It's inconceivable and more than a little scary when the President of the United States can't pull a definition for Human Dignity out of his teeny tiny brain. I guess he must have cut that class at Yale.
I don't think the president could be any clearer. Humans retain their dignity up to the point of organ failure, death, or permanent impairment of vital human functions.
When you think about it, it's an incredibly optimistic vision. I for one think America could use a little more of this kind of optimism.
Strategies must be written as specifically as laws? How strange!(And absurd! And, if you mean it, dangerous!)
Strategies are designed to provide a grand unifying vision. Laws are designed to provide clear guidelines of what actions are criminal. They operate in different ways to different ends.
I'm not sure how this is responsive to the post, particularly given the context of Bush's first set of remarks.
Dan - could you explain?
The post seems to criticize the President for demanding a higher standard of precision in Laws than in Strategies, which seems odd.
The Convention actually uses the phrase "personal dignity" and I think the prohibitions are fairly clear:
"To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:Arguably, President Bush's policy rhetoric fleshes out an expansive "human dignity" agenda.
(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(b) Taking of hostages;
(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;
(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."
In other words, the more recent quote was hypocritical, as implied.
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