Every right in our bill of rights has limitations to it. For each right, you sho
ID: 3902273 • Letter: E
Question
Every right in our bill of rights has limitations to it. For each right, you should be able to explain what the right is, why we have this right, what the limits to this right are, and why that right is limited Why is the freedom of speech so important in our government? What is the right to assemble? Explain why a group has the right to assemble AND explain the logic as to why a group has the right to deny association to others. What is the right to privacy? Explain how the 9th amendment is used to interpret this right into the constitution and why this is controversial. Name the controversial expansions of the right to privacy Who determines what constitutes a crime? What is the purpose of criminal law and punishment? What is problematic about giving government too much power to find criminals and punish them for their actions? What are exceptions to the 4h Amendment's warrant requirement? One problem with interrogations are false confessions linking someone to a crime. Why do innocent people falsely confess to a crime? The 14th amendment guarantees the equal protection of the law How was this amendment originally interpreted and how is it interpreted today? Explain the argument stating that political equality has been achieved, but social inequality still exists. What is affirmative action? What is it intended purpose and what is the controversy behind its implementation Why is low voter turnout bad for democratic governments? What are political attitudes that cause people to choose not to vote? What are ways to change these attitudes to increase voter turnout? What are institutional reasons for why there is low voter turnout? How can the institution be modified to increase voter turnout?Explanation / Answer
Ans:
1) who determine what constitutes a crime:
A crime occurs when someone breaks the law by an overt act, omission or neglect that can result in punishment. A person who has violated a law, or has breached a rule, is said to have committed a criminal offense.
Who decides how serious a crime is is also easy: whomever is empowered by your government to write the laws. In the western world, all criminal laws must include a penalty clause (or link to a related statute that provides a penalty). A crime without a penalty is a nullity.
Who should is the only remotely problematic part of your question, as it gets at the very nature of governance. The answer to that question - whether it be elected legislators, a monarch, or something else entirely - is one of the fundamental questions when deciding on your system of government. To my knowledge, all Western nations have for the last two centuries or so (give or take a few decades in particular counties) agreed that legislatures composed of representatives write the laws, but there has been wide variation about how that legislature is assembled (e.g. is it heredity such as how the House of Lords was, is it proportional to the population as the House of Representatives in the US is, or is it disproportional as the Senate in the US is, etc.).
2) why is freedom of speech important :
The point of democracy is for all citizens to join in making decisions about the allocation and use of collective resources. That requires analysis, argument, persuasion, and the introduction of fresh ideas. So the process must be encouraged — indeed, it is vital to democracy.
That said, take a close look at how much of that goes on in the public discourse. These days, very little is said about what we should do as a nation, and very much is said about the people who purport to be the “leaders” and “decision makers.” So if free speech, as a mechanism for the organized and principled exchange of ideas, is important to democracy, we can also see that “free” speech, the mindless cacophony of baseless opinions, prejudices, and fears, is important to the illusion of democracy.
3) Right to Privacy And 9th Amendment Controversey:
The right of privacy is defined as an individual's legal right, not explicitly provided in the United States Constitution, to be left alone and live life free from unwarranted publicity. It was important for the early settlers that their homes and persons be protected from unwarranted governmental intrusion (the basis of the Fourth Amendment), the right to be one's own person (the basis of the First Amendment) and the right against self-incrimination (the Fifth Amendment.) All of these specifically mentioned rights have the undertone of a person's right to privacy. Therefore, the Ninth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment specifically note that rights not mentioned in the Constitution should not be taken to mean that the people don't have them. And the courts have followed that logic.
The U. S. Constitution contains no express right to privacy. The Bill of Rights, however, reflects the concern of James Madison and other framers for protecting specific aspects of privacy, such as the privacy of beliefs (1st Amendment), privacy of the home against demands that it be used to house soldiers (3rd Amendment), privacy of the person and possessions as against unreasonable searches (4th Amendment), and the 5th Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination, which provides protection for the privacy of personal information. In addition, the Ninth Amendment states that the "enumeration of certain rights" in the Bill of Rights "shall not be construed to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people." The meaning of the Ninth Amendment is elusive, but some persons (including Justice Goldberg in his Griswold concurrence) have interpreted the Ninth Amendment as justification for broadly reading the Bill of Rights to protect privacy in ways not specifically provided in the first eight amendments.
The question of whether the Constitution protects privacy in ways not expressly provided in the Bill of Rights is controversial. Many originalists, including most famously Judge Robert Bork in his ill-fated Supreme Court confirmation hearings, have argued that no such general right of privacy exists. The Supreme Court, however, beginning as early as 1923 and continuing through its recent decisions, has broadly read the "liberty" guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment to guarantee a fairly broad right of privacy that has come to encompass decisions about child rearing, procreation, marriage, and termination of medical treatment. Polls show most Americans support this broader reading of the Constitution.
4) exceptions to 4th amendment warrant's requirement:
There are six major exceptions to the warrant requirement.
1. Search Incident to Lawful Arrest
A search incident to lawful arrest does not require issuance of a warrant. In other words, if someone is lawfully arrested, the police may search her person and any area surrounding the person that is within reach (within his or her “wingspan”). See Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969). The rationale is that the search is permissible as a protective measure for police safety and to secure evidence that might be destroyed.
2. Plain View Exception
No warrant is required to seize evidence in plain view if the police are legitimately in the location from which the evidence can be viewed. For example, an officer cannot illegally enter a suspect’s back yard and then use the plain view exception to seize an illegally kept alligator living in the pool. But, if on the premises to serve a warrant duly issued to search for marijuana plants, the alligator, if in plain view, can rightly (though by no means easily) be seized.
3. Consent
If consent is given by a person reasonably believed by an officer to have authority to give such consent, no warrant is required for a search or seizure. So, if a suspect’s "significant other" provides police with a key to the suspect’s apartment, and police reasonably believe that she lives there, the search will not violate suspect’s Fourth Amendment rights even if she did not live there and even if she, in fact, lacked authority to consent. See Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177 (1990).
4. Stop & Frisk
Police may stop a suspect so long as there is a reasonable suspicion of a criminal act and the officer can articulate facts leading to that suspicion. The evidence necessary for “reasonable suspicion” here is something beyond mere suspicion, but is less than the level required for probable cause. If there is reason to believe that the person may be armed and dangerous, the police can also frisk the suspect. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).
5. Automobile Exception
Because vehicles are obviously highly mobile, a warrant is not required to search vehicles if police have probable cause to believe the vehicle contains evidence of a crime, the instrumentalities of crime, contraband, or the fruits of a crime. Although commonly referred to as the “automobile exception,” this rule applies to any vehicle, including boats. While in some ways, it is quite a broad exception, this rule limits the ability to search those areas that might contain evidence of the type suspected to be present. In other words, if police suspect that the occupant of a boat is smuggling people across the border, searching a small tackle box on board would not be permissible. However, if they were looking for drugs, they could search the tackle box. The rationale is that, if an officer has to take the time to obtain a warrant, the vehicle might be out of reach before the warrant can be issued and executed. See Carroll v. United States, 267 US. 132 (1925).
6. Emergencies/Hot Pursuit
The rationale here is similar to the automobile exception. Evidence that can be easily moved, destroyed or otherwise made to disappear before a warrant can be issued may be seized without a warrant. Furthermore, if a suspect enters private property while being pursued by officers, no warrant is required to enter that property in order to continue pursuit, even if the suspect is in no way connected with the property owner.
5) low voter turnout bad for democratic governments:
2015 seems an ideal year to celebrate one of our national treasures, namely parliamentary democracy. Disappointingly, Canadians will almost certainly commemorate these events by disengaging from politics in greater numbers than ever before.
This is not really news. Everyone knows that voter turnout is low and declining.
While humans are certainly capable of altruism, we primarily look out for ourselves and those we care about. Regardless of whether this is good or bad, it’s natural and how most of us behave, most of the time.
The result of this natural tendency is that, when given a chance to govern, people usually continue behaving this way. Dictatorships provide clear examples: dictators’ main preoccupations are to retain power and enrich themselves and their families. They accomplish this by buying off those whose support they need to retain power – a group of people academics call the “selectorate”. This is usually easy as dictators can funnel the resources of the entire state into providing the bribes required to keep the military brass or ruling party happy – while leaving the less favoured out in the cold.
Democracy has its origins in efforts to tame this inequity. Democratic leaders must appeal to a much larger selectorate to retain power than must dictators. Indeed, democratic selectorates theoretically consist of a majority of the electorate. With many more people demanding benefits, democratic leaders must use the state’s limited resources much more efficiently than dictators and do so by investing in “public goods” (things that everyone can use like roads and hospitals) instead of “private goods” (things like fancy cars that only benefit the dictator’s lackeys).
Of course, no system is perfect. Given scarce resources even democratic governments must make decisions that create winners and losers. Democratic political parties recognize that their decisions and promises need to produce enough winners that they will be sufficiently appealing to enough voters to win the next election. Theoretically, this produces a relatively good result policy-wise because the winning party/coalition needs to win the approval of 50% + 1 of voters. And while this is not perfect, especially for the losing 50% -1, it is fairer than if the party with less support wins because the resulting policies should benefit at least the majority of voters.
The problem with low voter turnout, however, is that it messes up this theoretical equation. When fewer people vote, it becomes less certain that the winning party actually represents the interests of the majority of the governed and thus, by extension, less clear that the policies being chosen actually have majority support.
Even more problematic is that even though voters still slightly outnumber nonvoters in Canada, these voters are becoming less representative of the population as a whole. For example, young people vote at a much lower rate (40%) than old people (80%). Regardless of why this is, it encourages parties to ignore issues important to young people while splurging on seniors.
Additionally, consider that:
These and other factors have combined to create a dramatically shrunken selectorate – that is the group of people whose support parties actually need in order to win elections. And when this happens, parties face strong incentives to focus on these swing voters by making promises to provide them with what are increasingly private goods instead of investing in more efficient and beneficial, but less individually compelling and targetable, public goods.
This is not meant to sound alarmist. Canada is not a dictatorship and won’t become one anytime soon. But our electorate is shrinking worryingly and those who aren’t in it are being increasingly ignored. In a world of scarce resources we’d get much better results overall if our parties focused on providing public goods. Unfortunately, our system is increasingly incentivizing the opposite. And by further shrinking the electorate, declining voter turnout is only making things worse.
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