Sister Helen asks Phelps his opinions on some questions that have been bothering her. "Aren't there, I argue, some rights fundamental to human beings-- such as the right not to be tortured or killed-- that everyone, including governments, must respect? Doesn't the moral foundation of a society erode if its government is allowed to treat these fundamental, nonnegotiable rights as some sort of privilege, which they take on themselves to dispense for good behavior or withdraw for bad behavior?" [p. 103]
Sister Helen describes the legal system as "a system of gates that shut like one-way turnstiles, and you can't go back once you've come out" [p. 45]. The long appeals process would seem to ensure a fair trial for all, but in actuality the prisoner's success within it depends upon how good a lawyer he can afford to hire.
Sister Helen asks Phelps his opinions on some questions that have been bothering her. "Aren't there, I argue, some rights fundamental to human beings-- such as the right not to be tortured or killed-- that everyone, including governments, must respect? Doesn't the moral foundation of a society erode if its government is allowed to treat these fundamental, nonnegotiable rights as some sort of privilege, which they take on themselves to dispense for good behavior or withdraw for bad behavior?" [p. 103]
Sister Helen often speaks of "government" as though it were entirely separate and dissociated from the people themselves.
Sister Helen quotes Albert Camus on the death penalty: "To assert...that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no one in his right mind will believe this today" [p. 22].
Sister Helen accuses Edwin Edwards of condoning the death penalty so as not to risk his political career. Do you believe that Edwards is doing his job as governor by carrying out the will of the people, or should he act upon his own convictions? Robert says, "This whole death penalty ain't nothing but politics" [p. 162].
Sister Helen believes that a nun, as a servant of God, should serve the poor, and she sees her political activism as a way of serving the poor.
Sister Helen Prejean looks back on the life and career of her father-- a good man who helped the black people in his segregated community-- and reflects that "systems inflict pain and hardship in people's lives and.
In this film, Sister Helen believed that there are some human rights that are negotiable, but that there are these “basic” human rights that cannot be negotiated. Such as, two human rights that government should not control or act on; the right to not be killed or tortured. She believed that violating these human rights essentially made the government responsible for committing the same act. Her belief leads to the question of whether the people sho...
In “Four Human Rights Myths” Susan Marks discusses several conceptions (or misconceptions according to her) about human rights. She begins her paper with a case study of the 2011 London riots and how distinctively different is their coverage by the British prime minister and two scholars.
In her essay Can U.S. Citizens Be Held as Enemy Combatants, Jennifer Vanklausen explores the ethical question of our government’s policy to hold American citizens suspected of terrorist activity against the United States as enemy combatants, withholding their constitutional rights as provided in the fifth and sixth amendments, during an undeclared war.
“inalienable rights” in a time of crisis. During World War II, the Cold War, and the War in the
The primary purpose of this essay is stated in the title. It is to consider whether certain principles presented in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence and commonly referred to as human rights are supported by the authority of God 's word. A secondary goal is to consider how society might be influenced to establish and maintain laws which agree with God 's moral authority. Yet a third goal is to consider how free exercise of human rights might be impacted by obedience and disobedience to God 's moral authority.
Agamben’s argument features a double-standard because the moral rights of the government and the citizenry. Specifically, the government is granted the right to decide which citizens are worthy of remaining alive and which are not. In extreme cases, the government has the right to declare a state of emergency where habeas corpus is suspended and citizens can be killed without due process of the law. Under normal circumstances, the government does not exercise carte blanche in determining whose lives are worthy of preservation, but it nonetheless has the right to kill citizens under circumstances when civilians cannot: the death penalty is the case in point. Agamben defines such a right as the state of exception and forewarns that when the state of exception is normalized, a camp will emerge where no citizen has an inalienable right to life.
The Amendment I of the Bill of Rights is often called “the freedom of speech.” It provides a multitude of freedoms: of religion, of speech, of the press, to peacefully assemble, to petition the government. Religious freedom is vitally important to this day because it eliminates the problem of religious conflicts. Historically, many people died for their beliefs because their government only allowed and permitted one religion. T...
From the opening sentence of the essay, “We are free to be you, me, stupid, and dead”, Roger Rosenblatt hones in on a very potent and controversial topic. He notes the fundamental truth that although humans will regularly shield themselves with the omnipresent first amendment, seldom do we enjoy having the privilege we so readily abuse be used against us.
Each individual is given fundamental rights for solely being a human being. Regardless of his or her nation, language, or religion everyone is given these
Narration: was “fraught with errors.” He added that “until I can assure that everyone sentenced to death in Illinois is truly guilty, until I can be sure with moral certainty that no innocent man or woman is facing a lethal injection, no one will meet that fate.”
Values some take for granted within this society today were ignored wholesale by a tyrannical colonial authority, and the people of this land rose up, shook off the chains of oppression, and set out to devise a new governmental system under which they could live rather freely. In his iconic “Four Freedoms” speech, America’s 32nd president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, outlined said values, stating that all should enjoy “freedom of speech and expression...freedom...to worship God in [their] own way” and “ a healthy peacetime life” (46). The importance of the concept of free speech and equality to the American identity cannot be understated, as it truly the foundation upon which much of this society rests. In the United states, it is instilled in us that from birth each human is bestowed with the same freedoms as all others. However, time and time again, people are denied these freedoms on the basis of skin color, religion, sexual orientation, or gender. Luckily, when such situations arise, the core belief that each and every person is owed liberty motivates the citizens of this nation to exercise their rights. With this in mind they speak out, or fight, against injustice, to take a further step towards making that dream of equality and a “healthy peacetime life” for all a
These rights vary from country to race to gender across the board, lining a person up for a role that they will execute for the promotion of their immediate and overall society. The giving of an identity is expressed here, and just as one has the ability to give identity, one may also take it away. An example of this is with the Nazis before World War II, with Adolf Hitler’s obsession of a political and racial purity. To begin with the eventual demise of the Jewish people, the Nazis were ordered to strip away their rights and limit their connection to the outside world. From here, they were merely a minority in the community, herded into ghettos and eventually sent away to various camps. They were stripped of not only their citizenship, though, but their humanity as they became stars pinned to shirts and another pair of shoes to walk past at the Holocaust Museum.
The question then becomes at what price such sacrifices were made. Human rights should be exercised whenever injustice is witnessed, not only as protest when it is to one’s benefit. Acting to unite the people of the United States of America as one regardless of race, gender, religion or sexual preference despite belief over whether individual issues are important enough to defend.
The essence of this essay reveals the definition of human rights and the politics of its victimhood incorporating those that made a difference. Human Rights can be seen as having natural rights, a fixed basis in reality confirming its importance with a variety of roles; the role illuminated will be racial discrimination against African Americans.
“The common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights - for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture - is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition of all other personal rights is not defended with maximum determination.” -- Pope John Paul II