Can Election Day Votes Bring Human Rights To The USA?

voting booth

In Maryland and California, it is extremely important that those of us who want to establish a real culture of human rights here in the U.S. get out and vote. © AFP/GettyImages

In 1941, FDR enunciated the Four Freedoms, signalling U.S. commitment to basic rights for all. In 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt led the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the foundational document for human rights in the modern world. But despite these hopeful beginnings more than half a century ago, a culture of respect for human rights has not taken root here in the USA. The seeds were planted, but the soil has not been fertile.

From torture and executions to discrimination in things like education, or even marriage, the U.S., at the federal and state level, often engages in policies that are willfully contrary to human rights norms accepted (if not always practiced) in much of the rest of the world.

That’s why, in Maryland and California, it is extremely important that those of us who want to establish a real culture of human rights here in the U.S. get out and vote.

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California's Big Death Penalty Moment

death penalty californiaBy this time next year, the death penalty could be a thing of the past in California. Find out more and get involved now.  It is a very big deal.

They say everything is bigger in Texas, but, in reality, even when it comes to the death penalty, many of the most important things are actually bigger in California.  California’s death row is more than twice the size of the one in Texas, and last year Los Angeles County alone accounted for as many death sentences (8) as the entire Lone Star State. (California sentenced 28 people to death statewide.)

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