Why Human Rights Matter: Why Many Government Think They Don't

Countries may not think that human rights matters because fights for human rights is also a fight for power. Governments have power over the people and they run everything so the rights of their people don’t seem to matter as much. The governments have sovereignty and are allowed usually to do what they want to do. Ironically, the government is also the largest protector of the people. They usually make decisions that will in the end benefit the country and its people. The government creates laws to restrict people from doing certain things to protect its people from harm and to have a better functioning country. Although this may be, we see from past wars and genocides that the government can either be corrupt or be non-existent which without an ethical government in place to look out for its people, it can lead to disaster with human rights. In example of this is the movie we just watch about the Armenian genocide- where a government was corrupted and chose to label a race a threat to the country and therefore needed to “protect” its people from them and therefore began a mass genocide.

There are many governments that don’t care about human rights. Many governments don’t focus as much on human rights because they put other important aspects of their country in front of it. Some countries need to focus on their economy rather that the rights of the persons in their country. Human rights do matter though because it allows for people to be free from oppression and to be able to actually live a substantial life. The need to fight for human rights is great especially in countries and locations where the people suffer from not having certain rights. Rights can be defined in many ways. One way is to define that people should have to right to have basic needs, food, shelter, and clothing- certain countries don’t focus on this need and therefore the people suffer. This is a right I feel should be universal. Rights can also be defined as having certain freedoms and liberties such as the right to vote, freedom of press, speech, bear arms, etc. There are countries with dictatorships that suppress their people by limiting the rights to keep their power. The people need to have a voice in how their country is run.