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Social Justice and Human Rights

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Saul Alinsky's 13 Tried-and-True Rules for Creating Meaningful Social Change. Saul David Alinsky died 36 years before the election of Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton's first attempt for the presidency.

Saul Alinsky's 13 Tried-and-True Rules for Creating Meaningful Social Change

But many feverish screeds on social media, talk radio, and YouTube might have made one think he lurked behind these politicians like Rasputin. Spoken of by many on the right as a servant of the devil, "American Joseph Goebbels," and “dangerous harbinger of insurrection,” Alinsky developed a reputation for insidiousness that may exceed his influence, considerable though it may be. But liberals and leftists have no special purchase on Alinsky’s legacy. As one thoughtful, eloquent pundit recently wrote, “the Right has taken Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals and shoved it up where #TheResistance don’t shine.” Not long before this charming appropriation, Alinsky’s 1971 manual of political warfare found its way into the hands of some of the same Tea Party organizers who had made his name synonymous with everything they despised about the left. 1.

Related Content: Principles of Nonviolent Resistance By Martin Luther King Jr. First, it must be emphasized that nonviolent resistance is not a method for cowards; it does resist.

Principles of Nonviolent Resistance By Martin Luther King Jr.

If one uses this method because one is afraid or merely because one lacks the instruments of violence, this person is not truly nonviolent. This is why Gandhi often said that if cowardice is the only alternative to violence, it is better to fight. He made this statement conscious of the fact that there is always another alternative: no individual or group need submit to any wrong, nor need they use violence to right the wrong. Gandhi and the Passive Resistance Campaign 1907-1914. The passive resistance campaigns led by MK Gandhi in South Africa had huge consequences not only for the history of the country but also for world history in general.

Gandhi and the Passive Resistance Campaign 1907-1914

The Injustice of Social Justice. [An MP3 audio file of this article, narrated by Colin Hussey, is available for download.]

The Injustice of Social Justice

Every once in a while, something comes along that perfectly encapsulates the idea of so-called "social justice" in action. For all the wonderful critiques that have been written about this wretched concept by its many detractors, none quite match the elegant simplicity of a recent work by some of its advocates. I am referring here to a recent video made for the World Day of Social Justice in which students and teachers complete this sentence: Everyone has the right to __________________.

The video is a colorful montage of possible completions to this sentence, set to some pleasant easy-listening music. A few of these things could be construed as genuine rights, if interpreted charitably, but most are more fanciful, such as the alleged rights to ice cream and rock-and-roll. Human Dignity Was a Rarity Before Christianity. In my theological writings over the past twenty years, I have often (some might say tediously often) returned to two episodes from the gospels that never quite lose their power to startle me: that of Peter weeping in the early light of dawn over the realization that, contrary to his fervent protestations of the night just past, he has denied Christ before the world; and that of Christ’s confrontation with Pilate (especially as recounted in John’s gospel).

Human Dignity Was a Rarity Before Christianity

After so much time, one might reasonably expect that the fascination would wane, or at least cease to have the quality of surprise. But nothing of the sort. Recently, as I was preparing my own translation of the New Testament for Yale University Press, I found myself drawn to both episodes yet again, with the same old familiar feeling that they contain something at once momentous and uncanny, something somehow out of place and out of time. Something is happening in these passages, homely as they may seem, that never happened before. Natural Law Theory: Crash Course Philosophy #34. INDEX OF LECTURE TOPICS. I.

INDEX OF LECTURE TOPICS

Introduction to Human Rights II. Human Rights. 1.

Human Rights

The General Idea of Human Rights This section attempts to explain the general idea of human rights by identifying four defining features. The goal is to answer the question of what human rights are with a description of the core concept rather than a list of specific rights. Two people can have the same general idea of human rights even though they disagree about which rights belong on a list of such rights and even about whether universal moral rights exist. The four-part explanation below attempts to cover all kinds of human rights including both moral and legal human rights and both old and new human rights (e.g., both Lockean natural rights and contemporary human rights) . (1) Human rights are rights.

. (2) Human rights are plural. . (3) Human rights are universal. . (4) Human rights have high-priority. Let’s now consider five other features or functions that might be added. Declaration of Human Rights. Preamble.