PHI 406 - Reading Response 5

Adopted in 1948, the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights outlined “fundamental freedoms” of all humans worldwide.  The United States signed the document, promising that it, too, agreed upon a common definition of “human rights” stating, 

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event  of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age, or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

- The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25.1

Yet, it is 2020 and we as a nation are still a long way from providing a standard of living outlined in this article to the 327 million citizens within her borders.  Compared with most other Western Nations, we are grossly behind the curve when it comes to securing the basic human rights of our citizens.  Finland, for example, has one of the world’s most comprehensive social policy, enabling all citizens and long-time residents the basics of health care, dental care, unemployment and disability insurance, and many other social programs – all in line with Article 25 of the UNHR.  America lacks even basic universal healthcare, though there are politicians out there promising to make it happen. We are seeing the cost of our lack of social programs right now, with the Coronavirus outbreak.  Those people who are working 2 and 3 jobs just to make the rent are now being sent home and quarantined without the security of knowing where their rent check is coming from.  Many do not know if the job will be waiting for them when this is all over.  Our existing safety nets are not nearly big enough to handle the crisis coming when this is all over, and we provide no assurances of these basic human rights to our citizens.  Finland does though.  Maybe that’s why they’re the happiest country in the world and we’re living a scene from Resident Evil.

-------------------

Grade: 10/10

Professor comments:  None

PHI 406 - Reading Response 4

               When I was 16, my grandmother and I travelled to Washington DC for a union conference.  While there, we visited The National Library.  Situated in a rotunda, enclosed in a case of bullet-proof glass and argon gas, lay the original documents that founded our country.  My grandmother stood behind me as I read the original words of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, encouraging me to connect with our ancestors who founded Jamestown, and fought as patriots of this nation.  Thomas Jefferson stated, in the Declaration of Independence, “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments, long established, should not be changed for light and transient Causes.”  The founding fathers did not take the creation of our country lightly. 

“We the people,” begins the document that guides the three branches of our Federal government.  Laid out, in plain, are the words of our founding fathers as they formed “a more perfect union.”  With 26 amendments, the United States Constitution is a meaty read, but an important one, especially with the current political climate. 

I sometimes feel as if this President has ripped those precious documents to shreds and imposed his own will, rather than that of the people who created this country and the documents they left behind.  He seems to forget that he swore to uphold the constitution in his inauguration.  Our constitution gives him limits; limits he seems to ignore every day.  He enabled interference in the 2016 elections, he used his office to try putting pressure on his political opponents, he flouted the system of checks and balances by dictating the terms of his own impeachment and he is interfering with the justice system now, by pardoning political supporters and tweeting official policy. 

What would our founding fathers have thought about this interference?   Of a President who makes policy on Twitter and flouts the checks and balances that enabled this 245-year-old document to survive the test of time?  It’s hard to know, but I believe that the answer potentially lies in The Federalist Papers, which I encourage all Americans to also read.

--------------------
Grade: 9/10
Professor Comments: (highlights the last sentence) Given how few Americans have even read the Constitution, this may be hoping for too much.