Errata, let me spell it out for you: China published this paper as a slap to the U.S., not because they are concerned about human rights violations committed by the U.S. That is the reason they are “pointing fingers at us” and any conclusions the paper makes are therefore suspect and should be viewed through that filter.
Furthermore you seem to be critical of people (like me) not having read the whole thing, but you haven’t given one good reason why we should: my time is limited and I’m not going to waste it reading bullshit. Every reasonable point I saw the paper make it would then follow with a non sequitur in reasoning or a jump in logic. If you want a reasonable debate on the U.S.'s record on human rights get a less biased source. I sincerely doubt that anyone in this thread believes the U.S. is not guilty of human rights violations, but it’s ridiculous to think that we’re as horrible that paper seemingly presents us to be.
As far as your theory that the U.S. is hypocritical in its foreign policy, and the paper was more of a political statement concerning that (thanks for finally presenting an argument), I tentatively agree, but only partially.
The U.S. has systematically claimed freedom for our people at home and then supported corrupt regimes overseas (Iraq in 1980’s), and then turned around and criticized other regimes for doing the exact same things the countries we were supporting were doing. The CIA has gone in and undermined governments in countries that were content specifically so we’d have “our guys” in power, and now we’re running around and instituting a regime change in the open claiming that it’ll be better for the world, but with our record why should other countries give us the benefit of the doubt and believe us?
And why with that foreign record should other countries listen to our criticisms? Well I’d point to Somalia which was a humanitarian mission, or to our defense of South Korea which turned out wonderfully for them or to the liberation of Kuwait which the U.S. was one of the leading participants in. We have done committed grievous wrongs in our foreign policy, but we’ve also attempted to do a lot of good, especially in recent times (personal opinion on the war in Iraq presumably playing a large role in whether or not you agree with this).
On the home front I think accusations of human rights violations are somewhat off base. For example, simply having the largest prison population in the world is not a human rights violation. Furthermore the majority of prisoners being black is not a formal institutional problem, but more of a sociological one: there are currently laws on the books to prohibit unfair treatment of people in the U.S. based upon their race which presumably applies to punishment given to a person for committing a crime, so it’s more a matter of the individuals who get to decide sentencing not meting it out equally. Arguably splitting hairs, but I think that it is important to point out that the government of the U.S. has put forth a relatively consistent agenda of treating its people equally and fairly (although there have been aberrations such as three strikes laws) and it has largely been individuals who have enforced it unfairly and thus being the root cause of violations.
I would also argue that the U.S.’s criticisms of other countries, while likely often having a political aspect, is more prompted by a large human interest bloc in this country applying political pressure to have the government make such pronouncements and apply appropriate pressure (I don’t have any cites handy but I’m sure I can dig something up later if you like, it’s late).
I could go on but I think that that’s a decent enough sampling that let’s you see where I stand on the issue of the U.S. being guilty of human rights violations and whether or not we’ve ever been motivated politically to make criticisms of others human rights violations. We are guilty on both counts, however our attempts to do good I think balance out, or outweigh, that to a large extent.
I will willfully admit that the U.S. has been hypocritical in more than a few of its denouncements of other countries, knowing full well that it had policies in place that mirrored or were more horrific than those the countries it was criticizing had. However I think that the U.S. has not been hypocritical overall in its denouncements of other countries human rights policies or violations because the U.S. has made strides on its own behalf to not make such violations itself, and those times that it has been hypocritical have for the most part been the exceptions. Not the perfect pedestal to criticize others from, but we don’t live in a perfect world.
And I’d also like to mention that the argument that the U.S. has largely been hypocritical seems to potentially be an extreme of the maxim concerning stones and glass houses, in which case I don’t think that any country or group has the right to criticize anyone else. Not the world I want to live in.*
*[sub]On preview I’ll also mention that that paragraph looks a bit like a strawman, but I’ll leave it in so people can tear it up and I can get a better idea of opposing views.[/sub]
