Critical Response Paper



Critical Response Paper

Introduction

This paper takes into consideration different articles that are written to highlight some of important social issues that are prevalent in the society. These social issues are needed to be addressed so that the living standards of people can be made better. The better living standards of people will not help themselves but also the people around them. Overcoming these issues will help in creation of unity and harmony in the society.

Discussion

This paper presents a comparative view of individual rights, based on a wide array of constitutional concepts discussed in the articles. This paper provides an insight of the philosophical underpinnings, including natural law and legal positivism. Finally a list of basic individual rights is drawn, and ideas are proposed which are to be included as a part of the constitution. “Human rights” has been the subject of scholars, philosophers, politicians, human right activists and all those concerned with the societal and human justice throughout the world. The work for human rights also gained momentum in Roman and Greek periods. Greek and Roman scripts show codes of the same gender, with their sole purpose being establishment of performance standards for society. Some of the important concepts that are highlighted after reading the articles are given below.

Poverty

Absolute poverty has come to have two quite different meanings. The root idea is that an individual or family is in poverty if it cannot afford the basics of human life: food, clothing, and shelter. But usage has bifurcated. Absolute poverty in developing countries is assessed using very lean standards; for example, the World Bank estimates how many people live on less than $1.25 a day. Absolute poverty in developed countries is usually measured by poverty lines that are absolute only in the sense that they are fixed rather than automatically adjusted when living standards change. The best known of these measures is the official U.S. poverty line.

It makes no sense to discuss absolute poverty without also referring to the alternative approach in which relative poverty lines are used. The underlying idea, endorsed by most poverty researchers in Western Europe, relates to social inclusion/exclusion. It is held that community standards about what it means to be poor are not fixed, but are relative to mainstream living standards and so rise as mainstream or average standards rise. In addition to goods required to meet basic requirements, people need certain goods that, if lacking, make them feel ashamed and, in that sense, socially excluded from mainstream society (Cook & Frank, 2008).

Definitions of poverty, far from being value-neutral, are hotly disputed in the political arena. Conservative policymakers generally endorse absolute definitions, if they accept the existence of poverty at all in modern societies. Using an absolute definition leads to the policy goal of bringing people up to a “decent minimum” standard of living. American liberals and European social democrats, by contrast, usually favor relative definitions. Poverty lines then rise in line with average or median incomes, and there is an implied value judgment that ...