two lingering thoughts

After class today I had two lingering thought that I wanted to blog about. One is something that Thomas (I think!) brought up in class last week when we were talking about liberalism and conservatism. He mentioned the idea of privacy and its different meanings for liberals and conservatives. And I thought it was a really interesting point. It seems like conservatives value their privacy in the sense that they want small governments that aren't going to intervene in their lives very much, and they like their privacy in the way of their money, such that it is their choice how to earn it and what to do with it, etc. However, on more social issues, of abortion and gay rights, this is the party that pushes harder for legislation against these issues that some people may see as private. On the other side, liberals are for big governments, and taxing, and some more social government policies, but they respect privacy in personal matters more. it just seems more of a liberal idea that even if you're not for gay marriage or abortion, it's a party that might see that as more of a personal choice, and not the government's role to regulate. I'm not really sure what (if any) point I'm trying to make here, I just thought it was and interesting thought that has stayed with me for the past week.

My second thought is looking forward to this next part of the semester. The first part was certainly interesting, but it just seems like these lofty ideas and theoretical perspectives that we've discussed thusfar will only get us so far. As Dr. Johnson said in class today, these things have to be applicable in practice, or else they're nothing more than words on a page and they're not actually getting us anywhere, in regards to actually talking about human rights and international law, and holding people accountable for human rights violations. It reminds me of an episode of Law and Order I saw a couple years ago. The case was about this Russian man who sold one of his daughters to a man who owned a brothel of sorts. The New York DA was having a hard time charging the man because he was a Russian citizen and all these other logistical legal matters. At one point, a Russian legal official is talking to the New York DA and he said, "This man sold his daughter into sexual slavery. If you aren't able to hold him accountable, your system means nothing." And I've remembered that line for so long because it is so true. It's great to come to these conclusions about what we believe justice is, and what is better and best for people, but if we have a world system where genocides take place, and torture and slavery still exist, and we're not able to hold people accountable for those atrocities, are we just wasting our time? I'm an International Studies major, and I am aware of how important culture is to evaluating situations, and how important state sovereignty is, but I think it is just as important to have written down rules and ideals (such as the UNDHR) that apply to everyone, and that every nation, regardless of history and culture, are held accountable to. i realize that this then brings to light one of the glaring problems of the UN today, how to battle the conflict between trying to have this sovereign, overarching international peacekeeping body, while also satisfying individual sovereign state governments that don't want to relinquish any of their own power to this greater power...