Email Addresses

Eric:
edowning "at" email.unc.edu

John:
jpm "at" email.unc.edu

remix

The infamously complex inner workings of government are constantly subject to many questions regarding the oppression of its citizens. The social foundation from which these questions arise is one which attempts at a marriage between social efficiency and welfare of its citizenry. Almost immediately it becomes obvious that some measures must be taken to prevent people from acting in a way which would disrupt or prevent a society from achieving a state of harmony. The most common of these preventative measures is incarceration or other means of punishment as a response to one's refusal to adhere to certain laws or doctrines which are most often established to promote and preserve the desired state of social harmony. At what point does the roundabout protection of a citizen's welfare develop into an unnecessary hindrance of the citizen's freedom?

Revision of "The Freedom within Urbanization"

The purpose of urbanization is to provide humans with the necessary equipment of survival (food, water, clothes, and shelter). Many citizens of all different economic statuses desire to live in the city in order to absorb all of its activity, and to be able to take advantage of its resources. This growth has caused urban areas to become the centers of activity, providing a multitude of entertainment, which can be considered over-stimulating. A gruff and protective attitude develops from the over-stimulation of urban areas. This gruffness protects citizens; because it allows them to brush off the everyday horrors they encounter on the streets, such as, poverty. This defense enables citizens to keep moving in society, which keeps the working cogs moving. This gruffness separates citizens does not only protect them from horrors on the street, but their own emotional self, eliminating their more personal needs and desires.¹ One of these desires is to have privacy at home, a place where citizens can call their own and not feel the pressures of society. In the center of activity, it is difficult to escape these pressures. As humans flood in to cities and urban areas, the quantity of land a citizen owns becomes a monumental factor of his economic status. When a person has more private access to a greater quantity of land, he has more means to accessing his freedom.

1-This view was influenced by my reading of Georg Simmel's "The Metropolis and Mental Life"

One of the largest issues in medical ethics today is assisted suicide. In most of the United States, there are laws banning the aid of doctors when terminally ill patients wish to end their lives before their illness has run its full course. In the 1997 Washington v. Glucksberg Supreme Court Case it was decided that patients should be allowed to refuse medical care and hasten their deaths without invasive treatments. When, however, death is not immediately imminent and a path of suffering and hardship is set, a patient is denied the right to end their life with dignity and without pain. The consequences of the act of condemning a person and those they love to suffer unnecessarily transcends the ideas concerning the morality of taking a life. Consequential imperative, rather than the categorical ideas of morality, must be used to consider the freedom of the individual to spare their self and others from suffering.

Don't Let the Man Bring You Down

In Section 6 of their party manifesto, the Ten- Point Program, Black Panther Party founders Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton advocate the use of violence as a means of self- defense, saying, “we will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and racist military, by whatever means necessary” (The Ten- Point Program). The ultimate objective of the Black Panther Party is to attain the basic rights that the constitution has determined makes us “free”. In order to do so, they must first act in refutation of the system into which they ultimately wish to be incorporated. In this sort of self-defense, the notion of freedom assumes two different values. It is both a state of being and an action. The state of being free has a predefined societal value, while the action of attaining freedom is a subjective endeavor based on the perception of a social discrepancy. To the Black Panthers, becoming “free” within the system involves first acting against the system and in accordance to a personal definition of “freedom”. In acting against the system, the Black Panthers ultimately bring about a betterment of the system: not only do they achieve individual freedom, but they become responsible for the freedom of society as a whole.

Germline Engineering

Genetic engineering encompasses a multitude of subjects from cloning to medicine to germline engineering. What began as a way to prevent horrible and fatal diseases – such as Tay-Sachs - has since progressed to a way for parents to decide life changing characteristics for their children. Such a desire is understandable, but one must consider the wishes and freedom of the child; in the sense that the parents can have no idea of what the future will hold, yet are predetermining an individual’s existence. This is where the debate on the matter begins and a line is drawn between the acceptable and objectionable. We shall say that this line lies between therapy and enhancement. We can safely say that it would be unethical to have a family suffer through Tay-Sachs when it could be prevented, but when it stops being about giving an individual child a life without a debilitating disease and starts being about creating a smarter, stronger more talented populace we have stepped over the line of ethically acceptable and used these individuals as a means. The potential for genetic engineering is enormous, but without a clear understanding of the consequences of our actions, we should not be able to determine the future of an individual. Our responsibility then becomes to ensure that the lines and ethical boundaries between therapy and enhancement are kept with consideration for the individual’s well being.

IVF

Couples that are unable to conceive now can experience natural childbirth due to the invention of the In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) procedure.  A consequence of IVF is that multiple parties are responsible for the fate of the embryo: the couple, the physician, and the public --rather than just the parents. The physician is in charge of a patient’s welfare and the high-risk pregnancy, the couple is the original pair that wishes to conceive, and the public is the government and society at large, which now must pay higher taxes and insurance costs to support this voluntary procedure. (ABCnews.com) The reasoning for the embryo entering into this complex caretaker relationship will be examined through specific scenarios in the following paragraphs, but an important implication is that the public has some legal interest over the fate of the embryo, since IVF more directly affects society than natural conception. The responsibility of handling potential life, being divided among the three parties, has consequently been turned into a commodity where society’s financial and ethical responsibilities limit the parent’s rights over their potential children.

The Power of Art

Propaganda is a distortion of reality. Our eyes are used as tools to reach into our minds, and foremost, our belief system. By taking advantage of visual aesthetics, art propaganda has become one of the most popular ways of manipulating society. Many figures in power have historically been able to market to society a distorted view of truth. All propaganda has an agenda. Therefore, society becomes a means to an end. We are often persuaded through art, with the hope of accomplishing an ultimate goal. To those with an agenda, civilians are mere obstacles in the way of a bigger objective. Propaganda is a tool that is used to infiltrate our belief systems and mold the susceptible. Artistic expression has no boundaries in the context of propaganda. Since art has no limitations, people have the opportunity to abuse freedom of expression and benefit by portraying visual lies within the public eye. Therefore, our responsibility as individuals is to recognize the power of this vast freedom and use it only until society has the potential of being negatively affected by our artistic expression. Social responsibility becomes more important than individual freedom. We have a responsibility to society to regulate our public display of art, so that others’ perception of reality is not altered by a desire to market false pretenses.

- Hannah Kramer

The HIV Responsibility

In 1987, a travel ban was put in place, which prevented visitors and immigrants who were HIV positive from entering the United States.[1] HIV scares those who know nothing about it and this fear causes discrimination. HIV was a stigma based mostly on fear, but also based on a general discrimination against the group of the population largely associated with HIV: homosexuals. This attitude created a lack of respect for the rights of HIV positive individuals, and a divide within the society. The job of the state cannot be only to assure the lives of its people, but it must also be to protect -- create can be used interchangeably -- their intelligence, morality, and unity as a whole. A state is responsible for placing a set of morals into the social constructs of its society in a way that those morals guide the individuals and creates them as moral and ethical beings. In short, it must put morality into the minds of each citizen so that it can function with ethicality. There has to be a balance between the state’s desire to protect, and its moral and ethical codes to follow. The United States government acted immorally towards the HIV positive individuals attempting to enter the country and regardless of whether the individuals in positions of power personally believed they should be kept out, it was breaking the responsibility of the state. Public discrimination against a group of people is against all moral codes and is a wrong example to set, but in this situation specifically, it strengthened the stigma against HIV positive individuals, which increased discrimination against those already living in the United States. The government’s responsibility to set a moral code for its citizens overrides any motives for acting against that code.

[1] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/30/BAUG1AD02O.DTL. 12/10/09.

Personal Freedom vs. Societal Freedom

Issues of second hand smoke in relation to freedom have been debated for many years. Smokers believe they have the freedom to smoke when and where they please, while those who do not smoke would argue that they have the right to breathe clean air. The freedom to breathe unpolluted air is a much more important right than the freedom to smoke because, by smoking, you are harming others and infringing on their choice to breathe uncontaminated air, while the nonsmoker is harming no one because their choice to abstain from smoking does not hurt society. Smokers would argue that they are personally being harmed because a freedom has been taken from them, but this is an indeterminate freedom because it in no way benefits society; smoking is actually detrimental to society by harming the health of the bystanders, the smoker, and in turn, the economy, due to influx in medical problems. The action of smoking imprisons the smoker to a habit and addiction, thus taking away their freedom by creating a mental need and desire for something harmful to the body. Although we technically could smoke in public, it is our responsibility to respect the morals of others and not infringe on their freedom to abstain from smoking.

Take 2

The NFL is a calculating giant, pushing the bounds of identity and a person’s individual freedom. Due to its popularity and the rigidity in many public debates about sports, the NFL is allowed to do their business without being questioned very often. A chief example of this corporate tyranny is the NFL using its players and their names as commodity. The NFL requires every player to wear a helmet and cover their face during every snap, yet they turn around and make millions off of a player’s identity without compensating that player. Treating a persons identity as a commodity is something that Marx could only dream of, and illustrates the NFL's desire to value the identity, but not necessary the actual person housing that identity. The NFL must stop seeing this duality in their players. Further examples of this commoditization nightmare, is they demand that every player on the field wear officially branded Reebok merchandise. Reebok makes every bit of NFL material, monopolizing the system, so unfairly that the Supreme Court is currently hearing a case on this very issue. Even if this seems like a small oddity in a world with bigger issues, the concerns this problem does raise are extremely valid and interesting pertaining to a person’s freedom and right as an autonomous being. If the NFL wants to be morally responsible, they’re going to have to stop seeing the dollar sign, but the autonomous human underneath.

Since its creation in 1948, the state of Israel has existed in a state of near-constant conflict, either with conventional threats from neighboring states, or with insurgent activity from occupied territory. The Israeli military has repeatedly proved their ability to combat enemies of a martial nature. Military foes, however, are far from the most pressing concern to the state of Israel. The Jewish majority of Israel, and by extension the Israeli government, is far more focused on the growing non-Jewish population within the borders of Israel. Politically, the rapid demographic growth of this minority is worrisome to the government of Israel, which is facing an ever more difficult attempt to keep Israel as a primarily Jewish state. Various measures have already been enacted that stray disturbingly close to violating the rights of the non-Jewish minority. In addition to the problems within the borders of Israel, the military-occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have become the focus of a bloody conflict between Palestinian and Israeli civilians, both sides attempting to exert their influence and claim as much land as they can. In a misguided attempt to become the ideal of the Jewish state, the Israeli government has come dangerously close to abandoning its responsibility to its populace and its occupied territories, regardless of their demographic or political affiliation.

New Introduction

The Ex-Gay movement is a form of therapy that treats homosexuality as a sex addiction, which needs to be controlled. Although people who enter this therapy do so freely; they typically do it because of the influences of their religion and family situation. They grow up knowing that if they were to be homosexual or transgender that they would be ridiculed and alienated. They find their homosexuality unwanted because of the consequences that they would have to face. Confronted with this situation people tend to go through denial and give up their own personal freedoms so that can appear normal in society. The Ex-Gay movement does not allow individuals to think for themselves and escape from their situation. Many people want to hide their homosexuality because of the harassment and prejudice that they might have to face. No individual would choose to be in that situation, therefore homosexuality is not a choice. Then the responsibility of the people around the Ex-Gay movement and in the American society to not discrimination against homosexuality, in order for individuals to not have to hide in fear. The Ex-Gay movement takes away homosexuals freedom to be open about their sexuality.

Inro Paragraph Take Two

Although vaccines have been in circulation for centuries it continues to be controversial topic, which raises questions of individual freedom. In the modern day U.S., there are currently laws in place that require citizens to receive immunizations and to also vaccinate any children the may have, unless the parents have a religious exemption. These laws have become more and more controversial over the years because of research that has exposed possible side effects of certain vaccines. Some citizens argue that because the vaccines are rarely 100% effective and pose potential risks that they should not be mandatory. By making immunization mandatory, some would argue, the state encroaches on an individual’s right to choice what risks one will take. For several reasons, I agree with these citizens and claim that a government should not be permitted to create legislation that requires individuals to receive vaccinations. In the evolution of vaccine policy, the creators of vaccines are no longer independent scientists but are under the jurisdiction of private corporations. And, although the companies are not exclusive in the distribution of their vaccines, I believe that the intent behind the vaccine is more profit driven. This should not be the intent of vaccinations. Individuals should have the right to either receive or refuse a vaccine without repercussions from their government. While public health is an important part of a stable country, the quality of public health, in relation to vaccines, should be determined by the individuals of that state, and should not come under the realm of government legislation.

In the online game, “Second Life,” users create virtual alter egos of themselves called avatars. Avatars reside on something called “the grid:” the ever-expanding computer programmed virtual world created by Linden Labs. On the grid, users can change the appearance of their avatars by buying clothes, skins, and accessories. People, through their avatars, can also buy and sell virtual real estate, where they can build and furnish homes with virtual items. The currency of Second Life is the Linden. The exchange rate is 250 Lindens per one U.S, dollars. The more Lindens users have, the more items they can buy, and use to create their fantasies that they might not be able to act upon in the real world. By having an avatars act out the creators desires, it can appear that the avatar takes on the responsibility for the actions, rather than the creator. However, since the creator ultimately has responsibility for the avatar, they are still in control. The creators conscious may not recognize their responsibility because the creator does not identify the avatar as itself. Therefore there becomes a separation between the choices people make for their avatar and choices they make for their own lives. For example, people may direct their avatars to be more sexually violent and generally violent, racist, anti-Semitic, etc. than they themselves would be. The barrier that separates people from being held responsible for their actions as an avatar is autonomy. Autonomy changes the behavior of people because they don’t feel as connected to the consequence of their action. Second Life commodifies freedom by selling people the chance to be autonomous.