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 and the founding fathers recognized that absolute rule by one central government would not work and their needed to be limits on what was subject to government rule.

In this paper, there will be many points discussed on what the advantages and disadvantages of a society with individual rights vs. public order. It has been argued in almost every society how to balance the two elements and truly establish what is good for a society of people. How integral to American society have these rights become and what will they mean to future generations? The founding father knew that these laws would need to change with future generations, but is our society so reluctant to see past what is believed to be absolutes that it will forsake public order? This society has become so large and complex requiring more laws that it has moved away from being able to guarantee an increase in the rights of individuals and has focused more on establishing more public order.

Individual rights, according to Nicholas Provenzo, are the right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. (Provenzo, 2004) These rights help protects us, society as a whole, from government actions that would affect these liberties.

There are several advantages to be found throughout the U. S. Constitution. Those rights are inalienable and are given to all citizens of the United States. According to the U. S. Department of State, these rights are not destroyed when society is created and neither society nor the government can take them away. (U. S. Department of State, n.d.) Some inalienable rights include freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly and the right to a fair trial. Since individual rights stand independently from the government, these rights cannot be legislated away. (U. S. Department of State, n.d.)

The First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution "does not give freedom of religion or of the press to the people; it prohibits Congress from passing any law interfering with freedom of speech, religion, and peaceful assembly. (U. S. Department of State, n.d.) The U. S. Department of State further states that individual rights give people the principle that we do not exist to serve the government. (U. S. Department of State, n.d.)

Public order, according to Larry Murdo, provides clear parameters that govern acceptable behavior in society and outline responses of the criminal justice system. (Murdo, 1997) Murdo further states that the law provides practical application of the social contract that citizens and the government enter into to ensure a free and orderly society. (Murdo, 1997) The most important advantage to public order is that the government protects our rights by limiting their own actions.

Bill of Rights refers to the first ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. They were sent to the state legislatures in 1798 and ratified by the states in 1791. Together, the Amendments are known as the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights was created because the public was concerned that the Constitution did not protect the public from the government. In other words, the Americans were scared that the government would take away some of there individual freedoms or rights. The Bill of Rights protects the individual rights from the government's potential invasion of freedom of speech, press, assembly and religion.

Almost two-thirds of the Bill of Rights involves the rights of persons suspected or accused of criminal activity. Some of these rights include the right to due process of law, the right to a fair trial, freedom from self-incrimination, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment and the right to not be charged twice for the same crime.

The individual rights are broken into two categories: negative (what one chooses to do without coercion from outside sources) and positive rights (what one is entitled to from society). The government is designed to protect the negative rights.

"Crimes against public order and morals are intended to uphold minimum standards of decency and civility" (McWilliams 1993). These types of crimes typically are behaviors that have been called crimes because they go against the norm of our society's social values and norms. Types of crimes that can be considered as against the public norm are, " public nuisances, public indecencies, public immoralities, and controlled substance abuse" (McWilliams 1993).

Many experts have questioned laws pertaining to public order crimes such as prostitution,