Rights, Liberties and Public Policy

by Giglio, Ernest

• ISBN13: 9781859720455
• ISBN10: 1859720455
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1995-06-01
• Publisher: Avebury

Summary

This provocative book discusses individual rights and liberties as these clash with government policy and community values involving such current controversial issues as censorship, drug testing, hate speech, pornography, and sodomy. Two rights in particular, the right to privacy and the right to freedom of expression, are frequently tested in democratic societies where individual liberty often clashes with the public interest. Where should individual freedom end and concern for society begin? Nowhere is this conflict more sharply joined than in drug testing and sodomy laws versus the privacy of the individual and in the censorship of hateful and offensive material versus the free speech rights of bigots, sex consumers, and the adult entertainment industry. These social policy issues are analysed from a centrist-liberal frame of reference, rejecting the extremist stance of the religious right, free speech absolutist, and radical feminists in offering policy recommendations for democratic governments to follow.

Table of Contents

Rights: Introduction

Privacy as a hard case

Drug testing and the right to privacy

Liberties: Introduction

Sticks and stones: hate speech on campus

The party's over: reflections on the U.S. bicentennial

Public Policy: Introduction

Sex, film and videotape: the rating game

Pornography revisited: a comparative perspective

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