Individual Rights versus Public Order
Name
Institution
Introduction
In essence, people have different views on the definition of individual rights with public orders. Although many find it hard differentiating the two terms, it is with no doubt; the two terms differ. According to Robinson (2009), individual rights are required by man’s rational nature, which as a result, they are supreme necessities for safe life in the society. With this regard, individual rights are fundamental in the sense that, they guarantee freedom for action that protects human rights. Individual rights include rights to life, liberty, free speech, pursuit of happiness and self defense among others. On the other hand, public orders are acts passed by the government or parliament which provides ways for justice against criminals. Public orders defend safety for citizens through reducing crimes for people to live a save life. With this regard, this paper seeks to examine advantages and disadvantages of individual rights versus public order.
Advantages of individual rights versus public orders
According to Schmalleger (2009), individual rights are requirements that ensure human rights are observed. It is a well documented fact; the founding fathers decided that, individual rights should be guaranteed to its citizens to ensure human life rights are guarantee. The society has become so complex to the sense that, it has moved away from increasing individual rights to focusing more on establishing more public orders. Individual rights according to Schmalleger are rights to pursuit happiness, liberty and life. As a result, they are a number of benefits that emerge from this such as, protecting individuals from government action which otherwise may affect their liberties. With this in mind, individual rights provide a clear outline rights that emphasizes on acceptable behavior to making individual life pleasing. In this context, according to Robinson (2009), public order provides clear parameters which govern right behaviors within the society through outlining responses concerning criminal justice. Robinson further states that, the law issues practical application for the social contract, which citizens along with the government intervene in ensuring an orderly society. The most benefit of public order is that, the government protects individual rights through introducing measures to punish any perpetrator that fails to align with law. In other words, public orders ensure individual rights are respected by being harder to crimes.
Additionally, Kelley (1998) argues that, individual rights are essential in the sense that, they impose freedom to human beings. This is necessity for man’s life since; an individual does what he wants provided he does not trample rights of others. Ultimately, man is enabled to pursue his own goals and happiness. This helps individuals to choose what is right, which as a result, assist in acting towards accomplishing goals. In facts, individual rights allow an individual to choose goals which are basic tools for survival subject. As a result, it enables an individual to do what he wishes throughout making healthy decisions towards living a purposeful life. In conjunction with this, public orders ensures that human beings are safe from crime through assurance of their rights been considered beneficial. In this context, the government protects individual rights when it is threatened. If for instance, individual rights are not protected as they ought to, the government introduces measures that ensure individual rights are respected and observed. For example, if an individual uses illegal drugs, they take initiative of punishing the drug abuser due to the fact of hurting his body and the person selling the drugs. The positive side of this is that, public orders ensure human life is respected in good standard of living. There has been a contentious issue pertaining public order crimes to drug abuse and prostitution among others which many view them to be victimless crimes. In other words, many outline these crimes to hurt the perpetrator bodies and thus; regard they should not be punished. Nevertheless, in the current world, public orders has ensured all people respect individual rights in personal perceptive and to others.
In addition, public orders ensure public norms are respected in order to protect, individual rights. These include public nuisances and indecencies among others. When these norms are approved by the government, it is obvious that, its outcome eradicate noise nuisance and indecencies affecting individual rights such as happiness.
Despite of the individual rights and public order advantages, there are various disadvantages to them as well.
Disadvantages of individual rights versus public orders
Brett (2003) argue that, the first disadvantage for having individual rights is that, they are not always respected for instance in police states who fails to respect individual rights. As a result, people feel oppressed and once the felling occurs most of them rebel against what they know in individual rights context. For instance, right to free speech ‘is highly recognized in many states. Freedom of speech is recognized in that, without freedom of speech, one cannot persuade others of the right thing to what is wrong. In facts, Lipsky (2010) argue that, freedom to speech is not always identified by the government in the sense that, ordinary citizens are shattered from giving out their views concerning various matters concerning a state.
While the government is expected to protect individual rights, it ends up taking advantage by enriching themselves. Having a disadvantage like this, it may lead to negative rights such as social security system. Despite the fact, individual rights states to ensure social security it may end being not observed. In many cases, this occurs in political debate. More often, cases have emerged of political leaders using citizens to eradicate social security believing there is political gain that would emerge. As a result, many people end up fighting with other to the extent of eradiating rights to property. This causes murder, tribal clashes and fighting for property. The often faceless victims are ordinary citizens that end up having their rights being respected.
The most contentious disadvantage of public order is how certain morals have declined. In this context, Burgan (2002) argue that, in some states prostitution is legal or tolerated in having temporary wives such in, Casna, England, Brazil, and New Zealand among others. With such individual rights, it creates opportunities for men and women to be unfaithful to their spouses. As a result, this leads to divorce, suicide or murder. This right leads to children growing in unstable families due to lack of parental love.
Conclusion
In facts, individual rights protect rights of individual from the government that would not treat them as they would be treated with bill of rights. Public orders ensure that individual rights are preserved through introducing measures that would preserve individual rights from being obeyed. Individual rights versus public orders have both advantages and disadvantages as outlined in the paper. With this in mind, this paper has examined both advantages and disadvantages of individual rights versus public order.
References
Brett,A.S. (2003). Liberty, Right and Nature: Individual Rights in Later Scholastic Thought. New York: Cambridge University Press
Burgan, M. (2002). The Bill of Rights. London: Compass Point Books
Kelley, D. (1998). A life of one’s own: individual rights and the welfare state. New York: Cato Institute
Lipsky, M. (2010). Streel-level bureaucracy: dilemmas of the individual in public services. New York: Russell Sage Foundation
Robinson, M (2009). Justice blind? Odeals and realities of American Criminal justice (3rd ed. Upper Saddle River,NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall
Schmalleger,F (2009). Criminal justice today: An introductory text for the twenty-first century (10th ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
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