Is It Wrong to Not Have All of Your Rights?

In  democracy, rights are one of the most important things. However, to maintain those rights, there needs to be some limitations of rights. But is that the purpose of democracy? To limit rights to maintain the democracy? Or is it to maintain your rights at all costs? Every government needs to decide what action they take to determine this point. In Canada, one of the proposed laws to counteract terrorism is Bill C-51.

This week, we will be looking at several different types of legislation and how they attempt to keep people safe and if limiting the rights is worth risking never getting them back.

What are we doing this week?

Monday: 

• Finish talking about collective rights as there was less than half the class to talk about them on Friday.
• Vocabulary: Individual and Collective rights 
• Safety and security vs. Rights and Freedoms

Tuesday: 

• Safety and security case studies in the Computer Lab. You can meet in the computer lab. Topics will be selected in class. EACH person will be researching two different case studies. Research does NOT include copying and pasting parts from articles on the website. If you don't finish it in class, then the assignment will be for homework.

Wednesday: 

• Balancing rights and freedoms
• Vietnam War
• Residential Schools
• War Measures Act in Canada
• Patriot Act in the US
• Bill C-51
• What's more important - Safety and security or rights and freedoms?
• Right action vs. being Illiberal
• Vocab: Illiberalism 

Thursday: 

• Rants by Britney and JP 
• What can be considered illiberal
• Assignment: Classifying events as illiberal or justifiable (Due Friday)
• Start talking about dissent

Friday: 

• Dissent is the highest form of patriotism - why?
• How can you dissent
• Examples of dissent

Is it more important to have rights or preserve the democracy you have?

Last week in class, we analyzed what some of the drawbacks were to a democracy. A large setback to having an efficient democracy is to have EDUCATED citizens. One of the things that John Locke really focused on was the accountability of your government. If people are not active participants who are informed and engaged in the democratic process, it becomes extremely easy for the government to do things that are not always what the people want; hence, they are not accountable. (Go back a couple weeks ago and watch the Ukraine video if you haven't yet - that unaccountable government led to MONTHS of protest). When people think of democracy, the cornerstones that most frequently come to mind are voting and rights and freedoms. We've looked at voting. Now, we will be looking at rights and freedoms. This brings us (sort of) back to Mill's ideas of balancing rights and freedoms for the good of society. Democracies limit individual freedoms in the name of the greater good. But WHAT IF that limitation is unjustifiable? Is preserving that democracy in a time of crisis more important than preserving the ideals of that society? What if you are in a time of crisis? Does that change anything? 

Look at 9/11:

The US has legislation that was passed after 9/11, following the terrorist attacks, that allowed the government to have increased power of surveillance and gave authorities more power to determine if Americans or others were threats to the security of the nation. To preserve the democracy, rights need to be limited, which makes sense. If you can't protect the very institution that will preserve your rights and freedoms, then you risk losing it. But is that right? Or is there limitation?

SO how will we look at that this week?

Monday: 

• Writing your rough copy in the computer lab. You can go directly to the computer lab to write. YOU MUST COMPLETE THE ASSIGNMENT IN THE TIME GIVEN.
• If you are absent TIME YOUR SELF - no more than 90 minutes and bring in your rough draft the day after.

Tuesday: 

• Rights
• Individual Rights
• Universal declaration of Human Rights
• Should there be limitations in Canada?
• Father Michael will be with us for the last 30 minutes of class for discussion

Wednesday:

• Collective Rights
• History behind them
• Do we still need them?
• Are they unfair?

• Are collective rights against the ideas of democracy?

Thursday: 

• Rants by Darian, Quintin and Crystal 
• Safety and security vs. Rights and freedoms - which is more important?
• A look at the life of Omar Khadr
• Look at our legislation - what can our government do?
• Look at Bill C-51 and where it came from
• Start watching video on Patriot Act rights restrictions

Friday

• Finish watching the video
• Computer lab - Rights restrictions in democracies in times of crisis

What do you do when democracy sucks?

Last week, we started to look at some of the set backs of democracy such as - what do you do when people don't vote? Is that an accurate representation of what your democracy is? Or, if people aren't really informed on the issues, do you want them to make decisions that will affect YOUR life? For example, girls, what if you had Redneck as your grad theme this year, just because there happened to be more boys in your class and they ALL VOTED.......just like we almost had Nascar Under the Sea as a theme last year; the boys thought it was hilarious because it wasn't something that mattered to them. But the girls did not want their input because it was a horrible theme. That's where the elite theory of democracy would come in - the boys don't care about grad, so they shouldn't be voting. But is that democracy??

This week, we are going to continue looking at things that affect the efficiency of the democratic system. One way that our system is affected is by lobby groups or special interest groups. If we have such groups, does that make us more or less democratic? We will also be looking at how we can change our democracy if it isn't reflecting what the people want. Remember, one of the first things that we went through about democracies is that there needs to be SOME WAY that it can change - viewpoints and values change and the democracy needs to change with it. Finally, we will start looking at human rights in democracy, both individual (this week) and collective next week.

What's this week looking like?

Tuesday: 

• We are going to have a contest in class. By Friday, anybody who wants to participate, can forecast what they think the outcome of the election next week will be. That will include who they think will win, how many seats each party will get, and if there is a majority or minority government. The closest guess will win a basket of goodies! Only play if you want to. Guesses need to be in by FRIDAY.
• Finish notes about interest groups

 

• HOMEWORK: Watch the following ed-Ted video. There is a video with 9 questions (8 based on the video and one discussion). You need to create an account on Ed-Ted, answer the questions and I will be getting your answers online. This shouldn't take much more than 20 minutes (more if you don't pay attention to the video and need to keep rewatching it). But you need to complete this at home.

Wednesday: 

• Reform in a democracy
• Pros and cons
• How does it occur in Canada and the US
• Next writing assignment

Thursday:

• Rants by Payton, Darian and Neela 
• Reforming things in Canada: Yay or Nay
• Senate
• Partisan Politics

Friday: 

• Human rights in a democracy
• What's more important: Safety and security or Rights and Freedoms
• What are you entitled to in Canada and the United States
• Assignment: Individual Rights Infringements

Last week, we were looking at the basic aspects of democracies and how they functioned properly.  But, like all ideologies, democracies don't always work out EXACTLY like they claim to - and that is largely due to how and how much citizens get involved in their system.  For example, is Canada more or less democratic than Ukraine? Would Canadians protest for months if our government made a decision that most of us disliked like what happened in Ukraine last year? Or would we even notice or know about the government decisions? So, we will be analyzing what makes a democracy less functional.

Also, another good link to compare Canadian and American systems.

So what will we be covering exactly this week?

Monday:

• Review questions and videos: The Democratic System
• Finish vocabulary (5-10 minutes)
• What's Your Vote Worth?
• Article w/ questions
• Practice Source Interpretation

Tuesday:

• Vocab: Voter Apathy and Elite Theory of Democracy
• Notes
• Should everybody get to vote?
• Source Interpretation

Wednesday:

• Vocabulary: Interest groups, Tyranny of Majority, and Tyranny of minority
• What impacts the democratic process - notes
• Case Studies: Public opinion vs practicality

Thursday:

• Rants: Robyn, Jessica and Triefen
• Reform in a democracy - why is it essential
• One Page write up - Should the Senate be reformed or abolished in Canada?

Friday:

• How Democracy created a monster (2 articles) 
• The discrepancy of what a democracy is SUPPOSED to do vs. what it actually DOES - what do you do when your democracy doesn't listen to the people?
• Who is Omar Khadr?
• Safety and Security vs. Rights and Freedoms
• Debate over the niqab