Using the "comment" function on this post, please answer the following questions in a minimum of two paragraphs (3-5 complete sentences per pgh). It will be graded out of 15 points.
- Based on what you have learned, do you think slavery "started with seemingly innocent ideas?" If so, did it ever lose its innocence? When?
- Do you think that health care reform is reintroducing the institution of slavery to the U.S.? If so, do you see a parallel between the beginning of slavery in the Atlantic slave trade and Beck's idea of slavery today?
*In addition, please actively read the 2 handouts you have on how to write a AP US DBQ. This will prepare you for your discussion and practice DBQ with Mr. Latham.
No, I don’t think slavery started with seemingly innocent ideas. Yes the reason for slavery was because nations and colonies thought of it as a “solution” because they needed a huge labor force. It wasn’t an innocent idea or solution because of the way the got their slaves. They captured, tricked, and kidnapped slaves and then put them on boats in cramped quarters where many died or were tortured with brutal conditions. According to Glenn Beck he believes slavery was innocent until the government got involved but the middle passage and Atlantic slave trade started before “government” got involved.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think health care reform is reintroducing the institution of slavery to the U.S. In the second half of the audio clip of Glenn Beck he was talking about why he believes slavery is being reintroduced but he doesn’t actually explain what the health care reform is about. Since it’s an opinionated article there is a huge bias so I searched what the health care reform was. In the health care reform the two main points were that these rules stop insurance companies from limiting the care people need and remove insurance company barriers between a patient and their doctor. None of these points correlate with reintroducing the institution of slavery.
Personally, I believe that slavery did not start with “seemingly innocent ideas.” The fact that someone came up with the idea of taking people from their homelands, putting them through grueling conditions, and forcing them to work for a superior does not seem innocent at all, it is a horrific. The white people dehumanized the Africans and took away their freedom. If you were a white slave owner, you may think you were doing the “white man’s burden” by giving the slaves “a new life with more opportunities to succeed.” That is the only way I can see a slight innocence in slavery, even then it is very difficult to find “innocence” out of the institution.
ReplyDeleteThe health care reform is not reintroducing the institution of slavery, but the government is handling slavery and the health care similarly. Both were small ideas at first. The government is intervening and creating laws to regulate the health care as they did to slavery. In doing so, this magnifies the problems for those who don't have health insurance, as it did for the slave owners.
I disagree with Glen Beck’s statement that slavery was ever innocent, and only the government stepping in corrupted the whole idea surrounding it. The capture and selling of humans as property is not an innocent idea, it’s a cruel superiority issue with people who look different than them. If the word innocent is being thrown around, it could be used to describe indentured servitude, for even though they were held as servants and a lower status than their ‘master’, they were treated much better and eventually earned their freedom. But they were never considered property. Selling a human being as property is never innocent.
ReplyDeleteGlen Beck believes that through the government’s constant regulations and court orders, slavery began to lose its ‘innocence’ as healthcare is doing now. Healthcare where it is right now is not in the greatest of positions, but it is still not holding those who take it as slaves. For part of his argument, I agree with him, that we’re being forcibly held to this because otherwise we won’t be taken care of as easily. But on the other hand, we have the freedom to choose whether or not we take the healthcare. If healthcare and the government were enslaving us, we’d be forced to have it, chaining us to all their rights and regulations.
Though Glen Beck gives us the argument that slavery started from humble thoughts and after the government stepped, it increased to what we know of it today and healthcare is going in the same direction, I disagree with him. Slavery, no matter what the government put on it later, was always a vicious evil that ran our country’s economy for so long. As for healthcare, if it were truly enslaving us, we’d all be forced to have it today.
-Abby Skinner
ReplyDeleteSaying that slavery "started with seemingly innocent ideas" is one of the most ludicrous statments I have heard. There is no way of describing the idea of capturing human beings and forcing them to do your dirty work for you that could possibly make it seem innocent. Beginning with indentured servants, which in itself is a form of human ownership that I find ridiculous, colonial America was on the path to slavery far before the government stepped in. The government's regulation simply made the cruel act more organized, not any less evil.
I can't even grasp the thinking in Beck's head when he attempted to compare health care reform to the institution of slavery. The two topics are so far disconnected that I don't think he will ever be able to hold a strong argument to back himself up. Obama's health care is one of the most positive things to happen to this country, while slavery is at the top of the list for the most harmful and negative. Our government is finally giving us the protection and help needed for a healthy country- kids can now stay under their parent's health care longer, and people with preexisting conditions are not denied health care that they clearly need more than someone who is currently perfectly healthy. Perhaps it is true that in both cases the government created a frenzy in society as the popularity and grandness of the situations increased, but the topics are completely polar. Taking away the lives, culture, homes, families, pride, and any basic human rights from Africans and forcing them into slavery is a long way from making health care more available to a wider range of American society.
In my opinion, slavery was evil from the very beginning, and at no point in time has it been based off of "innocent ideas." The concept of slavery in itself is the farthest thing possible from innocent. Before government became a factor in slavery, a great deal of evil existed. Slaves were ripped from their native lands in Africa against their wills, thrown onto disease infested ships where they were likely to die, and sent to a foreign land where they were to be sold as property and forced to work and live in excruciatingly harsh conditions. All of this took place BEFORE the government ever got involved. The only thing that came with the introduction of government into slavery was more regulation. This idea of a greater regulated order of trade did not make slavery any less innocent, it only made it easier for government officials to monopolize.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the health care reform is not at all reintroducing the institution of slavery to the U.S. Though the government is regulating health care as it did with slavery, it is in no way shape or form enslaving Americans. Health care is not forced on anybody. While it is highly advised that American citizens have it, what the reform is actually doing is making it accessible for people of all social classes, and in the end the decision is up to you. Slaves did not have a choice on whether or not they wanted to be torn from their homeland and stripped of their freedom. This idea of having a "choice" is what ultimately separates the health care reform from slavery. The reform that is being made on health care, involving laws, regulations, and so forth is an entirely different concept than slavery, and is not by any means reintroducing the idea of this to America.
The word slavery can never be associated with the word innocent. Thus, I cannot accept Beck's statement about how slavery "started with seemingly innocent ideas". Beck claims that only after the government stepped in did slavery become corrupt, but government intervention happened only after the Atlantic slave trade. It is questionable as to how Beck considers the Atlantic slave trade to be "innocent". Is abduction of a human being today considered innocent? If not, how can the kidnapping of African Americans back then be considered innocent? What makes the two scenarios any different other than the time frame? To say the least, the entire system of slavery came about with malicious intents, and that the government's involvement only served to make slavery become a more organized evil.
ReplyDeleteGlenn Beck's assertion that health care reform is slowly reintroducing the concept of slavery back in the U.S is extreme. I disagree with Beck given how no one is being coerced into purchasing health care insurance, unlike slavery where a race are convinced that they are less than another race. We have a choice as to whether or not we would like to make the purchase, whereas slaves never had a choice; the decision was made for them. While Beck's opinion of health care and slavery is arguably false and radical, he wanted to make it a point that health care today, though not remotely close to becoming anything like slavery, may not be what it once seemed to be.
I completely disagree with Glenn Beck’s statement that slaver “started with seemingly innocent ideas.” There is nothing harmless about stealing people from their homeland and violently transporting them across an entire ocean to a foreign land. There is nothing innocent about convincing a whole race that they are worthless and forcing them to do hard labor under obscene conditions. When slavery was beginning the government had no influence or say in the matter at all. Legislature wasn’t forcing white men to capture Africans and to take away their rights. A slave’s freedom and future was gone long before the government stepped in. Therefor, slavery never had any innocence to lose. There are a lot of adjectives that come to mind when describing this institution but innocent is not among them.
ReplyDeleteThe health care reform is in no way reintroducing the institution of slavery to the United States. This reform is working towards providing insurance for thirty million Americans who aren’t insured and to impede ever increasing medical expenses. The goal of slavery was to capture as many Africans as possible and force them to work to generate as much profit as possible. Though many are not in favor of these health care actions, no one is being forced against their will to do anything. Unlike slavery, this reform has everyone’s best interests in mind. I fail to see any sort of parallel between the beginnings of slavery and Glenn Beck’s twisted idea of slavery today. Overall, I do not believe there is much truth to either of his beliefs.
I do not think slavery began with innocent ideas. It involved taking people from their homelands, separating them from their families, and forcing them into hard labor for life. The government set more regulations for slavery, but did not change the morality of the system. The “white man’s burden” could pose a question that slavery was slightly innocent because white people were trying to “help” the slaves. This argument does not seem sufficient, in that while they were “helping” the black people, they were also helping themselves quite a lot by gaining free labor out of the situation.
ReplyDeleteI also do not think health care reform is reintroducing the institution of slavery into the United States--stating so seems an insult to all those who were enslaved. I don’t really understand the connection Glenn Beck is trying to make. Although the two ideas are not in any way on the same level, there are a few minor similarities. In both slavery and health care the government’s involvement added regulations and seemed to complicate the situations. It turned somewhat personal decisions into large affairs handled by the government. Maybe Beck is saying that both slavery and health care started small and then became universal and corrupt once laws were put on them. In any case, I do not think it is fair to relate health care reform to the most horrific era in our history
The idea of slavery has never had connotations of innocence. Slavery was a business that involved the taking of people from their homeland and forcing them to work for the economic gain of their masters. The life of a slave began with the middle passage, a grueling boat journey across the Atlantic in which Africans were stuffed into extremely cramped quarters and barely fed. Africans were punished harshly for small infractions, often by being whipped, others died of disease. The only incentive slave traders had to keep Africans alive was for profit. Upon arrival in the Americas, slaves were stripped down and sold to the highest bidder, who would bring them to their plantation and force them to work long, laborious hours in the fields or in the home, receiving little to no reward for their work, and harsh punishments for anything less than one hundred percent obedience.
ReplyDeleteUpon examining slavery, I cannot see how the conclusion could be made that it started as an innocent concept. Slavery was a business plan that lacked the regard for an entire human race. Using and abusing people for economic gain can't be considered innocent no matter how you look at it.
There is no possible parallel between slavery and healthcare reform. Slavery involved capturing Africans, holding them against their will, splitting them up from their family, forcing them to work, and often punishing them severely for minor infractions; all for economic gain. Healthcare reform seeks to benefit the entire population by improving healthcare, providing healthcare to more people, and lowering the cost of healthcare. Slavery is not being reintroduced today as its ideals are far different from those of healthcare reform. Healthcare seeks to benefit everybody, while slavery seeks to benefit only a few. Beck's extreme comparison between slavery and healthcare is radical and far fetched. Although I understand he wants to make a point about healthcare, I do not believe his comparison is accurate.
Slavery was never "seemingly innocent." All innocence was gone when the slave traders captured the first African. Although government regulations added more evil to slavery, it was evil in the first place. Slaves that went from being seen as almost equal to indentured servants and could gain freedom became property and lost their humanity. What government regulations did was add/strengthen racism.
ReplyDeleteYou cannot compare slavery and health care. Just because they have been both regulated by the government does not mean they are similar. On the contrary, they are apples and oranges. Because there are monetary penalties for not getting health care, it may seem that you do not have a choice whether or not to get healthcare. But you still do, you just will have to pay a penalty. The health care reforms actually do have innocent intentions. It is for the betterment of people. I cannot say the same for slavery however.
The words "slavery" and "innocence" should never have to be used in the same sentence together. In no way do I believe that slavery started with "seemingly innocent ideals." When the Dutch brought over the first slaves the purpose of these men and women was not to integrate them into society but rather have them work while retaining no rights as human beings. There was nothing innocent about the intentions of the plantation owners. The only thing that the plantation owners could see were dollar signs and this obstructed their view of the atrocities which they were committing.
ReplyDeleteWhile I may not know as much as I should about the new health care reform policies, I do know that it is not the beginning of reintroducing slavery. If Glen Beck did his research correctly, he would have noticed that slavery was instituted in America before US Government wanted to regulate it. In the dictionary, the definition of slavery is as follows: a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them. The new health care reform does not make anyone the legal property of another nor force you to obey but rather encourages citizens to have health care. For this reason, the goal of the new health care reform is not to enslave anyone, but rather help people live longer, healthier lives, a chance that slaves did not have.
Based on what i have learned so far,i do not think that slavery ever started with innocent ideas. In the begining they were given the same treatment as that of indentured servants, but later on they were treated as property and cargo. They were overworked and underpriced so that their masters could benefit. The slave owners only wanted the to purchase the slaves because they could be treated ruthlessely and making a lot of money out of it. Taking an innocent human away from thier home, robbing them from their family and life and plunging them into the journey of the mid-atlantic passage and then making them slaves does not seem innocent to me at all.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that the health care reform is reintroducing the introduction of slavery in the United States. It is a little difficult to understand the connection he is trying to make, but the only similarity would be that the government played an important role in both slavery and health care. the new health care reform however is designed to benifit the people, but slavery was not designed to improve live's of people.