ETs/Visitors AND humans have rights (~1,960 words, ~12 minutes)
Use the experts and the centuries of knowledge!
Photo by Michael Herren on Unsplash (a grey scale photo of a post beside a roof which has a lamp and UFO self parking sign)
A little while ago, I published a commment on a YouTube video where I addressed what looked to me to be a somewhat floundering attempt to deal with “human” rights extended to ETs/“the visitors” - and to humans abducted by the ETs/Visitors. It showed that, just as those who lack familiarity with experiencers and contact should defer to experiencers, so too should those who lack experience with human rights defer to people with expertise on human and non-human rights - which has been considered for MILLENNIA and human dignity.
My comment was on the interview of Courtney Buterbough by “The Witching Hours”, video at
I made the following comment in response to part of the interview of Courtney Buterbaugh by The Witching Hours
“I have a few thoughts on the question about pre-life agreements allowing abuse and rights at 1:17:13 - and my apologies, but YouTube won’t let me post URLs.
My view is we do undertake planning before incarnation - planning involving our Guides AND OUR HIGHER SELF (“SOUL”) before we incarnate - on ALL aspects of our life, not only ET interactions.
In terms of the broader context, our spiritual growth is the main aim of that planning, BUT:
- I think it was Jennifer Lisa Vest who made a comment in a YouTube video about why we choose to incarnate during an apocalypse that we can sometimes be like an athlete who wants to test their skills to the limit, but in the personal growth field, so we may take on too much (right now I consider I did when planning this life, but that is other areas of my life, not the ET parts). To put that another way, we ALL are at risk of a case of Dunning-Kruger effect when planning our lives;
- there is already a very well developed field of the rights of Sentient Life which applies here - going back to Jainism (which predates Buddhism) at least, and likely further. This is, IMO, far better acknowledged outside the USA than in it (I am outside the USA), but the sorts of rights described by Franklin Roosevelt as the Four Freedoms, outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 (and subsequently codified into enforceable international law by the Twin Covenants) and further refined by subsequent covenants. Humans already have rights in abduction experiences. ETs also have rights which are being broken when they are shot down or abused by humans. There are, however, issues around enforceability of those rights - but, importantly, in any human-ET interaction, both sides morally and spiritually HAVE rights;
- ethically/spiritually, all beings are accountable for their behaviour. That also means that ETs who cause fear or distress are, at the very least, guilty of sloppy / unprofessional / incompetent conduct, just as humans experimenting on animals should be held accountable for the distress and suffering they cause. Again, there are problems with enforceability, but the rights do exist;
- specific agreements on specific topics have a number of benefits, including making rights better known, and using wording that applies rights to specific situations - the OHCHR has a list of the core international human rights treaties, and that includes the Twin Covenants (the ICCPR and ICESCR), CEDAW (the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women [which I was hoping would be supplemented by a convention against gender apartheid[), and conventions about racism, children’s rights, and against “torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”;
- An agreement about experiencer rights would have similar benefits, but there are issues about who has the right to negotiate the agreements (including whether the USA had a right to make an agreement that affected the rest of the world), and enforcement (which is a common problem in international law). However, IRRESPECTIVE of whether a formal agreement exists or not, experiencers and ETs ALREADY have rights - rights that may not be recognised by any jurisdiction, but still morally and spiritually exist, and can be used to challenge behaviour - if the experiencer is able to think to do so, which is not always the case. And, subject to the rights of people to sovereignty over their land, ETs are entitled to challenge humans for their abuses;
- Finally, we have the right to change our mind - otherwise we become abused slaves to our mistakes.
And I agree that change in consciousness has had an impact on this.”
I now have come across the following comment in a news report (at https://unknowncountry.com/headline-news/david-grusch-tells-dr-phil-the-u-s-recovered-nonhuman-craft-and-living-occupants/) by Whitley Strieber’s “The Unknown Country”:
“If independently substantiated, that claim would raise questions that extend beyond disclosure and national security. If a government has detained — or continues to detain — intelligent nonhuman beings capable of communication, what legal or ethical status would such beings have? What obligations would humans have toward them? And if they represent another civilization or intelligence, could detention itself constitute a form of first diplomatic contact? Those questions are implications of Grusch’s allegation, not facts established by the interview.”
Now, if we start from a minimalist position, any detained creature would be subject to the international conventions which cover animal rights - including for farming and laboratory testing.
I suspect one of, if not the, biggest problems here is that too many people inside the USA tend to forget that they are only PART of the world (and a rapidly declining part, given the current regime ... [on world variations in actions/attitudes regarding UFOs/UAPs, see Note 1]). The site at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Animal_rights_by_country_or_territory&oldid=1368722175 provides a list of the nations which do such things as recognise animal sentience (partial in the USA - depends on state) and suffering (recognised by the USA).
So the very least of obligations that humans would morally (and I, as someone who has been active in human and animal rights for decades, consider there is a VERY good chance of a compelling case for “legally”) have towards detained Visitors/ETs is, IMO, the avoidance of cruelty, pain, etc., just as is required towards non-human animals from Earth.
If we take a step up, and consider the aspect of detention of an Intelligent species.
Again, there would be an excelllent case that, as a minimum, international and national conventions regarding the holding of animals would apply, but it is also likely that conventions regarding the rights of those held under criminal laws, and possibly those held as prisoners of war, would apply. The webpage at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Prisoners%27_rights_in_international_law&oldid=1311722955 gives a convenient run down on these rights (and links for those who want to look into those more - the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is probably the best source on these [be wary of anything inside the USA - especially if that source has been affected by the current regime there).
The question about whether detained intelligent (“capable of communication”) species have rights has, in my opinion (IMO), been answered, and the answer is yes - just as there is no question that those humans (and animals) taken by ETs/Visitors also have rights.
Unfortunately, however, the world has been establishing a habit of ignoring or weaseling around or out of the rights of humans and animals for decades, but that is an indictment on the weakness of enforcement, NOT the existence of rights.
Enforcement of those rights would require open communication between us and the ETs/Visitors - which goes beyond what most people hope for regarding disclosure, and gets into diplomacy.
And, again, that is field which has been considered and developed for centuries, and there are international conventions which apply to it - and detention of members of an intelligent species is NOT diplomacy! (How the hell can that even be proposed?)
The alleged 1950s agreement between the USA and some ETs/Visitors would be an act of diplomacy that could only be applied to the USA, as the USA does NOT have sovereignty over the rest of the world - the rest of the world would have to be active participants and agree for that to occur, so the rest of the world is at present completely free to ignore any agreement the USA may have made without authorisation to do so.
I’m aware that a couple of groups (at least) have done work towards establishing a basis for a diplomatic agreement between us and the ETs/Visitors, and, IMO, at least one of those is quite a decent document (which I cannot find at the moment - I’ll add a link later if I do), but they lack the standing to act on behalf of the nations of Earth, so these are similar to amicus briefs - and haven’t, IMO, shown an adequate awareness of the sorts of issues I have written about in this article.
I note the proposal for citizen diplomacy, and consider that is an effective way of building connections (and I regularly use a version of CE-5), but it won’t change the world for some years or decades, as it has to change government policies and decision-making to do so.
My biggest concern is that those working on diplomacy and rights within the UFO/UAP/ET/Visitor field are making the same mistake that those outside the field make: ignore the experts.
What I would like to see is an interview (or better, a series [Note 2]) between a credible UFO/UAP/ET/Visitor channel (such as Whitley Strieber’s “The Unknown Country“ or Breaking the Silence) and an international expert(s) from OUTSIDE THE USA (preferably someone from the OHCHR, although that is extremely unlikely) who has been asked to suspend any disbelief and then given time and resources (including this article and the existing diplomatic proposals) to prepare (at the very least, by thinking about all this).
Pending that, I respectfully suggest that anyone in the UFO/UAP/ET/Visitor field who wants to comment on rights aspects should first:
complete the MOOC Chile course, which I understand was under the auspices of the Universidad Diego Portales (Wikipedia), “Introduction to Human Rights”, but now is only available on YouTube (34 lessons, each ~ 10 -15 minutes; I did it on Udemy, but after they’d stopped giving certificates) at
consider reading Geoffrey Robertson‘s excellent tome “Crimes Against Humanity” (there are several editions, I haven’t tried to make the following consistent for the same edition: pub. The New Press, 2013, ISBN 978-1595588630; Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Amazon)
Information on diplomacy is not as readily accessible, but one book which might be worth considering is:
“Diplomacy - A Very Short Introduction”, Joseph M Siracusa, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-958850-3
As a final point, I mentioned human dignity [Note 3] at the start of this post. That is a somewhat newer concept, one that is perhaps more positivist than many human rights. Should any formal discussions on these matters get underway, it could be opportune to set an example to the rest of the world and make dignity of life forms a key and explicitly mentioned aspect, rather than being taken as implicit.
Notes
[Note 1]
See:
https://nexusnewsfeed.com/article/unexplained/how-countries-handle-uaps-a-global-survey/
https://factually.co/fact-checks/science/countries-declassified-ufo-uap-reports-since-2000-953107
[Note 2]
Perhaps something along the lines of:
Earth history - contact and clashes between peoples, particularly in the era of (violent) colonisation
Earth history - the centuries before and the decades after WW2
Earth - variations on a theme: animal rights, prisoner rights, and POW rights
Earth - the practical limits of jurisprudence, sovereignty, and international law
Earth - the interactions and interferences between diplomacy and rights (if someone suitable can be found)
Beyond the Earth - applying this to humans taken by ETs/Visitors
Beyond the Earth - applying this to ETs/Visitors taken by humans
Beyond the Earth - finding a way to global-ET/Visitor diplomacy
Tying it all together
[Note 3]
See:
I may deliberately inserrt typo’s to help show this ain’t A I.
If you wish to encourage or support me you can do so at PayPal or Ko-Fi – and such would be appreciated, and help me to keep writing here.