G-GRAMMARSYNISSUES

Spencer Traster
AP English
Mrs. Babcock
February 15, 2017
Thomas Paine Final

The word utopia comes from the Greek for no place. It was coined by Sir Thomas

More in 1516 and was his realization that such a place was physically impossible. Thomas Paine,

born in 1737, nearly 200 years after More created his utopia, immigrated to the United States

around the mid-1700s and if often described as an idealist because, in his 1791 booklet, Rights of

Man, he described America as a utopian society. He went to far as to describe America as a

nation where people from different nations are brought into cordial unison, the poor are not

oppressed, and the rich are not privileged. (Rights of Man) G Although his idea that America

has become a melting pot of many different cultures still holds true in the contemporary age,

most of what Paine wrote no longer holds true, as the socioeconomic gap continues to widen and

the government is no longer just.

In modern society, <UNNECESSARYthe socioeconomic gap between the rich and the poor

is widening and has been since about 1970. This gap is often attributed to President Reagans

trickle down economics. This system of economy is the belief that, if the government allows

the rich to accumulate vast amounts of wealth, it will eventually trickle down to the other

classes. To achieve this, the government often cuts taxes for the rich, but balances those tax cuts

with tax increases for the middle and lower classes. This often affects the middle class the most,

especially when they cannot afford their mortgages and have to foreclose on their homes.

Another factor that continues to widen the gap, is job loss. YOUREOFFONYOURDEFINITION-
ITSTHEPRINCIPLECORPANDRICHARETAXEDLESSWHICHINTHEORYSTRENGTHENSTHE

BUSINESSANDTHEMORESUCCESSFULBUSINESSESAREABLETOCREATEMOREJOBSSO

THENUNEMPLOYMENTWOULDDECREASEANDLOWERSOCIOECONOMICCLASSESWOULDHAVE

MOREMONEYBECAUSETHEYWOULDBEGAINFULLYEMPLOYED...MAKESUREYOURFACTSARE

CORRECTGThe largest period of job loss since the Great Depression, was the government

shutdown in 2013, in which many civil workers in the U.S. government lost their jobs, creating

economic issues nationwide. <HOWDOESTHISHAVETODOWITHANYTHING?MAKETHE

CONNECTION Naysayers claim that during this period, the government helped these families.

They would cite that fact that the middle class is increasing, but fail to mention that the lower

class in increasing as well. They would also cite that the government does not focus on any one

class more than the others. <THOROUGHLYDEVELOPTHECAEVHowever, government policy

often tends to lean toward the poor and rich of the nation and skips over the middle class, who

are burdened with the weight of taxes to support everyone else. This has become a very

important issue in todays society, as many working-class families now struggle to feed, clothe,

and shelter themselves. This proves that America is far from ever being a utopia.

GAnother of Paines ideas that is no longer true in contemporary society, is that America

has a just government. Many of the poor often take advantage of the welfare programs that focus

on people who physically cannot work because of some injury or disability, but the government

does nothing to stop them. GThis creates a huge problem for people who are actually in need, as

the government puts their money into the pockets of anyone who pretends to be in need. The

government also hands money and surplus, which could be used to help the ailing middle class,

to the rich, to keep their support. <GROSSGENERALIZATION This creates social injustice toward

the working class. The government also turns a blind eyes to racial injustice, not just social
injustice. In the past few years, there have been many cases of unwarranted police brutality

toward African Americans, including Rodney King in the 1990s and Trayvon Martin in 2013.

These cases have led to many riots in the past year, most notably in Texas and Louisiana. The

riots often start out peacefully, but turn violent when the police get involved and use unnecessary

force to break them up. Some of these instances have become public with the advent of police

body and dashboard cameras, which capture scene of police brutality. Even with this defensive

measure, though, many officers go unaccused. WB!!

It is because of these essential facts, from the widening socioeconomic gap to the

unnoticed social and racial injustice, that the ideas Thomas Paine wrote about in Rights of Man

in 1791 to describe the American utopia no longer hold true in the common era. This has also

been seen throughout history, that utopia simply cannot exist. From serfdom in medieval Europe

to the Holocaust in the Second World War, from communist oppression in Russia to the brutal

government of the Khmer Rouge in Vietnam, people will always be oppressed and remain under

the unjust hand of a government run on the money and will of the richest social strata.