On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. made his famous speech, I Have a Dream, to mark the centennial of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. This was a message to all Negroes, to all whites, and to the whole world, of his vision to see a united America before him, an...

Freedom of speech is one of the rights our Founding Fathers put into the United States Constitution, so why is the US government trying to enforce music censorship? Society blames current music trends for dysfunctional behaviors among teenagers and demands censorship of music artists' products, whi...

A Dream Realized In Mary Louise Pratt's article "Arts of the Contact Zone," her "contact zones" are referred to as "[spaces] in which peoples geographically and historically separated come into contact with each other and establish ongoing relations, usually involvi...

Flag Desecration For many Americans the flag of the United States has been a symbol of freedom. However political turmoil and involvement in foreign wars has led to a new form of protest, protected under the first amendment of the Constitution-flag burning. Citizenship in America is not easy. A...

Why does anyone care if our society is aggressive? Does the kid who decides to fire a gun into his school do so because he watched Natural Born Killers? Is violence in our communities really causing anyone any abnormal amount of heartache? To the victims, and the families and friends of the vict...

The Constitution of the United States of America contains the basic rights of citizens of this country. There is, perhaps, no right more controversial than the First Amendment in the Constitution, first introduced on December 15, 1791. The First Amendment states, "Congress shall make no...

Why does anyone care if our society is aggressive? Does the kid who decides to fire a gun into his school do so because he watched Natural Born Killers? Is violence in our communities really causing anyone any abnormal amount of heartache? To the victims, and the families and friends of the victi...

Flamin' Country Joe In 1992, an antiwar activist, Country Joe, violated a Georgia statute by acting out a skit that urged people to refuse to fight in the Persian Gulf war, overthrow the government and form a socialist regime. He then burned a military uniform in opposition to the war, an...

For more than 200 years the American Constitution has served as much more than a framework of government. Our belief in the great document's guarantees of freedom, justice, and equality has come to define what it means to be an American. From 1787 to today, in times of both tragedy and triumph, Amer...

In the 1800's slavery was the most treacherous degrading and spiteful act ever forced on any human being in the United States. Stripping an individual of equality, education, and freedom because of their skin color is something that America was accustomed to during this time. The idea of educ...

Brandi Brewer Com 239: Summer I It was August 2,1990, in an effort to make his country whole again that Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Kuwait is a small country, and within four hours he controlled not only the region, but also 24% of the world's oil supplies. It seemed as if his nex...

I. Introduction Although international trade policy has not been one of the major points of debate in this year's presidential race, determining the role which the United States will play in the rapidly expanding global market will be a fundamental issue for the next administration. The ...

The United States of America prides itself as the self proclaimed leader of the free world. Since the end of World War II the United States has chosen to use force in order to insure this so called "freedom" of other less fortunate nations who do not have the ability to defend themselve...

Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and J. Hector St. de Crevecoeur each offer a unique perspective about certain truths concerning American rights and responsibilities. Each author offers a promise of what America could and should be. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Elizabeth Cady Stanton are two prominen...

The Naked Truth: Testing the Constitutionality of Zoning and Character Ordinances for Nude Dancing The art of dance has been an avenue of free expression in cultures worldwide since human kind first set foot upon the earth, and the culture of the United States is no exception. However, when th...

While the United States was fighting the Cold War to preserve its freedoms, the fears and anti-Communism the Cold War helped cause at home undermined some of those freedoms. One of the most notorious examples of this is Senator Joseph McCarthy. In his search for Communists in the U.S. government...

"When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children-black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Catholics and Protestants-will be able to join hands and sing: Free at l...

Hate In America On October 6, 1998, Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, was kidnapped from a bar by two men. While tied to a wooden ranch fence, he was beaten nearly to death with a .357 magnum handgun. Eighteen hours later, a passerby discovered him hanging there. He ...

Friends and fellow citizens: I stand before you tonight, under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last Presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that I thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, ...

American History 4th of July 1877 Today we are gathered to celebrate not only America's birthday but also the birthday of this community of Cambellsville, Iowa. This community is just three years old, a baby when compared America. This community has been a beacon of...

Blood, guts, cuts, bruises, scars, decapitations, shootings, guns, knives, nudity, sex, expletives, bad role models and freedom of speech. Is that what you think of when you think about the content of the mass media? Has the media gone too far? Is this violence in mass media affecting our children? ...

On Thursday April 30th 1970 President Nixon gave a speech to the country. At the end of his speech he asked for the support of the nation for the soldiers over in Vietnam. "I ask for your support for our brave men fighting tonight halfway around the world, not for territory, not for glory, b...

On June 21, 1788 Congress ratified the US constitution. This historic document contained the powers that congress would have under this democratic government. The first amendment specifically details several powers that would be excluded from this list. The first amendment states "Congress sha...

Vietnam was a country that had been at war for many years. In 1954, the occupying French finally left Vietnam and a Geneva code was drawn up outlining the peace treaty. The United States had troops in Vietnam at the time of the cease-fire and they remained there after the Geneva code. Since the e...

On June 21, 1788 Congress ratified the US constitution. This historic document contained the powers that congress would have under this democratic government. The first amendment specifically details several powers that would be excluded from this list. The first amendment states "Congress shal...