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Last Updated on December 11, 2011

In the last century or so humanity has made a lot of changes toward defining and upholding basic human rights. This has, in many regards, been a very life-giving accomplishment—although there is still much to be achieved in this pursuit as many regions of the world fail to uphold these basic human rights.

From my perspective there is a significant short-coming in the Human Rights movement. This failure is  that there has been absolutely no parallel progress into defining and upholding the basic yet vital “Human Responsibilities” that every human right brings with it. With every “right” comes a responsibility. It’s like two sides of the same coin.

This, as far as I can tell, is something the upholders and supporters of “Human rights” have completely failed to see or at least include in the Declaration of Human Rights. Where is the declaration of Human Responsibilities? Do we grant a man the Right to own a weapon without also upholding his Responsibility to “do no harm” with it? There are many people who legally own weapons—as an exercise of their Right to own such weapons—and  they have made no conscious commitment to the responsibility to “do no harm” with that weapon.

I’ve always had a great interest in words and the way they are formed and the meaning(s) within various words. To me the word “responsibility” quite obviously breaks down to response-ability. It is referring to ones ability-to-respond. The purpose of this article is to point out that with every “human right” comes one or more response-abilities—meaning that with each right granted to me, my ability to respond is increased and hence my level of responsibility is increased.

Until we individually and collective address this imbalance of people having rights without responsibilities, many social issues will continue to only get worse in the world. One brief example: Take America for instance. A country that prides itself on its constitution and the constitutional rights people have as American citizens. All sorts of freedoms are put forth in this constitution. Yet where is the responsibility factor? We now have a country that plays out such profound levels of duality it’s quite comical to watch. The collective consciousness of “America” has done a great deal to bring forth new spiritual insight and awareness in the world yet at exactly the same time it is (in my experience) one of the most controlled and destructive nations in the world. The USA plays out such massive and far reaching roles of control, distortion, terrorism, and destruction. I don’t portray this as being “good” or “bad”. It’s just an observation of what is playing out.

My point is simply that if the American Constitution included not only the rights of the American people but also the responsibilities that go with those rights then today we would be looking at a very different America and—due to it’s massive influence on the planet—a very different world. I hope I haven’t offended any of my relations in American. Although, if I have then I simply invite those who are offended to please take an open and honest look at what it is you identify with so strongly in a country, which is simply a political construct, construed out of nothing other than a collective story.

Perhaps the world would benefit from a Declaration Of Human Responsibilities? Do you have any suggestions as to what such a declaration might include?

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