#post1980

Oxford English Dictionary:

plural noun

1. The rights of citizens to political and social freedom and equality.

Civil rights, in their most basic form, are laws. These laws enable legal citizens (and, to an extent, those who are not citizens) personal protections. In the US, these laws are made at state, federal and supreme court level. To explain in simple terms, states are allowed to pass laws. These laws exist only within their own state (eg. Missouri), and are managed by local government. Federal law made at supreme court level supersedes state law. To put this into perspective, take the recent same-sex marriage ruling. Prior to the supreme court's decision, states were able to choose whether they enacted the law that allowed people of the same gender** to marry. This rate of legalization was slow and meant that across the states progress was unequal. When the law was passed at the supreme court, it was mandatory for every state to take up the bill, regardless of their current position on the topic.

Examples of this are Roe vs Wade and Gitlow vs New York.

Civil rights are not the same as civil liberties. Civil liberties refer to restrictions on the government limiting personal freedoms, for example, the second amendment. The second amendment states that every man has a right to bear arms. This means that the government is not allowed to stop you from carrying a gun, although there are discrepancies within state laws that may be harsher on guns than others. Civil rights, however, are laws passed that stop a majority taking advantage of a minority, and are more to do with egalitarianism than anything else.

Many philosophers have had different ideas throughout history about civil rights, and it has, in general, been a rather dangerous topic. One of the earliest bills, and arguably the most important in history, was the magna carta, signed in June 1215 by the English king John. This legislature gave a set of rules for how people should behave regarding personal rights and freedoms, especially to those in other sovereign nations. Other documents, such as the Rights of Man by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, gave politically biased ideas around civil rights. If we can say anything at all about civil rights, it is that there is a slow push forwards, and very rarely do we see a complete reversion.