UN Declaration of Human Rights

To me, the United Nations Declaration of Human Right has a mix of many other codes and laws that we have read about this year. When making this declaration of rights, they basically looked at what worked in the past and modernized it and put it into their own declaration of human rights. When they would see something that didn't work in the past, they would make changed accordingly or just ignore it altogether. A lot of the codes that were put into place a while back tended to give very specific laws based on very specific crimes. I think that the UN Declaration of Human Rights is much more broad covering a much wider spectrum of laws and crimes. The only thing about anything being on the broad side is that it can also leave room for interpretation. Some people might take it the wrong way but I think that the UN Declaration of Human Rights (is there an abbreviation for this?) does a good job in being clear and to the point without being overly specific.


It is good that this declaration is more broad because it also can be used in most time periods to come. Unless people's view of the world changes drastically in the next few centuries, then we will probably need a knew declaration of Human Rights. I think that it is important for the declaration of human rights to always be open for adding things because chances are that there are going to be things that are going to need to be added. But overall, the declaration leaves less room for loop holes and is much more concise then something like Mosaic's Code. 

Bill of Rights: Who needs it

So, who should have the a bill of human rights? 

In class, we talked read two readings, on was the French bill of rights for man, and the other was the female bill of rights. So when I first read the reading, I thought that there didn't need to be two bills of rights, one for people and one for just females. I thought that that seemed unnecessary because females are people as well. The two bill of rights talked about pretty much the same rights so there was really no need to have two bills. But then in class I learned that when they talked about the rights of all man in the first reading, they were actually talking about men, not all people. So, by saying man, it leaves room for people think what they want. 

So, finally I would say that when writing a bill of rights, you have to be very specific so there is no room for people to think something different. So there either needs to be two bill of rights, one for mean and one for women but the even better option would be for there to only one bill or rights that is clear in including women and men. 

Bill of Right: Agree or Disagree

So, after reading the article by Hamilton about how the Bill fo Rights is unnecessary, I would have to say that I agree and disagree at the same time. Some of his points make sense to me and I agree with them but other points I disagree with. But I will also say that I am not completely positive that I have processed this document correctly because some parts were kind of hard for me to understand so I apologize if my facts are incorrect. 

So, what I agree with is that having a bill of rights can be dangerous. I think that it can be dangerous because people can interpret the rights incorrectly and in a way that was not intended. Then when they are confronted about it (what ever it is that they felt they were entitled to do), they can say that it is in the bill of rights and that is something people would be scared to argue. 

But I disagree with the general argument. I definitely think that we need a bill of rights. The founding fathers originally wanted no bill of rights because that goes along with "its a free country yay" but everyone else wanted the bill or rights so they know specifically what they are entitled to. I don't think it is too much to ask to be told what your rights are. It just makes it clearer for everyone. If someone tells someone they can't do something when it is stated in the bill of rights that they can, they have proof and a defense. I think it is fair and I say why not to the bill or rights. 

Law and Religion

So, do I think that law and religion should ever come in contact with each other? Nope, never. They should never ever be intertwined. We talked about Islam and the laws of Islam yesterday in a class discussion. One question that came up was do we think that law and religion are the same. And I feel very strongly that law is not religion because in a society like today's where one place may have many different types races and religions, having the state follow the law of only one religion is really unfair to the rest of the society who doesn't not follow that religion.

Also, some laws that where created in the name of religion where actually made because of very specific religious things/rituals. Why should that law apply to everyone when to them it is actually a really pointless law. Like in Judaism, if you keep kosher, you can't eat pork or dairy and meat together. That is a law for them but for anyone who follows another religion, it would be pointless for them to follow that law. Especially when not all jewish people keep kosher, so it would be unfair to those people too.

I don't think its bad, though when the state takes ideas for laws from religion. As long as the laws aren't specifically catering to one religion and can apply to anyone. But in general, if laws are made from specific laws in religion, it is really unfair and I don't think that they should exist,

Natural, Common and Civil Laws

Today in class we read and discussed some readings about natural, common and civil laws. We took notes on the reading and we then talked about each type if law separately for a little bit. After that we all discussed all three of the types comparatively. Here are my some thoughts after reading the article.

So natural law is is basically a law that is infused in you when you are born. It is kind of like common knowledge but even before that. These are laws that cannot really be enforced at all but they also cannot be broken in anyway. They actually physically can't. Like the law of gravity, you can't make gravity go away and you can't really tell people to listen to gravity. It is just there and people look over it because they don't even consider it a law because it can't be broken or enforced.

A common law is a law that is known through common knowledge. This law is the most confusing to me because it is rather unclear, in my opinion at least. I think that it would be things like don't kill people and don't steal. Things that don't need to be said but are still enforced and known by most people. It is a law known to all mankind therefor it is "common". These laws don't have to be written while civil laws do.

A civil law is a law that is fully enforced and written down for documentation. They do not go unsaid because if they did people would not know about them necessarily. These are laws of the state and are specifically made to be enforced.

I think it is kind of interesting that for each description of the three laws, the actual writing gets shorter and shorter. I think it is because as you go through each law things get more and more straight forward. There is less to say about civil laws then natural laws because it is very clear exactly what they are where natural laws are more open for interpretation. Just an observation.

So what is my idea of a law? I don't actually think that natural laws are really laws. Laws by definition is "the system of rules that a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and may enforce by the imposition of penalties" So they actually have to be something that can be enforced. Since natural laws cannot be enforced then they are not actually laws.

Relating History to Other Classes

As an assignment for this/last week, we were told to find relations between what we are learning in history class and things that we have learned in other classes. One connections that I thought of right away is the connection between human rights and something that we are doing in english. In English class we are in the middle of writing a paper about anything we want regarding the internet.

My topic is about how people behave and interact differently on the internet then offline. There are things that people just simply do not do when interacting face to face with people. Things that they just wouldn't say to someone else. But when interacting on the internet through things like Facebook and Twitter people have a barrier between themselves and the person they are interacting with. Going a step further, there are things like formspring, a website where you can anonymously ask people questions. This allows you to a.) have a barrier between you and the other person and b.) you can do it without the other person knowing who you are. (I personally think that formspring is the dumbest thing ever and if anyone actually gets one, they will not have it for long. You are basically asking people say all the bad things about you).

This relates to history class because right now we are focusing on a unit about human rights. Human rights plays a large role in my topic for english because when people say and do whatever they want on the internet, it is almost as though they lose their humanity a little. It is as if because you can't see the person that you are talking to then you might think that they don't actually have human rights, like they aren't real or something. So basically the effect is mostly negative if people's rights are being taken away. It isn't really "historical" but it still has to do with human rights.

Socrates: Should He Stay or Should He Go

In class, we recently learned about the philosophy of Socrates. I think that is it really interesting that Socrates thought that true knowledge was the understanding that you really don't know anything. So basically he is saying that you need to accept the fact that nobody can know everything because thinking that you know everything is actually quite arrogant.
Also, I thought that it was interesting that he went around talking to different people to see who was smart and who was pretend smart. He would ask people different questions and see if they end up contradicting themselves or if they can actually articulate their thoughts and know what they really mean. Because isn't that the most important thing when answering a question? To know what you mean? I think that it is pretty important when explaining something. Apparently, Socrates thought so too. He found that a lot of people actually could not properly answer his questions so in the end he was knew more than them. This, I think, is just part of his pursuit of power because what philosopher doesn't want power?

So, should Socrates stay or should he go? This is the question we were asked to answer about wether he should stay in jail even though he had the opportunity to escape, or should he go by taking that opportunity. I was put into a group that had to argue why Socrates should stay in jail. My group said that Socrates should stay out of respect for the law because if he leaves then basically he is saying that he is above the law and that would not be right. He also probably did not want others to follow in his example and break the law too. It would also be unfair for him to take his opportunity to escape because not everyone is given that opportunity. Personally, if I wasn't assigned anything, I would say that he should leave jail. I am pretty sure that, when given the opportunity, most people would try to escape from jail and potential (in his case, certain) death. Also, all he was doing was spreading teachings so, if you believe in human rights, arresting him would be taking away his human right to freedom of speech. I just personally believe that people can't be arrested for talking, not because it is a human right, but because people don't ahem the right to arrest you for that reason.