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1/ We are in a golden age of reassessing “human rights” 1970-90s-but as usual what matters is not guarding the castle but which reassessment wins out. Mike Pompeo launches the US conservative one today. wsj.com/articles/unali…
2/ Obviously it’s most revealing that defenders of human rights in any version would opportunistically use Donald Trump’s presidency to advance their vision. They’re hardly the first to cross the rubicon, but the move from Never Trump to natural rights is extraordinary.
3/ Mary Ann Glendon chairs the call to return to “unalienable” rights-who are the other members?
4/ On Pompeo’s reading, human rights are a US mission to the world, relevant at home only to push back at those who mistakenly claim progressive policy preferences as “rights.”
5/ And it’s Christians abroad, apparently, who are most in need of US internationalism now.
6/ But missed opportunity is that Pompeo’s human rights politics are, in a sense, not Trumpian enough.
7/ Nothing here about the uses of human rights in legitimating disastrous US militarism abroad.
8/ Nothing here about the relevance of human rights to the economic travails of the majority at home.
9/ Sad!
