Long. TL;DR: Exceptions in one's support for universal rights = not actually supporting universal rights and that's bad, mmkay.

Probably not a controversial opinion on mastodon, but if you actively support universal rights for everyone *except* a certain kind of people, I believe you are contributing to some of the biggest problems in our world, regardless of your reasons. You're working for the wrong team whether you know it or not.

"But wait!" some will say, "What about #trans 'groomers'? #Antifa? #Black militants? #Gay pedophiles? Job-stealing #immigrant #criminals?"

Even if those concerns were valid (happy to explain at length how they really, seriously aren't), this argument boils down to: "Because of the actions of some people, I'm willing to deny rights to others who seem similar." It's a willingness to harm some people because they appear to be like other people.

"Now hold on a minute," others might say, "What about #pedophiles? #Terrorists? Drug dealers selling crack to children? Human traffickers? #Billionaires? Misogynists? Racists? #Terfs? Homophobes?"

Yes, those can actually be valid concerns. however, under the hood it's the same problem: every person in our world willing to deny "universal" rights to anyone else (or just to be silent while people around them do so) is a person who doesn't actually support universal #rights, a person who will hurt or oppress others if it is packaged just right. They're a tiny piece of our world that doesn't actually believe in fundamental "#freedom" or "#justice", because those things have exceptions for them.

Multiply those exceptions by a few million people and this is how you get a society that claims to support "#liberty" or "the #constitution" or "#HumanRights" but actually just doesn't; a society that continually misses its marks; a society that has impressive words on the label but never really looks like the pictures in the product brochure. It's a society in which the people truly walking the walk on support for their fellow humans seem like extreme radicals.

I'm not saying avoiding this pitfall is easy; support for universal rights is hard, sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes legitimately scary. Even among those aspiring to this, I don't think most (including me) are quite there; we are still silent sometimes when our values would say we should speak up--for example, I believe pedophiles have/deserve the same rights as anyone else, but I rarely say that out loud, even here.

As for how to help myself or others achieve this, I probably have the same bundle of ideas as anyone else. I think we need improved strategies but I'm not sure what they are. I don't think attacks or punitive/shaming gatekeeping are generally great methods, but I also don't think we should stay silent when people in "our groups" demonstrate a lack of support. Encouraging support for universal rights is hard, too.

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Notes:

1. A common way to package exceptions is "For everyone else to have freedom, [marginalized group] must have fewer rights because [danger, real or imagined]." This is 100% wrong and stupid, and this argument should be screamed at with all possible volume whenever it appears.

2. I can't currently think of any valid exceptions to supporting universal human rights. I think "universal rights" means "universal rights," literally no matter who you are, what group you belong to, or what you've done. I'm open to the possibility that there are valid exceptions, but I'm not currently aware of what those might be.

3. This was posted to FB, then edited/expanded a bit for mastodon.

4. This is about principles, not my personal behavior, which falls short of my principles; in other words, I am probably a hypocrite, though I' working on it.