4. Expanding Rights
Many of the great political struggles of the past two centuries have revolved around expanding the range of protected rights. This has included extending the right to vote to all citizens, permitting working people to lobby for improved pay and working conditions, and eliminating discrimination based on race and gender.
In all of these situations, dispossessed groups used their limited freedoms to press for legal recognition of the fundamental rights still denied. In each case, the essence of the argument was that “we,” no less than “you,” are human beings.
As such, we are all entitled to the same basic rights as well as to equal concern and respect from the state. The acceptance of such arguments has led to radical social and political changes throughout the world.
Across the globe, regimes that denied basic human rights to their citizens have lacked long-term stability. A significant cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union was the growing unwillingness of citizens in the Communist-bloc countries to accept the systematic denial of internationally recognized human rights.
In South America and Central America, repressive military governments fell throughout the 1980s. In Asia and Africa, liberalization and democratization have been more irregular but nevertheless real. South Korea and South Africa, for example, are two outstanding examples of human rights progress.
The lesson of the recent past is that, wherever people are given the chance to choose, they choose internationally recognized human rights. And despite shortcomings, we live in a world in which fewer governments dare to deny their people that free choice.
