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Comment by dependsontheq | Hacker News Reader

So human rights are just a geopolitical issue?

Human rights is a form of secular religion. They do not exist in the real world, enforcement of those rights depend on a shared value system, and they often have a corresponding religious alternative, like "human life is sacred".

Since human rights can vary between geopolitical regions they can absolutely be looked at as a geopolitical issue, in the same way religious wars are geopolitical.

I didn't realize something like "human life is sacred" was up for debate.

That is not what the OP said. He said it is a religious idea. And it is. Look, you are even using the word "sacred".

For some reason the word "religion" means something bad to you and so you are attacking the idea of something good ("human rights") being in the same sentence as "religion".

The actual definition of religion is broader and can mean simply a set of shared ethics, which human rights clearly are.

Perhaps I misunderstood OP's tone.

Imagine the mental gymnastics you have to go through to defend China's clear disregard for human rights and human life.

When an image gives the wrong first impression/is misleading, indeed they are.

When doing with good intent, they're not. Since the US and China are rivals at this point and neither side wants to chill, and given the history of troll farms by many countries to manipulate discourse, I'd be wary of discussion that contributes to a solution.

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