Free Speech: Personal, Professional, And Community Issues
Ashford 6: - Week 5 - Final Research Paper
Constitutional Issues and the Scope and Character of U.S. Government
IIn the Final Research Paper, you will use your critical thinking skills to analyze and evaluate a current events topic that has constitutional and political implications.
Select one topic from the following list of three constitutional issues. The topic you select should also be used as the topic for your Week Two and Three written assignments:
Religious freedom
Free speech
Privacy rights
The thesis of the paper will be a statement identifying how the concepts of federalism, civil liberties, and civil rights are implicated in and affected by this topic.
Utilize the feedback from your Week Two and Three Assignments to create a more thorough outline to form your Final Research Paper. The paper must include five main sections:
Introductory paragraph that provides a brief background regarding the topic and introduces the main thesis.
In-depth discussion of the implications for federalism related to the topic.
Explain how and why federalism has a positive and negative impact on the selected topic.
Provide one real-world positive example.
Provide one real-world negative example.
Utilize the Constitution, established case law, and scholarly sources to support your explanation.
In-depth discussion of the implications for civil rights related to the topic.
Explain how and why civil rights are positively and negatively affected by the selected topic.
Provide one real-world positive example.
Provide one real-world negative example.
Utilize the Constitution, established case law, and scholarly sources to support your explanation.
In-depth discussion of the implications for civil liberties related to the topic.
Explain how and why civil liberties are positively and negatively affected by the selected topic.
Provide one real-world positive example.
Provide one real-world negative example.
Utilize the Constitution, established case law, and scholarly sources to support your explanation.
Concluding paragraph that summarizes the main findings and restates the thesis.
The paper must be 10 to 12 pages in length (excluding title and reference pages) and formatted according to APA style. You must use at least six scholarly resources (at least five of which can be found in the Ashford University Library) other than the textbook to support your claims. Cite your sources within the text of your paper and on the reference page. For information regarding APA, including samples and tutorials, visit the Ashford Writing Center.
The Final Research Paper:
Must be 10 to 12 double-spaced pages in length (excluding title and reference pages), and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.
Must include a title page with the following:
Title of paper
Student's name
Course name and number
Instructor's name
Date submitted
Must begin with an introductory paragraph that has a succinct thesis statement.
Must address the topic of the paper with critical thought.
Must end with a conclusion that reaffirms your thesis.
Must use at least six scholarly resources, including a minimum of five from the Ashford University Library.
Must document all sources in APA style, as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.
Must include a separate reference page, formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.
Carefully review the Grading Rubric for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.
Assignment Submission
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Waypoint
Waypoint Assignment Submission
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GRADING RUBRIC
https://ashford(dot)waypointoutcomes(dot)com/assessment/10742/preview
Introduction
Every individual has the right to express their opinions relating to their personal, professional, and community issues. This is brought about by their concerns towards a certain issue that has been implicating their experience. Free speech is one of the most important privileges because it grants an individual to fulfill their constitutional freedom by means of freely expressing their thoughts through speech. The purpose is to determine the significance of free speech that relates to the legal and ethical aspects of an individual. This essay aims to explain the relevance of free speech to identify how the concepts of federalism, civil liberties, and civil rights are implicated in that affects the welfare of every individual in the society. It seeks to find out the importance of free speech to allow a person to maximize their constitutional rights provided by the government.
Free speech is a constitutional privilege provided by the Federal government of the United States. In the United States, federalism is traditionally practiced in its political setting, allowing both regional and national government to operate in a single political system. The Federal government of the United States plays a critical role for providing numerous privileges to its constituents such as the freedom of speech. The reason behind is that it allow every individual to have the chance to express their concerns that values the human right of every American citizen. A free speech is referred to as having the right to express ideas and opinions without any fear of being censored or retaliation by the US government. This involves receiving, imparting, and seeking information regardless of any medium of speech presented by an individual or group to the public (Wrag, 2015).
Going through with the implication, federalism is a process wherein it establishes a compound form of a government wherein it allows each state to have regional governments. This is termed as federation, in which it sustains the political applicability of a nation to allow formation of sub-unit government within a certain society. The positive impact of federalism allows its sub-units to have the chance to govern their subunits such as state, province, prefecture, regency, or territory. This is to ensure that the systems of sub-units are well-governed by the operating institution who wants to maximize their political, social, economic, and cultural productivity. Having centralized sub-units maximizes the role of local government units to become more productive as they are given the chance to govern their community. All sub-units do not need the approval of the national government in order to generate products in relation to infrastructure, laws, security, and cultural sustainability.
Federalism is currently practiced by some countries around the world. They are the United States, Australia, Brazil, India, Malaysia, Mexico, and other countries. These countries grant any state to govern their territorial jurisdiction, which are able to apply and implement laws in their respective states. Each state has independent governance and other political activities wherein they will be maintaining their political principles to secure their state’s interest. Federalism has two political functions. The national political system applies to the overall jurisdiction of the entire country, which is mandated to follow all orders and policies as based on the constitution. State laws are only applicable to a specific state where they have their own laws granted by the national constitution of a country practicing federalism.
The positive impact of federalism is having the chance for the state to generate own laws. This is to maximize the rule of law to be able to apply all policies that suits the interest of the constituents of a specific state. There is equality for every state as based on their respective national constitution because all principles and privileges will be maximized by the leaders and the constituents of every state. The national government, which includes all heads of ministries as well as the leader of the country, can concentrate on their country’s international affairs. This is to render more political, economic, cultural, security and technological interests with other nations so that it can establish efficient multilateral agreements. Policies and privileges are equally distributed to each state, making it as another advantage to improve socio-economic and political image of all the states.
The negative impact of federalism with regards to free speech is that there are differences with the treatment of each state with regards to the application of new roles and standards. If one state approves a new law, other state does not apply similar application because they are different States that operates their own policies. The role of bipartisanship is another negative impact associated with the management of a certain state. The influence of politicking by the dominating political parties contributes numerous undesirable representations due to the influence of belief and rules that becomes a norm. A politician belonging to a dominating party are usually implementing new laws that are only associated with their political structure to the state even if it is against the constitution or any political privilege such as free speech.
There is a significant benefit or positive impact that can be applied by free speech to every citizen in our society. Through the application of free speech, people are able to voice their concerns in order to catch the attention of other individuals, groups, and organizations regarding a certain problem that exists within their community. Waiving the freedom of expression indicates that the society is providing a chance for the community to respond to existing or past actions in order to determine if it will be either a benefit or a disadvantage for the community. Freedom of speech allow citizens to give their feedbacks towards a certain issue that needs to be immediately resolved. Government agencies will be able to collect relevant data that will help to investigate a existing problem that challenges affected communities.
One real life scenario is that several government agencies initiate a dialogue with the community members, especially to the affected groups. Public mediation with the involved individuals or groups will be able to voice their concerns to the officials who are ready to respond to any concern. The dialogue will be a part of the government’s initiative in order to formulate new plans to solve a certain problem affecting the community. One example is by voicing out concerns regarding the existing mining operations in a nearby tourist spot that are gradually destroying the natural habitat of fauna and flora in the area. Another is the concern for security risks because there are numerous armed groups who are roaming a certain community to terrorize the residents. These are the usual problems that the government usually receives, which prompts officials to take action with regards to an existing threat that affects their community.
Negative impact of free speech is that the essence of democracy is being taken advantage by individuals or groups who are used to protesting anything against the government. These are the groups who are already making a living by protesting along the streets, roads, and highways just to raise a certain issue against the government. Abuse of privilege is one reason why there are repeat offenders who are taking advantage of going against the government just to fulfill their self-greed. This is because individuals or group who has been already used to engage in an aggressive free speech wrongly represents a society that generates an undesirable diaspora on a regular basis. Sporadic protests just to abuse government’s authority indicate that this particular activity should be controlled by the government to discipline involved individuals and groups (Caglayan, 2015).
One real-life scenario is when there are chaotic protests that generate violence, intimidation, and coercion to the community. Violent protests risks the security and safety of the society, which has been responsible for causing destruction to the community. If protests do not succeed, there are alternative ways to voice out concerns by using an abusive practice. Injecting propaganda through online publishing is a way for ...