Social Issues

This is a rather brief and superficial collection of resources related to global human rights. The majority of the accepted standards are based on the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other similar documents. As my knowledge of this area is still somewhat immature, the best I am able to offer presently is links to some of the more obvious resources. As my knowledge expands, I will supplement these links with synthesis and discussion.

As I contend in a related blog entry, I do not believe that the arguments supporting legislation against the legal recognition of homosexual marriages in the United States are consistent with the letter or the spirit of the U.S. Constitution. The pragmatic arguments against homosexual marriages are weak at best (particularly considering the dismal divorce rate in heterosexual marriages) and fail to justify current and proposed legislation on their own, leaving only the religious arguments underlying them---arguments which, of course, cannot legally be used to justify an act of Congress. Consequently, the burden of proof in the debate on the legislation lies not on the proponents to demonstrate that same-sex marriages should be acceptable but on the opponents to demonstrate, without resorting to hackneyed pseudo-religious dogma, that same-sex marriages both are economically or otherwise quantitatively detrimental to the public interest and lead to the violation of individual rights. Unless such a basis can be offered, I offer that the current "Defense of Marriage Act", the proposed "Marriage Protection Act", and the many state-level imitations thereof are in diametric contradiction to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Why is an illegal prison still operating in Guantánamo Bay, and why are U.S. officials guilty of war crimes not being called to answer for their actions? This is a question that every U.S. citizen should be asking h(er|is) legislators. The Guantánamo prison is a symptom of a much larger system of illegal warfare and state-sponsored terrorism practiced by the U.S. government. Although these crimes did not begin with it, the practice of 'extraordinary rendition' has become the focal point of this debate in the U.S. The procedure that the CIA and its administrators refer to as extraordinary (or irregular) rendition began in the Clinton administration with a secret agreement between the United States' and Egyptian intelligence communities that would allow U.S. operatives to abduct suspected terrorists and transport them to Egyptian prisons for detainment and interrogation. The rationale behind the program was that it would allow agents to remove dangerous terrorists from the playing field without being forced to divulge their intelligence-gathering techniques in a trial in a U.S. court. Although the U.S. required assurance that the victim would not be tortured, most operations were conducted with the knowledge that Egypt's guarantees of human treatment were strictly perfunctory, and "don't ask, you don't want to know" became the official policy. After the first few successful operations (and retaliatory bombings) , the program was expanded to include other countries such as Morocco, Syria and Thailand. Michael Scheuer, one of the designers of the program, maintains that a detailed dossier was compiled for each suspect, the CIA's legal council approved each operation and that assurances that the prisoners would not be tortured were consistently obtained from host countries (although he concedes that these were never verified). Scheuer also reports that, after 11 September 2001, the numbers of renditions increased while both the quantity and quality of information in the fatal dossiers decreased dramatically.

I am collecting here information pertaining to issues of human and civil rights both in the United States and the World. While my own ethical and political views will invariably shape the selection of information, I will attempt to present alternative perspectives and to draw a distinction between my opinion and information I believe to be objective. Please do not hesitate to share your perspective, as I truly appreciate meaningful dialogue on these issues.