Discussion: Deciding Human Rights

[asterroc]

This came up on someone else's blog, and now I want to know what people think.

Viewpoint A: "Human rights should never be subject to a general vote. We should never allow the majority to oppress the minority."
Viewpoint B: "But how do we know what basic human rights *are*? Who defines them except the people, and therefore a popular vote?"

Discuss!

FWIW I ask these discussion questions when I'm uncertain of what I think on the topic and I want input to help me understand the nuances of it. As usual, I would appreciate it if vituperation was kept to a minimum, yadda yadda.

Comments

[q10.livejournal.com]

i should mention that the above is ignoring for the sake of simplicity the revision vs amendment business in CA, which might in this particular case make a state court action against prop 8 make sense, but which is largely independent of the broader conceptual issue you seem to be raising.