Essay 1: Civil liberties are legal and constitutional rights that protect citizens from government actions. The civil rights specify what the government must do, creating limitations on government actions and creating what they cannot do. There are many different examples of civil liberties including the right to bear arms, the right to a fair trial, the right to due process, right to own property, the freedom from slavery and forced labor, freedom of press, freedom of religion and expression, the right to privacy, also the freedom from torture and death. Civil liberties are concerned with our basic right and freedoms that are ‘guaranteed’ and sourced from the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. The courts and laws have understood these documents throughout history.
It is for this reason that states do not have to recognize out of state gay marriages unlike other legal measures protected by the Full Faith and Credit Clause. A history of muddied political interpretation has led to measures which overreach principles of federal law, and other similar discriminatory measures like USC section 7’s “definition of marriage and spouse.” The Full Faith and Credit Clause should be upheld in support of gay marriage because constitutionally, not doing so would misconstrue numerous constitutional norms. The Full Faith and Credit Clause normally protect things such as freedom of mobility, the commerce clause, the right to marry, and the right to travel. By not applying the Full Faith and Credit Clause, these liberties are combined and disregarded for a minority group. If a gay marriage (a legal status not a national law) is not guarded by Full Faith and Credit, implications on national economy, family law, and children’s rights are at risk.
The Denotative meaning of freedom can be expressed through the dictionary definition, through antonyms and synonyms from the thesaurus, and from a negative definition. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines freedom as “the state of being free from the control or power of another.” But freedom cannot be defined that easily. While The thesaurus tries to define freedom with the use of synonyms like liberty and self-government. Liberty and self-government are both parts of freedom, both are required to have freedom. Liberty allows U.S. citizens to have the right to choose how they live their life.
The highest moral right is liberty and from it any other goods will follow. These secondary rights could include freedom to get married, or be a musician, but these are to be pursued privately. Negative liberty is “freedom from”, only when an individual is free to make his own decisions and actions without coercion is a person truly free (Machan 5). This “freedom from” emphasizes right before good. According to Hospers The essential ingredient in all freedom from coercion by other is one’s basic and inalienable right; it is fundamental to human survival and the development of the self (Machan 8).
Many people claim that this distinction in race is necessary because the society in which we live is still racist and only parents of the same ethnic group would be able to give enough cultural support to the children. On the other hand this distinction on races can be considered racist for some people and it could contribute to create a racist society. In the section called “Room for Debate” of the New York Times website, we can find a debate showing different arguments about this issue. In the depate there are three participants with very clear and strong positions. One of the participants is Kevin Noble, author of the article “Not a Deciding Factor but not to be ignored”.
Freedom of Speech with Consent of the Others “Protecting Freedom of Expression on the Campus” by Derek Bok, is an essay about the struggle of reconciling the rights of free speech, while avoiding the racial tension. The essay briefly describes the difficulties of dealing with this dilemma of keeping one’s freedom of speech without insulting others. Bok uses the example of a Confederate flag that was hung by students from Harvard University and a Swastika flag was hung as a response to this act, which were both an offensive form of expression. He suggests two solutions to this problem of racist speech. The first one is ignoring any offensive speech and the second one is making conscience about how forms of expression can be offensive to others through dialogue.
The Alien and Sedition Acts and the Patriot Act have a lot in common. One of these laws passed under the Alien and Sedition Acts forms the basis of the Patriot Act. They were all to protect us even though it gave away some of our freedoms. That is what the debates are about. It is either they take away some of our freedoms and leave us with safety, or leave us with freedoms and take away some of our safety.
The fact that due process must be involved and there must be evidence before I can be hauled off to jail and left there. On the other hand sometimes the safety or good of the many definitely out weighs the needs of the few. Public order helps to keep us safe from threats of terrorism and criminal activities. Without it we might be subjected to all kinds of ramifications within our society. There are times when individual rights must be sacrificed in order to maintain our American way of life.
Because people differ in their interpretation of these rights, conflicts arise that need to be settled by the Supreme Court. The Right of Privacy The right to privacy is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution. However, Supreme Court decisions have established that the right to privacy is a basic human right. By virtue the basic human right is protected by the Ninth Amendment - certain rights cannot deny or belittle others. In addition to this amendment, the right to privacy is by the very nature a part of the Third and Fourth Amendment that protect against search and seizure and the Fifth Amendment that protects against self-incrimination.
This matter was taken to the Supreme Court where it was reasoned that it was illegal to turn away students just because they were black. This case also called the end of segregation in schools. Segregation took part in many other areas of life including public transport. This affected buses and trains. Bus shelters and seats in buses were separate for the whites and blacks, where they sat in different sides of the shelter.