Since it’s America’s birthday this week, I have decided to address history I constantly see wrong on Facebook. One of my majors in college was history (it was the fun one, some of you are probably passing out reading that) and I see so much history manipulated and/or misrepresented, I thought I would try to address it, maybe with some humor. Humor not guaranteed, it is history, after all.
NUMBER ONE – Oh and is this ever number one – the First Amendment (no pun intended, but I’ll take it). Freedom of speech. This relates to speech against the GOVERNMENT. The federal government doesn’t mean your job. It doesn’t mean on a comedy stage. You can, in America, address the government and call them fart sniffers or whatever you want. You can’t go into your work and tell your manager to pound it sideways and claim the first amendment. This is how the NFL is pushing out kneeling. You may not like it, but it’s not protected because it’s at work. Their ratings plummet? They institute a policy. It also – pay attention comics – doesn’t mean someone HAS to give you stage time because you say offensive things. That’s the call of the person running the show. I hate when comics get banned from a venue and act like they’re modern day Patrick Henrys. No, you’re an ass who does a lot of rape jokes and racial stereotypes and no one wants to put you on.
NUMBER TWO – I see this a lot, so it’s worth addressing. The 3/5’s compromise. I have no idea how to type 3/5’s correctly, so we’re rolling with it. When the nation was forming, the southern states wanted slaves to count as full persons…for voting representation only, not in actual, you know, real life. The other states said no and a fight ensued. The 3/5’s compromise doesn’t mean it was entrenched law that slaves were 60% people, it was actually a method to reduce the voting power of the slave states. Would have it been better to count slaves as people? No, then the states with slaves would have had more influence until slavery was banned, thus leading to more restrictive laws on a federal level for slaves and ultimately human rights. Who knows what more atrocities against slaves would have been entrenched if so.
NUMBER THREE – America is a democracy. Actually, we are a representative republic. The problem with a democracy is that a current event or hot button issue could lead to the tyranny of a majority imposing restrictions on protected rights or natural law. Example – 9/11 happens and a ton of states remove all persons of the Muslim faith with a vote. That’s a democracy. Not as cool as it seems at first.
NUMBER FOUR – George Washington used bald eagles to win the battle of Yorktown. This is 100% true.
Hope that helps, now you’ll know more about America as you pound beers and maim yourself with explosives this week!