Thursday, March 28, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor

On the Commission on Unalienable Rights -- and New York Times Bias

July 19, 2019 --

Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo wrote an op-ed column for The Washington Post, July 8, announcing a Commission on Unalienable Rights. Questions that the commission will address include: "What are our fundamental rights? Why do we have them? Who or what grants these rights? How do we know if a claim of human rights is true." Mr. Pompeo calls the work of this commission "urgent," noting, "Rights claims are often aimed more at rewarding interest groups and dividing humanity into subgroups." He went on to say: "Human-rights advocacy has lost its bearings and become more of an industry than a moral compass. And 'rights talk' has become a constant element of our domestic political discourse, without any serious effort to distinguish what rights mean and where they come from." He concluded with the aim of clarifying "our understanding of human rights in a manner that will both inform and better protect essential freedoms.

Roger Cohen is typical of the anti-Trump forces who insist on conjuring up the worst possible explanation for Trump thoughts and deeds, in his July 13 Times column contended that "No plausible reason for this strange initiative has been given." Cohen continued: "Trump, having shown willful neglect toward human rights, now wants to redefine them." Among the administration's actions Cohen challenged was its withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council. Cohen did not inform readers, however, that the Trump administration withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council because of its anti-Israel resolutions and mindset. Behold the political content of The New York Times: unlimited anti-Trump propaganda . But, after all, the paper committed itself to anti-Trumpism no later than August 2016.