...Imagine a world where there is no freedom of speech or even thoughts. A world where all basic Constitutional rights are taken away. George Orwell, in his novel 1984, accurately depicts a destitute totalitarian society ruled by a figurehead named Big Brother. This book warns about the future of man and how unless history changes, citizens will lose all human qualities. Although Orwell wrote his book set in the future, our society today is close to his depiction. In a way, Orwell was able to predict some futures of our world. Many important themes in 1984 are relevant to our life now. Our world today relates to many of the themes talked about in 1984. "The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting...
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...hours after the circumcision, according to the parents, the child was brought to another hospital where doctors noted he was extremely irritable with marked swelling of the penis and bruising to the scrotum. The child was then transferred to a pediatric centre, where his bladder was diagnosed, doctors said that it was even or eight times its normal size. “If the Plastic Bell had been taken off five hours after he got there, he would be alive,” said Doctors. The child’s death was attributed to septic shock — “an overwhelming infection, leading to multi-organ failure.” The case was brought to Cairns’ attention because the circumstances of every death of an Ontario child under five years of age must be reviewed by the provincial coroner’s office. When the parents were asked about the reason of circumcision they said the following: “It’s our religious practice and we can’t ignore it. We have our rights to follow our own religious practices.” When the case was brought to the court, it involved a doctor accused of...
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...Daniel Maddox Eng1000 We Need Censorship It won't kill us to make limits, but it might if we don't. That is why it is right to limit adult's freedom of expression. It is in our, societies, best interests to protect the children. Lional Tate is just one example of a child gone badly because of the media. Tate mimicked his idol the Rock, killing a six-year old girl by smashing her skull, pulverizing her liver, breaking her ribs and causing numerous cuts and bruises. If that's not enough of an example what about John McCollum from New Jersey who simply listened to Ozzy Osborne's "Suicide Solution" and killed himself? These are not random occurrences, we hear about them on the news frequently. If our freedom of expression is harming kids why can't we fix the problem by not allowing them access to it? We need censorship in the media because of influence, imitation, and the preservation of jobs. "Monkey see, Monkey do." Everyone has heard this phrase sometime in his or her life. This phrase is simple, yet very useful to today's debate, when a child sees someone or something doing something. They will of course follow suit and imitate the action being performed. Children do not know any better. Therefore they are innocent and deserve to be respected. It is for these following reasons that we argue for the censorship of harmful materials that could influence a child or children into violent acts, expressions, and other dangerous actions. Through television, video games, and movies...
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...Do we hav freedom ? * You could say that there is more Freedom of speech, because in the US you can say ANYTHING while in many European countries hate speech is forbidden. That's a question of personal opinion, personally I prefer when hate speech is forbidden, I don't think Freedom of speech's role is to protect racist/xenophobic/homophobic pigs. Americans also have the "freedom" to own guns (though it isn't completely forbidden in other Western countries, just less easy), but this "freedom" is considered barbaric in most of the Western world and is even seen as a threat towards the freedom of others. The fact that it leads to high crime rates doesn't help. For some reason, Americans often seem to associate "Freedom" with guns and most Westerners don't understand that. Freedom of Religion is VERY different among "free" countries. Issues linked to Religion are also treated very differently. "Red Rover", the American Bill of Rights is far, really far from being alone. For example, the slightly older French "Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" is generally considered as the reference for Human Rights. As for the religious aspect of the American Bill or Rights, claiming it's a good thing is a matter of personnal opinion. That and its lack of universalism (it's only about American citizens) are probably the reason the "French" Bill of Rights is considered the reference. You (like other answerers) also seem to think that Democracy (and...
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... It has been debated whether or not American citizens should have the right to own firearms. Some may argue that most Americans don’t have the proper gun safety education that should be required before someone owns a gun. Few may even assert that everyone should have the freedom to own guns regardless of their education and experience with firearms. I believe that most Americans don’t take a strong stand on either side of this issue. Nobody wants to completely eliminate all guns in America. Likewise, I don’t think anyone wants to give people full access to guns. The issue that I’m arguing is simply whether or not the government should permit gun control by restricting the use and/or possession of firearms for American citizens. I believe that restricting guns would violate our personal freedom to bear arms. The problem with violence isn’t the gun itself, but the problem rests on the people who choose to use guns to commit acts of violence. To solve the ‘gun abuse’ problem, why doesn’t the government impose stricter consequences for people who still choose to commit acts of violence involving firearms? That way it would only affect the criminals, and the law-abiding citizens could continue to live in freedom. In an article titled “Gun Control: Does it Really Matter?”, Will Fawcett states, “There is no logical reason to believe that making it more difficult or impossible to own or poses guns, would deter individuals who already are taking part in illegal behavior.” While the problem...
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...danger of censorship or lack of, but reveals how freedom of the press is important and necessary to resist such danger. There can be great danger in too much censorship. This idea can be found in government, especially, as well as through newscasts. People try to censor ideas that...
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...Censorship Censorship has been around for hundreds of years, dating back to ancient Rome, but only in recent decades has it become more prevalent. Today, it has become one of the most controversial topics all over the world. When people think of censorship, the majority of them associate it with the beeping out a “bad” word or blurring nudity to make a video more appropriate for television. While this is a form of censorship, the problem goes much further than television. It stretches from the simple redaction of any text or other form of media to a complete ban of it. Many supporters claim that censorship protects people from harm, censorship does more damage than it does protection. Censorship violates basic human rights, has the ability...
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...Freedom and Liberty Every day the federal government as well as state and local government pass laws to make us a safer society. As they make society safer they are slowly chewing away at our rights, liberties, and personal freedom. Where is the balance? A serf toiling away in a field had very little liberty. He couldn’t vote and didn’t have any true freedom of speech or assembly. But he did have freedom to think his own thoughts, and he was given by his creator the right to moral agency. Within his confined world, he had the freedom to make choices, either good or bad. We now have laws regulating everything. We are forced to wear seatbelts, to wear motorcycle helmets. Smokers can’t even smoke outside. Kids are expelled from school wearing t-shirts with colorful statements. The government wants to regulate abortion, child discipline, and free speech. If you spank your kids you can be charged with child abuse. We have gone from a foreign policy centered on defending our boundaries to one where we engage in foreign wars around the world in an aggressive attempt to maintain an empire. Because of the supposed threats to our country, we have authorized the government to spy on its own citizens. But freedom has a price. Our soldiers have gone to war and fought and died so that we can remain free. As we all know though, there is nothing in life that is derived from nothing of substance. So, the question exists what constitutes individual freedom when compared...
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...Report on the Condition of the South (1865) 5. According to Schurz, the overall goal of Reconstruction is to reconstruct southern society and bring it back into American Society as a whole. He also mentions that it is also about the relationship between the constitution and the general public. 6. Schurz says the transition between the freedman and the south is so difficult to achieve because the south feels that the Union was so harsh and vengeful to them, and now they are changing their way of life so drastically. He touches on this by saying “in the midst of this critical period of transition, the power which originated the revolution is expected to turn over its whole future development to another power which from the beginning was hostile to it and has never yet entered into its spirit”. This just shows how it was already problematic. Added to this, the now freedman have to fend and protect themselves in an already angry and racist environment. Schurz explains this by saying “…leaving the class in whose favor it was made completely without power to protect itself and to take an influential part in that development.” 7. Southern soldiers also faced many problems when they came back home. Schurz states that “They found, many of them, their homesteads destroyed, their farms devastated, their families in distress”. The soldiers came back to an entire new world that was unfamiliar and stressful, which cause the embarrassment. Another problem was for soldiers...
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...loved one. The government is probably not going to care if you sneak out at midnight to make-out with a classmate. 2. “An invasion of privacy is permissible if and only if…” there is due cause. If a child is not talking, has issues at school and home, I don’t have an issue with an invasion of privacy. Although, personally, I think you seek therapy first because if the invasion of privacy fails or your child finds out about the invasion of privacy, they may shut you out more than they already are. 3. Try talking with your child first and see if they will open up. Also, as I previously...
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...two scenarios, distributing condoms in prison looks to hit the same roadblocks as condoms in High Schools. The first issue is that prevention in prison starts far before a condom enters the equation. The very concept of “safe sex” is dependent upon the partners being consensual and the most readily available allusion to Prison Sex is, of course, rape a kind of “sex” that won’t ever be safe. In reality, much of the high-risk homosexual contact in prison involves men who do not consider themselves gay outside prison, former prisoners and researchers said. About 1 percent of prisoners report being raped. From a health standpoint, it is not much different from inoculation against disease. If we are already using medical means to protect inmates from contagious illness, how are government-sponsored condoms a stretch? However, of course, there are those annoying moral issues. As if gay inmate sex was not enough to make the conservatives grumble in the first place, the idea of combining it with prophylactics. Is this the worst idea ever thought of? Violence is also against the rules in jail and we all see how effective it is as a deterrent. They put offenders into solitary confinement, so why not isolate those with STDs or HIV in their own separate wing. This seems unlikely as our prisons are swelling past capacity by the hour. The only choice the penal establishment has with sex is the length of the consequences. There are many aspects of prison a man will live with for the...
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...WikiLeaks is a non-profit media organization dedicated to bringing important news and information to the public. We provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for independent sources around the world to leak information to our journalists. We publish material of ethical, political and historical significance while keeping the identity of our sources anonymous, thus providing a universal way for revealing of supposed and censored injustices. WikiLeaks, founded in 2006 by Australian Julian Assange and a small group of activist and computer experts, is a whistle-blowing website which “aims to bring to light secret information about governments and corporations” (“Times Topics”). “[I]t is the world’s first stateless news organization, because it belongs to the Internet rather than to the laws and culture of any one country” (Peters)....
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...serious problem. We love who we want. You can’t change who you fall in love with. Opponents argue that is against their religion—marriage should be between a man and a woman so that they can pro-create. However, Evan Wolfson, from a gay-advocacy group called Freedom to Marry, argues that “every religion can decide for itself whether to perform or honor any marriage…but no religion should be able to dictate who gets a civil marriage license” (Wolfson). This country was founded and has continued to develop the concept of separation of church and state. It is up to individual religions whether to acknowledge same-sex marriages. However, it is the nation’s responsibility to acknowledge all unions, instead of discriminating couples based on their sex. To infringe upon couples right to civil marriage is a violation of human rights. Gay people, who are in love, have the right to commit to each other and have it legally recognized by the United States government. Banning an issue doesn’t make it go away. The American Constitution said that everyone deserves the same, equal rights that include gay people. So banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. Making this issue illegal is also a form of discrimination. Homophobic ridicule and abuse gay citizens, and gay teenagers are scared to go to school because of the excessive bullying and teasing. And gays are just being themselves! We are all created equal, so why can't we all just try to get along? Why do people...
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...for the upcoming inauguration, three dozen security agencies are preparing themselves for the possibility of many protesters to make themselves present as President-Elect Donald Trump is sworn into Office. As of December 27th, 2016, the National Park Service has had 23 permit requests of land to hold events for and against Donald Trump. There has been lots of division and tension surrounding the election and has security agencies on extra alert. Michael Chertoff, who was the the former secretary of HomeLand Security during George W. Bush’s time in office stated, “ I can’t think of an inauguration that presented more security challenges than this one.” The projected costs for security...
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...to produce creative and spontaneity work, creating works where the reader did was not bound a fixed point of view or clear morals and impressionism and subjectivity was more present (Holman, 1972). The poem “Grass” by Carl Sandburg is very powerful but short and leaves much for the reader to ponder of how to interpret the subject as it both subjective yet sad. The theme of the poem suggests that grass is used to cover up the destruction of war and the deaths associated with it. That war after war is the same as he continues to name battles and it keeps repeating itself. In the beginning of the poem Carl writes “Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo” (poetryfoundation.org). These wars took place earlier in the 19th century and then later Carl goes onto mention Gettysburg, Ypres and Verdun. Which took place later in consecutive order, this symbolizes that history continues to repeat itself but man fails to recognize the death toll and bloodshed as the grass grows over all of it and then it is forgotten. He demonstrates this stating in two lines “Shovel them under and let me work” after naming each battle. That is the grass we cover all of this mess. What makes this even more subjective of modernist literature is he never discusses the purpose or necessity of the wars. Gettysburg during the Civil War was fought over slavery, although as one of the bloodiest wars in American history a national park was also established to remember this tragedy. Politics...
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