<p>Hi, I'm writing an essay that addresses human rights in the United States. Here's the fun part: I'm currently brainstorming examples of human rights issues that greatly require attention in the United States, so can anyone think of such issues that they want to suggest?</p>
<p>Thanks a bunch!</p>
<p>Can they be international human rights violations and stuff? Or things havng to do with the US?</p>
<p>Capital Punishment, or maybe conscientious objection to military service.</p>
<p>My senior class project is to raise money to get homeless people off the streets of our city, and this question came up:</p>
<p>Is it right for us to deny people the human right of choosing where they want to live, whether or not that's on the street? Believe it or not, there is a small percentage of people who when given the choice, choose to stay on the street. They WANT to be homeless.</p>
<p>Or, if you want to go the alternate route: is it within human rights for us to allow people to be homeless? Either one is an excellent question.</p>
<p>SDMS, I don't see what capital punishment has to do with human rights.</p>
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SDMS, I don't see what capital punishment has to do with human rights.
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Last I checked, life is included under "human rights".</p>
<p>You should check out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for a more complete list. There are certainly a lot of blatant human rights violations that the US government is perpetrating (i.e. torture, extraordinary rendition)</p>
<p>True. Try looking into Guantanamo Bay and stuff.</p>
<p>Obvious..... DUH!</p>
<p>Yeah...definitely Guantanamo.
Or the, albeit rare, hate crimes that still occur (sadly).</p>
<p>
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Can they be international human rights violations and stuff? Or things havng to do with the US?
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</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure that they have to do with the US.</p>
<p>And thanks for the ideas so far!</p>
<p>The fact that the US imprisons more people per capita than any other country in the world (about .75% of the population like 2.3 million or something).</p>
<p>The drug war in general is a violation of a basic human right to dictate the nature of one's own consciousness, regardless of whether governments choose to recognize that right.</p>
<p>Banning gay marriage is another example of a human rights violation.</p>
<p>The fact that the United States and Somalia are the only two countries in the world not to sign the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. (Although obviously, many signatories are dictatorships that do not effectively implement the laws of the convention.)</p>
<p>Execution of minors, and capital punishment in general.</p>
<p>The fact the US lacks a constitutionally guaranteed right to vote. (There's the right to not have voting privileges taken away due to certain discrimination, but many states actually use disenfranchisement as a form of criminal punishment.)</p>
<p>The government using broad wire tapping for surveillance without warrants.</p>
<p>Holding those accused of terror without trial.</p>
<p>If many anti-immigrant politicians get their way, there could be massive human rights violations in the attempt to deport illegal immigrants.</p>
<p>Junglebrain, I think it's still illegal to execute minors. </p>
<p>Right now, I think the GLTB community has the most human rights violations. They cannot marry, it's not illegal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, they cannot adopt, very few legal rights (if any), etc.</p>
<p>The Patriot Act is a large step in the wrong direction.</p>
<p>@romanigypsyeyes:</p>
<p>I looked it up and you're right...it was decided in a 2005 Supreme court case.</p>
<p>The fact that over 40,000,000 Americans are uninsured, and can't get decent health care. That doesn't seem right to me.</p>
<p>^But many of them are uninsured by their own choosing because they don't want to pay for it. Sadly, my cousin is one of these cases. :( She has diabetes, but she refuses to pay for insurance because (as she puts it) "She's perfectly healthy."</p>
<p>^ And other one of the problems with that is that many of those people are illegal immigrants. And one of the reasons that our health care systems sucks so bad and that we do have uninsured Americans is because you are guaranteed emergency health services with or without insurance. With more and more illegal, uninsured immigrants using emergency care, we have less and less money to help low income/poverty Americans receive health insurance. </p>
<p>Trust me, I have no problem with immigration. My mother is one (Spanish) and I know we all come from them. But at the same time I believe that if you don't come here LEGALLY, then you shouldn't get the same benefits as citizens and you shouldn't be allowed to hurt people who are here legally whether it be through insurance or other ways.</p>
<p>Also, in places that have health care like France, their hospitals are overcrowded because of the availability of the health care, so ultimately it doesn't work out for them in the end because it takes hours to get seen.</p>
<p>Plus, it's not actually FREE health care, seeing as it comes out of our taxes.</p>
<p>Capital punishment is not illegal.</p>
<p>Anyways.... discrimination. It's big, even today. And not just blacks. Basically anyone who isn't white.</p>