America, the land of the free, was founded upon the standards life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In America’s early years, Thomas Paine, in his book Rights of Man characterized this country’s government as functioning in unison with no difficulties. When you break it down and look at the big picture, some people will argue that increased diversity has brought the nation to an all time peak, in terms of unity. Meanwhile, others maintain the idea that Thomas Paine’s assessment is mistaken for what is to one day be achieved. Yet while we would like to believe in his visionary, it unfortunately does not hold true today regarding both our modern politics and social principles. There are those that would argue Paine’s word, that America …show more content…
Ironically, he seems to have it all backwards really, saying in America the, “poor are not oppressed, the rich are not privileged.” Now contrary to Paine’s unbelievably closed-minded interpretation, the poor are indeed oppressed and the rich are quite privileged. In 2016, a record high of close to 40% of all wealth earned was controlled by the 1%. Although, the poor population is not directly being oppressed by the American government itself, they are being oppressed due to the situation the government refuses to address. For example, America can be seen as a very literate society, though when making this assumption we can not forget that there is a minority that is illiterate, the impoverished. Poverty and illiteracy go hand in hand in a lot of cases. Many students have to get full-time jobs and dropout of school, in order help their parents with finances and stay afloat. An astounding average of thirty-two million of our nation’s citizens are at low or complete illiteracy. How can a nation be in a “unison” if half of the country can’t read or write, entailing being unable to understand the complexity of the government to a fair extent. Therefore thirty-two million Americans are potentially not represented in the government. Today’s America simply does not reflect Paine’s assessment of “unison” and a “government [that is] just.” Now that’s not to say that there has not been tremendous