Reporting on a voluntary palliative care group in Marlborough, the Dominion-Post quoted one member inventing yet another hitherto unknown human right, specifically,
“Everyone has the right to die comfortably…”
I’ll say it again, re this seemingly endless flow of “rights” claims; they’re aspirations, usually desirable to be sure, but rights they’re not.
There are legal rights and contractual rights but there’s no such thing as natural rights.
All of that is lost on the Human Rights Commission, flat out inventing new ones.
Their latest (I’m not making this up) is that anyone paying more than 30% of their income on housing are having their “basic human rights sacrificed”.
8 Comments
I don’t want to confuse the issue, but it would appear that the right people want to write about rights, whether or not they are right about their rights, right?
Bob, they need a right cross. Or a right uppercut.
Right.
If an event, benefit, circumstance etc is effectively present when one is adrift on a raft in the middle of the Pacific, it could be termed a “right”. Otherwise it is part of one’s wish list. I wish the Human Rights Commission would go away.
it is right that reality does not care for emotion. To claim rights is a denial of reality! Ones position in life, is a result of choices they have made!
To demand others to grant them reprieve, is delusional, and a character revelation of a most unflattering nature,
Not unlike a cow claiming, from a chicken, a ‘right’ to lay eggs!
Get real, New Zealanders. I hope the Parito principle applies, and it is only the 20% who are claimers of unearned ‘Rights’,
My long departed father had a phrase he utilised a tad.
“your right to swing your arms ends where my nose begins”.
I have lived my life following that tenent. It’s a bloody shame that most of our politicians never learned that.
Soooo what if i choose to spend more than 30% ? Who jumps in and gets me back in line?
“Back to the slum Matthews,we cant have you breaching your rights now can we”…
I must admit Sir Bob that, like you, I am often tired of hearing about all these so-called ‘Human Rights’. In my opinion it is perhaps time we heard more about human obligations, responsibilities and duties in order to be entitled to any so called ‘Rights’. After all even the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) at Article 29 states:- ‘(1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.’
Perhaps we should hear more about those duties especially as many so-called ‘Human Rights’ should perhaps best be described as ‘Aspirations that a civilised community should give all its citizens equal opportunity to pursue’ – but subject to them fulfilling their duties!!!’
And then let’s give as much emphasis to complying with community /civic duties as we give to these supposed Human Rights!!!!
And as a side point – I’ll bet 99% of people demanding Human Rights and quoting the UDHR have no clue that it even mentions duties – let alone what they might be!!!.
https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
Haven’t seen that expressed in a while. Legal and contractual. Nothing more than offers of benefits and privileges from your betters… the privilege to behave in a limited way for the benefit of someone else…