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More handpicked essays just for you.
The concepts of liberty
What liberty means to me
What does liberty mean to you
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The American flag symbolizes Walter’s desire to achieve his perception of the “American dream”. Walter realizes that he is a failure and a disgrace to his family. He feels that if he can make his family rich, they will be happier with him. His dream of making a large amount of money is quickly refined to focus instead on doing what is morally right to create a close, tight-knit family.
Immigrants have been dreaming about the promise of America for hundreds of years, but only the people who are brave enough have continued on coming to become a true American. Many different ethnicities have traveled into America to live their American dream, which is to have a job, house, a family of their own, and to have Freedom. Many people could either travel by train or boat. The poem “The New Colossus 1883” by Emma Lazarus tells a main idea of the Statue of Liberty represents freedom for many immigrants.
In A Viet Cong Memoir, we receive excellent first hands accounts of events that unfolded in Vietnam during the Vietnam War from the author of this autobiography: Truong Nhu Tang. Truong was Vietnamese at heart, growing up in Saigon, but he studied in Paris for a time where he met and learned from the future leader Ho Chi Minh. Truong was able to learn from Ho Chi Minh’s revolutionary ideas and gain a great political perspective of the conflicts arising in Vietnam during the war. His autobiography shows the readers the perspective of the average Vietnamese citizen (especially those involved with the NLF) and the attitudes towards war with the United States. In the book, Truong exclaims that although many people may say the Americans never lost on the battlefield in Vietnam — it is irrelevant.
On August 2nd, 1964, three North Vietnamese Navy Cruisers were “unprovoked”, and fired on the USS Maddox while it was on a “standard patrol” in the Bay of Tonkin.[1] President Lyndon B Johnson proclaimed this event in a speech that provoked the first attack, ordered by him before war was declared on Vietnam. However, that event was most likely a fake created to increase action in North Vietnam.[2] Does the United States Constitution protect the United States from tyranny of the president over the people’s peace like that? The United States Constitution was written to give strength to the failed Articles of Confederation, and to protect the citizens from tyranny. Sadly, it was written in the 1700s. Tyranny is defined when one group or individual
From the genocides of different ethics, to freedom is taken away in minority nations. Angela Davis expresses her views on political aspects of hard punishment upon human beings Americas’ society. She composed many books supporting her idea on political activism. In chapter 9, “Freedom Is A Constant Struggle,” opens different viewpoints, as a results of a transition in today’s society, starting from the 1960’s to the age of Obama. In addition to the few minority groups, as she relates in this book, the similar of a constant struggle for freedom with in the different ethics groups.
The poems “Tableau” by Countee Cullen and “Now and Then America” by Pat Mora display a common theme of following one’s own unique path. A person should not allow society and its standards to influence one’s individual beliefs. Figurative language, diction, and the poem’s structure are used to to demonstrate the theme of following one’s unique path. The poem “Tableau” uses figurative language through the use of simile “Now and Then America” uses figurative language through the form of personification. In “Tableau”, Cullen writes “That lightning brilliant as a sword/ Should blaze through the path of thunder” (819, 11-12).
In the historical document "The Declaration of Independence," Thomas Jefferson highlights the unalienable rights of people as he declares independence from the British. He writes to King George and his parliament in order to clarify the reasons why the colonies were breaking away from Great Britain. Jefferson justifies that if the thirteen colonies were to stay under British government they would suffer from their abuses and they are declaring independence from their vile laws. He supports this claim by alluding to God 's natural laws given to men, using anaphoras, and appealing to the reader 's emotions.
Immigrants were also judged for the success they achieved, both in their home country and in America. In a debate about immigration restrictions published in The Way We Lived, Democratic Representative James V. McClintic said, “Practically all of them were weak, small of stature, poorly clad, emaciated, and in a condition which showed that the environment surrounding them in their European homes were indeed very bad. It is for this reason that I say the class of immigrants coming to the shores of the United States at this time are not the type of people we want as citizens in this country,” (“Congress” 150). Many Americans like Representative McClintic viewed immigrants as inferior because they often came from poor backgrounds, which fed into the idea of Social Darwinism. In his article “The Taint of ‘Social Darwinism’”, Philip Kitcher describes Social Darwinism as a situation in which “…those people and those human achievements that are fittest – most beautiful, noble, wise, creative, virtuous, and so forth – will succeed in a fierce competition, so that, over time, humanity and its accomplishments will continually improve.”
With lines such as “ Oh, beautiful for spacious skies” and “For purple mountain majesties” as the song states, it would be hard to hate this uplifting song (Bates). Although this song is beautiful and filled with gleeful words that is not what America is about. In America freedom was fought for and it wasn’t always pretty. The Star Spangled Banner talks about the war and the struggles that got Americans where they are today. The hardships America faced is what makes America so strong and prideful.
The American person has no true ideals, or beliefs that make him or her up. Americans are free to believe in what they want, think what they want, preach what they want, and most importantly say what they want . Authors such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, and Walt Whitman show in their texts such as “Self-Reliance” , The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass , and “I Celebrate Myself” that there is no true definition of the American identity. The American identity can be seen in the many aspects of peoples lives, and a a quality that many Americans portray is the ability to have individual thoughts and emotions as well as the capability to not conform to society because they stand up for their own individual rights. A
America is a “land of living hope, woven of dreams, aflame with longing and desire” people who come to America come here to get a better life or career. Most people who come to America for a few years think they are Americans because they wave a flag, but they don't know the true meaning of what it means to be and American. An American is someone who will die for it’s country, someone who emigrated here for more opportunities, and someone who is encouraged by the history of America. In “Veterans Day: Never Forget Their Duty”, by John Sidney McCain he Defines his own personal interpretation of what an American is.
(Hughes 13). This shows how he believes that he will be included. The idea of believing in a dream is also expressed in “America and I.” This story is about an immigrant coming to America who has has a rough time starting her new life. “And I could not tear it out of me, the feeling that America must be somewhere, somehow…”
In the poem Ozymandias, the narrator refers to a “lifeless” statue in the form of a great king. However, the irony of the poem is that while the statue is not living or breathing the wording of the poem treats it as if it is an actual body. The first time I saw this play on words was in line seven. When Shelley wrote this line he chose to say that the object is surviving, yet merely three words separate the words “survive” and “lifeless”. I find the spacing and wording here to be incredibly important because not only could our writer have replaced “survive” and “lifeless” with similar meaning words such as “live” and “dead” but he also had the option to paint a different picture with his words here.
The second speaker also reshapes the first two lines of the entire poem into a plea to the majority. Beforehand, the first speaker uses those lines as a call for the old American spirit to be revived: “Let America be America again / Let it be the dream it used to be” (1-2). Both speakers change the meaning of the lines to express their thoughts on America. As a result, the poem expresses the desire for everyone to be treated equally in the land of freedom. The readers can relate to the speaker because they wish that everyone has equal rights in the country that proclaims itself to be the symbol of freedom.
Two Concepts of Liberty Summary of the essay: In this essay, the famous political theorist Isaiah Berlin tries to differentiate between the notions of positive liberty and negative liberty. Berlin briefly discusses the meaning of the word ‘freedom’. He says that a person is said to free when no man or body of men interferes with his activity. He makes reference to many philosophers in the essay, but there is more emphasis on the thoughts of J. S. Mill and Rousseau, the former being a firm advocate of negative liberty while the latter believes strongly in the ideals of positive liberty.