[ExI] Geert Wilders acquitted

[David Lubkin]

Damien B quoted:

>U.N. Human Rights Committee in Geneva

I've become more attuned to the importance of the words used
in a discussion in controlling the topic and outcome.

(Ref Frank Luntz and George Lakoff.)

I hadn't thought about this one before, but it makes sense:

One used to talk in terms of civil rights, e.g., the American Civil
Liberties Union or the "civil rights movement" of the Sixties.

Civil rights are rights of citizens, usually argued by reference to a
governing document, like the Constitution in the US. There's the
vagueness inherent in the Ninth Amendment, but the word "civil"
keeps it grounded.

Nowadays, the preferred term is human rights, which has the
strategic advantage that it's boundless. Its promulgators can
invent anything they like and label it as a right you deserve by
virtue of being human, that everyone else must provide you
or be outraged over on your behalf.

The animal rights activists don't have a succinct term yet, like
life rights.

As we move into our extropian future, we will need a good one
ourselves. Sentient rights doesn't roll off the tongue. It might be
sufficient to expand the definitions of person, human, and citizen
to allow more than the current species of homo sap.


-- David.