And Here's Another For Your Viewing Pleasure

1. It seems that the government has almost reached it’s limitation of being able to legally reduce race discrimination without encroaching on certain natural rights, mostly free speech. Since the passing of the Fourteenth Amendment, there has been a tremendous struggle for the government to try to eliminate discrimination as much as possible, first starting with public institutions, and then, during the Civil Rights Movement, with private businesses and even limiting what individuals do to express their discrimination of a certain race. Now, it is obviously illegal to deny someone business due to their race, and due to the Affirmative Action Act, businesses and schools give preference to people of minorities or of race, and of course the right to vote. And while on the surface it seems that equality is being achieved for minorities, there are still places where the government can work on, and what it has a hard time controlling. For example, the government cannot actually stop an individual from discriminating against a person of color until they take a physical and usually violent action. But if a person wishes to talk about another race in a derogatory manner, that is them expressing their opinions due to their freedom of speech. It does not make it right, but it is their right, just as if someone were to talk hatefully about you since you spilled coffee on them this morning. As well, the government has a hard time controlling gangs that are based on a hate of another race, such as Skinheads or the KKK, since they are surreptitious about their actions and, like terrorists, are hard to catch sometimes. And even in today’s society, not all groups of minorities are represented equally. Native Americans are still fiercely underrepresented, and many live in squalor in reservations, with little help from the government to improve living conditions. Obviously, the governments ability to provide for equality for all races has expanded exponentially in the past one hundred years alone, but there are still improvements that could be made.
2. As with the issue of race, the government has also made large strides in providing gender equality, especially for women. Back in the good ol’ days, it used to be that the men were in charge of everything, from being the head of the house to managing property to bringing home the bacon, and so on so forth. Women had very little rights and were expected to be subservient and on the brink of being “second-class citizens”. But with time, change has been brought about in the United States , and women have been gaining equality far greater than Susan B. Anthony ever dreamed of. With the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment, Equal Pay Act, Affirmative Action, and numerous organizations dedicated to improving equality amongst women and men, women’s suffrage has come a long way. And in today’s modern world, women do have almost all of the privileges as men do. However, that does not necessarily mean that the government has provided equality everywhere for women as it does for men. It is known that women are reported to have lower salaries than their male counter parts. But that does not mean that gender equality has become still. Women have just recently been granted the right by Congress to serve in combat, which use to be an “all-male” thing, while women served in the army on the side lines where it was deemed safer. However, men also seem to be discriminated against. Men are viewed as the head of the household, the bacon winner, and are suppose to be “macho”. It is a pressure that men feel constantly. If a man acts feminine or does something characterized as “girly”, they are harshly made fun of, and the man must learn or continue to be face humiliation. There are still steps to be made, but it seems as though the government is striding forward for gender equality, though who knows if woman and man will ever be totally equal.
3. Same-sex marriage still has a long way to go as far as government intervention is concerned. While I do not support it, if people wish to see same-sex marriage happen and be legal in all fifty states, then the government has several laws to pass- namely, one declaring gay marriage legal. It would have to go beyond just that, however. The government would also have to make it to where schools would teach about not only the traditional family life (with a mother, father, and children), but also about same-sex marriage families. It would be a long uphill battle for that in the United States, with some declaring it unfit as they do not believe the schools have the right to teach their kids that that is okay, with advocates countering with the fact that it makes both families types equal in value and showing them that it is not evil, but just a different lifestyle. In a way, for same-sex to be treated as equally as traditional marriages, the government would have to ban all public and private businesses from discriminating against a same-sex couple. This could create further outrage, and more laws would have to be passed. Eventually, it would probably end up like how the fight against discrimination of people of color has- with the government passing numerous laws to make it of equal and legal status, with most people accepting it.

I commented on Gabrielle Miller, Brandi Lively, and Ashley Pelfrey’s blogs.