Human Rights

http://www.aljazeera.com/video/europe/2012/08/201283144949392971.html

While you may be able to get away with that kind of nonsense (in my own Western view of it) in your own country, we can apply the full force of our laws against it here.

And, I think that that is the best that the West is honestly going to be able to do about social rights to others, save for show-casing our lives to others and allowing them to naturally desire the freedoms and rights that we have in these Western countries.

Let them develop the impetus for it on their own, if they so choose.

We may not have much to offer in the ways of civilization, history and culture.

Really, the Europeans are enjoying the longest period of peace they've ever experienced in almost their entire history.

But we do understand a thing or two about the human wants, desires and instincts that rise above most other cultures of the world.  Some eastern religious philosophy probably is the closest thing that others have come to the concepts that were hashed out in the West during the 18th and 19th century.

We may not have been the best at applying them to others who are not of our own "group".

Actually, we've been downright lousy at it.

But, you wouldn't have seen the Arab Spring movement without it.

Nor any of the pro-democratization movements that have been sweeping the world's populations.  Sometimes advancing quickly, other times simmering quietly.

They may not turn out like our own have.

There's history and context to consider that will alter what we've brought to the cultural table.

But it's all the same basic thing, when push comes to shove.

That same observation that Buddha made: that we all wish to be happy.

And the West has gotten very good at satisfying that for our own selves in a material sort of way.  When combined with the Eastern way of spirituality.  You've got Nirvana.

Think about it.

Cause you're really missing out when you don't.

Think about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkYLVIATr4w