Contest I entered for some University

I think it's only supposed to be 275 words but whatever (oh and the paper is supposed to be about what life would be like without the first amendment):

It's reported that Benjamin Franklin once said, "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security". Those words seem to be long lost in the eyes of Americans. With terror alerts on the rise, constant propaganda and partisan agendas in every source of media, and intentional misinformation by the government, the general public seems to be growing more apathetic towards retaining freedoms just so long as big brother keeps us protected.

That being said, it's not hard to imagine how life would be without the First Amendment. One of the single most dangerous aspects of losing our freedom of speech would be the advancement of society. A breakthrough in Cancer research could be scoffed, dismissed, and banned simply because it's not as good of a monetary source as chemotherapy. It may seem impossible or drastic that less income from Cancer therapy would hinder the resolve to cure it, but simply looking at the past shows our ignorance. A great example is Galileo and the Inquisition. The research Galileo had done in addition to the Copernican heliocentric theory was halted due to the reasoning that it seemed to contradict Catholic beliefs.

It is my contention, however, that losing our freedom of speech is not something we should be worried about. This is not to say that it wouldn't happen or that we shouldn't care if it happens, but that it would be the last freedom to go and would already be too late. For instance, the Patriot Act has completely changed the way our government runs -- especially side-by-side the Homeland Security Agency. Between the two, some power has been removed from the Judicial and Legislative Branches, and placed directly in the hands of the Executive. The reasoning behind this is to effectively counter terrorist activity. Coincidentally, this can be compared to the use of the 1933 fire bombing in Nazi Germany to temporarily suspend freedoms to combat Communism. Also much like 1930's Germany, the Patriot Act has gave way to a loss of simple liberties; the Federal Government can now conduct secret arrests, strip citizenship, collect DNA samples from anyone suspected of terrorism, and jail suspects indefinitely without trial. The Freedom of Information Act has also become non-existent.

While none of the above means that the United States of America will soon be a replica of Nazi Germany, it does show a representation of freedoms lost. The people of Germany showed blind faith, as we do, that the "temporary" loss of those freedoms was for the purpose of stopping terrorism. You can certainly believe that the average citizen of Germany was duped into what we now call the Holocaust. They were not dumb or uninformed; but to the contrary, a slow and constant removal of their rights with added security threats and intelligently placed government propaganda was what led to their ultimate doom.

I realize I've strayed off topic, but this was done intentionally to further answer the question. I wanted to point out that the 1st Amendment is a symbol of America, and therefore would be the most difficult and last liberty to be removed. It seems plausible that by the time the amendment is up for abolishment, our voices will no longer matter. However that does not take away from the importance and necessity of that freedom, and it leads me to my final point. If the First Amendment -- the amendment that provides guaranteed freedom of speech -- was abolished, I would not have been able to write this paper. Plain and simply, that's what makes that amendment so important. It provides the ability to think, criticize, and try to better society without fear of admonishment.



so what do you think? what needs to be changed, removed, or shortened?


[edit on 15-9-2005 by white4life420]

Was this an admissions requirement?
For what college/university?

If 'no' to the first question, then what contest or class was it for?
If 'yes', then leave it as is, because all the college admissions is doing is making sure that you can actually write [ie: write a sentence, write a paragraph, etc.].

As for corrections: simply running it through a Word program, such as MS Word or WordPerfect, etc., will find most of your punctuation errors, sentence fragments, or anything else that needs to be changed, etc.

Example: At one point, you have "First Amendment" then later on you switch to "1st Amendment." Use one or the other. Some of your mentionings seem to indicate more than common knowledge material, hence, you may want to cite source(s) to back those type mentionings.





seekerof

[edit on 15-9-2005 by Seekerof]

It's for WCU, wester carolina university. It's an open contest, I don't even go to the school.

I actually just wrote it about 30 minutes ago so I haven't edited it yet. But I'm sure there are errors on it. I wanted to get some critiques on the content before I started tearing into the grammatical issues.

and the common knowledge part, yeah... I was wondering about that. it's common knowledge to me, but I know I need to get some sources.

[edit on 15-9-2005 by white4life420]

The content is a bit wandering, as professors would term it, but in general, fairly solid.

You just need to source some of what you are mentioning, as indicated in my initial post.

Solidify or concentrate or confine your points a bit more, then you can remove the "I realize I've strayed off topic..." aspect.









seekerof