4/18 ASSIGNMENT "GERRYMANDERING"

Contrary to one popular misconception about the practice, the point of gerrymandering isn't to draw yourself a collection of overwhelmingly safe seats.  Rather, it's to give your opponents a small number of safe seats, while drawing yourself a larger number of seats that are not quite safe, but that you can expect to win comfortably.


Gerrymandering is one way of assuring one party to win over the other party.  Politicians have use this practice to win elections.  They draw up new districts so that they can stay in power.They don't have to woo voters anymore because the politicians are the ones that control their own destiny.  Gerrymandering have allowed the same people to be winning elections over and over with no one to challenge them.

The Republicans use gerrymandering to send many representative to Congress. How can the people get free representation in government if the politicians are choosing their voters instead of the voters choosing their representative in government.  Nothing is getting done because the politicians are looking for themselves and not for the people. Powerful people are calling the shots in government now. The little people have been give the chaff once again.  Once one party has control they can try to take away many of our rights eg. abortion and union rights.

EQUAL RIGHTS

Fredrick Douglass says, "Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood?"

Douglass was railing about the many injustices that the blacks went through even though American had gain its independence from Britain.  How can White America turn a blind eye to all the injustices against slavery when they saw that what the British was doing to them was wrong.  How come all that was part of the Declaration of Independence was not afforded to all its citizens? They wanted their freedom to  govern themselves, they wanted the right to decide their future, the right of free speech, right to liberty and justice for all american. They (America) gain its independence from Britain but this independence did not apply to the slaves.  In the Constitution they say all men are created equal and that as human being you had some rights but that only applies if you are white. Long after America gain its Independence there was still slavery taking place.  It was only when the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 was when you started to see slaves enjoying some of the rights that america had gained. In today's society there are many who have been treated unfairly. The undocumented are being use as scapegoat for all that ails America.  America was built on the back of immigrants the same way slavery played a role in American economy.  The poor, the undocumented, women, and children have been left behind in today society. It has been many years since America gain its independence and the things that they wanted to have  justice and equal right are being denied from the undocumented, women, children and the poor.  

Civil Disobedience

"What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer;  a day that revels to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.  To him, your celebration is a sham, your boasted liberty, and unholy license; your national greatness,  swelling vanity;  your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless;  your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence your shouts of liberty, and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety and hypocrisy a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation  of savages.  There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practises more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour" wrote Frederick Douglass.  

Douglass was referring to the grave injustice toward the slaves.  How can America be celebrating when slaves were being mistreated, kill and sold every day.  Shouldn't gaining independence from Britain include all those who lived in America be able to enjoy such freedom and liberty too.  This was not so for the slaves for they were considered to be property rather than people.  America was happy to be free from Britain but America did not reward the same freedom to its slave.  How can you want freedom from a country you consider to be a tyrant when America it self was a tyrant toward its own people.  In the Declaration of Independence it spoke about all men and women are created equal and that they have rights.  But these rights were not awarded to women and slaves.  

Douglass, Stanton and Anthony were agitators who use the words in the Declaration of Independence which was about equality and God given rights, to point out the injustices that America was committing against some of its citizens mainly women and slaves.  Stanton and Anthony use civil disobedience to point out the how women were being discriminated and The Civil Rights Movement use civil disobedience to promote the cause of the Blacks in America.  Civil disobedience has been use as a form to bring about many changes in the government and institutions. 

The Federalist No. 10

“The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man, and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation and practice; and attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into two parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to cooperate for their common good."

As human beings it is in our nature to want to attach ourselves to anyone who thinks and want the same things we want regardless of how it may be detrimental to others. We protect what we deemed is been threatened i.e. our religious and political beliefs. We aligned ourselves to those who are in power that have the same beliefs as we do because those powerful people with protect those beliefs that we hold to be true.  People who are in power that have the same beliefs as we do because we think that will protect those beliefs. This Madison say is why we have division in government.  Everyone looks out for their own interest rather than looking out for the common good.

As you see in today this is still going on.  Many people have been left behind, the poor, women, children and the undocumented.  The people in power thinks that these group of people have nothing to contribute to society so why bother with them.  The people in power will always want to pick on the weak.  They don’t think that anyone will be watching them.  Look all the laws that they are trying to pass that will have an adverse effect on women, the poor and the undocumented.  They don’t think that a woman knows what’s best for her.  That woman needs the government to tell that her how to conduct herself.   The Voting Rights Act is being threaten, many claiming that fraud is one of the many reasons why they want to roll back the Voting Right Act of 1965. The undocumented have been in the forefront during this election cycle.  They have been blamed for everything bad that has been happening in America.  America was built on the backs of the immigrants.  During this time we see many politician using fear to divide the people. Why can we all do something good for the common good of humanity?