This week in class we talked about the topic of liberty, specifically the definition of liberty. Each person views liberty differently, for example, Thomas Jefferson was seeking for liberty for Americans, whereas Elizabeth Cady Stanton fought for liberty for women, and Frederick Douglass pushed for liberty for African Americans. This helps to show the progression of the idea of liberty from 1776 to 1852. Will America ever be satisfied with their rights? Within the last month, Colin Kaepernick justified his right to liberty with his silent protest, the National Anthem Protest.
As seen from Frederick Douglass, Kaepernick was displeased with the way the African American supremacist was beginning to become a larger target for police violence. In addition, Elizabeth Cady Stanton uses almost identical formatting for her piece, the Declaration of Sentiments, as the Thomas Jefferson did in the Declaration of Independence. She did this because the Declaration of Independence was very successful and she wished for the same. But, this also exaggerates the fact that the issue of liberty was never properly taken care of. This recurrence of these dissatisfaction's helps to prove that issues that were occurring in the 1700's and 1800's are still a problem now. Is this still driving people to America as it used to? America was and is still known as 'the land of opportunity' and a place for people to come and pursue their dreams. The statue of liberty represents this, standing 151 feet tall on Liberty Island in New York welcoming all people entering America with hopes of succeeding. Will liberty always be faced with the challenges of liberty? If not, how will we change our country?
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I don't think there ever will be a point where every person in America is content with how much liberty they have. As you mentioned, people are still fighting about the same inequalities that have existed since the creation of our country. Even though progress has been made to give women and minorities both more of the rights that they are entitled to, there is still such a large gap, personally I don't know if the idea of an equal amount of liberty for All of mankind is an attainable goal.
ReplyDeleteI like how you discuss America being a land of opportunity. That really brings up the question if we are more expressive in our liberty than other countries may be. I think people will continue coming to America because we still are allowed to utilize our liberty as we please, as long as we aren't harming others.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you mentioned how liberty has many different definitions and gave examples to support that. Fredrick, Stanton, and Kaepernick were all seeking liberty for different causes, but they all tied together and came back to the common ground of liberty or freedom of expression. There will never be a common consensus as to what liberty is, but as long as one doesn't harm another, liberty should be allowed to be used to its full potential.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you tied in Frederick Douglass' speech with Kaepernick's action to Liberty. You supported your examples perfectly, and made sure we could understand what point you were trying to make about freedom and liberty. The rhetorical questions were also good because they made me think to myself and actually understand the text better.
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