Prompt: Human Rights v. Majority Rule
Life sometimes seems to throw situations at you that, in the end, will have an outcome that will affect more than just yourself. In some cases, it could affect the generations after you, or it could affect the generations here now. To make a decision that will affect anyone besides your self is often a difficult decision to make, but each and everyone must be made. In today's society, you have to decide whether you will follow the rights you believe should be given to everyone, or if you will follow the ways of others around you.
For this prompt, it brings up the topic of whether society would want a homosexual person teaching in an elementary school, and influencing our children. In all honesty, because of the way I was brought up, my answer to this question would be NO. However, after considering the question I realized how hypocritical this sounds. How is it my right to tell someone that they can not work with children because they have a different preference than I do? To tell a homosexual man or woman that they can not work with kids because they chose to be different is rediculous. Yes, I agree that there are certain people on the Earth that have done some very terrible things to lose their privelages to their human rights, such as rape, murder, and other crimes. Men and women who do not think the same way that the "majority" does should not trialed and condemned as a criminal. They are people as well.
However much I would love to say that I would automatically sway towards my own opinion on human rights, I am aware enough to realize that I would most likely go with the majority opinion ninety-nine percent of the time. Many people often go the path their peers have set before them, no matter how deadly or dangerous it may appear, and only because we would rather appear ignorant than to appear different and go our own way. I believe this is why our society in America is the way it is today. We should not condemn people for being different and we should not follow the opinion of others, and state it as our own. More often than not, that opinion usually causes a problem for us anyway.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Give us what we want, and no one, well maybe no one, will get hurt
Prompt: Hijack!
Honestly, this question is probably one of the hardest so far to answer. Since September 11, 2001, The United States' foreign policies, especially towards those nationswho had an connection at all terrorist group responsible for the massacre, has tightened and become much more strict. In the case that another plane was hijacked and the terrorists had some form of ransom that they would accept for the release of the hostages, I think there would be several things to consider. I would first consider what the loss would be if the demands were not met. I know this would be a very hard thing to decide, because every human life is worth the same. I then would have to think about what the costs would be if we were to let the criminals go free. Would more people die as a result? Would the terrorists on the plane truly let the hostages go, alive?
These questions would be very difficut to answer, and I think in the end the answer would come out the same. I would love to give in to the terrorists demands, and say that we, as a nation, will turn the criminals over to the terrorists, and that everything would be great from there. However, what is the actual probability of these terrorists, men who care nothing of their own life, or other people's lifes, and who would die for such a cause, would let these people go alive. What happens if I let the criminals go, the terrorists still blow up the plane, and now, there are more terrorists in the world to be worried about, and those people still died. I know that if it were my family member or my friend on the plane, I would want someone to turn over the criminals and pray that they made it off the plane alive. But, looking at it from a third party standpoint, I feel that more lifes would be saved if the criminals were kept in jail, and an alternate way of catching the terrorists was found. I would not release the criminals from jail, and would have to deal with any fallback that came afterwards.
I know that many believe that the terrorism situation the United States is currently in is completely what ever president's fault. However, I feel that if we, as citizens, would like to place the blame on someone, we must also include our selves, because at one point we were all glad that the president at the time was taking action over those "foreigners." Yes, we all feel bad now, and yes, we know that they are simply not "foreigners," but people who need a country to provide protection and safety.
Honestly, this question is probably one of the hardest so far to answer. Since September 11, 2001, The United States' foreign policies, especially towards those nationswho had an connection at all terrorist group responsible for the massacre, has tightened and become much more strict. In the case that another plane was hijacked and the terrorists had some form of ransom that they would accept for the release of the hostages, I think there would be several things to consider. I would first consider what the loss would be if the demands were not met. I know this would be a very hard thing to decide, because every human life is worth the same. I then would have to think about what the costs would be if we were to let the criminals go free. Would more people die as a result? Would the terrorists on the plane truly let the hostages go, alive?
These questions would be very difficut to answer, and I think in the end the answer would come out the same. I would love to give in to the terrorists demands, and say that we, as a nation, will turn the criminals over to the terrorists, and that everything would be great from there. However, what is the actual probability of these terrorists, men who care nothing of their own life, or other people's lifes, and who would die for such a cause, would let these people go alive. What happens if I let the criminals go, the terrorists still blow up the plane, and now, there are more terrorists in the world to be worried about, and those people still died. I know that if it were my family member or my friend on the plane, I would want someone to turn over the criminals and pray that they made it off the plane alive. But, looking at it from a third party standpoint, I feel that more lifes would be saved if the criminals were kept in jail, and an alternate way of catching the terrorists was found. I would not release the criminals from jail, and would have to deal with any fallback that came afterwards.
I know that many believe that the terrorism situation the United States is currently in is completely what ever president's fault. However, I feel that if we, as citizens, would like to place the blame on someone, we must also include our selves, because at one point we were all glad that the president at the time was taking action over those "foreigners." Yes, we all feel bad now, and yes, we know that they are simply not "foreigners," but people who need a country to provide protection and safety.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Are you sure that's right??
Prompt: Right or wrong?
To come to a decision of right or wrong, how do you know if you are using the right process to arrive at your decision? If I decide that I think it is right for Joe to kill Bill because he borrowed his pencil and it ran out of lead while Bill had the pencil, does that mean that I have made the right decision. I believe that I would consider myself a moral relativist because I do not believe that there is an exact right or an exact wrong that can be judged by a man's eye. I believe that although there should be an exact right or wrong, with no gray matter in between, this is not how things work in the world today. There are many processes that one can follow to find a right or wrong, and I have found one that I believe suits me very well.
For an example, let's say that I am currently performing jury duty. The defendent is a middle aged woman who ran over her husband and killed him, and is using the defense that he abused her. First, I would decide whether I would have reacted, pretending that she is telling the truth and he did abuse her, in the same way, and done the same thing. But, if I would have done the same thing, what makes this right? Why is it that killing someone who abused you is ok, but killing random people on the street is not.
Right and wrong are never truly absolute, and can not be decided in a moment. I believe that God gave us the power of free will and the power to think so that we would be able to process the information of the world today, and decide what is truly right or wrong. I also believe that he put in position people who could make the laws and consequences of breaking the laws, so that we as a group of people know the outline of right and wrong.
Although I do find myself to be a relativist, I also believe that I could be an absolutionist because I do believe that there are certain things that do have a definite right and a definite wrong. However, I see that as long as there are human emotions involved, there will always be "gray matter."
To come to a decision of right or wrong, how do you know if you are using the right process to arrive at your decision? If I decide that I think it is right for Joe to kill Bill because he borrowed his pencil and it ran out of lead while Bill had the pencil, does that mean that I have made the right decision. I believe that I would consider myself a moral relativist because I do not believe that there is an exact right or an exact wrong that can be judged by a man's eye. I believe that although there should be an exact right or wrong, with no gray matter in between, this is not how things work in the world today. There are many processes that one can follow to find a right or wrong, and I have found one that I believe suits me very well.
For an example, let's say that I am currently performing jury duty. The defendent is a middle aged woman who ran over her husband and killed him, and is using the defense that he abused her. First, I would decide whether I would have reacted, pretending that she is telling the truth and he did abuse her, in the same way, and done the same thing. But, if I would have done the same thing, what makes this right? Why is it that killing someone who abused you is ok, but killing random people on the street is not.
Right and wrong are never truly absolute, and can not be decided in a moment. I believe that God gave us the power of free will and the power to think so that we would be able to process the information of the world today, and decide what is truly right or wrong. I also believe that he put in position people who could make the laws and consequences of breaking the laws, so that we as a group of people know the outline of right and wrong.
Although I do find myself to be a relativist, I also believe that I could be an absolutionist because I do believe that there are certain things that do have a definite right and a definite wrong. However, I see that as long as there are human emotions involved, there will always be "gray matter."
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