Chapter 1: Understanding Freedom in America
In America, our government takes what the majority agrees to be just and servicing, and caters to those needs. This construct of the system always leaves some amount of people with what they don’t need or want. Since democracy is meant to allow everyone the opportunity to participate in how their leaders manage their society, everyone is supposed to be afforded the liberty to speak up when they believe their lives are not being considered. But it has been proven time and time again that when citizens attempt to revolt, their cries are deafened to the ears of the ones in power. By allowing people to revolt then giving them little to no progress, or having people believe that their lives are always acknowledged, it keeps American citizens complacent in the current flaws in the governmental system. The only freedom America has is the freedom to maneuver within the bounds of what the majority wants. That means no freedom for some.
“I am aware that among a great democratic people there will always be some members of the community in great poverty and others in great opulence; but the poor, instead of forming the immense majority of the nation, as is always the case in aristocratic communities, are comparatively few in number, and the laws do not bind them together by the ties of irremediable and hereditary penury.”
This quote from Alexis de Tocqueville exemplifies the biggest flaw in democracy - it makes the opinions of a more powerful party count as the opinions of all. How could there not be a constant struggle for people to be represented and respected? In modern day, there is a national air of disgust of the injustices African Americans have recently faced from police. In response to this chain of events, there have been revolts sprouting across America, and the world, to expose how the laws they been told would be upheld, were not actually made in consideration of black lives.