Denying Human Rights: A How-To Guide II

This is the second in a series of posts that come from a paper I wrote for my English class that I wanted to share.
The paper is seven or eight pages long, but that is too much for your average blog post.
So, I decided to cut it into smaller pieces and post it over the next few days. Consequently, as you read any of the posts on any given day, there may be a contextual flow of thought that is not readily perceived.
I encourage you, however, to keep reading (and sometimes re-reading) the subsequent posts (and prior posts) as it will become clearer as you go.

Please enjoy.

Denying Human Rights: A How-To Guide (part II)

However, if we are to continue this discussion of the most effective way to deny fundamental human rights to those who should not have them, it would be critical to understand what fundamental human rights are!
For example, do all human beings have the right to government funded health care? How about clean drinking water? Is it true that all human beings have the right to not be enslaved by other human beings? What about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? What about other rights such as: freedom of speech, democracy, a minimum wage, citizenship in the country of your choice, cost of living pay increases, internet access, a trial by a jury of one’s peers, shelter, clothing, freedom of choice, or dozens of other possibilities?
I have heard it said that the most basic and fundamental human rights are the right to life and the right to be treated with dignity and that if only those are granted, 99% of all the evils of the world would be eliminated. Whether this is true or not, I am not sure, but for purposes of discussion and in the interest of simplicity I will assume that human rights don’t get much more fundamental than that.
Nevertheless, this is not enough, for, while we have come up with some type of workable definition for what the most basic and fundamental of all human rights are, we still have not determined who gets them and how to deny them.