Discussion Questions Board
1. What people should do to help ensure and protect civil rights?
The protection of civil rights and civil liberties is essential to the wellbeing of a free and democratic society. To help ensure civil rights, people should defend, educate, and empower the society. Volunteer organizations should educate the society about their human rights. Once the society is educated of civil rights, the society should empower all people to defend these rights. To help protect civil rights, people should form or engage in social advocacy group activities where they can voice their interests as a group. Good examples of civil liberties advocacy groups in America are Alliance Defending Freedom and the American Civil Rights Union. In this approach, people should advance their social, economic, and political interests through a political process for this has a powerful informal influence against violation of their human rights. Another approach of ensuring and protecting human rights is through interest groups. People must know that there is power in numbers, and that political organizations are more likely to respond to a collective rather than individual voice.
2. What government should do to help make sure that people’s rights are protected and/or that government is limited?
There is an inherent conflict between the government and human rights preservation. However, the government protects some of our constitutional rights; for instance, it protects our right to property and to life. To help ensure that people’s rights are protected, the government should make and enforce civil protection laws. The government should create laws, for example, laws that make it illegal for judicial and police systems to be corrupted. Second, the government should enact laws that spell disciplinary actions against government officials who violate or threaten human rights. In this way, the government will help ensure that the powers vested on government officials are strictly under control. Third, the government should train security and justice industry personnel on civil rights practices and norms. Fourth, the government should strengthen capacity of civil rights defenders in National Human Rights Institutions. Last, the government should provide security aid to leader activists who get threatened by top government officials for their strong position against violation of the poor, vulnerable, and indigenous people’s rights.