CAUCUS+G Presentation

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**Every Citizen has Equal Rights, Hard Work results with Success, and Laws must be followed in our Ideal Society** By: Katie Van Winkle, Emma Piotrowski, Lydia Eicher, Becca Jaskot, and Abby Wilmer __** VISION **__ • describe why your vision creates a more perfect society for Americans • identify the significant values, relationships, incentives, and goals of this ideal society •explain how your vision will be an improvement over the society we have now.

Our vision gives legal citizens equal rights and opportunities that would make the society more equal and could help better themselves or possibly the society as a whole. The effort people put in to their school, work, and other activities would reflect their success. Like the American society today, people would have to follow the laws in order to keep the society in control but there will be exceptions depending on the situation at hand (must be fair with a rationale ruling). Our society focuses on equality regardless of physical or idealistic differences (or a color-blind society that lets people share their opinions). The effort and work in someone's life would determine that person's place in the social hierarchy; therefore, the people with success have taken the opportunities that were given to them, used them responsibly and rationally, and have lived up to their potential. The rights and opportunities given will be backed up by the government making sure that people have the supplies needed to work and support themselves (wheelchair ramps for handicaps, translators for deaf people, etc.). The American society today is still having problems with race and gender discrimination but our society would focus on the equality of everyone and the positive contributions that are from them. There wouldn't be any rights or opportunities taken away because of someones physical differences or different opinions. Our vision is to make the American society better for everyone in the nation.

__** Equal Rights and Opportunities **__

In our ideal society equal opportunities and rights are given to every citizen. We feel this is necessary because in The United States, there are people who are born into poor families and poor neighborhoods, therefore going to a school that does not have the money to support higher-level programs that colleges will be looking for. There are people who are born with disabilities who aren’t given education and job opportunities. “Thirty percent of” unemployed persons “are Americans who have disabilities (Trexler, Annie). Everyone should be rewarded for his or her hard work. Recently “equal pay for equal work has arrived in the workplace for women, Hispanics and African-American (Gender Discrimination in the workplace quoted Mitiska, Michael)” but still people do not follow it. An example of where equal opportunities aren't given, is in the book //The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian// by Sherman Alexie is written from the point of view of a Native American child born and raised on a reservation where the education system isn't properly funded and for that reason the main character goes to a school 20 minutes away. Most of the time he has to hitchhike there and back. Not every kid on the reservation had this opportunity. Most of them were born into poverty and it wasn't their fault or their parents. They "came from poor people who came from poor people who came from poor people, all the way back to the very first poor people"(Alexie 11) So, in our society, people who work hard will get the opportunities they deserve because it is their right to.

**__Hard Work Equals Success__**  In the 'perfect' American society, hard work (from given opportunities) would be rewarded with success and would define your place in the social hierarchy regardless of physical differences (a color-blind society). In the book, //Five Flavors of Dumb// by Antony John, the main character is deaf and her collage fund has been drained, in order to pay for collage she becomes the manager of the band Dumb. She learned valuable lessons from her time as the manager. Linda Brown, according to Andrew S.’s timeline article, worked for her right to go to an all white school and because of her hard work she was able to get a better education and was successful in life. Race-Based Affirmative Action would not be used because it goes against the color-blind society we'd be working for and would give people in "hard" situations a spot over someone who has worked their whole life to get into the college of their dreams. In a class paper we received, it states that "[Race-Based Affirmative Action] doesn't take into account intellectual diversity (Arguments Against Race-Based Affirmative Action)" Success should be based off a person's hard work and effort to better themselves or the society.

**__Law Enforcement__** One distinct factor of our vision for an ideal society is to focus on the rule of law. Laws are made to control and limit society, therefore by a citizen not obeying them, there should be a punishment. Abby Wilmer, a studied who studied Bacon's Rebellion, wrote that,"[Nathaniel Bacon] disobeyed Berkeley’s orders and led a group of settlers in an attack against the Native Americans" (Wilmer 1). William Berkeley was the governor of Virginia at the time so when Bacon went against his orders, that was defying high authorities in the government which would have resulted in him going to court, but Bacon died just before. Bacon's Rebellion is one example of how ignoring laws can end in chaos, so our society will crack down on any rule breaker, including illegal immigrants. “ Because they are illegal immigrants, they do not certify as legal citizens and therefore should not be entitled to the rights and protections given by the law because in order to receive those rights, you have to be a legal citizen” (Furlong, 6. Undocumented Workers…). The United States should not be giving rights and privileges to Americans who are not even legal because even some legal Americans are stripped of rights due to their situation. “[Illegal immigrant children] had no choice but to come here illegally because as children, they had no say in the matter…this is where affirmative action and the DREAM act come into play” (Kern, 5. Minor children of illegal immigrants are entitled…). Unlike our idea to remove illegal immigrants from America, children of illegal immigrants should have the same rights and opportunities as a legal American which can be achieved by affirmative action and the newer act, the DREAM act. Similar to giving illegal immigrant children, the book, __Warriors Don’t Cry,__ by Melba Patilla Beals illustrates a true story of African Americans integrating into a white high school (Central High) by affirmative action in Little Rock, Arkansas. The concept of integration and protection is what our society will strive for because the African Americans integrating are being given the right to opportunity, so government should protect that, which is what the army did. In order to create an ideal society, we need to protect citizens rights, but most of all make sure they are following the law as well.


 * Works Cited:**

Whitehead, Barbara Dafoe. "What Happened to the American Work Ethic?" //Room for// //Debate: A Running Commentary on the New//. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2011.

John, Antony. //Five Flavors ofDumb//. New York: Penguin, n.d. Print. //Five Flavors of Dumb//. N.d. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2011. .

Trexler, Annie "Americans with Disabilities Act" BuchholtzSidorAmericanStudies. Web. 25.Oct.

Mitiska, Michael "Gender preferences in workplaces" BuchholtzSidorAmericanStudies. Web 25. Oct.

//Orlando Trades and Laborers Needed.// N.d. //OLX//. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2011. .

Furlong, Gigi. "6. Undocumented Workers Are Entitled to the Same Rights and Protections as Documented Workers." Web log post. // BuchholtzSidorAmericanStudies //. Web. 25 Oct. 2011. .

Beals, Melba. //Warriors Don't Cry: a Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High//. New York: Pocket, 1994. Print.

Wilmer, Abby. "1676 Bacon's Rebellion." Web log post. //BuchholtzSidorAmericanStudies//. Web. 25 Oct. 2011. .

Kern, Alex. "5. Minor Children of Illegal Immigrants Are Entitled to the Same Rights and Protections as All American Citizens." Web log post.//BuchholtzSidorAmericanStudies//. Web. 25 Oct. 2011. .

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 * Position you caucus on the CONTINUUM**
 * Significant ExclusionsSociety Today-- X --Significant Inclusions **

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