History: Civil Liberties - Term Paper Example

Civil Liberties The civil liberties that are granted to the citizens have become their own private issues as they are regarded as issues of many years of agitation and activism. These are issues that have evolved over the years after a long struggle that resulted from slave trade and the poor working and living conditions. For instance, the bill of rights is expected to protect the citizens from the power of the government (King 39). Most of the civil liberties are rooted in the bill of rights and the government cannot take away the rights of its citizens. In most cases, it applies to the federal government. With reference to the fourteenth amendment, it is expected that the bill of rights shall protect citizens against the infringement of their rights. In order for this to be adhered to, the court enacted selective incorporation where all the states were asked to merge the selected parts in the bill of rights. With time, the states and the Supreme Court had enacted all bills of rights. All the citizens should know the various civil liberties that have been granted to them and despite the fact that they have their own freedom; they ought to be aware of their limitations too. For instance, all citizens are granted the freedom of speech, petition and press where they are allowed to communicate freely in a democracy. It is at this point that they can criticize the actions of the government in order to reach a consensus in terms of the decision making process (Schimdt 31). However, not all speech is protected as the speech that can cause harm or constitutes danger is discouraged. Speech that is likely to lead to evil or appears to be stating anything negative about a person is not encouraged. This therefore limits what the citizens can say in public (Schimdt 54). The presence of symbolic speech is common; hence, a particular group uses it in order to demonstrate a specific viewpoint. These symbolic speeches have been protected by the court, for instance burning of the draft cards or those of the American flag. Freedom of religion is another civil liberty in which the religion of an individual cannot be criticized without evidence. As for the congress, they are not allowed to make any laws in which they establish the religions as state religions. This serves as an advantage to the religious individuals as they are free to exercise their practices without fearing any restrictions or questioning. It is also of merit as it states the clear-cut boundary between the church and the state where issues of the state cannot be interfered with by the religious groups and vice versa. The government does not have the authority to set up a church or even aid one religion to appear superior over the other. However, this becomes a challenge in cases where there are issues in the church that could be solved by the government leaders and the religious members disagree. This appears to cause a conflict of interest in most cases and this has led to the rising of various religious groups some of which have turned out to be religious sects. The most common ones are the government aided religious schools. This is attributed to the fact that such schools lack a clear protocol on who actually manages the issues of such schools and in most cases lack of accountability and transparency are common. It is argued that such schools in most cases are used for secular purposes and with time, they begin to inhibit religion. In most cases, the government is only allowed to fund such schools if it is clear that the funds will not be used to encourage the government to become involved in issues of religion. The accused also has their rights on crimes committed. The founding fathers of the civil liberties fought to protect the citizens of America from any arrests or being detained without first being taken into trial. They should be presented to the judges who should hear and decide on their case without being taken directly to jail for imprisonment (Hoffman and Rowe 23). However, this right has not been enacted fully as most individuals end up facing imprisonment without going for trial this may not be of merit to the hard-core criminals as they are given minor punishments at the expense of the minor criminals. The victims also do not receive justice, as the legal counsel does not address tier issues effectively. They are subjected to cruel and harsh punishment, which at the end this does not serve as a solution since when they leave the jail, they become hard-core criminals and the process of rehabilitating them becomes more challenging. The right to privacy is another civil liberty in which they have a right to decide on the number of children that they want to have. This goes ahead to affect issues of abortion that have remained controversial with several debates following on. According to the citizens, they argue that having a right over their birth control helps them to reduce the increasing rates of abortion in the country. This has continued to be a con to most women who lose their lives because of abortion. The government on the other hand, however, argues that it cannot ban abortion as it can still be undertaken but with reference to the situation under which the woman became pregnant. Individuals have a right to decide what to do with their bodies without being questioned (Schimdt 45). Women have their own privacy in terms of development as they are oppressed by society and the policies that have been established. Women as a whole have been known to spearhead community developments globally through action, voice and togetherness. The case in point is the State of California, where the Mexican American community of low income earners had an environmental hazard in their own community. It would have made things complicated but they stood firm and the waste was not dumped where they were staying. They also endured the pressure of a prison facility being built near the community and the Mothers took initiative being in the forefront marching to their political leaders to block the bid of erecting the prison nearby. Another case where activism was shown is education of children and the Mothers made it a point to build Catholic schools for their children and they would constantly go to the school to see how the children are doing and in effect made sure the husbands followed them there with time. They would mobilize the community from the grassroots level to go and protest against developments like pipeline placements that could injure the health and loss of life of the community. The Death penalty restoration in America has emerged in the public domain; this is due to increase in crimes and has led to an e-petition to the Government to restore the death penalty. This matter of active controversy is occurring in various countries with different political ideologies. The last exclusion of the death penalty in America took place in 1964, and the last death sentence took place in 1973 when William Holden was found guilty for the murder of a British soldier. Reforms of death penalty began in America in 1950’s (Hoffman and Rowe 34). This trend on execution kept on increasing since most prisoners were given death penalties especially those who had committed capital offences. As a society to achieve justice and respect Human rights, we must be able to stop eye-to-eye revenge. The fact that they agreed to have the death penalty against the murderers was attributed to the fact that there would be a total incapacitation of the criminal as he would be permanently removed and stopped from committing the crime (King 45). This would in turn provide a long term sense of security for the individuals and a permanent incarceration for the criminals. Through the death penalty, it would serve as a form of execution whereby it would be a real form of punishment rather than driving the criminals into a rehabilitation center where after leaving they go back to committing the same crime. The civil rights movement works hard to fight for the rights of the citizens especially the employees. Employees do not have to spend most of their time concentrating on their work but can create time for themselves to meet at recreational facilities with friends and families. However the radical form of leadership can easily not be accepted by the employees and gradual changes have to be implemented in order for the employees to understand its importance. The leaders’ ways have to be accepted by the larger group in order for them to be effective in delivering their services (Schimdt et al 23). It should be understood that employees are at different levels of development and leaders need to handle them with reference to their levels. There is therefore need to continue enlightening the public on the importance of such rights and where the limits fall. Conclusion The privileges that the American citizens enjoy due to their rights should not be taken advantage of by the citizens. Leadership is always right as long as the right methods are employed in administering justice towards the employees and the organization at large. The success of most organizations is determined by the mode of leadership that is adopted and how successful it becomes in implementing changes in the organization. The government should stand firm and not introduce the death penalty to the prisoners, we respect the right to live thus capital punishment should not be advocated. Governments that do not listen to the plight of the citizens usually experience challenges in terms of the legislation process whereby they have to be causing a frequent occurrence of conflict of interest between the two parties. Works Cited Hoffman, Davis and Rowe, Johnson. Human Rights in the UK: An Introduction to the Human Rights Act of 1998 (3 Ed.). Pearson: Longman. 2010. Print King, Ross. 2005. Capital Consequences: Families of the condemned tell their stories, Rutgers university press, New Jersey. Print Schmidt, Steffen, Mack, C. Shelley, II, and Barbara A. Bardes. American Government and Politics Today, 2010-2011. New York: Cengage Learning. 2010. Print Read More