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Liberty
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What is Liberty?

Liberty is one of the most foundational concepts in political philosophy, history, and social science, making it a frequent subject of study across disciplines including political theory, history, law, sociology, and social work. The concept raises enduring questions about the relationship between individuals and government, the scope of personal freedom, and how rights are distributed across society. Students engage with liberty in courses ranging from American history to constitutional law, often because it sits at the intersection of abstract principle and concrete political struggle, demanding both theoretical clarity and historical grounding.

The papers gathered here reflect a wide range of approaches. Some take a philosophical angle, examining distinctions between positive and negative liberty and what those differences mean for how governments exercise power over individuals. Others are historical, tracing how liberty has been contested across periods including the early republic, the Civil War era, the Second Great Awakening, and the civil rights movement. Legal and policy-focused papers examine specific cases and administrative law questions, while sociological approaches consider how race, gender, and immigration status shape access to freedom in American society.

A strong essay on liberty begins with a precise definition of the term, since the word carries different meanings depending on context and framework. Evidence drawn from legal decisions, historical events, or political theory tends to carry the most weight when it directly supports a specific, arguable claim about how liberty functions or is limited. The most common pitfall is treating liberty as self-evidently positive without examining whose freedom is protected and whose is constrained in any given political arrangement.

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Paper Doctorate

Honor and Respect in Homer's Iliad and Aristophanes' Lysistrata

Honor and Respect: the Ends of Iliad and Lysistrata

Paper High School

Excessive Police Force Laws and Standards in California

The objective of this study is to examine the use of excessive force by police officers in the State of California. Toward this end, this study will conduct an extensive review of literature in this area of inquiry. The literature reviewed in this study has informed the study that excessive use of police force may constitute police abuse. There are four factors that must be considered in the case of alleged police abuse including the need for application of force; the relationships between the need and the amount of force that was used; the relationship between the need and the amount of force that was used, the extent of injury inflicted, and whether force was applied in a good faith effort to maintain or restore discipline or maliciously or sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm. The Fourth and Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution also protect the rights of the individual from police misconduct and abuse.

Paper Undergraduate

Social Upheaval in A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Abstract A Tale of Two Cities is long-lasting evidence to the best, and an intense analysis of the worst of human nature. Charles Dickens set out to make the French Revolution live in the minds and hearts of the reader. Human suffering is not the only problem that faced the French people in the 18th Century. With all the injustices and poverty highlighted, A Tale of two Cities is a journeying of situations that will go on just as long as inequity and violence continue to flourish. However, while the novel is a social critique, it is also an examination of the restraints of human injustice where innocent people are killed and imprisoned. In this regard, this paper highlights social upheaval and restoration of social order during the French and Victorian revolutions as highlighted in A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

Research Paper Doctorate

The U.S. Civil Rights Movement: Law, Policy, and Equality

Whole books have been written on the subject of the civil rights struggle of African-Americans in the United States, a struggle that undoubtedly began when the first African slaves were brought to North America against…

Research Paper Undergraduate

Tea Party's Push to Repeal the 14th and 17th Amendments

The argument between state and federal authority is a commonplace one in the history of constitutional debate. However, this discussion shows, this debate has often been used as a way to mask ulterior motives. Just as slave states used state rights as an argument to protect slavery, so too has the Tea Party, in its push to repeal the 14th and 17th Amendments, used states rights to overshadow inherently racialist ambitions.

Paper Undergraduate

Social Equity Leadership Conference: Goals and Public Admin Theories

Social equity is a key issue of public administration and forms the basic theme of the 2013 "Social Equity Leadership Conference," in June. This white paper discusses the key goals of the conference based on the conference issue for social equity as global engagement and local responsibility. These are the issue facing social equity among domestic and global public leaders in public and private agencies in the education, immigration, transportation, environmental, policing and corrections sectors. A review of theories on public administration identifies that public leadership networking, collaboration, and cooperation with leaders and agencies is necessary. This is associated with public leadership practices like public policy development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation, social equity, and public advocacy.

Research Paper Doctorate

Bertha Mason: Madwoman or Oppressed Woman in Jane Eyre

Why, Jane, what would you have?... You will stipulate, I see, for peculiar terms -- what will they be?" only want an easy mind, sir... I shall continue to act as Adele's governess; by that I shall earn my board and…

Paper High School

Attempted Murder vs. Murder: Intent, Morality, and the Law

When a person commits a murder, they not only have completed the act but also have engaged in intent, planning and implementation of the planned murder. Accordingly the crime of murder not only consists of the actual killing, but also the steps leading up to the crime. But when the crime of murder goes awry and a person's attempt to kill another fails, that person is treated differently than an actual murderer; they are accused of attempted murder. Because the intended murder is disrupted by unforeseen factors, and not by any change in the person's conscience, anyone who is charged with attempted murder should be treated by the legal system no different than someone who actually commits a murder.

Essay Doctorate

Social Obligation to Provide Basic Health Care: A Philosophical Analysis

This paper is about the philosophy of providing basic health care for Americans. The prompt is "If social obligations to provide appropriate health care are not met, then individuals are definitely wronged. Injustice is done to them." This is discussed, drawing on Mills, Rawls and the libertarian objections to the author's proposition.

Paper Undergraduate

Aristotle and the Path to Virtue: A Philosophical Comparison

There are nearly as many ways to walk the path of virtue as there are historical figures who have written accounts on how to do so. One of the foremost authorities on the subject, Aristotle, provided several detailed…

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