Friday, June 29, 2012

Uproar over Article 21

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights --- Article 21.

  • (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
  • (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
  • (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
The United Nations would dictate by military fiat to the nations of the world, as if benign coercion alone shapes the political and legal destinies of sovereign states.

The United States Constitution does not promote the will of the masses or the power of the majority. Through checks and balances, the Framers of the Constitution evisioned majority rule operating within the limited rule of enumerated powers while guaranteeing minority rights.

The House of Representatives represents the popular impulse of the nation, with representatives seeking election every two years. The Senate, the chamber for the states, would contain representatives elected by the state legislatures, protecting the powers and interests of the statehouses while frustrating the ambition of individual voters and the unique president.

An established government harnessing the impulses of the masses, the nobility, and regal ambition are clearly delinated in the United States Constitution, frustrating the encroachment of one group against others outlined on class or ethnic status.

"Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country."

This stipulation is vacuous and without merit. Mentally deficient individuals do not command the requisite capacity to discern or determine their vote for a candidate or a cause. The United States has deemed that felons should be barred from exercising the franchise to vote, along with children. "Everyone" does not distinguish from legal or illegal residents, either, as if citizenship is a meaningless trifle to be dispenses with, instead of the essential status for every individual in a community to enjoy autonomy and legal recourse.

"Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country."

Once again, the article fails to distinguish between citizens and illegal residents. The assault on national sovreignty potentially imposed by these grand, bland articulations should not be ignored.

"The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures."

The "will" of the people is a collective nonentity, one which conflicts inexorably with individual liberty, as the growing rage of populism would threaten the property of moneyed interests for the benefit of the gaining number of individuals who choose dependence on the state.

The "will" of the people is a simplified reference to Romantic and socialist-thinking rooted in Jean-Jacques  Rousseau's idealistic and unrealistic political tract The Social Contract. The notion of human governance as an amalgam of majority agreement would lead to the proliferation of common force against individual merit and acceptance. Free societies cannot be free if the essential unit of a community is "the people" as opposed to the indivisible citizen.


The very notion of "right" has not meaning when corrupted under the banner of populist power, dressed up in the empty phrase of "equal access."

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