Lacey Pilgrim

Position Paper Outline

INTRODUCTION: What would it take for you to be willing to give up your rights? How far would we go to protect the democratic society we value so much Could lose principles of liberalism that democracy is based on if we don’t temporarily reject rights and

freedoms Must benefit all of the citizens within the democracy, if these all of these conditions are met then

liberalism democracy will be preserved and rights and freedoms will be reinstated Suppression on rights must be temporary and thought out extremely carefully by the government. Should only be done in times of high crisis that could affect everyone (war, terrorism, nuclear war) Source describes that the things that give us freedoms sometimes should be sacrificed in order to

preserve the future condition of our economy or prevent a disaster from occurring. Temporary rejecting liberalism is necessary in order to preserve liberalism

FIRST PARAGRAPH (COUNTERARGUMENT): Temporary Hitler’s Enabling Act (page 187)

o Opposed any other party from coming into power which lead to Germany becoming a one-party state

o Also allowed Hitler to pass legislation without approval of the Reichstag (a group who represents the citizens of Germany)

o Restricted personal freedom, freedom of opinion, freedom of the press, and freedom of organization and assembly

o Eliminate the need for search warrantso People’s loss of power lead to Hitler’s dictatorshipo Was only supposed to be a four-year period (temporary fix)o Since there was no power to go against Hitler, he was able to implement this act past its four

year periodo Not only violates the temporary clause but also demoralizes the rights and freedoms of all

German citizens An example of the appropriate use that was provisioned is demonstrated by the Canadian War Measure’s

Act, which has only been put into play three times in the government’s history. Each of these times that this Act was put into play, it was temporary and was the rights and

SECOND PARAGRAPH (SUPPORTING ARGUMENT): WAR MEASURES ACT & FLQ(PAGE 401) Enabled Canada to suppress the rights and freedoms of individuals in order to protect them from

potential danger in times of crisis. During FLQ terrorist acts, War Measures Act suppressed everyone’s rights, creating more problems.

People informed them the areas needed to be more specific and less general, some events did not apply to areas further away from the occurrence.

Lacey Pilgrim

FLQ were a committed group devoted to make Quebec language and culture equal to the Anglophone culture.

War Measures Act was too general and the Canadian government began to realize this. They now developed a new act, called the Emergencies Act, which provides specific rules to the areas that are in danger. They didn’t feel that suppressing the whole nations rights and freedoms would be necessary if the threat was in one area of the country.

THIRD PARAGRAPH: EMERGENCIES ACT This Act only is to protect the citizens when a situation occurs that could result in a danger to life or

poverty, social disruption or an economic crisis that could be considered a national emergency. 1960’s the world, including Canada, underwent dramatic political, social, and cultural changes. This prompted more individualist ideologies Quebecois wanted their language and culture to have more equal opportunities The FLQ was a group from Quebec who resorted to violence and terrorism in order to find the

independence they felt Quebec deserved For this, Canadian government suspended civil liberties and imprisoned anyone who was suspected to be

involved with these groups. Soon after Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into play the government introduced the Emergencies

Act, which included more safe guards to protect rights of citizens Under this act, government must specify to which part(s) of the country this act applies to.

CONCLUSION: Rejection of liberalism is justified, only temporarily and only when that nation is in a time of a crisis. Only in order to sustain a stable democracy, in this case people should be willing for the government to

temporarily suppress their rights The government should carefully consider which situations they should apply this act towards. If the

situation is a high enough risk that they feel the need to enable this act in order to protect the citizens The only reason for rejecting liberalism is to sustain liberalism in the future or when the high-risked

situation is deemed safe, preserving democracy should be the essential focus of this oppression. The government must do this temporarily...