# At what point is someone else's business my business?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-is-someone-elses-business-my-business/486299>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [February 17, 2009, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-is-someone-elses-business-my-business/486299 "2009-02-17T18:22:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2009, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-is-someone-elses-business-my-business/486299/21 "2009-02-19T09:45:40Z")

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I believe in the universality of Human Rights and I believe that it is my business when Human Rights are being infringed anywhere. Someone said it much better than I ever could.

> [@](#):
>
> No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
> 
> John Donne, “Devotions upon Emergent Occasions” (1623), XVII: Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris - “Now, this bell tolling softly for another, says to me: Thou must die.”

I believe we should all listen to each other’s concerns. The problem comes when one country wants to impose their view while not accepting any criticism. That is a recipe for conflict. China believes internal affairs are internal affairs and nobody else’s business. I disagree but I have to give them that they are at least consistent and they do not try to tell others how they should run their countries. The problem comes when America wants to tell other countries what they should do but then believes everybody else should mind their own business when it comes to America. Americans tend to be particularly bad in this respect.

> [@](#):
>
> Men, said the Devil,  
> are good to their brothers:  
> they don’t want to mend  
> their own ways, but each other’s.
> 
> - 
> - Piet Hein (December 16, 1905 - April 18, 1996)

America’s stance appears to the world, not as a true interest in Human Rights, which it regularly and consistently violates, but as using that argument to further its own ends.

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**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\
**Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-is-someone-elses-business-my-business/486299/22 "2009-03-01T05:34:02Z")

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I personally believe that what we percieve to be human rights from the Western Cultural viewpoint are the best in the world but my viewpoint is subjective as are those of many of the posters in this thread.  
Other cultures,not necessarily Islamic not only do not share our viewpoint but consider it seriously flawed and it would be an act of arrogance to force our version of freedom on them "for their own good"whether they like it or not.

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