The Most Absurd Human Rights Violations (23): Banning Marriage in Texas
The geniuses who wrote Texas’ gay marriage ban may have accidentally banned all marriage in the state, according to one Houston lawyer. Subsection B of the ban, a constitutional amendment ratified in 2005, states, “This state … may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage”. The intent was to prevent even civil unions for gay couples—but it doesn’t actually specify the “gay” part.
The wording essentially “eliminates marriage in Texas”, Barbara Ann Radnofsky, the Democratic candidate for state attorney general [says]. (source)
More on same-sex marriage. And something here on the more general human right to marry. Other absurd human rights violations.
What is Democracy? (40): One man, One Vote, Ctd.
(source, more Herblock)
This is a follow-up from a previous post in this blog series.
It is well known that states are overrepresented in the U.S. political system. For example, Wyoming has 0.2% of the U.S. population but has 0.6% of the Electoral College votes for President, and 2% of the U.S. senators; while California has 12% of the population, 10% of the electoral votes, and still only 2% of the senators. To put it another way: Wyoming has 6 electoral votes and 2 senators per million voters, while California has 1.5 electoral votes and 0.06 senators per million voters. … the 21 smallest states have the population of California but 42 Senators compared to California’s two. … We have looked at other countries (Mexico, Canada, Japan, Argentina, Thailand…) and found similar patterns. Andrew Gelman (source)
To some extent, this has been done on purpose, especially in the U.S. When forming the federation, small states had bargaining power and wanted to have an equal vote – equal compared to larger states – in the federal arena in order to protect their interests and to avoid being outvoted by simple population based majorities. This was called the Great Compromise: the Senate became the ”State’s House”, and the House of Representatives the “People’s House” (because it has a more proportional type of representation).
Such systems violate the principle of “one man, one vote”, a basic principle of democracy (which is why some prefer to call the U.S. a republic rather than a democracy), not only because it gives some voters more influence than others, but also because, in extreme cases, it can lead to the rule of the minority: a minority can get its proposals translated into legislation or policy, or can at least block proposals for change.
However, these systems aren’t always detrimental to democracy. In some circumstances, arrangements like these are necessary for the peaceful coexistence of different groups in relatively large states. When certain minorities don’t get certain safeguards, democracy and even the state as such may turn out to be difficult to maintain. There is a type of democracy called pacification democracy or consociational democracy (more here). This type of democracy is characterized by the will to eliminate permanent minorities as much as possible and to create mechanisms to guarantee a certain degree of participation for every group. Some of these mechanisms are:
- A guaranteed number of representatives (e.g. Senators in the case of the U.S.), government ministers, civil servants etc. from each group (disproportional representation).
- A second parliamentary chamber exclusively for the representation of minorities.
- Two-thirds majorities or even larger majorities for important decisions, which guarantees that at least most of the groups participate in these decisions.
- Veto-powers for important decisions. Each group, even a minority group, can block decisions that are contrary to its fundamental interests. In very heterogeneous and divided societies, this creates a de facto consensus-democracy instead of the classical majority-democracy. This may be necessary to avoid the “dictatorship of the majority” and the systematic exclusion of certain minorities. This system always tries to have the consent of all important groups in society, especially for important decisions.
- A high degree of local self-government (federalism).
All these things violate the principles of “one man, one vote” and simple majority rule, but sometimes this violation is necessary to have a stable and peaceful democracy. I argued elsewhere that democracy is always more than mere majority rule.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics (25): Misleading Headlines
I read the following headline in a local newspaper recently:
Most prisoners escape from their cells
My first reaction was: Christ! What’s the world coming to! We can’t keep the majority of prisoners inside? It turned out that what they wanted to say was that prisoners, when they escape, do so from their cell, most of the time. Other prisoners escape from the workshop, while being transported etc. That looks much better already.
More serious posts in this series are here.
Female Animalization, A Collection of Images
Female animalization is the depiction of women as animals, or as hybrid human-animals. It’s in fact a subgenre of female objectification, which is itself a subgenre of dehumanization (see also here). Depicting a woman as an animal means taking away her human characteristics and can lead to gender discrimination. It’s easier to deny the rights of an animal than the rights of an individual human being.
(source)
snake woman
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frog woman
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pig woman
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Hillary Clinton as a pig
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dog woman
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And of course there’s this infamous example of Michelle Obama’s face turned into a monkey face:
Michelle Obama monkey face
(source, examples of Bush and Osama bin Laden as monkeys are here)
Some time ago, this image was the first to appear when people googled for images of Michelle Obama. Because of this Google issued this statement:
Sometimes Google search results from the Internet can include disturbing content, even from innocuous queries. We assure you that the views expressed by such sites are not in any way endorsed by Google.
Search engines are a reflection of the content and information that is available on the Internet. A site’s ranking in Google’s search results relies heavily on computer algorithms using thousands of factors to calculate a page’s relevance to a given query.
The beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google, as well as the opinions of the general public, do not determine or impact our search results. Individual citizens and public interest groups do periodically urge us to remove particular links or otherwise adjust search results. Although Google reserves the right to address such requests individually, Google views the integrity of our search results as an extremely important priority. Accordingly, we do not remove a page from our search results simply because its content is unpopular or because we receive complaints concerning it. We will, however, remove pages from our results if we believe the page (or its site) violates our Webmaster Guidelines, if we believe we are required to do so by law, or at the request of the webmaster who is responsible for the page.
We apologize if you’ve had an upsetting experience using Google. We hope you understand our position regarding offensive results.
Sincerely,
The Google Team
More on advertising.
Human Rights Facts (172): Race and Health
In a previous post, I highlighted the fact that African Americans in the U.S. are more likely to die of cancer. It seems that a similar disparity exists for strokes and lead poisoning.
Many ethnic groups have a higher death rate from stroke than non-Hispanic whites. Although the death rate from stroke nationwide dropped 70% between 1950 and 1996, minorities the decline was greatest in non-Hispanic whites. The greatest number of stroke deaths compared to whites occurred in African-Americans and Asians/Pacific Islanders. Excess deaths among racial/ethnic groups could be a result of a greater frequency of stroke risk factors, including obesity, hypertension, physical inactivity, poor nutrition, diabetes, smoking and socioeconomic factors such as lack of health insurance. (source)
lead poisoning by race
(source)
Lead poisoning causes, i.a., cognitive delay, hyperactivity, and antisocial behavior.
Should a Liberal Society Tolerate Illiberal Cultural Practices Within That Society?
By a “liberal society” I mean, of course, a society respecting the equal human rights of all its citizens. By “illiberal cultural practices” I mean practices that have a cultural origin and that violate the rights of some of the members of that particular culture. An example would be certain instances of gender discrimination in Muslim migrant communities living in a Western democracy.
Such cultural practices are a dilemma for a liberal society. On the one hand, the society’s commitment to equal rights drives it towards interference within subcultures that violate these rights. This isn’t only a moral imperative. There’s also a legal aspect to it. Equal rights are enshrined in the law of the society, and the equal application of the law is a separate imperative.
On the other hand, a liberal society wants to respect cultural diversity and doesn’t require that migrant or minority communities assimilate to a dominant culture. Freedom of religion, another liberal imperative, also forces a liberal society to accept and tolerate non-mainstream cultures. And, finally, human rights are seen as individual choices: people are allowed to freely abandon their rights if they so choose.
As a result of all of this, a liberal society usually reacts to illiberal cultural practices in the following way: as long as individual members of groups within that society have a right to exit (e.g. a right to apostasy) the state, the law and social forces have no right to interfere with the internal norms and practices of those groups, even when these norms and practices constitute (gross) violations of human rights. If people stay in the groups, then this is assumed to be an expression of their agreement with these norms and practices. Any rights violations that occur are then deemed to be voluntary and no one else’s business. For example, if a Christian church discriminates against its homosexual members, this is deemed to be no reason for intervention as long as homosexuals can freely enter or leave the church.
cartoon by Simanca Osmani
(source)
The problem with this is that there’s not always a free choice to stay within a group, or leave. Choice is often socially constructed. Certain elements within a culture use narratives and other means of pressure in order to encourage other members to “willingly” comply with norms and practices that oppress them. People’s beliefs and preferences are, continually and from a very young age onwards, influenced by the norms and practices of the group they belong to. Hence it’s often very difficult for members of a group to view oppressive cultural norms and practices as illegitimate, even if they are the ones suffering from them. So it’s even more difficult for these members to openly defy these norms, reject them and act to change them. And even when members do understand that the norms and practices of their group are oppressive, it’s often very difficult to leave the group. Leaving may cause an identity crisis. For example, is it realistic to expect an oppressed Muslim woman to negate Islam? Leaving may be too costly, even compared to the gains that result from the end of oppression.
So, the standard liberal solution – let minorities be internally oppressive as long as they allow their members an easy exit – isn’t a solution at all. Personally, I would recommend a stronger insistence on equal rights, even at the cost of intolerance of illiberal diversity.
Measuring Human Rights (10): Uncertainty in Maternal Mortality Data
From Hans Rosling:
More on maternal mortality. More on health as a human right. More on measuring human rights. More Hans Rosling.
The Most Absurd Human Rights Violations (22): Losing Your Job Over a Vulgar Comment Online
From the Huffington Post:
A school employee lost his job after he posted a one-word vulgarity in the comments section of an online article at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran an article asking readers what was the “craziest thing you’ve ever eaten” and invited them to submit the oddest foods they’ve consumed. …
The school employee, who later lost his job, posted an anonymous, one-word comment that referred, in vulgar terms, to a woman’s anatomy. The comment was deleted by administrators, then reposted by the reader. After it was posted a second time, the administrators didn’t just delete the comment, but took it one step further: Kurt Greenbaum, the director of social media at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, found the commenter’s IP address and traced it to a local school. …
Using the information provided by Greenbaum — including the IP address, the time at which the comments were posted, and the Post-Dispatch website’s location — the school was able to identify the computer used to make the post, as well as the commenter who posted the obscene word. The school employee resigned immediately when confronted by the school’s headmaster.
More on the right to work. More on free speech, particularly free speech at work. More absurd human rights violations.
