The U.S. Political Parties: Democrats and Republicans
The two main parties in the U.S are Republicans and Democrats. Though in the recent past other parties became prominent, Democrats and Republicans remain to be the largest parties in America with most of the seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate. The two parties have opposing views and ideologies on key issues affecting the people of America, for instance, abortion, Gun control, immigration, climate change, taxes, and social safety among others. This paper will make comparisons on how the two parties address abortion, immigration and taxes.
Immigration
Republicans strongly support immigration limits and border controls specifically for certain countries. They believe that American will benefit from tighter controls on immigration and that risks related to terror attacks would be reduced. A clear example of the Republican Party’s stance in relation to integration and immigration is the Muslim ban that was proposed by president trump at the beginning of his mandate. On the other hand, Democrats are favorable to policies of open immigration. They hold that any individual should be allowed in the country and granted refuge but the process of refuge requisition should be faster and that problems related to terrorism and unemployment cannot be solved through mass deportation.
Lack of U.S citizenship could matter for property ownership and employment. Noncitizens in many western states were denied the right to own land hence legal status blocked social and economic integration of Asian immigrants into the American society. In the case of United States Verses Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court of the U.S affirmed that immigrant’s children who are born in America are citizens of America automatically under 14th Amendment, regardless of whether the parents of the immigrant were eligible for citizenship.
Abortion
Democrats support the idea that U.S government do not possess the right to be involved with women’s pregnancy and that women have a right to make personal decisions in regard to their pregnancies. Democrats wish to minimize cases of unintended pregnancies instead of eliminating abortion. It is through enhancing sex education levels in schools and increasing awareness that would reduce the increased number of sexually transmitted diseases. In contrast, Republicans are to a large extent influenced by tradition and religion and support the idea that the U.S government should restrict abortion. Republicans believe that the unborn have a right to live and that right cannot be taken away from him/her.
The United States Supreme Court explained decades ago that abortion is protected by family decisions and rights to bodily integrity. The 14th constitutional Amendment restricts the state from preventing an individual of liberty without following law provisions. Liberty right includes the bodily integrity right and the freedom of making family decisions. Therefore a woman has the right to terminate a pregnancy without any government interference. However, in order to portray the rights to abortion as illegitimate, inappropriate arguments like the court legalizing abortion in the case of Wade verses roe by inventing another right to privacy is not provided in the actual text of the constitution.
Taxes
According to Democrats, both the poor and the rich are required to pay same tax shares. It is clear that large tax cuts may reduce revenue collected by the government but Republicans argue that entrepreneurs and rich individuals would be more likely to create jobs and invest after-tax reductions hence the society will benefit to a larger extent. Conversely, Democrats believe in a tax reduction for middle and lower class and tax increment for the upper class to give room for the government to increase its expenditure on social programs for lower class.
The Supreme Court ruled that citizens, who believe that tax laws and regulations are not applicable to them, cannot be held liable for violating tax laws even if there are no grounds for their argument. But again the Supreme Court added that this should not be a shield the liability of a criminal to boycott tax payment.
Media network reports on abortion
Journalists who are responsible normally try to act in a fair way in the coverage of abortion-related cases. A keen examination of broadcasts and published stories indicate that most media networks use images and languages that presents the whole debate as favoring advocates of abortion rights. Issues and events favoring opponents of abortion are given minimal attention or sometimes ignored by the media. Additionally, commentary columns that favor rights to abortion outnumber those opposing abortion by a margin of two to one on most of the major newspapers.
In summary, the most important issue that the American government needs to address is gun control. In the recent past, gun-related incidents have increased. It has been almost seven years since the Sandy Hook shooting, and the Republican Congress declined to make important changes on gun regulations. The polarization of the nation about gun control started several years ago but the issue of gun control is now more needed than any other time in the history of the United States.
