Why Everything Is Fucked Up (Long Version)

[The original is at Mockingbird's Medley. The following is what happens when snark turns to thought.]

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said yesterday: "We are willing to resume the human rights dialogue. We are willing to have exchanges and discussions on human rights with the United States and other countries on the basis of mutual respect, equality and non-interference."

Human rights and mutual respect are more properly a matter between a government and its people. That's the whole point of the Social Contract. Until China--all societies, actually--learn this lesson human rights are not fully recognized.

America's role is to remind other nations of respect for fundamental human rights. By word and deed. America can do the word part. The United States adopted one of the first great declarations of human rights in the world. Not only did the Declaration of Independence clearly state the nature of human rights and liberty, it also described how those rights would be secured. However, fitfully and incompletely America has lived up to her early ideals, those ideas remain among the most noble in political thought and philosophy.

Deeds don't work as well for the US. Our 100 years center stage in the world has been typically colonial and imperialistic but America managed to keep a pretty good reputation in the world by bailing out Europe in WWII and counterbalancing the Soviet Union during the Cold War. These days, that reputation is pretty damn spent.

But the words are still there and they still mean something to me. I recommend them to China and other nations as a very good start toward human rights and liberty. Actually, most nations have adopted the very similar UN Declaration of Human Rights, which is the 20th century statement of 18th century ideals. The challenge is to make these ideals real for all societies in a way that they understand and accept.

Here I am, sounding Messianic, offering some Universal Truth for the world. But I'm merely repeating what I understand to be the best of Western Enlightenment thought, which I believe does speak a universal truth in its definition of human rights. It's one of Western Civilization's better accomplishments. What I write here and speak elsewhere declares my goals. After that, I am very, very willing to look at any ideas that ethically advance those goals.