“For me, human rights simply endorse a view of life and a set of moral values that are perfectly clear to an eight-year-old child. A child knows what is fair and isn’t fair, and justice derives from that knowledge.” – Tom Stoppard
It’s 12 : 25 PM on day 2015 of my journey towards independence and I managed to pray, read 2 Peter 3, have breakfast, learn one new thing – February 29 is a date that usually occurs every four years, and is called leap day. This day is added to the calendar in leap years as a corrective measure, because the Earth does not orbit around the sun in precisely 365 days. The Gregorian calendar is a modification of the Julian calendar first used by the Romans. – have breakfast and work on my 25 Smiles Campaign –Balu donated $20 (thanks SO MUCH Balu 🙂 ) which brings the total raised to $3 482 only $2 768 more to raise by 10 Jan 2017 (SO SO SO GRATEFUL to everyone who has supported this campaign so far 
).
Today being Human Rights Day here in South Africa – a day that commemorates the Sharpeville massacre that took place on Monday, 21 March in 1960 as police opened fire on about 5 000 people who had come to the Sharpeville station to protest pass laws – I urge everyone in South Africa and elsewhere to stand up for and respect the human rights of others.
When I think about the conversation about human rights in general, I wonder about the rights of God. Who considers His rights?
Stan:
God has rights – not to be taken for granted. I think of the Four Fears and the Four Freedoms from [Theodore? Franklin Delano? Eleanor] Roosevelt. They show us positive and negative rights and can be applied to any deity whether you personally believe in them or not.
Krishna – he has rights too! So does Arjun and the whole Hindu panthenon. And Vishnu and Kali.
I go with the Humanist Manifesto – the prophets and the poets and all the people who have worked for and with God through history and into the future.
God tells us his rights through the Tanakh and the Old Testament and the Qu’ran. “Us” being believers and humans, of course.
Nisha:
Stoppard’s quote is a nervy one! A live one. Eight-year-olds have already spent their lives putting human rights into practice. “Justice” is a very Kohlbergian [moral developmentalist] view of the world. I think you and I share more of a “Care” ethic [see Haidt]. Haidt has about six different ethics.
Of course – Sharpeville! There is a wonderful song about it. And “Olivers’ Army” – I will never forget it.
I am thinking more about what the eight-year-old doesn’t know about fairness – as a litmus test. Sometimes what they don’t know isn’t worth knowing [from several teacherly observations]. And how they can grow and learn.
Interesting POV
Interesting POV about kids and their sense of fairness