It is part of our paradigm to consider the concept of rights naturally good and we take notice when someone claims to have had their rights violated. Indeed, it would seem that democratic societies continually expand the concept of rights. As a result, people in democratic societies take in interest in the human rights of people in other parts of the world.
How did we get to this point?
To understand our own commitment to human rights, we must examine first how individual rights and freedoms evolved.
The history this relates to, of course is the Mayflower Compact. The Mayflower Compact serves as an example of how the first settlers to America agreed to the need for and purpose of a government -- giving up some of their individual authority for the greater goals of the community.
Remember, the concept of individual rights was still limited. At the time, most people believed in Rule By Divine Right.
Although poor King Arthur is having some problems getting the peasants to buy into this in the clip below:
Background to the Age of Enlightenment
John Locke
The Age of Enlightenment challenged this view and planted the seeds of cultural change in philosophy, art, science, economics, and political thought. It is the path by which we move:
•From a society where the governed are responsible to their government
•To a society where the government is responsible to the governed
In the former, the government gets its legitimacy from the hand of God. Whereas in the latter, the government gets its legitimacy from the people who have God given rights.
The Mayflower Compact of 1620 comes at exactly the same time as the publication of Francis Bacon's Novum Organum. These events symbolize the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment. The first permanent English settlement in Virginia gets started at Jamestown a bit earlier in 1607. It takes almost 170 years for these ideas to manifest themselves into the American Revolution but in historical terms this is an incredibly quick transformation when you consider old habits die hard, or as Jefferson put it, " ...all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
On a lighter note, check out how the Age of Reason is used to solve all sorts of problems.
In practical terms, those aboard the Mayflower did not consciously set out to design a government of the people, by the people, for the people. They were doing what they thought they needed to do to ensure the survival of the 102 people who would have to make a go of it at Plymouth Rock.
However, the effect of their decision to adopt a government that was essentially representative of them and responsive to their needs set in motion the tradition by which Americans, and later the world would come to understand their freedom and cherish it for what it was -- the key by which, in Jefferson's phrase, "the pursuit of happiness" was possible.
So, the United States becomes the "great experiment" in democracy and sets the template for the evolution of democracies around the world... but it does so based on the thinking and debate that arose out of the Age of Enlightenment, which was based in Europe.
When Freedom Runs Amok...
It's My Lawn Mower and I Can Shoot it if I Want to
Read about the Lawn Mower Shooter... What cultural messages has this man received in America that tell him his thinking is justified?
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25854715/ns/us_news-weird_news/t/cranky-man-shoots-lawn-mower-not-starting/#.XYpJHC0ZPdc
