Social Action Project: Finding Social Issues That are Unfair to my Rights

List of Various Social Issues I've Found:

• The Mississippi Pardons- Two sisters in a Mississippi jail will probably won't be pardoned after stealing $11 and being put in jail for life. One of the sisters has failing kidneys. The Mississippi governor has a history of pardoning male murderers.
• Our Banana Republic- The tax cuts that President Bush created for the people who receive the top 2% of salaries in the USA are about to expire, but their is talk of renewing them. The money that the rich people are saving could go towards schools, which need the money.
• There's Only One Way to Stop a Bully- Schools are required to teach anti-bullying to their students by most states. Unfortunately students aren't being taught in the most effective ways. They aren't being taught to defend themselves, which could limit bullying.

My Response to The Mississippi Pardons:
After reading through this article I was horrified. This article hints that the sisters are being treated unfairly because they are women, which is not right and illegal. The Eighth Amendment states that no cruel or unusual punishments can be uses against a criminal. This does describe cruel punishment. For a person who is in a life threatening medical situation, to keep them from medical help is definitely cruel.

As well as being illegal, the evidence against them is very weak. Teenagers who made the actual robbery pointed their fingers at the women, and the sisters went to jail. If you or I were in a situation where we weren't treated fairly, I know that I would be angry- probably the same for you.

The author of the article makes it clear that the sisters are in this situation because they are women. After serving sixteen years of their double-life sentence, the sisters want and need out. In the United States, women are supposed to be treated equally to men, but this situation shows that not all has changed. If men can be pardoned in worse situations, then women can be pardoned too.

My human rights, and those of others are important to me. The person being denied their rights could be me. It is a scary thought that people in the government can take away rights that cannot be taken away. This can be changed, so why not now?