The central moral problem of government has always been to strike a just and effective balance between freedom and authority. When freedom degenerates into anarchy, the human personality becomes subject to arbitrary, brutal, and capricious forces -- witness aberrations of terrorism in even the most humane societies. (Bauman, 1982)Yet when the demand for order overrides all other considerations, man becomes a means and not an end, a tool of impersonal machinery. Human rights are the very essence of a meaningful life, and human dignity is the ultimate purpose of civil governments. Respect for the rights of man is written into the founding documents of almost every nation of the world. It has long been part of the common speech and daily lives of our citizens. The obscene and atrocious acts systematically employed to devalue, debase, and destroy man during World War II vividly and ineradicably impressed on the world the enormity of the challenge to human rights. It was to end such......
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Approximate Word Count: 1248
Approximate Pages: 5 (260 words per double-spaced page) |