Universal Freedoms and whether it's realistic or not
There has been ongoing debate about whether or not there should be certain human rights that should be maintained world wide. There are many factors that go into what is classified as a human right and what it means to be “free”. Culture plays a large role in this definition. This then begs the question how do you create universal rights if it doesn’t align with the values of all. Each country and leader hold certain cultural values that they chose to implement into their regime. This includes rules regarding marriage, freedom of speech and expression as well as religion. It's important to establish universal rights like not to be persecuted based on gender, religion, and sexual orientation but not every country agrees with that. As of right now it's up to each individual country to decide what is “freedom”. A lot of people use a western lens to evaluate what freedom means. For some laws currently implemented by others seem unfair, it is justified by their beliefs. I think that the persecution of people based on religion, sexual orientation, race, and gender is unfair and should be universally looked down upon. There needs to be a way to protect people against these types of digressions but it then takes away the freedoms of each country to organize themselves how they please. Who gets to decide what is classified human rights and what that means for each country. It's important to uphold people's rights but also not take away other freedoms. That's why as much as we might not agree with some laws and regulations, there is no way to regulate globally without taking away certain powers. It's really unfortunate that some countries can treat people with such disrespect. While there are some institutions that prevent certain atrocities from being prevented, there is no way to uphold everyone's rights and not take away power from countries. There is no way to set up a global institution that creates certain laws that are always upheld because not everyone has the same view point and outlook on life.
I completely agree with your idea that each country should be able to come to their own definition of freedom. Since each country has their own culture and expectations of their citizens, it seems foolish to set every country to the same standards and expectations. I think that setting countries to the same universal rights would only cause conflicts and it would be almost impossible for countries to come to an agreement on what those universal rights would be.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with your point here that every country is entitled to create their own definitions for what freedom in their territory means. Every country is entitled to this, as long as human rights are adhered to. This is because every country has their own distinct cultural expectations that just inherently do not give people the same freedoms as another nation.
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