As I noted in the first two parts of this series, the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights shows great insight into the mentality of the Left where rights are concerned. What I have not yet done is show the danger of a document like this and why it is important to closely monitor any human rights group and their purpose.

When I closed part II of this series, I talked about the right to free education as enumerated in the Declaration. In the Declaration, that right is made compulsory at the elementary level and "shall further the activities of the United Nations." They want your children to be compelled to go to school and learn about the greatness of the UN and all the good it does. Once every child is thoroughly indoctrinated in the finer points of UN groupthink, when they become adults and responsible for running their respective countries, they will be amenable to handing over their sovereignty to the UN. (It's worth noting that Barack Hus-Change Obama could become the first President of the United States who has lived his entire life after the Declaration was adopted.) 

Perhaps more disturbing is the limitation on asylum which excludes "prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations." What this tells me is that if I commit a political crime (say protesting for freedom in Cuba) I can be given asylum. If I commit a real crime (like theft) I cannot. And if I commit a crime "contrary to the purposes and principles" of the UN I cannot seek asylum. But what if it's a political crime? What if a law is passed in Canada banning anti-UN speeches? That is a clearly political law and anyone prosecuted for it should be allowed to seek asylum. But if the speech is against the principles of the UN (say, not wanting them to have a military for "peacekeeping" operations) the person making the speech cannot seek asylum because the speech is against the principles of the UN.

And if you think the right to "opinion and expression" trumps that, you should read Article 29, section 3: "These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations." You can have any opinion you want, so long as it jives with UN orthodoxy. 

Here is a quote from the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, Article 51: "Citizens of the People's Republic of China, in exercising their freedoms and rights, may not infringe upon the interests of the state, of society or of the collective, or upon the lawful freedoms and rights of other citizens."

This from the Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Article 39: "Enjoyment by citizens of their rights and freedoms must not be to the detriment of the interests of society or the state, or infringe the rights of other citizens.

Those articles are, essentially, a way to say that everything else you see here is for show. If the State (or the UN) decides that some activity is against the interests thereof, the State (or the UN) can revoke the right to engage in that activity.

I do not trust the UN to protect my rights. I do not trust them to keep the peace, or to promote freedom, or to govern effectively. I think the US Bill of Rights is a much better document for guaranteeing rights by limiting the Government's power, not "granting" rights to the unwashed masses, especially without providing a means to protect those rights (as we have here in the court system, imperfect though it may be.) The UN and its supporters want a world government with the UN at its head. In their perfect world, every nation would give its sovereignty over to the UN which would be the final, unimpeachable (unelected and unaccountable) arbiter of justice and right. Do we really want that?

(In the first part of this series, I talked about some of the basic differences between our Bill of Rights and the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Specifically, I talked about the language used and the first enumerated rights in each, which indicates the most important ones to the drafters of each document. In this part I'll talk a bit about the enumerated rights and how they differ.)

The other freedoms listed in the Bill of Rights include: Freedom from quartering soldiers; protection against unreasonable search and seizure of property; indictment for alleged crimes; protection from self incrimination; protection of the taking of property without just compensation; the right to a public trial by an impartial jury with the opportunity to confront witnesses and the advice of Counsel for both criminal and civil disputes; and protection from cruel and unusual punishment. Elsewhere in the Constitution we find the right to vote, protection from slavery, the right to the due process of the law, and the right of those born in this country to citizenship. The 9^th Amendment notes that the enumeration of particular rights does not diminish those that are not enumerated and the 10^th puts the state governments as more important than the central government, having all the powers not specifically delegated to the central government and not specifically prohibited to the states.

The freedoms "granted" by the UN Declaration include (similarities with the US Constitution in italics.  All other emphasis is mine.):

• "Life, liberty and security of person"
• Prohibition of and protection from slavery
• Protection from "torture [or] cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment"
• "recognition everywhere as a person before the law"
• Equal protection of the law
• Protection from discrimination (second time discrimination is mentioned)
• Remedy by the courts for violations of "rights granted him by the constitution or by law"
• Protection from "arbitrary arrest"
• Right to an impartial trial for alleged crimes
• Presumption of innocence (not explicitly stated in the US Constitution, but presumed in several articles dealing with "due process of law.")
• Protection from ex post facto laws
• Protection by the law from "arbitrary interference" with privacy correspondence or family or attacks on "honour and reputation"
• Freedom of movement within a country
• Freedom to leave any country and to return to one's home country
• Right to seek asylum (restricted to only those crimes deemed "political crimes" and excluding "acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations")
• Right to a nationality, protection from deprivation of nationality
• Right to change nationality
• The right of men and women to marry (Hey, even a blind squirrel can find a nut on occasion)
• The right to own property and protection from the "arbitrary" deprivation thereof
• Freedom of Religion (note that it is only now that we get to that freedom considered most important by the Founding Fathers of the US. I'm putting these in order as they appear in the original).
• "Freedom of opinion and expression" which includes "freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers" (While this resembles freedom of speech and the press, I'm not highlighting it. The wording is suspect.)
• Right to assemble peaceably and freedom of association.
• Right to take part in the government, directly or by representative
• Right to "social security" and the entitlement to " to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality" (Welfare entitlements are an inalienable human right)
• "Right to work" (a favorite among communist countries), equal pay, and organized labor
• "Right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection." (Note that this is the second time in two articles where a right to welfare entitlements is enumerated.)
• "Right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay"
• "Right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control" (Look, more welfare entitlements)
• "Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection" (Even more welfare entitlements)
• Free education. "Elementary education shall be compulsory". Such education "shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations" (Note the mandate to compel education that is intended to support the aims of the UN)
• Right of parents to choose the method of education (but not the content (see above))
• "Right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits"
• Patent, trademark and copyright rights
• Entitlement to a "Social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized."

A few notes. First off, note that welfare entitlements like social security, standard of living payments, medical care, and other "social services" are mentioned at least four times in this document. Free education is also listed, presuming that education furthers the aims and goals of both the UN and the Tolerance and Diversity movement. Nowhere in this document is there even a veiled protection from government (particularly the UN) taking away these rights, as they are granted by the UN to the people. There is nothing in this document about the right to defend one's self, family, or property from criminals whether they be individuals or governments. There are no mentions of "Due process of law" and many rights may not "arbitrarily" be taken, but no mention is made of just compensation. So your property may be seized and you may get nothing for it so long as the State provides a valid reason. 

Many of the rights set forth in this document (as is true with most Leftists' definitions of rights) require that someone be provided with something (like education, work, healthcare, and a good standard of living). The government is usually called upon to provide those services to those who cannot afford them, with the associated costs being distributed to those who used to be able to afford those services on their own, before the government took all their money.

One of the things that bugs me about the "freedom of opinion and expression" is that it includes the right to "receive" information. Often times "Freedom of the Press" is seen as including the right to irresponsibly publish private, confidential, or classified information without regard to the consequences. Many journalists believe that they should be allowed to publish realtime national security information or information on open criminal investigations, or that sort of thing, never mind that people might be hurt or killed because that information comes out. 

Finally, the right to education is an interesting one. It is to be free (that is paid for by tax dollars; nothing's free), compulsory (I don't like the UN telling my country how to conduct its educational affairs), and supportive of the aims and goals of the UN. Free, compulsory indoctrination into UN groupthink. Yeah, there's a right I want protected.

The Left has a tendency to talk a lot about rights. I've detailed this in several pieces in this space for the whole time I've been doing this blog. I've talked about what the Left thinks of rights, what they mean when they talk about rights, and how they believe rights ought to be applied. To compare rights as seen on the Left with rights as seen on the Right, we can look at the way two very different documents talk about rights. One is the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution. The other is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948. While the intent is ostensibly the same, the language of the documents are vastly different with the US Bill of Rights written to guarantee our freedom, and the UN Declaration trying to take it away.

(I've included links to both documents on their respective official web pages for the sake of reference. The UN document is too long and cumbersome to include here, so a direct comparison will require that you go to each document's web page.)

The first thing you'll notice if you read these documents, is the language that is used. The US document lists a series of prohibitions against the Government, saying such things as "Congress shall make no law…" or some right "… shall not be infringed." The implication being that you, the people, already have this right, and the Government cannot take it from you. The UN document states, in the vast majority of its 30 articles "Everyone has the right…" to this, that, or the other; as though the UN is giving you that right through its unequalled beneficence. You didn't have the right before the UN gave it to you, and you will not have it if the UN takes it away. This follows along with the Leftist belief that "there is no God but Government" and that the Government-God is the ultimate arbiter of rights. "Government giveth and Government taketh away." 

The second feature you'll notice is that in the US Bill of Rights, Freedom of Religion, Speech, the Press, Assembly, and Petition for redress of grievances occupy the first article. The Framers of the US Constitution felt that these were the most important rights and, thus, listed them first. Second to those rights is "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" which, again is not granted by the Constitution, but is protected from infringement. In the UN Declaration of Rights, Freedom of Religion and assembly don't show up until articles 18 and 20 respectively, freedom of "expression" and "opinion" – which, I suppose, could be analogous to the freedoms of speech and the press – appears in Article 19, and the right to petition can be presumed in article 21 which "grants" the right to "take part in the government" whether directly or through freely elected representatives. The right to keep and bear arms does not exist anywhere in the UN document.

The first article of the UN Declaration is a declaration that "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." The article later states that we "should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." So, while the most important freedoms to the framers of the Constitution were those of religion, speech, the press, assembly, and petition, the UN's most important concern is that we are all polite to each other. The first actual right "granted" by the UN is nondiscrimination by "race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status." (It's worth noting that this was written before the notion that the acceptance of homosexuality as perfectly normal and healthy was required for political correctness. If they had written the document now, it would almost certainly have included "sexual Orientation" in the list of things that can't be discriminated against.)