Chris Johnson's Blog Post

In my eyes, rights are the foundational reasoning that society has order. Plenty of social issues are arisen through rights movements. Because of this, rights prove to be crucial, not only for socialization to flourish, but for our liberty and equality as well. For example, if there weren’t certain rights that people were eligible for, their liberty and equality rights would potentially be threatened. Throughout the rights process, there are many different ways that a group or certain individual can go about making their rights effectively heard and influenced among others. In Policy Paradox, Stone talks about the process in which rights are manifested; in a case such as disability rights, procedural right action is required to make something of the actual “right” in order for it to be enforced. To take this a step further, depending upon where the actual right is formed into some kind of a policy will determine how focused the new policy is. For example, Stone also states that “the constitution and federal laws are the most potent vehicles for establishing rights, because they apply to all citizens.” On the contrary, state and local governments could potentially focus the certain policy upon the citizens, in just the particular state, more efficiently. So yes, the federal law may affect more people in general but the quality or enforcement may be overlooked more than it will if it were a state law. I think that a state policy is more focused and directly affects the people more because it is not implemented among so many people as it would be if it were a federal law. Another reason for state law being more focused is that the particular issue is agreed upon within the state which means that it will have more meaning to the state itself. For example, if a federal policy were to be passed tomorrow that bans farmers from driving tractors on city streets without special permits , it would most likely be regulated efficiently only in the states with a high farming population. In other words, it would not be a major problem in some states so it would not be regulated as thoroughly.

Most of the time there is already some sort of law, rule or regulation concerning the particular issue but not necessarily meeting the desired needs of the “advocate” who wants to change them. This is why nominative rights in this day and age mostly consist of existing policy enhancements. Because of this, policies are constantly being refined in order to be more constitutional, possibly. Since “rights” have such a dominant influence upon rules, laws and regulations, it is exceptionally important that they are constitutional, in a way, to everybody. This may simply explain why gay marriage is not legal to this day. Of course, the main conflicts between these issues are between religions and civil rights, which may be the primary reason this policy has yet to pass in California. Because it affects the majority of the population, possibly because of beliefs, it may not be considered to be constitutional. This example shows how important it is for a right to be considered constitutional, not only by the government, but by the people as well. I guess it could be said that this is the beauty of a democracy.