Declaration of Rights vs. Hammurabi

The language, topic, and overall framework of the Declaration of Rights compared to Hammurabi's code of Laws are quite different. First of all, Hammurabi's code initiated because of Hammurabi ruling, whereas the Declaration of Rights was written and executed as a result of the genocide during World War 2.

In Hammurabi's code most of the articles end in, "they shall be killed" or, "they shall be put to death". In the Declaration of Rights everyone is entitled to equality, even more so than in Hammurabi's code. Another major difference between the two code's and what distinguish them from CE to the 1900's is the fact that Hammurabi's code includes slavery, whereas the Declaration of Rights prohibits enslavement. In both of these documents we see the right to trial, the right to property, and the right to individuality/freedom. In the Declaration of Rights, there are less torturous consequences than in Hammurabi's code of laws. In Hammurabi's code we see more "eye for an eye" and people being thrown into a fire if they break the law. 

Another major difference between the two is that the Declaration of Rights integrates significantly more social and moral values than Hammurabi's code. For example, "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality," (Article 15 Declaration of Rights of Man). This represents the way in which law has evolved over the course of human history because it is a law based purely on equality and respect, which was not often present in our past. There were even laws against letting people express their nationalities and personal identities. Through events such as the Holocaust, the Apartheid, and genocides in Africa, people were discriminated based upon nationalities, religion, and personal identity. This law however shows progress across human history because society has evolved into more of a cyclical nature of respect.  Another example of how law has changed from lets say Hammurabi's code to the Declaration of Rights is, "no one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks," (Article 12 Declaration of Rights of Man.) This includes protection by the government which was seldom present in laws before these. Terms such as "constitution, declaration, United Nations, the State, governmental authority, and society," appear in the Declaration of Rights, whereas none of those appear in Hammurabi's Code. In the Declaration of Rights we also see words referenced such as, "education, family, children, religion, nationality, protection, safety," which are cannot be found in Hammurabi's code. 

Overall the language and overarching messages/deeper meanings of the laws in the Declaration of Rights are more specific, modern, and just than those in Hammurabi's code. 

Declaration of Rights

I think that several groups of people in the US should have a "Declaration of Rights". We have a Bill of Rights currently, but if I think that citizens deserve other federal and more specific rights. To begin, there should be a set of rights that regard gays and gay marriage. Most of the laws revolving around that topic and that group of people that we have today are state laws and not federal laws. Therefor if I would add a declaration of rights around that hot topic, and make them federal laws rather than state laws, that way everyone would recognize it. Those people deserve a set of rights because they are just like any other citizen in this world, and their sexual identity should not restrict them from any role or opportunity in society. Next, I would provide one universal bill of rights to the major organizations/governments across the globe. If groups like NATO, the United Nations, and the White House all adopted a unanimous and single declaration of rights in all fields of governing and state laws, we would all be on the same page. They deserve a declaration of rights because they are such powerful congregations and groups, that they deserve to be able to all refer and lean to one unified set of rights. I would make a declaration of rights that have to do with rights and protection about kids going to war. I would make sure that universally, there was a certain age where people were required in some cases, or were able in other cases, to go to war. Right now in Israel the age is 18 when you must go to war, and there are different policies in Iraq, however I would make sure various places had the same set of rights. Children deserve those rights because forcing youth to do something uncomfortable at a young age is hard and we need a right that states almost a universal age of maturity and readiness to delve into something like war. Kids should have time to be kids and feel safe, and that is not something that is protected by the government globally right now. I know laws revolving around war would be hard and not very realistic to create. In times of battle, laws are often broken or altered, and in reality people do not abide by all the laws in crisis of war, or else I would give a declaration of rights to that group of people as well.

Bill of Rights

At first I agreed with Alexander Hamilton's argument that there is no need for a Bill of Rights. He explained that everything that would be in the Bill of Rights is already in the Constitution. He stated that everything required to include is already "done in the most ample and precise manner in the new Constitution," and there is nothing exclusively addressed in the Bill of Rights that is not already well written and clear in the Constitution. However, after reading his proposition another time, I began to disagree with his argument. The Bill of Rights is the first 10 laws of the Constitution essentially, and that is important because it is a layout of the most focal and critical parts of the Constitution. It needs to be separate and it needs to be part of the Constitution because it lays out the almost "mission statement" of the Constitution. After doing minimal research about the Bill of Rights (just now), some people during the time (1789 ish), thought that the document would be insufficient and incomplete without mentioning the human rights and the goals for the new Constitution at the beginning of the document. However, others were extremely opposed to the idea of the Bill of Rights for various reasons. Personally I think that there is no down side to having a Bill of Rights. Who does not what to have the freedoms and the protections of the people laid out for them? Why is it bad to enforce human rights? I think that Alexander Hamilton's argument was actually weak because he had no way of putting down the Bill of Rights, other than saying that it was already in the Constitution, but why can't it be said again, or said in an even better way? Clearly the Bill of Rights has developed today and it an integral part of our government and Constitution

3rd blog of the week/discussion reflection

I mean all of this in the nicest way possible, just wanted to say that up front.

I am sort of unsure and confused about the goal of these discussions. Maybe the goal is to simply evaluate peoples' participation, but I think you should approach that in a different way. Overall, I am not a fan of these discussions which is why I did not participate yesterday. I think that there are already people in our classroom who do not feel particularly open or have the confidence to participate in a regular class discussion, and this type of assignment only makes that pressure increase. I would not say I am the most shy in our class, but I could definitely feel that struggle and inability to find the right time to talk, and I can only imagine how other introverted students must have felt. I think that often students want to chime in and say what they are feeling, but it is truly hard to do that. I am not just saying these things because I did not participate today or because I wasn't the one in the group who talked the most. Im saying these things because I truly think them, and also think we should not have these discussions anymore. I'm also telling you because you are the teacher and you are not the one in the conversation, so I wanted to give you an honest student perspective. Once again I am not sure what the point of these discussions is; what does it reflect or represent in real life? I think we can have a regular class discussion about the topic you gave us or at least just go around in a circle so everyone gets to say something because I'm sure each and every student had an idea or a question in their head that they were eager to say and release, but did not find the perfect second to say it or were not confident enough. I understand you want us to be able to participate in uncomfortable settings and not everything is supposed to be easy. I understand we must fail and discover difficulty in order to overcome our fears and weaknesses. However, this type of discussion can be degrading and uncomfortable for us. Both times we have done this, there were three or four people who talked back and forth and did not give other people a chance. Also, the discussions got extremely off topic and rarely straight-up answered your initial question. I think when you said the comment before we started the discussion that you are keeping track of the conversation, it scared a lot of people, which was probably your intention and you were trying to motivate us, but I think it put more pressure on people. Personally speaking, I definitely felt lots of anger and unease during the conversation today (and a few weeks ago) because I had so many things I wanted to say and I would formulate them perfectly in my head, but before I could open my mouth someone else that had already spoken, spoke again, or I was too nervous. I think that it is unfair that you graded us on these conversations because I was engaged with my body language, eye contact, and internal thinking, I just never had the chance to express all of it.

(Sorry for the negativity :))

Legalists believed that all humans, no exceptions, are evil. They believed that the best possible way to create both an effective and efficient society was to compile as many rules as possible, none integrating human rights or morals. Legalists believed that when people were given an inch of freedom, their interest was to destroy that freedom and not utilize it or respect it. The legalists referred to fa and xing where fa were the written laws and xing were the punishments. In other words fa were the official rules that people were demanded to follow and xing were the consequences if those were not followed or executed. We have similar principles today that even existed before legalism. Today we have things similar to fa and xing because we have a written set of laws and warnings along with each of those laws. An example of a law (fa) would be no murder and the punishment to that law "xing" would be go to trial or go to jail. However something that is different now than legalism is that we do not lived under such a finite world like people did under legalism. Why did people believe that every one was evil and was looking to make things worse? It makes little sense to me why people would place as many laws as possible on a society just to keep things in order and make sure nothing goes wrong. To live like that seems hard and assuming every single person is cruel is inaccurate. Another thing that is different today and even pre-legalism, is the inclusion of collective morality and human rights. Not only would society be extremely strict and almost boring, but it wouldn't run as smoothly as one with the people's opinions and giving them more leeway. Legalists did not even trust or lend power to rulers because they were considered evil. So who was above the rulers and who decided everyone was evil and that laws were the best and only way to go? I think legalism is not effective or efficient because when people have to unwillingly follow laws, it makes them not want to follow it and makes things more hectic, I think. Although legalists argued that their ways would make everyone equal, their values were non existent and their execution was senseless and clearly did not last until today.

1 (pragmatic vs. morality)

An example of a pragmatic law would be the Brush Clearing law that says that a township can make the execute decision about brush clearing without a referendum, meaning a vote or decision made by the government, not by the people. In this law it says they will finance the collection, transportation, and disposal of leaves in that certain area whether the people approve or not. The people in that area are the ones basically paying for this maneuver because of taxes, so to make a decision without their input is slightly irrational. In other words, this is pragmatic and not quite moral because the authority is not doing what is favorable for the majority and is rather doing it because it makes logistical sense. On the other hand, an example of a law integrating morality and appears as the opposite of pragmatic is the Copyright Restrictions law. This law explains that is is forbidden to take/"borrow" sound recordings after a certain date. If that law is broken it is considered copyright or plagiarism, which is prohibited. This is a considerate and valuable law because it includes the interest of individuals, and the mass. This is not particularly a pragmatic law because they do not need this law copyright law to keep things organized per-say; they could do without it. But it is moral to respect the work of others and provide consequence if that protection is broken. Some might argue we need strictly pragmatic laws and others might argue we need solely moral laws. I think that we need a combination of both types of laws in order to keep society both civil, and humane- both sides are essential. We need laws that the governing body decides and that keep things in order, yet we also need laws that are the opposite. That aren't there only because the government decides, but are rather existent because we the people have elected them and chosen them to be moral and just.

3

Accountability was an essential and adequate shift that happened in an appropriate time in history. I say it was an appropriate time because without accountability, we would have never known how life was like without citizen input. In other words, by not having it, we learned even more to appreciate it and learned how society was different without it. Prior to the Roman Republic, laws were made simply to create and maintain order in society. They were made with little if any democracy or interest of the people. They were more of efficient laws rather than good and effective laws. However, when the rise of the Roman Republic occurred, accountability came into action and laws were made with more interest in the general public than ever before, and not made with no purpose. If the government was willing to give the right for people to influence the government, than they clearly cared about integrating and acknowledging those opinions and ideas. Accountability means respecting people while creating laws, and I think that is a very important shift that occurred a long time ago, but the issue is still addressed today, and will still be apparent in the future. Without the citizens being accounted for, we would not have many of the human or civil rights we have today. People's voice while creating laws is vital because laws are followed best when the majority of the people agree and are willing to accept them. Without accountability, society would most likely be more chaotic and negative a lot of the time. People would complain and I feel like accountability was one of the first steps towards democracy. Without accountability, the governing body and their processes would look more like monarchies, or totalitarianism, or anything far from democracy. The Roman Republic, "created a sense of accountability for all," which was why they were so significant.