Dividing of Our Rights

What divides rights from privileges? Are there “certain unalienable rights,” due to all mankind, as Mr. Jefferson once wrote?

A popular notion, which many believe, is that rights are for everyone without thought or effort or obligation, where privileges are only things which we, as “good and moral” human beings, strip from those who are not so “good and moral.” For example, education and voting are rights, yet driving is a privilege.

Our Founding Fathers and Framers were brilliant intellectuals. Yet, I must argue that so-called “unalienable rights” do not exist and never have. It is a whitewash of the human reality.

Case in point, Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Prize-winning Turkish author, in February 2005 stated a historic fact to a Swiss newspaper: “Thirty thousand Kurds, and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody dares to talk about it.”

What Pamuk is speaking about is the Armenian Genocide which took place in 1915. Moreover, the Turkish government does not acknowledge such a genocide ever occurred, even in the face of most historians worldwide.

In June 2005, the Turkish government passed Article 301 of their penal code. Article 301 states, “A person who publicly denigrates Turkishness, the Republic, or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and three years.” Furthermore, if a Turkish citizen denigrates Turkishness while aboard, “the punishment shall be increased by one third.”

Charges were brought after the fact against Pamuk, and another dozen or more Turkish citizens. From which Pamuk then experienced his books being burnt, photos being destroyed, and publicly being booed by his fellow citizens and once readers. He also received threats against his own life.

Turkey finally dropped charges against Pamuk in January 2006, due to widespread global outcry and pressure forced by the European Union. The EU’s upper-hand came by Turkey’s longing to join the EU.

Keeping this instance in mind, one must agree that American rights (Freedom of Speech and Expression, in this case) are not universal and we cannot expect them to be so. If we are to respect each nation’s national identity, then we must accept each nation’s chosen identity.

All rights are only privileges, granted by the government or the authority in charge. A nation’s laws guarantee a citizen’s rights; thus, his or her rights are assured only as long as the nation’s laws remain unchanged.

We may possess the romantic ideals of human rights. Yet, these ideals are not natural laws, they are societal laws. If one, therefore, knows his or her history, one will know that societies fail all the time.

The main purpose for this article comes out of witnessing people’s myopic tendencies. Some people believe that all human beings have the same rights, but that is sadly not true. The natural law of survival of the fittest stands in testimony of this reality.

I, for one, would not want to imagine living in a nation where Freedom of Expression is not the First Amendment, yet billions do live in nations contrary to this.

From the First Amendment comes the ability of Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of being one’s self. As Americans, we are honored, for all privileges must pass through the First Amendment.

However, as Americans, we must understand that the First Amendment is itself a privilege granted to us by the Framers and upheld by politicians and statesmen still today.


This column came from a column I read last week, where a guy was arguing about human rights and how all men and women have them. I wish there were “unalienable rights.” However, there are none. Even the basics as food and shelter are not rights, but privileges. So, it is our job to maintain the privileges we hold dear.

America: Reality and Dreams

On the days of a soft breeze and purifying sunshine, the American flag stands, as it has in times past in rain, winds, and the light of wintry skies and the glare of bombs in flight.

When I reflect upon the glory of this flag, I am reminded of the men and women who lie beneath it due to the past wars of a nation struggling to find an identity. The identity of the nation emerged from the identity of its people: diverse, colorful, intelligent, spirited, entrepreneurial, optimistic, fortitudinous.

When I come to my feet to recite the pledge, I cannot deny the patriotic image of a battle in some distant land where the flag of liberty waves high above the blood drenched earth, where one’s countrymen stand as one’s brothers.

When I see the American flag, I see the good guy. The one, on the playground of the international landscape, who will stand for his convictions, who assists those in need, who gives continuously to those without, who will rise up against the recess bully in defense of others, as well as himself, then says, extending a hand, “let us talk this over, let us find a better way.”

Men stand before it as citizens, men salute before it as patriots, men marry with it as witness, men lie beneath it as soldiers.

The American flag is not just some piece of cloth. It is the symbol of all that the American way embodies. The American flag above any other symbol is the purest representation of us, the citizens of the freest society that this planet has ever known.

When a group assembles on the steps of a courthouse and burns the American flag, I witness, embracing two conflicting emotions. Firstly, to clap, to dance, to sing, all because a government, a nation can withstand the freedom of its people. Secondly, to bow my head, to hold my face, to wipe my tears, all for, in my opinion, the misinterpretation of whom, not what, the flag represents.

The flag embodies the wonders of the American citizens, not a particular administration. The burning of it becomes a statement against oneself, not the government officials.

The American soldier drapes his or herself in the colors of the flag, so I can be draped in the liberty of a great Republic.

If all I described seems romantically dated, overtly hopeful, possibly delusional, or simplistically innocent then I urge you to re-evaluate your views of this nation and its beloved symbol. We, as Americans, need to evoke positive perceptions, because without the purity of and advancement towards truth of our nation, we settle, then, for a jaded reality of the world.

If, to others, I describe a nation steeped in timelessness, honor, pride, and all the beloved clichés then I beg of you to step down to meet the world at large. We, as Americans, live in the proverbial Ivory Tower, locked away from the reality of the world. Furthermore, within doing so, we attend to lose sight of the actualities of the rest of the world.

More directly, anyone who rails against all the good America does by only focusing on its errors hinders his or herself from actually progressing the nation to the next level. Yet, on the other side, anyone who avoids the shortcomings of America by only emphasizing the good deeds blinds his or herself from the harshness that mobility is quintessential and must continue upward.

America is where reality and dreams coincide.

America’s new motto: Never run from shadows, but always seek light.


This week's column was thrown together last minute. I have had exams this week and I got behind in class readings, so I have been trying franticly to catch up before my paper was due. This topic is basically a simple idea: paint a noble America and then people who disagree that they are slowing progress. Yet, the people who agree have no great knowledge of the world beyond the shorelines. I can picture Leonardo da Vinci doing the same thing with the Mona Lisa, yet my own happens to be the American flag.

In Whom Do We Trust

Global Warming, or Global Climate Change, has been at the center of a heated debate for years. Yet, when one compares the evidence, he has fistfuls of bitter pills to swallow.

But is it his fault or someone else’s entirely?

In December 2004, the journal Science published an article by Dr. Naomi Oreskes, professor at University of California San Diego. Her survey of 928 abstracts of peer-reviewed scientific articles between 1993 and 2003 found, as she summarized in the Washington Post, that 75 percent “either explicitly or implicitly accepted the consensus view” that “Earth's climate is heating up and human activities are part of the reason.”

“The remaining 25 percent dealt with other facets of the subject, taking no position on whether current climate change is caused by human activity,” Oreskes added. “None of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.”

In contrast, the study, “Balance as Bias: Global Warming and the US Prestige Press,” by Maxwell Boykoff and Jules Boykoff found between 1988 and 2002 that the “U.S. prestige press”--New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Wall Street Journal--structured their “hard news” in the “journalistic norm of balanced reporting.”

“From a total of 3,543 articles, we examined a random sample of 636 articles,” said the Boykoffs.

Out of that, 53 percent displayed equal attention to the human contributions and the natural fluctuations of climate change. However, 35 percent of the articles spoke of human role more so, yet still presented both sides as a debate.

Six percent “emphasized doubts about the claim that human-caused global warming exists,” while the last 6 percent “only included the predominant scientific view that humans are contributing to Earth's temperature increases.”

Putting this specific issue aside: where else in our daily discourse do we encounter only two-sided issues?

The view that for one to be fair one must cover both sides is a simpleton’s falsehood. Life is not black or white, yes or no, good or bad, paper or plastic. It is the greys, the maybes, the okays, the polysynthetic materials.

The average person does not find hisself on the far edges but rather somewhere near the middle. A truly active citizen does not fall along party lines; he thinks for hisself and decides the course of action that will best benefit him and/or his relationships.

Nonetheless, the journalistic process does not seem to address this aspect. It does not filter the evidence as the scientific process does. It, sadly, tries balancing the unbalanced.

Scientists do not debate those without scientific evidence because it portrays a false perception to the layman that the opposing party has a valid argument. For example, a geologist would not enter into a formal debate with someone who believes the earth is fewer than a dozen millennia.

Yet, the journalistic norm will grant those without evidence equal space as those with evidence, and in doing so, misleads the reader by displaying a faux controversy.


This column was rushed and I am still not truly happy with it. It did turn out better than I thought it would about midways through. I like the idea but the way I worded it and the second half is sadly depressing to me. On a different note, I had a professor from here at Marshall University email and expressed his opinions of the same issue. We both agree offering equal space no matter the evidence makes a false appearance of equality.