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.