PureFodder wrote:
The difference between the two was that WWI / WWII were never going to wipe out humanity, they were at the most going to kill millions which they did. The Cuban missile crisis literally held the future of humanity in the balance.
Was never going to? Your whole argument here is based on what might have been. Neither side in the Cuban missle crisis had the intent to actually harm anyone. It was nothing but political posturing. Hitler, given the means would have finished the job.
Now you are arguing against yourself. Either the US started at a level of human rights and morality that exceeded Europe's and therfore should have banned slavery earlier, or the US began at the same level as Europe and still took longer. The centuries of slavery prior to the founding of the US had exacly as much to do with US ancestry as European ancestry. Either way, the US ultimately trailed Europe by decades.
There was a move to end slavery a long time before the mid 1800's. Some of our founding father were advocating against slavery (Thomas Jefferson). If you read our history you would have seen this movement "decades prior".
Fair enough, European countries have comitted some fairly terrible acts of agression since WWII, nothing on the scale of Indochina, but entirely reprehensable none the less.
I am not blind to our failings as well. It's important to recognize them.
Worker rights trailed decades behind Europe, and still fall well short today. Take child labour for example, In Britain legislation increasing inspection, shortening hours and increasing the age at which they could work began in 1802 and was largely in place by 1878. The first sucessful US legislation on child labour was in 1938. Another historical example of US catch-up on human rights.
Child labor legislation didn't go into effect sooner in the US only because there really wasn't a need for it. We were building a country and tending the fields for 95 percent of the time leading up to it. You on the other hand already had your infrastructure in place. You exploited your children for hundreds of years prior.
Child labour was a massive problem in the US in the 1800s and early 1900s, In 1900 a quarter of the male workforce was under the age of 15.
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/whaples.childlabor. Yes children were exploited in Europe, but Europe put in restrictions earlier than the US did. If the US was so advanced in terms of human rights, why didn't they sort this out before Europe, instead having to catch up with the European standard. Just to show the scale of this, it's still not resolved in the US.
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/frmwrkr/
Working the family farm is a
necessity for a developing nation (as in they die if they don't produce food). When your employer is your Mom and Dad I hardly think we need legislation to tell the parents whats in their children's best interest.
The ACLU is domestic, the other two were founded in Europe and later moved to the US
Yes they are, I was just giving you another watchdog looking over Americans. Hardly indicative of a nation that lags behind in Human rights. This in addition to the other two you mentioned.
As far as currnet human rights go, there's child labour,
The US justice system, which is far behind Europe's, including; Death penalty, death penalty to the mentally ill, large sentencing and solitary confinement of mentally ill prisoners, endemic racist sentencing, huge sentencing disparaties between rich and poor people convicted of similar crimes, excessive sentencing for minor crimes, high rates of police brutality little of which goes punished, prison conditions well below any acceptable level, children recieveing life-means-life sentences (the only country in the world that does this).
http://www.hrw.org/doc/?t=usa_sentencing Next we have labour rights; use of children in agricultural work, abuse of immigrant workers, denial of rights to organise and collectively bargain for contracts, well below European standards.
http://www.hrw.org/doc/?t=usa_laborThings like lesbian and gay rights, from marriage to don't ask don't tell. All fairly obvious and well known. Varoius issues relating to immigration.
http://www.hrw.org/doc/?t=usa_noncitizensFor the purpose of fairness, here's the link the Britains dirty laundry. @ anyone from another country, I urge you to go look up your own country's human rights record, you may be surprised.
http://www.hrw.org/doc?t=europe&c=uk
The majority of what you cited has to do with state laws. Certainly there are individual states that lag behind. But it is each state that passes it's own constitution for such laws. This is where freedom to choose and universal rights collide.
As far as Britain goes, the rights for women over 30 to vote came before the US, but full equal voting rights came after.
And African Americans where given the right to vote here in the 1870's. Although it was only partial. Equal rights should be considered equal.
I know where my country stands and it's history. If there is anything I've gained during this discussion it's how similar we are. There are times where we led and there are times that we followed. I don't live in this picture perfect bubble of America can do no wrong. I have posted my own criticism of this country.
