AFFIRMATIVE ACTION |
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Affirmative action (U.S. English), or positive discrimination (British English), is a policy or a program aimed at increasing the representation of members of groups that have traditionally been discriminated against. This typically focuses on education, employment, government contracting, health care, or social welfare.
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CIVIL RIGHTS - EQUAL RIGHTS |
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Civil rights are the protections and privileges of personal liberty given to all citizens by law. Civil rights are distinguished from "human rights" or "natural rights"; civil rights are rights that are bestowed by nations on those within their territorial boundaries, while natural or human rights are rights that many scholars claim ought to belong to all people. For example, the philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) argued that the natural rights of life, liberty, and property should be converted into civil rights and protected by the sovereign state as an aspect of the social contract. Others have argued that people acquire rights as an inalienable gift from a god or at a time of nature before governments were formed.
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DEATH PENALTY |
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Capital punishment, or the death penalty, is governmental killing by execution as punishment for a crime often called a capital offense or a capital crime. Historically, the execution of criminals and political opponents was used by nearly all societies either by means of judicial process or through political motivations such as the supression of political dissent. Among democratic countries around the world, most European and Latin American ones have abolished capital punishment (except the United States, Guatemala and most of the Caribbean), while democracies in Asia and Africa retain it. Among nondemocratic countries the use of the death penalty is common.
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DISCRIMINATION |
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To discriminate socially is to make a distinction between people on the basis of class or category without regard to individual merit. Examples include racial, religious, sexual, disability, ethnic and age-related discrimination. Some distinctions between people which are based just on individual merit (such as personal appearance) are not discriminatory.
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