
US quits 'biased' UN human rights council - drexlspivey
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/44537372
======
jacquesm
Incredible how much damage a single individual can do to the world. So much
for checks-and-balances, I've seen people argue over and over again that no
matter what the 'checks and balances' will straighten things out and will
prevent the worst. The United States is losing stature in the world day by day
and with at least another 2.5 years of this madness ahead there is no telling
how bad things are going to get.

I'm certainly not counting on anybody suddenly growing a backbone and setting
some limits, if that were to happen you would expect it to have happened by
now.

~~~
ganeshkrishnan
There are already checks and balances. Unfortunately Congress and a sizeable
portion of the public are with him. He is not a dictator, he legitimately won
the election and I can see good support for him on my Facebook "friends"

~~~
spython
Not to compare the two, but Adolf Hitler also got into power pretty much
legitimately. He was elected, and the Enabling Act of 1933 that gave him the
power to enact laws passed Reichstag and Reichsrat and was signed by the
president.

You can reach dictatorship in legal ways. Being abolished may be seen as an
inherent design feature of democracies.

~~~
abduhl
I'm not a Hitler expert, but I didn't know he was elected. What position did
he get elected to prior to the Enabling Act giving the Nazis power? Is it
comparable to being elected President in the US?

~~~
dbasedweeb
He lost the presidential election, but was then appointed chancellor by
Hindenburg after the Nazis won most of the government through the electoral
process. Chancellor of Germany is roughly equivalent to president of the US
(Angela Merkel is chancellor). After that civil liberties were revoked.

So he was not elected, but he was legally appointed and as a result of
overwhelming electoral victories by his party. Just another example of the
non-equivalence of “legal” and “moral” in all cases.

It is a salient point as a response to the post: _There are already checks and
balances. Unfortunately Congress and a sizeable portion of the public are with
him. He is not a dictator, he legitimately won the election and I can see good
support for him on my Facebook "friends"_

The failure of government to stand up to a dangerous and deranged populist is
relevant IMO. When that populist then leads the government, it’s time to at
least be concerned. I doubt that Trump is worthy of direct comparison to
Hitler beyond that point, but I’m also glad that I don’t live in the US right
now!

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rayiner
The UN is a great example of why you can’t have democratic institutions where
the constituents have fundamentally different values. Saudi was recently the
head of the HRC:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/28/why-o...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/28/why-
one-of-the-worlds-worst-human-rights-offenders-is-leading-a-un-human-rights-
panel/?utm_term=.a0b9d42f47fb)

~~~
jacquesm
There is value in naming such countries to head up the HRC as well, it focuses
the spotlight on them and hopefully - not necessarily - forces them to at
least try to live up to some standards.

The US withdrawing from the HRC basically says 'we do not care about human
rights' to the world. As if the last couple of days of imagery from the
Southern border would require any further explanation.

~~~
DanAndersen
>The US withdrawing from the HRC basically says 'we do not care about human
rights' to the world.

Similarly, voting against the PATRIOT Act basically says 'we do not care about
patriotism' to the country.

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mullingitover
People are pointing the finger at Saudi Arabia on the Council, but the US
perpetrated torture in the Bush administration.

The difference is that we brought the torturers to justice, they were tried
and convicted and we swore never to do that again.

Just kidding, we did none of the above and the person who ran the torture
program is now the head of the CIA.

~~~
nkoren
Aaaaah! You got me!

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pythonistic
The US and it's relations with the UN were a focus of one of my senior
seminars in History (1995). I'm a programmer, not a political scientist or
attorney, so read this critically. In short:

* The UN Human Rights Council declares specific Human Rights. Countries choose to accept them or not.

* The US has a Constitution which defines specific limitations on the power of government. Rather than granting rights, there are limitations placed on what government can do. The Bill of Rights amends the Constitution to describe specific rights in some cases granted to citizens and specific limitations that the federal government has when dealing with citizens.

There's a fundamental disconnect in "governments grant these rights to people"
versus "people inherently have rights and these are the curbs we put around
them." An even bigger impediment is that the UN HRC would supersede the US
Congress: these changes to the US Constitution and laws would be imposed
without a treaty or legislative input. A committee in an extra-national
organization (which has a history of, at times, not working well with the
United States) would be imposing regulations on the US. Imagine one of our
hard-working Congressmen abrogating power in favor of declarations from a UN
committee.

For the UN HRC to have any impact on the United States, we'd need to amend our
Constitution to grant power to an international organization, or establish a
treaty to implement its recommendations. Importantly, we'd need to change the
fundamental concept by which citizens have power and rights and government is
restricted. (And I'm ignoring _Gibbons v. Ogden_ (1824) and the expansion of
the Interstate Commerce Clause and Federal regulation throughout the 20th
century.)

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seorphates
I'm disturbed how "human rights" somehow equates to mandatory acceptance of
geo-political agendas.

I'm even more disturbed that ""hypocritical and self-serving" and "makes a
mockery of human rights"" is now a place called home.

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neves
Sad how has changed the Country that represents democracy and freedom, the
first great democracy of modern era.

~~~
r00fus
It's version 1.26 of this republic. Perhaps, a la française, we should look to
a newer version. (France claims to be on version 5).

Constitutional convention anyone?

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paulkearney
There is the old adage of 'better to be in the tent peeing out as opposed to
being outside peeing in.'

This action feels better described as 'taking a dump on the tent while blaming
the tent'

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nkoren
Well, if it's Trump's position that countries which egregiously violate human
rights shouldn't be on the council... I guess this is a good start?

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fzeroracer
It's certainly an opportune time for the US to leave the human rights council.
Right as we're in the middle of our own human rights crisis due to the growing
insanity of the Trump admin.

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WisNorCan
I used to be an independent having voted for both Republicans and Democrats. I
have given up on the Republicans (Trump, Cruz, Ryan). I will vote non-
Republican up and down the ballot.

Hopefully, the policies will be reversible.

I’ll be interested to see how independents behave in the mid-terms.

