Declaration Then and Now
The year was sixteen hundred and eighty-nine and a man by the name of John Locke wrote Second Treatise on Government (Zinn 73). In it, Locke wrote that in a natural state everyone, all people, are born free and equal, and possess certain rights. He said that these “natural rights” were life, liberty, and property. He also said that the evildoers who conspired to deprive others of their life, liberty, or property ruined the good life of the state of nature (Locke). The only way to protect these rights is by joining together to form governments. The power of government, then, stems from the consent of the governed, which entrust the government with responsibility for protecting their lives, liberty, and possessions. Should the government fail in their task, the people have the right to revolt and institute a new government.>From this, Americans drew one of the most important concepts. In the Declaration of Independence, the founders used Locke’s theory to justify their independence from Great Britain. Americans were justified in revolting against the King, the founders declared, because the King deprived them of their rights to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”
Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. NewYork:Harper Collins. 1980. 73. Another phrase that is significant in the Declaration of Independence is, ”with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” (Jefferson 685). Life is self-explanatory, Liberty means having freedom, emancipation if you will, and Happiness is contentment. But who really has all three of these things at one time? Life everyone has right? Actually that would be incorrect. Think about the little babies being aborted everyday. They no longer have life, and they did not even have a choice in it. Jordan, June. “Freedom Time.” Rereading America:Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and It is not just African Americans that are being discriminated against; another group that deals with a lot of singling out is gays and lesbians. It used to be that it was the older generation that you would find being discriminate against them, but things have changed. In an article entitled, “US Teens Report Feeling Bias Towards Gays, Minorities”, a survey was taken of 2,800 teenagers of Who’s Who Among American High Students. The survey showed that 40 percent of teens feel bias against gays. The surveyors’ blame these findings on the fact that teens in rural areas are not as exposed to gay and lesbian culture as those in urban areas (Choi 1). That is a pretty lame excuse for their ignorance. So maybe they have never met a homosexual but does that give them the right to discriminate? The article says that the percentage dropped ten points in the last two years, yet any percentage is too high. DiversityInc.Com. 4 December 2000 Wiretap Library. 4 December 2000 Liberty is another word for freedom. You feel like you have achieved it when you move out of your parents’ hou
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Approximate Word count = 1333
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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