Rights in the New Republic

Monday February 20, 2012

     Today in class we discussed chapter 3:  Rights in the New Republic.  Martha had a very interesting question to start off our discussion session:  "What do you think would have happened if the Bill of Rights had not been included in our Constitution?"  My first thought was that the new country would not look like a nice place for immigrants.  The Bill of Rights guarantees the basic rights of every American citizen.  You could probably go anywhere around the world and ask "where have you heard the phrase: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?"  I bet that almost everyone would think of America.  Our Bill of Rights is what makes the U.S. different from any other country because we have specific rights that we get no matter what and the government can not take those away from us.
     However, after some thought I came to the conclusion that England does not have a Bill of Rights and their government works well with the people.  The English government has been in place for centuries, and there is no specific rights that are guaranteed!  So I finally came to the conclusion that the creators of the Bill of Rights wanted to be different from England, while at the same time giving each citizen basic human rights.  So, if there was no Bill of Rights, I still believe that America would have been created just the same, like England, but adding the rights makes America look like a more appealing place to live than other countries.
     The other question that I found interesting was: "According to Levy, what did Jefferson mean by freedom of the press?  Do you think the same freedom still exists today?"  This, in my opinion, was an excellent question because our idea of freedom of the press today is VERY different from the idea from Jefferson's time period.  Today, we believe that a person has the right to write, type, or publish anything that they want, even if it is untruthful or fraudulent.  Now, who would actually agree to publish this type of material is a different matter...  But Jefferson believed in a different type of free press.  Jefferson said that freedom of the press is basically freedom from censorship.  No one will have their writings censored and that a person can write about whatever he/she decides.  He believed that people are completely responsible for what they write, no matter what.  So, for example, if someone wrote about how the government is corrupt and these writings started a riot in which people got killed, Jefferson would say that the writer would be completely responsible for the deaths.  A person can pretty much escape a crime because of this!  A man can go out and kill another man and say, "well, you know I read this news article and it made me want to kill this guy."  And instead of the killer being punished, the author of the article would be!  If this was how people thought today, I believe that there would not be very many books, magazines, and newspapers published.  So, this is one of the many good things that come from our government and country maturing:  thoughts and ideas change over time and become less intense than what they once were.    
     Today in class we also discussed the idea of mentalite.  This is a French word which pretty much means mentality.  This is the opposite of presentism.  Mentalite started in the 1950s and is the study of the common people.  This can be generational, icons, tragedies, and more.  This type of study can be somewhat difficult though.  The study of the common people....well for a great majority of history the common people did not know how to read or write and were often completely forgotten about after they died.  Common people do not work in government, have lots of money, or leave a lasting legacy, so finding information and primary sources about them could be quite difficult.  This could also be the same for after a war.  Who writes the history of the land and people?... the WINNERS!  So, all of the documentations from before a war can easily get destroyed or replaced with the winner's idea of correct history.  This can be seen in times of ancient Greece and Rome.  When the Library of Alexandria was burned down, there was no way of replacing the thousand upon thousands of books and materials that were there.  People tried to re-create certain things, but it will never be the same as it once was.
     The study of mentalite can also change over time.  For example, if someone interviewed me the day after the September 11th attacks and documented it, then interviewed me again 10 years later, the stories and my own thoughts would be very different.  So, a person must live through the times in order to understand what people thought and why the felt that way.  One of the examples that was used in class was the life and fame of Whitney Houston.  People who grew up when Whitney hit it big will believe that she was an icon who represented a sense of "American-ness" (especially when she sang the Star Spangled Banner at the Super Bowl).  More than likely, ten or twenty years from now people will just remember her as a singer from long ago.  Decades later Whitney Houston will not be remembered for the icon that she was to my generation (and slightly my mother's generation).  So, I think that it would be very difficult to study "the common people," what they lived through, and how they felt because it would be hard to disregard any presentism and think back to how life was at a certain point in time, even if only twenty years earlier.  It would take several years of practice in order to be able to look back in time and not have any bias.  Being a history-lover, this is something that I hope to be able to conquer through research, writings, and learning from others.