Following the UN's decision to make 3 of their Human Rights Declarations legally binding, I've been assigned by my Civics teacher decided to make a blog post about which choices I endorse from the perspective of a wannabe-anarchist kid living in the Pacific Northwest.
"You have the right to live, and to live in freedom & safety."
This article's straightforward broadness could potentially encourage people or politicians to rethink the entire way the country is being run if they were to take it seriously, namely when it comes to law enforcement & criminal justice. The US is one of the leading countries in terms of incarceration & police brutality, which is the polar opposite of "live in freedom & safety".
Instead of being "tough on crime", which inevitably reduces freedom for everyone and allows police (and other civilians..!) to terrorize people & communities, a more effective way to solve these issues would be addressing the root of the problem. The government should focus on rehabilitating so-called violent indivuduals and removing any incentives for people to resort to crime instead of their current approach, which seems to be taking zero preventative measures while spending excessive funding on making sure people "suffer for their crimes" or whatever, as if this somehow improves the lives of anyone.
"You have the right to work, to be free to choose your work, and to get a salary that allows you to live and support your family. If a man & a woman do the same work, they should get the same pay. All people who work have the right to join together and defend their interests."
This article would protect against bosses taking advantage of their employees and people having to life paycheck to paycheck. It would also prevent women from being financially reliant on their husbands and incentivising/forcing them to stay in potentially toxic relationships.
You can tell how well the US is following this declaration when the most successful companies here are notorious for paying their employees poorly, preventing them from unionizing or even employing child and/or slave labor.
Laws based on this article could include raising minimum wage, removing tipping from restaurants, forcing companies to allow unionizing and outlawing the sale/importation of any products that were made unethically, regardless of whether they were outsourced to a country without these laws.
"You have the right to have whatever you need so that you and your family: do not fall ill; do not go hungry; have clothes & a house; and are helped if you are out of work, if you are ill, if you are old, if your [spouse] is dead, or if you do not earn a living for any other reason you cannot help. Both a mother who is going to have a baby and her baby should get special help. All children have the same rights, whether or not the mother is married."
Basically, I hold the apparently radical belief that if the absence of something would kill you, people shouldn't be hoarding it for profit.
Food, clothing, shelter & medical care are some of the most basic human rights, so it only makes sense to help people get them. This could make society more peaceful since people know they will always have access to them even if something happens to them. This could be done in the form of better funding for homeless shelters and more/improved paternity/medical leave.
