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Anne Gascon
United States History
Ms. Montes
23 October 2018
GPO: Investigate the World
American Ideals, and How It Shaped America

American Ideals in our world today has shaped the United States in multiple ways.

Throughout the years, the Declaration of Independence has helped us and we now, as Americans,

try to live up to the ideals. There are five American Ideals. Liberty, opportunity, equality,

democracy and rights. Many people question if us Americans today live up to the ideals stated in

the Declaration of Independence. Some might agree, some may not. In this essay, I will explain

about the American Ideals, and how we still live up to the ideals.

Liberty and opportunity. Both are two ideals that have somewhat shaped America to how

it is today. Liberty means freedom, and opportunity is a chance for advancement or progress.

These two ideals are important to us Americans. Without the ideal of liberty and opportunity, our

lives would be drastically different. Child labor would be a major issue to face. Big taxations can

affect low income families and possibly start another Great Depression. The act of slavery and

ownership will still be practiced. If it weren’t for our founding fathers and the Declaration of

Independence, liberty and opportunity would be far from achieved among us.

Equality and rights have been an issue before, and it still is. Some people might think that

they’re the same, but they are far from similar. Equal rights does not mean equality as well.

The definition of equality is to have the same privileges, status and opportunities as others.

Rights means that the power or privilege granted by an agreement among people or by law. As
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our world changes, we the people still fight and advocate for both ideals. We hold riots and

protests for many reasons, such as woman’s rights. Throughout history, we have faced

inequality, take the caste system for example. As time goes on, the idea of equality gets less

harsh, such as eradicating the caste system. That does not cancel out that we still face trials

within our world and communities about equality. Same goes to rights. In the end, these two

ideals have helped our economy and our generation to have better understanding of global

problems and help take action to further improve America.

Democracy is a system of government in which the power to rule comes from the consent

of the govern. For us, the citizens of the United States of America elect our government. We

have a two party system called Republican and Democratic. It is completely different from a

monarchy, which is a system of government where the ruler inherits the power to rule until

death. Ever since we parted from Britain, colonists ran local governments and worked together to

solve problems that might be happening in their community. This has helped us in the past, the

present, and possibly the future as well to keep our government in place to lessen destruction in

our economy and relive wars such as the Boston Massacre.

These five ideals have shaped our world today to be more developed and improved

compared to the past when we first started out free from the King. If we were to be stripped away

from these ideals in the past, our lives would be drastically different and we would still be under

rule of the monarchy. We would be stripped away from our rights. Our lives will be in havoc and

hate, with wars appearing out of anger and protests. Some people have stated that ideals have not

affected and helped us at all, but they surprisingly are. We may not know or see it, but as time

goes on, our ideals silently change and impact our world.
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Works Cited

Hart, Diane. History Alive!: Pursuing American Ideals. Teachers' Curriculum Institute, Inc,

2008.

Montes, M. “American Ideals in U.S. History.” 18 September 2017, Ambassador School of

Global Leadership, Los Angeles, CA. School Lecture.