Recent orders
Habeas Corpus
Habeas Corpus
Whenever anybody has been apprehended by any authority or the police, the court can issue a court order of Habeas corpus to compel the authority that is detaining that person to either file criminal charges as against that individual or show course as to why he cannot be released immediately.
The United States Constitution in section 9 of article 1 it is provided that the right to the order of habeas corpus cannot be suspended unless in cases of rebellion or invasion it is required for the sake of public safety.
When the civil war began, the President, Lincoln, called upon the states to suppress the rebellion. Given the threat on Washington, it could be argued that any resistance to the military line the suspension of habeas corpus was necessary. It should be noted that the military was acting under the authority of the president, who is the commander in chief of the armed forces and still the chief executive during martial law.
Chief Justice Taney’s ruling, that the president cannot suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus or authorize the military to do the same; and that no officer of the army has an authority to take into custody and confine anybody who is not subjected to the set of laws and the articles that govern warfare, unless it was in the greater interest of the general public.
It is true that Congress itself could not suspend or disregard such fundamental laws and as such so couldn’t the military. Even though during such times, the President could suspend certain laws, Congress should still be the ultimate decision makers when it comes to the suspension of such law. Something they did by passing the Habeas Corpus Act of 1863.
The fundamental basis for the Rule of Law is that neither the President nor the Judiciary or even Congress should interfere with the civil liberties incorporated into the Constitution unless as provided for under the same law.
Therefore the decision by the court that a citizen who is not connected to the military service and a resident in a State where the courts are open and in proper exercise of their jurisdiction cannot be tried, convicted or sentenced in any other way than the ordinary process of the courts. This is notwithstanding the fact that the writ of habeas corpus has been suspended, for whatever reason.
In addition, the court was right to state that the suspension of the privilege accorded by the writ of habeas corpus doesn’t shelve a writ in itself but only the course to be taken.
The intention of establishing the court order for habeas corpus in essence is to make certain that nobody who has been detained is not just held arbitrarily and ought to be charged or should be freed. Its primary objective is to ensure that there are no unlawful and illegal seizures and that due process is not violated.
By suspending the writ therefore, President Lincoln gave de facto powers to the United States of America’s Army to arrest and hold indefinitely any person it pleased. Although his intention was to preserve national safety, it was infringing on personal liberties that are essential to the citizens.
H.B. Fuller and the Street Children of Central America
H.B. Fuller and the Street Children of Central America
Name
Institution
H.B. Fuller and the Street Children of Central America
H.B. Fuller Company is an internationally renowned manufacturer, formulator, and marketer of specialty chemicals such as paints, adhesives, coatings, and sealants, and other related products. Harvey Benjamin Fuller, Sr. founded the company in 1887 and ventured into concocting and selling glue (Colle & York, 2008). It was the first company of its kind in Minnesota. It has global recognition in over 40 countries worldwide to companies in various industries such as the automotive, assembly, woodwork, and packaging. The aforementioned industries rely on industrial adhesives, which is the company’s core product. A significant product that is widely used by street children is shoe glue called Resistol. It makes an annual profit in the range of half a million dollars from glue sales.
The Resistol shoe glue is manufactured from a sweet-smelling hydrocarbon neurotoxin called toluene. Many street children, close to one million in number, prefer inhaling the glue as the drug of choice, thus gaining the name resistoleros with reference to the glue. The street kids find solace in inhaling the glue because it offers temporary escape from loneliness, abuse, and poverty by switching off the brain from reality, pain, stress, and fear. The children try to seek affection and comfort that they lack in their lives. Although the glue relieves the kids from temporary problems, it has long-term and detrimental effects. Prolonged use of Resistol causes addiction, paralysis, liver and kidney failure, neurological disorders, and death.
A Guatemalan teenager succumbed to inhalation of the glue in 1993, and H.B. Fuller Company was blamed for the demise. The company has regularly been blamed for the deaths and negative effects faced by street children consuming the product. However, in its defense, the company was quick to dismiss the allegations by stating that the deaths were a social problem and not a problem of the product. Fuller explained that the glue was manufactured for the primary use in shoes and not for irresponsible street children. He added that the target of their market was mature and legitimate consumers and would not take responsibility for product abuse although it was a matter of concern (Colle & York, 2008). Therefore, in my judgment, I do not blame the company for the addiction of street children to the glue. This is because the company does not manufacture the product with the aim of supplying it to the street children but selling it to legitimate consumers such as shoe companies. If the glue finds its way to the noses of the kids, it is not the company’s fault.
I believe that the social conditions in Guatemala and Honduras are significant contributing factors to the misuse of Fuller’s products. The two countries are poverty-stricken and are among the worst hit in Central America with dismal living conditions. Vices such as organized crime and drug trafficking are common in the society. Therefore, most families are disintegrated, and children face hostile and harsh conditions (Stieb, 2002). Consequently, they turn to the streets where they start sniffing the glue to seek temporary solutions to their adversities. Unfortunately, Fuller’s Resistol glue is the children’s favorite because of its sweet smell and they become addicted to it causing problems to their health. Therefore, the company and its products are not to blame for the children’s irresponsibility but the countries’ social conditions.
I disagree with the claim that a parent company should assume responsibility for a subsidiary company’s mistakes. This is because each company has independent operation rights and any irregularities performed should be blamed on the defaulter, not the parent company.
In order to check the problem, the company could have adopted the idea of adding mustard oil to the Resistol glue. The oil has a harsh smell, and it could discourage the children from sniffing the product. However, the company dismissed the idea as useless and did not implement it.
References
Colle, S., & York, J. (2008). Why Wine is not Glue? The UnresolvedProblem of Negative Screening in SociallyResponsible Investing. Journal of Business Ethics, 85(1), 83-95. doi: 10.1007/s10551-008-9949-z
Stieb, J. (2002). Social Responsibility Within and Without Self-Interest: Emergent Technologies and Situations. Business and Society Review, 106(3), 241-253. doi: 10.1111/0045-3609.00114
My Difficulties in English Writing
My Difficulties in English Writing
My academic life could not have been as it is without adequate writing skills in English. Today I am not only a good learner but also a great writer. The achievements came to my academic life after a difficult struggle in learning the language, affected by a poor handwriting experience during my first years of schooling. Like many other learning problems, complications in my writing were devastating to my education and my self-esteem. I never liked it when other children posed negative comments regarding to my handwriting, backwardness in class work, and poor performance. Most people thought that I had troubles in English but that was not the case. I only could not have the ability to put my ideas across through writing. My parents had high expectations on me that, as I progressed through school, I would increasingly have the ability to express what I knew about various subjects through writing. “My teachers have no expectations on me, and they take me as a failure,” I imagined occasionally. To make my wrongs right, I had to take a different course in writing.
The comforting aspect of my education is that I was good at reading and interpreting content. All the content I had developed in my mind needed to be expressed. I understood that the only way I could prove my intelligence is through writing. Writing was a basic skill, and I had to figure out why teachers insisted on improving personal handwriting. My handwriting was poor and hardly fluent. I mainly failed exams because the teachers could not figure out the ideas presented through my writing. Discovering my failure as a weakness was the first step. I had to accept that I was poor in writing, and all other children had the right to scorn me. This was my turning point.
I decided to work the problem out individually and systematically since nobody seemed to care about my problem. My parents were only worried, but they were too busy to help. During my homework, I gave concentration on the fluency of my writing than the speed. The two aspects were problems to my writing technicalities, and I had to handle them separately. Often, I would try to copy letters as they appeared in typed texts, mostly English writings. This practice consumed much of my time, which I also counted as a loss to my academics. I mainly practiced this during my homework but occasionally during exams. Instead of revising whatever we had studied in class, I would practice good handwriting. Before I knew it, I had developed to become the best student in terms of handwriting, in my class. I hardly noticed that my language had improved significantly as well. My practice involved intensive reading beyond class work, which contributed to the sharpening of my speaking writing skills, specifically in the English language.
The only problem was the speed and class performance in general. I had employed most of my efforts developing my writing such that even during the exams, I would hardly complete my tests trying to make my work smart. Lack of speed was another weakness that needed to be addressed, and I had to tackle it myself. As I advanced in education, I gained the ideology that writing was a combination of many aspects of language that needed to be interlinked. A good writer needs to be a creative thinker with good analytical skills. I had constructed the basis of ensuring that teachers understood my content in both exams and assignments. I had gradually emerged the best learner in my class. The other students had changed to like me with most of them taking me for a role model.
I had to concentrate on something unique that had developed as I struggled to improve on my handwriting and other writing skills. This was writing. My writing skills developed due to my struggle to have a smart handwriting. As I read many and different texts, I could figure out different writing ideas and stiles that make a good written content. Throughout high school, I was the best writer in the school. I received numerous awards in writing contexts at different levels. I came to understand that anybody could emerge to be strong by concentrating on his or her weakness. This can happen in processes, discovering the weakness, taking not of its consequences, accepting it, identifying ways of handling it, and working towards perfecting the weakness. That was how I emerged to become a great writer.