Civil Rights and Liberties
Protection of civil liberties and rights is probably one of the most important political values in American society. One of the examples of civil liberties is religious liberty. Laycock claims (2014) that “religious liberty is one of America’s great contributions to the world” (p. 840). It ended persecution and religious warfare in the West and allowed people with a different worldview to live peacefully in the same society. Religious liberty includes several rights like the belief in whatever a person chooses about religion, the right to speak about religion, and the right to practice religion and to engage in different religious communities (Laycock, 2014). Yet, nowadays religious liberty has become a controversial issue. The main reason is a deep disagreement over sexual morality. Conservative religious leaders consider gay rights and marriages, abortion, and contraception as the biggest evils, while a lot of Americans see them as common human rights (Laycock, 2014). With the adoption of laws, which allow committing abortions, having same-sex marriages, religious individuals and institutions have to engage in a practice they consider immoral. It puts religious liberty at risk. That is why one of the government’s responsibilities is to find a way how to protect the liberty of each side.
Another example of civil liberties is freedom of speech. According to the First Amendment of the US Constitution, “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, of the press” (Miller, 2016, p. 48). Some people wonder, why speech should be protected. The protection of speech serves one particular purpose – to improve the state. Nevertheless, the government tried to take speech under control. According to the Court’s decision in the case of Gitlow v. New York (1925) any speech that might damage the government’s foundation or lead to its overthrow could be banned (Miller, 2016, p. 49). Such a decision might incline people to violence. That is why here arose the question about speech geography, the answer to which should solve this problem.
Media events
A real tragedy for Americans and the Constitution became the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency. This event caused a lot of disputes in society and mass media. Having had Barak Obama as the President for eight years, people were trying to diminish racism and set a strong and democratic country. Now everything can change. Trump’s party line, according to which all Mexican immigrants should be deported from the country, causes anxiety among Americans. According to Brouillette (2017), hundreds of demonstrators in the country’s capital argued against President Trump and even “called on Congress to impeach the inaugurated President” (para. 3). Moreover, through social media similar protests were also organized in other biggest cities of the USA like Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York.
The decisions of a new American president Donald Trump attract media attention and cause heated debates in society. One of such decisions is to build a wall on the US border with Mexico. The majority of Americans, nearly 60%, disapprove of Trump’s order requiring the construction of a wall along the southern border with Mexico (Sharman, 2017, para. 1). Moreover, people become more convinced that Mr. Trump will fail to keep his promise to force Mexico to pay for it. All these facts make Americans doubt their current administration. It is said that the number of Americans who are against the construction of a wall has increased from 54 percent to 62 percent (Sharman, 2017, para. 7). Additionally, they consider this decision as short-sighted, because a huge amount of money will go for nothing since the wall will not stop immigrants.
The Republican and Democratic Parties
It is interesting to look at the differences between two leading American parties from a psychological perspective. Recent studies showed the difference in the brain structure of Democrats (liberals) and Republicans (conservatives). It turned out that when they think about decision-making, which involves risk, the liberals and conservatives engage different parts of the brain (Schreiber et al., 2013). Other studies also suggest that due to this fact the parties differ on important psychological characteristics. Therefore, Republicans, for example, show stronger attitudinal reactions to situations of conflict and threat, while Democrats are inclined to look for novelty and uncertainty. Moreover, Democrats are more risk accepting than Republicans (Schreiber et al., 2013). Probably, this fact leads to certain differences concerning the parties’ views on their strategies, goals, values, party lines, and as a result, on moral and ethical issues. The focus of Democrats’ attention is the idea of government economic intervention, which can result in encouraging equality and labor interests. They think about women’s rights and such policies that can satisfy religious, ethnic, sexual, and racial minorities and disadvantaged groups. Republicans support the idea of free markets, business interests. They have a “color-blind approach to race and ethnic issues, traditional religious and sexual norms” (Noel, 2016, p. 168). These facts lead to the conclusion that Democrats are more concerned about ethical and moral issues in society than Republicans. They understand that the country’s success depends on constant development and novelty. Democrats do not tend to compare social groups; in fact, they try to provide people with equal rights and opportunities.
References
Brouillette, J. (2017). Not my president’s day protesters rally against Trump. The Washington Times. Web.
Laycock, D. (2014). Religious Liberty and the Culture Wars.Web.
Miller, B. (2016). Spaces of contention: Spatialities and social movements. New York, NY: Routledge.
Noel, H. (2016). Ideological factions in the Republican and Democratic parties. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 667(1), 166-188.
Schreiber, D., Fonzo, G., Simmons, A. N., Dawes, C. T., Flagan, T., Fowler, J. H., & Paulus, M. P. (2013). Red brain, blue brain: Evaluative processes differ in Democrats and Republicans. PLoS One, 8(2), e52970.
Sharman, J. (2017). Majority of Americans against Trump’s wall and do not believe Mexico will pay for it.Independent. Web.