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Rights vs Public Order

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Rights vs Public Order
This paper will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of individual rights vs. public order. It will define what the two terms are and discuss many of the elements that allow us to live in a society that has both. The research was done through the Internet and articles found through the University of Phoenix Library. The conclusions of the paper show that a free society cannot be solely based on individual rights or public order. Elements of each are balanced in a modern and complex society.

Individual Rights vs. Public Order Modern society has to be able to balance the rights of the individual with what is good for the group. First let us define what individual rights are as it relates to this country. The founding fathers decided that some individual rights need to be guaranteed to its citizens. They had experienced rule under a King and that his absolute authority over his citizens was unacceptable. They weighed the needs of the individual against what are the best laws to govern the populace as a whole. The need for laws to govern all of the populace was never in question, since no society could exist without some form of law. How much freedom to guarantee each person was what the states and the authors of the Constitution debated. The written form of these guarantees was later known as the Bill of Rights and these rights are what guide the writing of our modern laws. Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to James Madison "The bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference." (2003). Jefferson and the rest of the authors of are earliest laws were debating the need to establish individual rights against the idea of a central government. The earliest settlers of this country were tired of unfair taxation on their goods and wanted to live in a society that had laws, but also certain guarantees for individuals. Jefferson

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