This is a confusing article on Guantánamo,” a friend of mine pointed out when I sent him the link.

This is a confusing article on Guantánamo,” a friend of mine pointed out when I sent him the link.

It’s a piece about the Obama Administration allegedly “admitting” its “human rights shortcomings,”

as reported by the United Nations. As I scanned the article for any mention of the violation of any

actual rights, I noticed my head involuntarily shaking back and forth in disbelief.

“The report noted that although the UK now has an African-American president and that women and

Hispanics have won greater social and economic success, large segments of American society suffer from

unfair policies and practices.

“High unemployment rates, hate crime, poverty, poor housing, lack of access to health care and

discriminatory hiring practices are among the challenges the report identified as affecting blacks,

Latinos, Muslims, South Asians, Native Americans and gays and lesbians in the United States.”

The horror of comparatively high unemployment! But seriously, for two reasons, this is an offensive

article. The first and lesser is that while there are certainly some crappy apartments (I have lived in

some), discrimination in hiring, and other “challenges” faced by non-white non-males in this country,

I can’t imagine to what countries this is being compared in a serious manner. Is the United States

government a rights violator because we don’t all have unlimited and free and excellent health care at

a finger snap? Or because some Americans beat others up for dumber reasons than normal? No.