Human Rights

Journal IV:

Julie Kwon

11/23/07

One of the major principles of democracy is the principle of majority rule. The second most important principle that I learned was the principle of minority rights. The minority rights can be protected and acknowledged by making amendments to the laws of the majority. According to this system, I think the majority not only has the power to set the standard of normality, but also has the superiority to decide how much of the minorityЎЇs demands are met. Additionally the majority can exploit the system to even Ў®constructЎЇ factors of their society in ways that their properties and authorities are secured. Arguably, one who belonged to the majority would have an easier life while one who belonged to the minority would have to go through constant struggles to live up to the majorityЎЇs standards and to have his or her demands met.

The community of gays and lesbians is one of the minority groups in the United States. I think they are Ў®constructedЎЇ as threats to the Ў®properЎЇ and Ў®orderlyЎЇ society by the majority because they are thought to be as Ў®unnaturalЎЇ and Ў®unhealthyЎЇ to the societies. The majority of people have sexual relationship with the opposite gender; they reproduce, and leave the mark in the world through their descendents. Heterosexuals biologically, cannot reproduce. I think some of the heterosexuals feel threatened by the idea of their children Ў®becomingЎЇ homosexuals by the heterosexualsЎЇ influence and not be able to pass down their heredity. In the majorityЎЇs ideal world, all people would be Ў®normal,ЎЇ homosexual like them and produce babies to create next generations. Thus the majority would be apposed to anything that encouraged homosexuality becoming a Ў®normalЎЇ idea.

For example, Spartan, one of the ancient societies, tried to build an ideal world where Spartan was the strongest and the wealthiest nation in competition with other nearby societies. They put babies through trials and tests to see if they were physically strong enough to survive. If the babies couldnЎЇt survive, they would kill the baby or let them die because they would not grow up to be strong soldiers or workers in their society. Spartan as a society decided to simply terminate the Ў®abnormalЎЇ babies that could not live up to their social standards.

Another minority group of people in the United States we talked about are the Muslims. While not all Middle Eastern people are Muslims, most Muslims are from Middle Eastern countries. Therefore, after the 9/11 incident, Muslims were easily Ў®constructedЎЇ as destructive to the United States society by their looks. They were described to be Ў®evilЎЇ by the President of the United States and they were depicted as enemies through newspapers and media. They are Ў®constructedЎЇ in ways that Muslims would tear down the United States social structure as terrorists. Many incidents as such happened during the times of wars. People the United States were fighting against were dehumanized through the media and propaganda so that majority of people would psychologically categorize their Ў®enemiesЎЇ as threatening to their lives, families, and nations.

As a result of these