Growing up as a Bostonian, I was pretty much taught that the British were evil monster tyrants and the great people of the best colony fought their little hearts out to make the evil Brits sail back across the Atlantic. Fourth of July is the best holiday and pilgrims were cool. I now know this is pretty one-sided the amazing new government the new United States created was not all that great or original. The claims of the post-revolutionary United States are extremely lacking in factual evidence, but Zinn’s piece on tyranny gave me a new perspective on why it was so wrong.
The ideas of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” sounds great on paper but upon further examination these terms can be as restrictive if not more restrictive than what the British imposed on the colonies in the first place. Maybe because the new system was “American” and new to them we was why it appealed to its citizens so much, but people only really have the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness when that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness do not infringe on others’ life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The United States may be better off now than it was before, but we are mot definitely not a just, completely equal, perfect society. We still have injustice, we still have leaders who don’t always put our needs first, and immerse disparities in health, wealth and happiness. Not that I have not thought of the United States as a bit broken from other readings in this class, but I think Zinn sheds a new light on how our specific society has been unequal since its foundation, even despite its claim that they replaced control with freedom and oppression with representation.
I agree, I think that people were so enamored with the new government and that the society at the time really did not think that the people excluded from the rights would ever have said rights. I think that the mentality of the society back then is really apparent in the language of the text, and a very large reason why today we still have such unjust inequalities.
I agree with your statements here regarding the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and how people only have access to those qualities if they don’t meddle with others rights to those qualities. I also agree that society still remains in-just and Zinn exposes how that started in the article.
I agree with your point on the new light shed on american Government. It is kinda funny to see American people who have no concept that their country is flawed. Personaly I view America as a society founded on almost solely Patriotism and thats alot of what still holds it together because “America is the greatest.”
I completely agree that this reading sheds light on some things. however, I would argue that America isn’t necessarily better off now. We struggle with a lot of the same issues today that we did in the past. they’re just finding new ways to oppress people with the same outcome
I agree that the Zinn reading sheds light on how unjust and unequal our American society is and gives a new perspective on the idea of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. However, while we have bettered in terms of technology, travel, etc. we have not improved that much concerning prejudices based on gender, race, sexual orientation, and religion. Instead of being blatantly obvious with things like segregation, racism is becoming more subtle in our society.
I like how you pointed out how restrictive the ideas of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are.” It is so easy to forget that our country was founded on the exclusion of many groups of people, even though the Revolution was fought for representation in government. Our Constitution was written over 200 years ago. I think it is important that our present leaders recognize that many of the ideas presented are outdated, and that we should adjust those ideas to create a more equal society.