Universal Rights #2

Since I felt my last article was getting a bit long winded, I thought I'd break things down into multiple articles. How many I need is unknown. Please bear with me on this.

Right to a Fair Trial
This should be a no brainer. I'm a firm believer that I'd rather have several guilty people get off then have one innocent person convicted. Pretty easy concept, I should think. I know it's annoying when someone gets off on a technicality, especially when the crime is heinous. At the same time, I hate it even more when we discover that someone is being set free after several years because new evidence shows they were truly innocent.

While I'm at it, I'll lump a few things into the "fair trial" category. This includes being able to get an lawyer, even if it's a public defender. Nobody should be forced to testify against themselves. Warrants should always be obtained if you want to search a suspect's home, car, etc. I'll leave room for things scenarios like line of sight or you can reasonably display that entering a home is for emergency reasons (hearing screams for help or whatnot).

A speedy trial should easily be a part of this. Imagine if you have a DUI charge. No property damage. Nobody is physically harmed. You get caught before anything horrible can happen. Now imagine if the government is allowed to drag this out for several months. That could severely disrupt the defendants life for a long time. Would you like to be the person that makes the mistake of having a DUI, only to have your life ruined because the government wants to take a year or longer mess with you through the legal system? I doubt it. You'd like to be able to get the trial over in a reasonable time frame so you can get on with your life.

There are a variety of things that need to be done to maintain a fair trial. I prefer to err on the side of caution in order to avoid sending innocent people to prison.

Right to Public Assembly
Keeping it simple, the right to public assembly is the right to join others in a group to collectively express, promote, pursue, and defend various ideas. Similar to the right to free speech, public assembly can have negativity attached to it. Doesn't matter if you're talking racist groups holding rallies, church groups holding anti-abortion protests, Black Lives Matter protests (negative, depending on your perspective), or anything else you can think of.

Public assembly, in many cases, can be as simple as being able to discuss religious or political views. Maybe you want to protest what you feel is some bad business practices by a big box retailer. As long as you aren't violating the rights of others or creating public problems, like blocking the flow of traffic, you should be able to assemble as you please.

The flow of information needs some degree of public assembly. Even with modern technology enabling discussion without leaving the home, meeting publicly eventually has to happen if anything is going to be done effectively.

Freedom of Press
This was a major idea at a time when government big wigs had an easier time controlling media sources. When a community had to rely on printed media, there's only so many people who could get noticed. Most communities could only support so many magazines, newspapers, etc. and actually get noticed.

When radio and television came around, it was also a case of a limited amount of people who could get different messages across. Operating costs, having radio or television towers (in the old days), equipment costs and whatnot was costly. Being able to transmit signals any length was limited to permits and what kind of money you could spend getting your message across.

Granted, traditional media has come a long way over the years. Printed media is using the internet to take things to the next level. Many radio stations, even locally, can be listened to online. I can find several just in my local area that use the internet to broadcast, while using traditional methods. TV stations have been selling broadcasting rights to cable providers since the invention of cable TV.

The internet allows for broader access to news from all over the world. Average people can now act as journalists, even in the broadest sense of the words. When a cop abuses their authority, people are able to report it on blogs or social media like Twitter, Facebook, or even YouTube Channels. For many average people, YouTube Channels and blogs are the best way to get the message out about various subjects. For YouTube, if you have a camera, that's all you really need. The more professional you want it to look, the more equipment you'll obviously want.

With better technologies, free press becomes even more important. We have a greater ability to find information, as well as to spread information. Just about anyone can be a journalist. Just about anyone can also become public enemy #1. Just look at what's been going on with WikiLeaks, as an example to this.

Freedom from Slavery
Does this even need to be discussed? Is there one logical, rational reason why slavery is even a good idea? Is there one person that can sanely defend the concept of slavery?

Freedom of Movement
This is a concept that doesn't get mentioned much in many nations. Seems to be a foregone concept for many of us. Yet, this is something that should be mentioned.

Freedom of movement is the concept that you should be able to travel, reside in, and/or work in any part of the state that they please, so long as the rights of others aren't being violated. This includes the right to leave the state and return at any time.

I assume that last part means being able to travel abroad, but I could be wrong. As far as overseas travel is concerned, a nation should be able to have some control over who enters their country or how long they're allowed to stay.

Within your own nation, you shouldn't have to explain where you're going, why you're going there, or any other crap to the government....unless you're doing something that could be harmful to others or could somehow violate their rights. If you aren't causing problems for others, it's nobody's concerned where I work, why I choose to work for others, so on and so on.

I want to go to Florida for a few months? That should be my concern alone.

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
Should this even be an issue? Why should we be having this discussion? You would think that we, as a society, would have wised up a bit by now. Nope. Not even close. I feel things have gotten worse.

A valuable lesson my dad taught me, during my youth, should be a good lesson for the rest of society. What he preached, quite simply, is "What others do in the privacy of their own bedrooms is their concern and there's alone." Makes sense to most people.

This was at a time when discussions largely involved gay/lesbian/bisexual activities. Topics involving gender identities weren't discussed, at least to the best of my knowledge. If it was discussed, I never heard of them. In my youth, it was largely gay, lesbian, or bisexual rights. Even hearing of someone that got a sex change had me highly confused.

Then again, dad was trying to make sure I wasn't overloaded with too much at one time. I think he was trying to give me time to truly understand what was going on before expanding my knowledge on other subjects. Probably a good idea. At my young age, I never would've understood all that knowledge at once.

Anyway, the point that he was working with is that how others live their lives should be no concern for others. As long as another persons lifestyle isn't hurting anyone, then leave them be. If a man wants to live as a woman, it's not my place to question it. If that same person wants to adapt a kid or two, or even more, the only concerns should be whether or not that person can provide a good home for the kid(s).

As long as a child can be properly taken care of, that's what is truly important. Too often, people are being shit on is because of outdated religious reasons. It's not like anyone's going to suddenly become gay, simply because someone else is gay. Nobody has ever decided to become a woman simply because they heard of someone else becoming a woman.

Safe Food/Water

In many parts of the world, having a safe food and water supply is a real pain in the ass. Depending on the part of the world, it could be warring factions. In other cases, it's industrial pollution. Droughts can be the cause of the problems. No matter what, everyone has the right to access to clean, safe water and food supplies.

There's simply no excuse for why people are being deprived of life's most basic necessities.

Sexual and Reproductive Rights

This should be common sense. In many parts of the world, common sense doesn't seem to apply. Women are forced to suffer mutilation of their genitalia. Many times, it's religious reasons. Other times, the urge to have control over women is the factor. No matter what the excuse is, there should be no excuse for mutilations.

I've seen opinions going as far as claiming circumcision is the male equivalent of mutilation and is just as wrong. I'm not sure those can be compared as males lost just a little bit of skin while women are being deprived of far more. It's also argued that mutilation on a woman's genitals is usually done in far more dangerous methods. Sure, it's painful for males with circumcision. I know most males don't exactly get a choice either.

I'll leave that for you to decide if circumcisions are the same equivalent.

Concerning reproduction, a woman should be able to determine how many children they want. If they want to wait 10 years before having another child, that's a woman's right. There shouldn't be coercion. If a woman wants an abortion, that's her damned choice.

I don't have to like the reasoning. I don't have to like abortion. All I have to do is support the woman's right to choose, which I will gladly do.



Right now, I'm sure I'm forgetting several things. I'm going to leave this an ongoing subject, mostly since I'll think of reasons to revisit the topic.

Universal Rights?

Rights. This is something that we all hear about frequently in life. Sometimes it involves cops violating the rights of one or more people. Often times, it involves the rights of the poor, an immigrant, or other minority groups. Other times, it's arguments about gun rights. Freedom of Speech is commonly used when an unpopular opinion comes up. On social media, I frequently see arguments involving a mothers right to breast feed, as well as whether or not a parent has the right to not vaccinate their child.

Stuff like this gets me to ask a few things. Do we really have the right to do certain things? Should we have the right to do certain things? How far should our rights go? You get the picture, I hope.

Obviously, our rights vary quite a bit, depending on where we live. Whether or not we agree that certain countries are superior in this area is going to be a matter of personal preference. What I plan on bringing up is my own perspective on what rights we, as a people, deserve.

Freedom of Speech
This ranks up there highly for me. The right to free speech allows for things like sharing new ideas, expressing religious views, being able to express displeasure towards others, and so on. Without free speech, many things become irrelevant. How do you inform politicians if you think a certain policy is bad for the economy? How do you get to learn about a better way of doing business if you're restricted in your speech? It would be pretty difficult to choose what church you want to belong to if everyone has to be careful of what they say. If you choose to be an atheist, speaking your mind against religion could be just as dangerous as speaking out against the government.

I realize that free speech can have unpopular results. Just take a look at groups like Westboro Baptist Church, as an example. Their views on many subjects throw many people into hissy fits quickly. Groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, can say what they like, no matter how vile most of us think it is.

I'm usually pretty liberal when it comes to speech. Only real restrictions that should be placed on speech I feel are pretty obvious. If speech is used to cause someone harm, it shouldn't be allowed. By this, if your speech could reasonably destroy another persons reputation, it should be prohibited. With our current level of technology, it's very easy to ruin a persons reputation with something as simple as speech.

If you're going around making threats to harm others, even if you don't mean it, that would cause some obvious problems for the other person. Same thing if you go into a dark theater and scream "FIRE!" or "HE'S GOT A GUN!" A panic could be created very easily with simple speech.

For points like this, there are times where certain rights should be limited, but only for things that could create unneeded harm.

Right to Bear Arms
This seems to be a controversial right. This is an issue that's be debated heavily as far back as I can remember. It goes from one extreme, where guns should be banned from the public outright, to the other extreme, where the public should have access to military-esque  weapons.

Personally, I don't think most people should have access to weapons like rocket launchers, machine guns, or anything that powerful. That would be a bit insane, to put it nicely. However, access to most weapons should be allowed.

However, I'm not saying that people should just be given guns like candy on Halloween. Reasonable standards should be placed on people to ensure that there's a reasonable level of safety. What that standard is, I'm still trying to figure out.

There would have to be a variety of tests to make sure a person is reasonably competent to handle a  gun. I doubt any rational person wants to put a gun in the hands of a person who hears Satanic voices, telling them to kill. Maybe taking a competency test every so often would help. When you get a driver's license renewed, you have to prove that you can still reasonably see & hear. Since cars can be dangerous to operate, nobody would disagree (I would think) that you should have a certain level of competency. Same logic should apply to gun ownership.

As long as you can reasonably handle a gun, I'm all for gun ownership. Hell, I live in a part of America where hunting is a tradition for many families. Occasional accidents happen, but they don't happen often. Around here, I have better odds of being killed by a drunk driver then by a gun. Car accidents in the region kill more people then guns.

I hear of more deaths by drug/alcohol overdoses then by gun. Most gun owners, I believe, typically know how to handle a gun.

Main reason I even support gun ownership will probably come off as paranoia to a lot of people. But, if you look at it rationally, it'll hopefully make sense. With so many violent crimes being committed, we can't always count on law enforcement being available when we need them. In many cases, they've been accused of showing up too late to do any good.

Depending on where you live, you might be better off having protection in case of a home invasion, as an example.

Another point that could be argues is if the government becomes oppressive. For some Americans, there's the feeling that we're already at that point. I don't completely agree with this view, at this time. I do feel government is overreaching, but I still believe things can be handled through the system. Will there be a time where we have no other choice? I sure as hell hope not. If it ever gets to that point, we'll need a solid supply of weapons and ammo.

History shows that Americans felt this way, previously. We had a War of Independence from the British during the 1700's. I realize that not all Americans wanted to break away from England, but there were enough people that felt the British government was oppressive.....oppressive enough to warrant open rebellion. In cases like this, nothing would've been accomplished by writing letters.

If you look at how oppressive many countries are, currently, you'll see it's unarmed civilians who suffer the most. Why? Because they have no ability to defend themselves. I realize that in countries like Syria and Libya, there are already so many guns in the wrong hands, nobody is safe. In cases like that, we have bigger issues then who's got their hands on weapons.

In many cases, people would have a better chance of protecting themselves if they had the ability to at least fight back. When it comes to an oppressive government, it's never a quick fix. As long as nobody is able to stop a bad government, nothing will ever change unless someone is capable of standing up to the regime. If nobody is capable of doing so, the government gets away with whatever they please.

Healthcare
This is one of the biggest concerns I have for humanity. This could be argued as more of a necessity then a right. If you want to argue that healthcare is a necessity, it could be argued that it belongs up there with clean drinking water, food, and clean air. How can we pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness if we can't get adequate health care?

All you have to do is look at how the health care industry is going, right now. Insurance premiums are rising. Deductibles have gone up. Hospital costs have gone up. More and more people are being forced to drop their private insurance plans, only to get government help because they can no longer afford to buy their own insurance. My own brother has been forced to change his policy a couple times already because premiums were getting too high. He used to have a reasonable premium while getting a low deductible.

When having surgery for a hernia roughly three years back, he had insurance that was capable of paying a large portion of the medical bill. This included the hernia surgery itself as well as treating an infection that formed in the area, at the same time. He needed an eight day stay, partly because of the infection and partly because his hernia was bad enough to require a extra time recovering. It was at the belly button, which caused a longer recovery.

People are generally having a harder time paying for things like prescriptions. A lot of people are concerned about how to pay for major problems, especially if surgery and/or long term recovery is needed.

One point that's in dispute is whether or not a single payer system is needed. Opponents argue that taxes will be higher, using nations like Australia & Canada as examples. It's also been argued that longer wait times will happen in the waiting rooms. Another argument that's been made is that our government has a hard enough time keeping track of things already. Tracking medical expenses on this level would be virtually impossible for them

At the same time, when the people are having such a difficult time paying for even the most basic care, I can't help but feel that we need a better way of doing things. Again, my own brother's been forced to find other sources of revenue, just to help cover his prescriptions. I can only imagine what other people are going through.

Do we need universal healthcare? Do we give subsidies to people to help them afford better insurance? Does the government intervene on in catastrophic cases, such as cancer, heart surgery, and other major problems? If the government pays for any of this, how do we generate the revenue to pay for this?

Only thing I know for sure is that health care shouldn't be a luxury for those that can afford it. I just don't know what the right answer solution is.

Religious Freedom
Religious freedoms have been a huge issue throughout human history. History shows us things like the Crusades, the Inquisitions in Europe, people generally fleeing one nation or another because of religious persecutions in their homelands. Not that many decades ago, we had the murder of millions of Jews in Nazi Germany.

Even now, you'll be persecuted if you don't worship the way you're supposed to. There are countries within the Middle East that will kill you if you're an atheist.

Religious freedom is a major necessity. Everyone needs the ability to choose for themselves what they want to worship, how they want to worship, worship in safety, if they want to worship anything at all. You choose to be a Lutheran as opposed to a Catholic? That should be your right. Sunni instead of Shi'ite? Atheist or agnostic? Those options should be your choice. Nobody should have to live in fear of choosing a religion, or none at all, just because it isn't "the popular choice".

While I'm at it, this should include being able to live your life without having to worry about honor killings. If you do something that's a violation of your family's religious view, you shouldn't have to worry that your family will insist on an honor killing.

One person's religious rights shouldn't interfere with another persons rights. My rights to be an atheist shouldn't interfere with anyone's right to worship the god of their choice. You think that working on Sunday is evil? Fine. I seriously want you to relax and enjoy the day off. Just don't expect me to join you.

Should be simple enough, right?

Voting
This should really be a no-brainer, so I'll keep this short and simple. For people to truly be free, the right to vote is one of those freedoms that must be protected. As long as people have no say in how government functions, they're essentially slaves. You don't have to be wearing chains to be a slave. There are many ways of enslaving your people. Keeping people away from the voting booths is a great way of keeping others down.

Voting is a necessity for a truly free and prosperous society. Voting is one of the best tools we've got for ensuring that the power remains with the people. Once rights like this are taken away, there is no such thing as freedom or liberty.


I know I've only covered a few areas, so far, but this is getting a bit long winded. I'll continue this subject in further articles. Thanks to everyone that's managed to put up with me, thus far.

Electoral College

Another election season is on us. Once again, I can only become highly depressed watching the usual crap. However, I won't be complaining about the actual elections in this article. My complaints?

Simple. It's the Electoral College itself that I want to piss and moan about. Why? Quite simply, it's a lousy idea. We must be idiots to allow such a bad idea to still be used after all these years. The Electoral College was created during the early years of our country, written into the American Constitution. This was at a time when the only people that could vote where white, land owning, men....many of whom owned slaves.

Typically, you had to own X amount of land before you had the right to vote. Depending on where you lived, the amount of land you had to own before being able to vote varied. Yeah, great way of establishing a Democratic Republic. Before anyone gets anal, we're more of a Democratic Republic  then anything else. I'll probably get more into that point on another article.

Anywho, you had to own so much land before having the right to vote. If you were a woman, freed black, Native American or any other group, it didn't matter if you owned land. You simply had no voice on anything. The only people that really had a say in the matter was those that wanted to make sure that government operated in a fashion favorable to them. Not any different then having the British barking orders at us.

Eventually, voting rights would expand to women, minorities, so on and so on. Only thing that managed to stay the same was the Electoral College. This leaves an important question to ask.

What is the Electoral College? The Electoral College is an institution that elects the President and Vice-President every four years. Citizens don't directly vote for the candidates. We only vote for the electors, who, in turn, pledge to vote for the presidential and vice-presidential candidates.

Electors are apportioned among the 50 states, as well as DC. DC wasn't even included in this until the 23rd Amendment included them in the process. DC currently gets three votes, equal to the least populous states.

It should be pointed out that each state gets a different amount of electors. That is based off how many people your state has in Congress. This favors larger states like California, Texas, and New York. States like Alaska, Montana, North & South Dakota, and Wyoming only get the minimum, which is currently three.

Let's work with this, for a moment. When you vote for your local mayor, county commissioner, state representative or your federal Senators, you get to vote directly for the person of your choice. You can vote for anyone on the ballot that you damn well please. Most offices have people that actually have the people vote for it directly.

The Presidency is the exception. You only vote for people who do the actual voting. I can't recall when they actually do their voting, but it's their votes that actually count. They actually vote on the Monday after the second Wednesday in December in their respective state capitals. They don't actually meet as one group.

Now comes a point of bullshit. In a large majority of states, an elector isn't required to vote for the person whom they've pledge to vote for.  This is known as a Faithless Elector. An elector typically votes for the person who won in the state in question. Twenty-four states have laws that prohibit this. I'm not aware of anyone actually voting for an opposing candidate. As far as I'm aware of, those that are pledged to a specific candidate have always voted for that specific candidate.

Then, we have unpledged electors. Quite simply, the unpledged elector is an elector who hasn't pledged to vote for any candidate and can vote for whomever they please.

This is where I have serious issues. A small group of people will meet in their state capitals to determine who's going to be our next President and Vice-President. The American people don't actually vote for the candidates. This goes directly back to the days where the average person was viewed as nothing but incompetent morons. I don't disagree that some people will have idiotic reasons for voting. Most people are smart enough to make decisions for themselves.

Most people will probably wonder why I give a crap about this. Let's start with the obvious. The popular vote, under the current system, means nothing. In 1824, electors in six states were appointed by their state legislators. In 1876, 1888, and 2000, the winner of the Electoral College vote failed to get the popular vote.

I don't know about you, but if my vote is going to mean nothing, why am I bothering to vote? If someone else can determine who's going to be in charge, my vote is nothing more then a huge waste of time.

This sort of thing can't be good for voter turn-out. There's no incentive to vote for most people since the political parties are so powerful in each state. When you get a state like Minnesota, Democratic candidates typically fair pretty well because of how much influence they have in the state. Same thing applies for Republicans in states, such as Texas. In states like that, the respective candidates are almost guaranteed to get the votes from the electors.

Swing states will typically see higher turn-outs, since one party doesn't have any real advantage over the other.

Also, I'd like to ask about the voting rights of the American territories. Despite being affected by American policy, territories like Puerto Rico, Guam, US Virgin Islands and others don't get a say in Presidential elections. Doesn't help that they don't get votes in Congress, either.

Now that I think of it, I'll leave the complaints on those points for another article. Speaking of articles, I feel like I'm getting long winded. So, I'll end this by stating that I'd rather have the Presidential elections determined by popular vote. I'm of the view that this is the fairest way to handle presidential elections.