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More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The impact of government on international trade
Controversy surrounding capital punishment
Capital punishment arguments for in America
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Recommended: The impact of government on international trade
“We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness; …” (1760-1776). Under this phrase Americans citizens have been sheltered from tyranny and a cruel world overall. State rights are more than well protected in current constitution and the political practices from the federal government. Of the many articles in the constitution, the Commerce Clause does more than regulate domestic and international trade. This clause is undeniably balancing the judicial powers and congress itself. An example of this would be the Supreme Court case, Gonzales vs. Raich. Among a small group of medical marijuana users, Raich …show more content…
Such as abortion, more and more girls are having children out of wedlock causing the unnecessary ability to kill the child before hand. Here, the controversy is among the people rather than the actual government. Jason Ladock explains, “By all accounts, abortion appears like an awful crime. After all, abortion implies denying someone a well-deserved life. Just because the odds are not in our favor, can we deprive someone the chance to live” (Ladock)? In this case, it is appropriate for abortion to be a debatable topic rather than an actual amendment. There are strong pros and cons to this ongoing struggle. A second non-government affair, would be capital punishment where most of the American people identify this as the death penalty. Mary Cooper reports, “When a murder takes place, the community is obliged, whether it feels like it or not, to clear its throat and step up to the microphone. Every murder demands a communal response. Among possible responses, the death penalty is uniquely powerful because it is permanent and can never be retracted or overturned. . .
Instead, the Constitution grants Congress the power to pass legislation regulating all commerce bar intrastate trade (U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 3). Coupled with the subsequent clause enabling Congress to pass any legislation they deem necessary in order to carry out the laws passed by dint of the body’s Constitutionally-enumerated powers (U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 18), the enumerated power to regulate interstate and international commerce endows Congress with a significant capacity to control the nation’s
The Commerce Clause is referred to as an enumerated power listed in the United States Constitution. The clause states that the United States Congress
1. Our great country was founded upon a high set of principles, values, and laws. Many of these are easily seen when looking at the United States constitution. The first ten amendments are what is commonly known as the Bill of Rights. This is good and all, but until the fourteenth amendment was passed, the Bill of Rights only was applied to the Federal government. The 14th amendment has a clause that says, "no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." The Supreme Court ruled against “Total Incorporation”, but instead ruled in favor of “Selective Incorporation”. This meaning that the Supreme Court would define the constitutionality of the treatment of a citizen by the state.
The death penalty, as administered by states based on their individual laws, is considered capital punishment, the purpose of which is to penalize criminals convicted of murder or other heinous crimes (Fabian). The death penalty issue has been the focus of much controversy in recent years, even though capital punishment has been a part of our country's history since the beginning. Crimes in colonial times, such as murder and theft of livestock were dealt with swiftly and decisively ("The Death Penalty..."). Criminals were hanged shortly after their trial, in public executions. This practice was then considered just punishment for those crimes. Recently though, the focus of the death penalty debate has been on moral and legal issues. The murderers of today's society can be assured of a much longer life even after conviction, with the constraints of the appeals process slowing the implementation of their death sentence. In most cases, the appeal process lasts several years, during which time criminals enjoy comfortable lives. They have television, gym facilities, and the leisure time to attend free college-level classes that most American citizens must struggle to afford. Foremost, these murderers have the luxury of time, something their victims ran out of the moment their paths crossed. It is time this country realized the only true justice for these criminals is in the form of the death penalty. The death penalty should be administered for particularly heinous crimes.
Throughout American history, our civil liberties as American citizens have evolved immensely. For example, the first ten amendments in the U.S. Constitution are referred to as the “The Bill of Rights,” which contains some of the most cherished civil liberties, such as freedom of speech and religion. These civil liberties however, did not originally apply to state governments or institutions the state established. The Bill of Rights focused solely on what the national government could not do, allowing state governments to do whatever they wanted. For example, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire supported Congregationalist ministers with tax payer dollars for decades. After the Civil War, civil liberties expanded, because three new amendments were added: the Thirteenth, abolishing slavery, the Fourteenth, which redefined civil liberties and rights, and the Fifteenth, which allowed adult, male citizens to vote. The due process clause (contained in the Fourteenth Amendment) became one of the most important civil liberties, because it applied the language of the Fifth Amendment to state governments, proclaiming that they could not “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law....
The current issues concerning a woman’s right to an abortion include the debates between pro-life and pro-choice groups that promote either restrictions or extensions to a woman’s ability to receive abortions respectively, along with debate about the role that the government should play in the process of limiting or extending rights. Pro-life groups argue many points against abortion including the beliefs that life begins at conception, adoption is a viable alternative to abortion, the procedures sometimes cause medical complications, a...
In the Time article, “The Death of the Death Penalty”, David Von Drehle addresses the controversial issue of the death penalty. The death penalty in the United States is a declining and flawed method of punishment. The problem of the American death penalty is still an issue in this day and age. Von Drehle compresses the flaws of the death penalty into five simple reasons.
The Constitution of the United States was drafted at a time when our country was in dire need of many answers to political and social questions. In addition to many other things, the drafters of the Constitution were concerned with solidifying our central government and the Constitution was intended to provide a solid structure from which our burgeoning nation could grow. The Constitution gave explicit powers to the federal government and provided the states with the Tenth Amendment which states ,"Powers not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the states, are reserved to the states respectively…" Of the enumerated powers given to the federal government by the Constitution, the interpretation of the Commerce Clause as prescribed in Article I, section 8, has caused political and legal controversy known to our nation. In part, Article I, section 8, gives Congress the power to regulate commerce between states, with other nations and with Indian Tribes. Two competing theories about federalism inform the political and legal debates that deal with the Commerce Clause provided to the Congress by the Constitution. Dual Federalism, a political theory that purports states rights, champions the view that federal and state powers, as prescribed by the Constitution, are "mutually exclusive, conflicting, and antagonistic." (Ducat,p.271) This view suggests that the Constitution created dual sovereigns and that both levels of government had their own responsibilities. In order to understand what the legal ramification of dualist theory, one must first understand its interpretations of the Constitution. The dualist approach requires an exact and strict interpretation of the enumerated powers given to the nation...
Ethics and morality are the founding reasons for both supporting and opposing the death penalty, leading to the highly contentious nature of the debate. When heinous crimes are com...
One of the most repetitive and controversial topics discussed in the criminal justice system, is the death penalty. Capital punishment has been a part of our nation’s history since the creation of our constitution. In fact, as of January 1st, 2016, 2,943 inmates were awaiting their fate on death row (Death Penalty Information Center). Throughout my life, I have always been a strong advocate for the death penalty. During the majority of my undergraduate degree, I was a fierce supporter of capital punishment when discussing the topic in classes. However, throughout many criminal justice courses, I found myself in the minority, regarding the abolishment of the death penalty. While debating this topic, I would always find myself sympathetic to the victims and their families, as one should be, wanting those who were responsible for heinous crimes to
Abortion is one of the most controversial issues in the United States today. According to oxford dictionary, abortion is the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks. The two factions involved in this controversy are poles apart in their views on abortion: where as the pro-choice movement contends that a woman’s right to abortion is absolute, the pro-life movement asserts that a fetus’s right to life is indisputable. The argument has become very pronounced since the U.S Supreme Court ruling in the year 1973 in Roe V. Wade, which legalized abortion. According to the ruling, a woman’s right to abortion outweighed the rights of a nonviable fetus and prohibited the State interference. In addition to the fact that pro-choicers have always praised Roe for recognizing that a woman’s right to control her body is more important than a fetus’s right to life, this idea is also supported by different organizations such as Alan Guttmatcher Institute (AGI) whose mission is “to protect the reproductive choices of all women and men in the United States and throughout the world.” (Par 1) While some people believe that abortion is immoral others argue that it is a woman’s right to have full control of her body.
Abortion has been a complex social issue in the United States ever since restrictive abortion laws began to appear in the 1820s. By 1965, abortions had been outlawed in the U.S., although they continued illegally; about one million abortions per year were estimated to have occurred in the 1960s. (Krannich 366) Ultimately, in the 1973 Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade, it was ruled that women had the right to privacy and could make an individual choice on whether or not to have an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. (Yishai 213)
The entire American Government is based in the belief that all human beings are born with certain rights. People do not receive their rights from the Government; its function is actually to guard the rights we already have. Citizens are protected by the first amendment, which prohibits government from acting against anyone's rights.
Abortion has been accepted by the United States of America ever since the monumental Roe vs. Wade case in the early 1970’s, but is still a very controversial issue. Many people are for and against abortions. Some people say that the child inside its mother’s womb deserves the opportunity to live, while others believe that a mother has the right to choose whether or not her fetus can live or die. Other advocates for abortion claim that abortion helps keep the threat of overpopulation down. They also say that in many extreme cases, it is in the best interest of the mother and the child that the fetus be aborted. Abortion helps keep the crime rate low, so it should remain legal, they also say.
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” is how the saying goes. Coined by the infamous Hammurabi’s Code around 1700 BC, this ancient expression has become the basis of a great political debate over the past several decades – the death penalty. While the conflict can be whittled down to a matter of morals, a more pragmatic approach shows defendable points that are far more evidence backed. Supporters of the death penalty advocate that it deters crime, provides closure, and is a just punishment for those who choose to take a human life. Those against the death penalty argue that execution is a betrayal of basic human rights, an ineffective crime deterrent, an economically wasteful option, and an outdated method. The debate has experienced varying levels of attention over the years, but has always kept in the eye of the public. While many still advocate for the continued use of capital punishment, the process is not the most cost effective, efficient, consistent, or up-to-date means of punishment that America could be using today.