DIC Hobrazia

[Emunim]

Our function, we believe, is to investigate democracy. While many theorists would have it that democracy and 'human rights' are unalienably linked, there is plenty of evidence that democracy can exist where social freedoms are denied, so long as popular consent is given for the State to take those freedoms. As Ms. Mayday quite evidently accepts that the latest Hobrazian election results are legitimate, we find it highly questionable how they can reconcile this with the view that democracy cannot exist in Hobrazia when the Rutanian standard of human rights clearly are not.

While we remain fully committed to human rights, the scope of this committee is to investigate the political freedoms, not the social freedoms, of Hobrazia. Barmenia is therefore forced to vote against the inclusion of human rights abuses.

[rep]

I would have some remarks about the statements of the Barmenian representative.
Regarding its claim that "democracy can exist where social freedoms are denied, so long as popular consent is given for the State to take those freedoms": why would the people agree in restricting their rights? This is an insane idea which can come only from complete ignorance of reality.

Nevertheless I agree with the statement that we are investigate the political freedoms. There are to types of political liberties: the right to vote and the right to be elected. This second aspect implies that opposition is let to function properly and freely. The abuses of the former Hobrazian government however point to the presumption that it did not respect the political freedom of all Hobrazians.

[Emunim]

On the contrary, social freedoms are often willingly abandoned, so long as the population does not feel that the benifit of that freedom outweighs the harm it does to society. For instance, some countries may feel gunownership is an essential freedom; others feel the potential for them to get shot makes this freedom not worth having. The same kind of logic applies to all sorts of social freedoms, from restrictions on the right to assemble to tolerance of religious and cultural minorities. The point being that while we may not agree such actions would be desirable or right, we could hardly accuse any government of being a dictatorship if it had a democratic mandate to do such things. As such, when judging a countries democracy we can only look at its political freedoms, a point we are glad to see we are in agreement on.