Human Rights - a framework for understanding

Hillel Steiner, as part of Festival800, gave his audience at Lincoln Drill Hall a framework for viewing human rights that caught me unaware, but has since been taking shape in my unconscious mind.

It is so simple, but perhaps life makes us blind. Every human being has a right to equal freedom and an equal duty not to disturb the freedom of another.

He brought this into focus in the Philosophy Cafe that followed where we looked at the issue of migration. Steiner reminded us that the land of the world has been produced by no one and so no one is entitled to a greater share than anyone else (deep intake of breath); those who have by accident of birth a larger share are under a duty to compensate those with a lesser share (deeper intake of breath). Simple.

Further flesh was added by reference to the work of economist Henry George and his thinking about a since tax based only on land.

We then began to wade through the myriad of obstacles; the principle though remains.