Friday 7 October 2011

Humans, right?

Well, bugger me if I didn't just learn something. I've been reading up all this guff about Theresa May and Ken Clarke and all that Human Rights Act malarkey and now I see what the fuss is about. And it comes down to definitions, or more specifically the definition of 'human'.

There's your problem, right there.

Sometimes it's an easy decision to make. Study the following picture of my mate Froggy carefully and you'll soon realise that, while he is enormous fun and jolly good company, he's got no obvious opposable thumbs to operate an iPhone and is therefore, sadly, to be classed as 'not human'.


But, with certain species it's so much less obvious. Now, I'm far from being the first one to make this comparison, but the pictures below of the inestimably fine fellow, Wallace and his doggy sidekick Gromit are virtually indistinguishable and so long as their thumbs are firmly out of sight you will be very hard pushed indeed to tell which is human and which is a sad, bad, slightly mad copy of his older brother of the other.


You see my point? Stand on any high street and you'd be forgiven for thinking that all those shuffling, lurching bipeds cashing giros (do they still do that?) and trundling along on super-reinforced, electric lard-carts all belong to the same species. Undoubtedly many of them do belong to the same species; the question is, is it the same species as me?

So, come the revolution I will enact various basic human rights, such as the right to not be tortured, killed, burgled, vandalised, or mugged. In fact, sod, it I will protect your right as a defined human to lead a life without having to suffer from pretty much anything genuinely hurtful or harmful, as decided by a reasonable person, i.e. me.

All I ask in return is that you earn those enviable rights, by behaving towards others in what any reasonable person (i.e. me) would describe as a decent, courteous, benevolent... er, oh yes, 'human' fashion. Step outside the boundaries of such behaviour without extreme provocation and you instantly step outside the definition of human and have no more rights than Froggy. And my snipers will be trained to sniff out the vermin that you will have become.

It's only right.

Have a lovely weekend! X

No comments:

Post a Comment