America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, a country united in principle, a land of promise: is it still here today? Thomas Paine came to America in 1791 and was amazed by the concord, the principles of society, and the justice of the government. Because of the increased noncompliance to the principles that have kept us free, our country begins to break apart. America has survived and flourished because of the principles it was founded on, but today the unity of people and ideas begins to crumble as we lose all sight of true, pure principles. Our nation is dwindling because of multi-culturalism, the abandonment of principles, and the drifting from its democratic republic past and into a more socialist America. Thomas Paine says, “if there is a country in the world, where concord… would be least expected, it is America. Made up, as it is, of people from different nations, accustomed to different forms, and habits of government, speaking different languages… it would appear the union of such a people was impracticable;” America has always been home to foreigners coming for freedom. Today, instead of recognizing everyone as equal, we cater different “habits of government” to each race. In the name of unity, we create disunion. We create the idea of entitlement to privileges. By emphasizing differences and minimizing similarities, we do not protect those race’s rights, but merely isolate them from all others and do not create an “American people” but a “African-American” or a “Chinese American” or a “White American” or a “Hispanic American” people. I woke up early to go take the PSAT at school. As I sat in my desk, they began to call to our names and then ask us to fill out the bubble sheets. One of the sections asked us to bubble what race we were. How does this unite America? This simply identifies people with their color not with principle or truth of government, truth that this country was founded on. Thomas Paine continued to say that the only way that all these peoples could exist together was “by the simple operation of constructing government on the principles of society”. Today, we see that the principles of society have changed and thus the principles of government have changed as well. Truths that have always been accepted as truth are now being questioned. 10 years ago, our country still upheld the idea of the family but today, gay marriage is quite a debated topic. This has led to less-principled government. The government’s need to have integrity often reflects the people’s want for integrity. Our country is not as honest as it has been. Consistently, through the Obama administration we see that he has lied to the people. We see this with the IRS Scandal especially. Obama denied the existence of any papers that would confirm that the IRS was hurting conservative groups. Later that evidence was found. Today our government is tending down the path towards injustice. We can look at the path our government is taking with expansion of power, and involvement in disputes over morality and we can see that we are losing our freedom. Our government is involved in education, welfare, foreign aid, wars that were not approved by the Congress, and now healthcare. The Constitution does not permit the federal government to act at this level. The power to take care of the people should be left to the States. Also, our president has slowly taken more power than was ever intended by the Constitution. The judicial, executive, and legislative branches were all intended to be equals and thus hold checks and balances on each other. With the involvement of the government in issues of morality such as abortion and gay marriage, we see that the government tries to take a position that cannot “offend” anyone or that will only “offend” the old-fashioned. The truth is, there is no such thing as neutrality. Our nation has chosen to uphold immoral views and that action has led to the hurt of citizen’s rights to freedom of religion and freedom of speech. In conclusion, our nation is not Thomas Paine’s idea of America. We have lost some of the core principles of society and replaced them with a weak, crumbling foundation. Because society cannot take care of itself, the government has expanded its reach and now does not act morally on all issues. Our nation is dwindling because of the preference of certain races in the name of unity, the loss of core principles and fundamental idea, and the increase of government control that was never intended by the Constitution.
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