Human Rights: Waiting for the Barbarians Essay Example

is evident through history and this novel portrays a specific example in which one man struggled with the rights he believed should be fought for while he now feared his own civilization.

Human rights play a vital role in our personal lives and decision making. If I took away anything from this class, it is that our human rights help define us and shape us. They can make you human or can completely euthanize you. That is why it is important we fight for the rights that we believe we should have. The rights we choose to defend are important because by actually putting human rights ideas into practice, we are helping to shape the society we want to live in. It is also hard to imagine a society where everyone is intolerant of everyone else.

However, human rights help establish a basic level of respect and dignity among all levels of people. They help you decide on the words you choose to use and the way you communicate with the people around you whether you know it or not. It is evident that in order for human rights to be universal, there needs to be a larger effort to support these rights. Although there will always be human rights violations, the number of them could decrease with the understanding that by not supporting someone else's rights you are therefore not supporting your own.

That is why they are called human rights and not individual rights. They pertain to humans as a whole and that is what human rights has taught me. There is no me, there is no them, there is Just us, a

collective whole. Torture Debate There are many rights that all humans believe they should have. One subject that has been up for debate for many years is whether or not the appropriate use of torture can provide results and whether or not it should be legal or not. Although the idea of being tortured threatens all of our own humanity, there have been situations where torture has saved lives.

Torture is an extreme form of interrogation and should never be used except under strict circumstances where innocent people are in life threatening situations. There are many reasons that support that torture should never be used. One of the most important one of these reasons is that by supporting torture of other people, we are saying that we value our lives at a higher rate than someone else. This is reflected in our decision making to torture other humans. It is also difficult to tell how effective torture actually is. It is arguable that someone will tell you what you want to hear strictly so they will not feel pain anymore.

Therefore, torture would prove completely ineffective if that were the case. On the other side of the argument, the view on torture is slightly different. Although valued as a human rights violation, one could argue that if you commit or are planning to commit a violation against someone else's human rights, you are sacrificing your own rights. Torture is also believed to be a great deterrent for those who wish to attack our nation. One defending the use of strategic torture might also agree that torture has extremely negative connotations and therefore should be known

as a advanced interrogation tactic.

Torture is defined as "any act by which sever pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a errors for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.

It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions. " By this function, simply stressing someone out on purpose could be considered torture. If we are to change the laws surrounding torture, we should change the definition itself. One of the major influences on this debate was the 9/1 1 terrorist attacks. It was questioned whether or not torture should be allowed so that no other attack like that ever takes place again.

This situation should help show what could happen if we do not take precautions and worry about our own people. It is not evident that we could have stopped the attack from happening, but if there is a chance we could have, couldn't you have taken it? Although my position in the debate was intended to be anti-human rights, I found it to be quite the opposite. Supporting torture as a meaner of saving innocent lives almost seems more pro-human rights than it would

be to say that a terrorist deserves rights too.

I can understand why torture is frowned upon because no average citizen could ever imagine that situation however the instances where torture would be used is so minimal that it shouldn't matter. Those willing to violate the rights of others have themselves sacrificed their own right to personal freedoms. Torture will never be agreed upon fully by the collective whole however I believe that it will gain support as an advance form of interrogation.

It appears as the more we strive for universal human rights, there is more opposition against it. It is important that we take a step back and view the situation as a whole instead of as individual human rights violations. By not supporting strategic torture, you are supporting the human rights of all individuals, even those who commit the worst of crimes. For it is not Just about what rights we have, it's about who has them and who uses them fairly and who abuses them.