it's own minorities? Mosty by genocide, of course.
http://genocidewatch.net/2013/03/21/country-profile-mexico/ [genocidewatch.net] Unfortunately, that article doesn't give more than passing mention of non-Mayan and non-Aztec indigenous people in Mexico - let me try to find something better.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_Mexico [wikipedia.org] Some interesting maps of indigenous populations, but again, little mention of genocidal practices against those indigenous peoples.
Ahhhh, here we go - http://minorityrights.org/minorities/indigenous-peoples-4/ [minorityrights.org]
When you have digested that, get back to me. What? You thought that Mexicans were just good, loving, progressive people, who would share their own food, and the shirts off of their backs with an oppressed people? Absorb their treatment of minorities in their own home, then consider again their motivation for coming here.
La Raza isn't the Boy Scouts.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday February 25 2018, @03:22AM (1 child)
Has it occurred to you that the illegals wouldn't be "stealing jobs" if it weren't for all those big companies, Smithfield for example, "hiring" them?
Let's not be stupid here: NEITHER party TRULY wants to stop illegal immigration, because it's a source of near-slave labor and drives prices and overheads way the hell down. If you want to bitch about job-stealing illegals, bitch about the corrupt, greedy, borderline-treasonous sonsabicthes who keep fucking HIRING THEM.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 25 2018, @04:02AM
Exactly - and we're back to a statement that I've made before:
The purpose of NAFTA was to destroy Mexico's economy, freeing up all of that unskilled labor to move north. Before NAFTA, that unskilled labor was more or less tied to the land. Being freed, where were they to go? Yes, of course, as you point out, the global economy expected them to move north.
Which only points out that we are all tools of the globalists. The progressives, the capitalists, the Mexicans - all of us.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by shortscreen on Saturday February 24 2018, @09:41PM
Let's say that uncontrolled population growth and migration are at odds with sustainable and harmonius coexistance. I think this should be obvious but there is unfortunately a shortage of people from the progressive camp willing to acknowledge the issue. I guess they are assuming that any objection to immigration is based on prejudice against some group. But this is not necessarily true, and as proof I would refer them to the situation in Silicon Valley. There is plenty of bitching and moaning going on about people flocking to the area for tech jobs, but it's not about who those people are or where they came from, it's about the simple economic consequences and longtime residents being forced out by rising rents.
I don't agree that the west has been particularly "generous" to developing nations. In the old days we had colonialism. Now, we don't call it colonialism anymore, but we have multinational corporations hashing out one-sided deals with the corrupt local government to exploit the people's labor and natural resources. And then we have the spooks intervening in their politics to ensure those deals stay in place. And then we have the occasional bombing campaigns, drone strikes, and death squads.
IMO, a more constructive foreign policy would be a better way to help everyone than open borders would be. But I'm afraid it just wouldn't be as good for corporate profits.