Group Rights United States of América

First, we need to know what a group right is.
"Group rights are rights held by individuals within a specified group"
That is the basic idea. In Human Rights's class we saw group rights of India, that was very interesting due to we learned the partision of India into racial groups, each one with different tradition, religion and beliefs. 


The aim of groups rights is to reach the equality of opportunity.


OK, i already talked a little bit about general information, i will put some information about group rights of my country, our "neighbor" United States of America.


In the United States individual rights for all by virtue of being human were only established after the Civil War..-


Civil War, Texas declaration and other racial problems. 
As of 1860 the percentage of Southern families that owned slaves has been estimated to be 43 (Ninety-five percent of African-Americans lived in the South). The slavery was related to sectional competition for control of the territories (but this is not our main topic).
Southern concerns included not only slavery problems but also fears of racial equality. "Texas Declaration of causes For secession" said  "We should have equality of all men, irrespective of race or color".


At the beginning of the war, some Union commanders thought they were supposed to return escaped slaves to their masters.  We should know that Abraham Lincoln was the one who saved americans from slavery and war.


IT WAS HORRIBLE, THE ECONOMY WAS BASED ON SLAVE LABOR

Confederates enslaved captured black Union soldiers, and black soldiers especially were shot when trying to surrender at the Fort Pillow Massacre This led to a breakdown of the prisoner exchange program  and the growth of prison camps such as  Andersonville prision in Georgia, where almost 13,000 Union prisoners of war died of starvation and disease.

Death penalty ?? =O

"THE DEATH PENALTY IS THE ULTIMATE IRREVERSIBLE DENIAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS"


The US Supreme Court held that the death penalty is a cruel and unusual punishment in violation the US constitution. The supreme Court in Rope v, Simmons prohibits  the execution of people who committed crimes when they were under the age of 18.


THERE HAVE BEEN MORE THAN 1200 EXECUTIONS IN THE US SINCE 1976.
For this reason the European Union criticize  the death penalty. 


"In 2003, Amnesty International reported those who kill whites are more likely to be executed than those who kill blacks, citing of the 845 people executed since 1977, 80 percent were put to death for killing whites and 13 percent were executed for killing blacks, even though blacks and whites are murdered in almost equal numbers" 

What do you think about death penalty ? do you agree ? 

About Human Rights in the United States

According to Human Rights, "The American Declaration of Independence was the first civic document that met a modern definition of human rights"
This Constitution recognizes a number of inealinable human rights, such as:

• Freedom of speech
• Freedom of assembly
• Freedom of religion
• Right to keep and bear arms

"The fifiteenth Amendment to the United States constitution prohibits the denial of a citizen of the right to vote based on that citizen's race, color or contidion"

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 that "everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of oneself and one's family, incluiding food, clothing, housing and medical care".

The USA and Human Rights

General information: 

Largest city: New York

President: Barack Obama

National Language: English 

Capital: Washington, D.C

Population: 310,076,000

Currency: United States Dollar

The fourth largest nation by total area (land and water)(9,826,675 km2.

"The Human Rights in USA, was formed in 1775 by Anthony Benezet. This declaration is based on the self-truth, in which all men and women are created equal,with certan unalineable rights, that among this are Life, Libert and Happiness."

About The video we saw

Today, August 25^th 2010, In Human Rights class, we watch a short video about life in India.

That was an inspiring video, we can appreciate what we have and stop complaining about what we do not have.  You cannot have it all in life; happiness is not based in how many things you have, happiness comes to you when you start to appreciate what you have. 

I will write a very little summary about the video: It is all about Child Marriage, as you know, this is an illegal action, but in some places where education is only for a few people, it does happen.  The video was recorded by a young woman, she told us her history (she was obligated to get marry very young) and show us the place where she lives. This is real poverty, I am not telling she is poor because she does not have an ipod, or because she does not have computer, the poverty in which she lives is awful.

This crime also exists in Mexico, and it is really horrible, to ruin a child's life is one of the worst things in life.

At the end of the video, the teacher told us that India is a very beautiful country, but unfortunately, stuff like still really happen.