ABSTRACT
Mankind's best defense against tyranny and want is limited governments government which empowers its people, not itself, and which respects the wit and bravery, the initiative, and the generosity of the people. Central thesis of Joshua Muravchik's splendid study of Jimmy Carter's human rights policy (The Uncertain Crusade: Jimmy Carter and the Dilemmas of Human Rights Policy) that "a crucial determinant of the state of human rights in the world is the state of the idea of human rights". Joshua Muravchik's charge that the Soviet system is evil by design is absolutely correct. It is a system that from the very outset subordinates the individual to the group; the system begins not with the individual and his rights but with the group and its "rights". Muravchik has given us a study that will go far toward clarifying the international muddle on the idea of "human rights".
