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Rights Quotes

“If we want to avoid a clash of cultures - and the jury is still out on whether we can - we'll have to make different cultures and religions compatible with the universal nature of human rights and tolerance. But I can promise you this: Anyone who calls me an infidel at the conference will be in for a fight.”

“Where it is the majority religion, Islam does not recognize religious freedom, at least not as we understand it. Islam is a different culture. This doesn't mean that it's an inferior culture, but it is a culture that has yet to connect with the positive sides of our modern Western culture: religious freedom, human rights and equal rights for women.”

“The religious wars showed that the Christian faith was no longer Europe's unifying force. A new common ground was needed, and it was found in reason, which is something that is shared by all of mankind. This was one of the roots of the Enlightenment and its concept of universal human rights.”

“They think my father has a lack of concern for human rights, but regardless of details, the Americans should be humanitarian in dealing with his family, because we are human. Saddam has three young ladies and they have children, I have five, Rana has four, and Hala has two. Therefore, our father is very dear to us. His grandchildren love him a lot. Why aren't humanitarian factors taken into account?”

“As the people of the United States enjoy the great merit of having established a system of Government on the basis of human rights, and of giving it a form without example, which, as they believe, unites the greatest national strength with the best security for public order and individual liberty, they owe to themselves, to their posterity and to the world, a preservation of the system in its purity, its symmetry, and its authenticity.”

“The establishment can't admit [that] it is human rights violations that make ... countries attractive to business - so history has to be fudged, including denial of our support of regimes of terror and the practices that provide favorable climates of investment, and our destabilization of democracies that [don't] meet [the] standard of service to the transnational corporation.”

“The United States has given frequent and enthusiastic support to the overthrow of democracy in favor of "investor friendly" regimes. The World Bank, IMF, and private banks have consistently lavished huge sums on terror regimes, following their displacement of democratic governments, and a number of quantitative studies have shown a systematic positive relationship between U.S. and IMF / World Bank aid to countries and their violations of human rights.”

“Some may more quietly commemorate the suffering, struggle, and sacrifice that has triumphed over much of what was wrong with the original document, and observe the anniversary with hopes not realized and promises not fulfilled. I plan to celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution as a living document, including the Bill of Rights and the other amendments protecting individual freedoms and human rights.”

“There is no Constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain. There is no moral issue. It is wrong - deadly wrong - to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country. There is no issue of States' rights or National rights. There is only the struggle for human rights.”

“Certainly, if we believe in democracy and democratic systems, when [Benazir Bhutto] failed to pass any legislation, really, at all in her first two years in government during her first term and in fact had a tenure that was marked not only by gross corruption but by human rights abuses, that should have been a time for people to say, "Well, OK, we've given you an opportunity and you haven't bettered the institutions, you haven't strengthened the democratic cause - we may not vote you back."”

“Let no one doubt, we will defend America's security and the cause of freedom around the world. But we want a president who tells us what America is fighting for, not just what we are fighting against. We want a president who will defend human rights - not just where it is convenient - but wherever freedom is at risk - from Chile to Afghanistan, from Poland to South Africa”

“I have no doubt that there will continue to be bumps, some serious crises indeed in our relationship with China.... Neither membership in the WTO nor normalized trade relations with the United States will magically impose the rule of law on China or institute deep-seeded respect for human rights. But it certainly has potential to advance those purposes.”

“The right to express one's views, practice one's faith, peacefully assemble with others to pursue political or social change - these are all rights to which all human beings are entitled, whether they choose to exercise them in a city square or an Internet chat room. And just as we have worked together since the last century to secure these rights in the material world, we must work together in this century to secure them in cyberspace.”

“I was born in the middle of World War II, the middle of the Holocaust; I was born when there was no declaration of human rights, when feminism was not an issue, when children were working in factories. I mean, today's world is a better place!”

“On human rights, civil rights and environmental quality, I consider myself to be very liberal. On the management of government, on openness of government, on strengthening individual liberties and local levels of government, I consider myself a conservative. And I don't see that the two attitudes are incompatible.”

“Everyone has an equal and absolute right to sovereignty over his own body, his own property, and his own life, and to pursue his own happiness in any way that he chooses. No one has the authority to grant rights to anyone else, because human beings already possess all natural rights at birth. These rights include both personal and economic freedoms, and the only way they can be lost is if someone takes them away by force. The only right that an individual does not naturally possess is the right to violate someone else's liberty.”