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Freedom Rewritten

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Submitted By copflem
Words 730
Pages 3
Courtney Fleming
Marcy Holland
W-130
15 September 2015

Freedom Rewritten Our freedom is limited because we mistakenly misunderstood what the right to be free meant. Thomas Jefferson’s, “The Declaration of Independence,” argues in his 1776 draft that if the government goes against what people want, they have a right to rebel and form a new type of government. As well as, if there is an unbalanced amount of respect, we the people are turned down the right to a full voice and the activation of our rights. With that being said, he expressed American Freedom around what we were willing to risk for a change and what we would allow come between our wants and needs. Naomi Wolf’s, “Freedom is intended as a challenge,” explains The Declaration of Independence in a way that would be more modernized for people that could not grasp what Jefferson was meaning. Wolf also continues to elaborate the challenges Americans personally sacrifice for the sake of freedom. Having said that, the pursuit of happiness mirrors the time period in which we live in. Nowadays you see the laws changing all around us. Currently same-sex marriage is now legal but just a few years ago they weren’t allowed to. Black people and white people are no longer segregated and 23 states have change their drug laws and have made marijuana legal. Everyday seems like the idea of freedom is changing. The pursuit of happiness is a reflection over how it was back then and how it is now. In Jefferson’s writing he uses words like “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”, (Jefferson 625) which implies that people have the right to live freely. Furthermore Jefferson states, “It is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it” (Jefferson 625), simply saying that if the government abuses their power, the people have the right to change it. The government has all power when given the okay by the people,

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