{"id":9122,"date":"2007-05-24T14:44:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-24T21:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=9122"},"modified":"2007-05-24T14:44:00","modified_gmt":"2007-05-24T21:44:00","slug":"moral-relativism-peaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=9122","title":{"rendered":"Moral Relativism Peaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Sidney Morning Herald<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The human rights pressure group [Amnesty International] has accused [Australia’s John] Howard of portraying asylum-seekers as a threat to national security.\n<\/p>\n

\nIn a report released overnight, it also criticised Australia’s role in the war on terror and its treatment of female victims of violence.\n<\/p>\n

\nAmnesty secretary-general Irene Khan said the fear generated by leaders such as Mr Howard “thrives on myopic and cowardly leadership”.\n<\/p>\n

\nMs Khan lumped Mr Howard in with Mr Mugabe, US President George W Bush and Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir in a paragraph about leaders who used fear to suit their political agenda.
\n
\n<\/b>
\n
\nIn statement today, Mr Howard rejected the way Australia was characterised in the Amnesty report.\n<\/p>\n

\n“The report’s entry on Australia contains a string of assertions, unsupported by evidence and devoid of context,” he said.\n<\/p>\n

\n“The report’s treatment of Australia amounts to little more than a shoddy caricature.\n<\/p>\n

\n“Nowhere is the report’s political agenda clearer than the paragraph in its foreword which seeks to bracket Australian and US policies with the horrendous human rights situation in Darfur and Robert Mugabe’s disastrous misrule in Zimbabwe.”\n<\/p>\n

\nMs Khan stood by her comments today, accusing the Howard government of having an “appalling” domestic human rights record regarding its treatment of asylum seekers and indigenous people.<\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\nThese failures had undermined its good work overseas, she told ABC Radio.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nI had a long post written up—it discussed the “defining down” of human rights abuses in the context of the concommitant “progressive” attempts to define down ”torture<\/a>,” ”patriotism<\/a>,” ”propaganda<\/a>,” “tolerance,” and a host of other terms its adherents seek to expand or revise to jibe with their commitment to emotionalism and Orwellian rhetoric as a discursive tactic—but I somehow lost it when I slammed my head repeatedly against the keyboard.\n<\/p>\n

\nImportant to highlight, though, is the irony that Amnesty International’s charges can only hope to appeal to countries committed to the rule of law and pluralism—which, for that reason, is who they tend to target, concentrating their efforts especially on freely elected “conservative” governments whose policies don’t jibe with those prescribed by Amnesty International and its supporters.\n<\/p>\n

\nAll of which suggests that the real intent of such reports by Amnesty International is to affect national elections, with the hope of installing governments sympathetic to their own “neutral” policy prescriptions.\n<\/p>\n

\nWrites Charles Johnson—who points to an unbelievable poll<\/a> on Amnesty’s website—“Amnesty International has finally gone completely off the rails.”\n<\/p>\n

\nWhich is, of course, a subjective opinion—and one that is belied by the rush of many of Amnesty’s progressive fellow-travelers to offer the report as proof that Bush and Howard engage in human rights abuses on par with those of Mugabe and Omar al-Bashir.\n<\/p>\n

\nLeading me to believe that Amnesty—like many in the mainstream and international press—have simply dropped the risible mask of “objectivity” and are now comfortable enough in their convictions, and secure enough in their support, to agitate outwardly without fear of retribution.\n<\/p>\n

\n*****
\n
\nYou can download the report here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Sidney Morning Herald: The human rights pressure group [Amnesty International] has accused [Australia’s John] Howard of portraying asylum-seekers as a threat to national security. In a report released overnight, it also criticised Australia’s role in the war on terror and its treatment of female victims of violence. Amnesty secretary-general Irene Khan said the fear generated by leaders such as Mr Howard “thrives on myopic and cowardly leadership”. Ms<\/p>\n

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