You Call That Progress?

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America,” - The Constitution.

France stood as the center for the Enlightenment because it was in a constant dichotomy between “the desire to censor dissident ideas and the desire to appear open to modernity and progress” (Hunt, 4098). Parliament hindered the monarchy’s reform efforts by using their own words of Enlightenment influence against them. This was a paradox that showed how the Enlightenment affected all levels of French life, but was applied to achieve different results. While the American Revolution and the resulting new republic was regarded as a successful application of the Enlightenment, the unstable, failed attempts at change and reformation in France led to early signs of revolution as revolts “in the name of liberty” from 1787-1789.

The first phase the destruction of the old regime successfully used Enlightenment ideas to form French society. The Revolution began when the third estate broke out into protest and formed the National Assembly in 1789. This led to the Tennis Court Oath which promised to meet as many times as it took to create a constitution. In the summer of 1789, common people decided to save the third estate from the ruling of the king by breaking into the prison courtyard and taking over the prisoners and their weapons, this soon became known as the storming of the Bastille. A new government for France took place when the National Assembly wrote the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen”. This was written to make the first and second estate recognize that the rights and freedoms they take for granted, should be experienced by all humans from the time they are born to the day they die and be protected no matter what. This declaration granted all men equal and abolished aristocratic freedoms which goes back to the ideas of the Enlightenment philosophers. By 1791, France created a new constitution that was set up by the Legislative Assembly at The National Convention due to food shortages and high prices that led France out of monarchy and into a republic.

The United States of America was founded on a Constitution that was supposed to preserve our freedoms and certain liberties. All Americans at that time wanted to keep America a free an independent nation with rights for its people. However there was two different groups, the Federalists lead by Alexander Hamilton and the Democratic-Republicans led by Thomas Jefferson, which thought this could be achieved in very different ways.

The U.S. Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787, by delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, headed over by George Washington. Under America’s first governing document, the Articles of Confederation, the national government was weak and states operated like independent countries. At the 1787, delegates planned a plan for a stronger government with three branches executive, legislative and judicial with this no branch has more power than the others. The Bill of Rights 10 amendments guaranteeing basic individual protections such as freedom of speech and religion became part of the Constitution in 1791. Then after that the American Revolution, after that they realize that they needed to retain this law so everything can be “normal” for them.

The U.S. Constitution, drafted by the founding fathers at the constitutional convention, drew from several historical documents, ideas, and figures in order to “form a more perfect union.” Among these influences were the Magna Carta and English Bill of Rights, originating in England. However, the U.S. sought to differentiate from England, in order to be better than what they had recently gained independence from. In order to do so, the founding fathers referenced The Mayflower Compact, The Articles of Confederation, Social Contract Theory, Classical history, and Montesquieu. Through the inclusion of these ideas, the United States Constitution made improvements to Great Britain’s government system.

After the Colonies defeated Great Britain in the Revolutionary war, the Americans needed to construct their own government. They then created a system that was completely different from King George’s rule. It was based on a document called the Articles of Confederation. At first, the Americans were delighted with it. However, the Founding Fathers who created it realized it had many problems, so they came together to revise them at the Constitutional Convention, which happens to be where our modern constitution comes from.

The Constitution of the United States of America, the key element in which America was stabilized as a national government and guaranteed basic rights for its citizens. The Constitution was a replacement for the Articles of Confederation, which had many issues but the the main issue was the the lack of a strong federal government. The federal government under the Articles of Confederation was too weak to enforce their laws which meant they had no power over the states. After the constitution became our law, the separate states became unified, guaranteed individual rights, states still had their own rights but there was a stronger presence of a federal government. On September 17, 1787 the Constitution was signed by the delegates or the framers of America.

The radical ideas from the Enlightenment period, such as natural law, tolerance of religion and political theories played a major role in the French Revolution. The Enlightenment is a period that began in the 1750s and stretched through to the 18th century, which consisted of radical ideas of influential philosophers. These ideas influenced revolutions in ethics, philosophy, politics, religion, science and society resulting in major changes in Western Europe. Because of France’s involvement in the Seven Years’ War, as well as assisting the American’s with money and provisions during the American Revolution, this caused them to be on the verge of bankruptcy. Thus to prevent bankruptcy, the French monarchy began charging the second estate taxes who were exempt in other European countries. By that time Enlightenment had already spread throughout Europe which had caused upheaval. In addition the bourgeoisie aspired to have political power and peasants were no longer supportive of the feudalism system. In this

Nevertheless, it’s understandable that people are hesitant to embrace research and experimentation on the very thing that makes us who we are, the code to all life forms, DNA. It might seem rather intimidating that scientists can seemingly play God, creating what you probably imagine as test tube animals, part bird and part fish like the doctored photos you’ve seen on the internet, but they’re simply not possible. Animals evolved the way they did for a reason, and not just any random combination of species is able to function and survive as a whole and complete living system. Recently, a more relevant term has often been negatively attached to genetic modification. GMOs, or genetically modified organisms, have been the subject of public outrage as they are increasingly filtering into

The French Revolution was a critical era in the history of France and Europe that radically transformed the social and political aspects of the nation from the ancient monarchy system of government and feudal system, to the introduction of democracy. The French people drew their motivation from the American people who had already achieved the democratic institutions. As such, the Enlightenment age compelled individuals to fight against social and political injustices perpetrated by the reigning king of the time. Before the revolution, the nation had three divisions. The divisions comprised of the Clergy, the Nobility and the Commoner, with little representation of

With the successful cloning of animals, many people have reacted with frightening and usually uninformed ideas about what cloning is and what researchers hope to achieve through it. Many wish to ban all cloning without even looking at the positive things that cloning will be able to provide for us in the future and with continued research. Like any new technology, people are at first afraid, but this is no excuse to abandon research that could one day save millions of people through cloned organs or give an alternative and safe means of reproduction to sterile couples. This fear has only been furthered by the media sensationalizing the advancement and tossing "Brave New World" into every headline. The

Since the ideology that technological advancements impact the type of identity that individuals present, a majority of breakthrough research tends to draw towards a negative connotation. With direct correlation, Patrick Guinan, whom is a professor at the University of Missouri, discusses new technological ideas that are in research. He discusses whether or not advances in technology are ethically correct or if the results are unethical and god-like. Thus, the cases presented in Patrick Guinan’s work “Bioterrorism, Embryonic Stem Cells, and Frankenstein”, which is published in the Journal of Religion and Health for psychological and medical research, “Bioterrorism, Embryonic Stem Cells, and Frankenstein”. Consequently, an overwhelming majority of individuals believe that scientists should be forbade to perform experiments that “play god” in order to ease their curiosity. Furthermore, the issue is derived from a conflict of ethos; thus, Guinan believes in stronger regulations toward unethical experiments such as cloning and stem cell research.

America was born from the rebellion of a tyrant. That tyrant was King George III, the leader of England. Under his rule in the American colonies we were being taken advantage of with acts such as the quartering acts and intolerable acts. With this growing resentment of the King, a large rebellion broke out. This rebellion turned into a war, The Revolutionary War, the war that birthed America. In 1781 we won this war and delegates from across this new found country met and made a plan of government, The Articles of Confederation. The articles were very weak and gave the states too much power. In 1787 delegates met again in Philadelphia to make another plan of government. Their creation was called, The Constitution, the longest standing written plan of government in the world. The great creation of these men will make sure we will never have a tyrant in this country. It’s protection against another dominating ruler still stands to this day.

Science and technology are advancing at an extremely rapid pace, sometimes without regard to consequences. In the 1950’s Robert Briggs and Thomas King were successfully able to clone frogs using nuclei from embryonic cells. Then in 1996, Ian Wilmot cloned a sheep named Dolly from an udder cell of an adult cell. The news of Dolly rocked the world to its core. All types of people began surfacing with the ethical concerns about its potential uses and terror of what might come next: human cloning. As reported in the article, “Clinton Bars Federal Funds for Human Cloning Research” by CNN, in 1997, President Clinton stopped all federal funding for cloning. “Clinton also called on privately funded researchers to voluntarily implement a temporary moratorium on human cloning research ‘until our bioethics advisory committee and our entire nation has had time to... debate the ethical implications’” (CNN). With scientific discoveries such as cloning many people rely on the wisdom of repugnance to decide what is right and wrong. The wisdom of repugnance, which is more commonly known as the “yuck” factor, is used in arguments to appeal to our sense of disgust. Some believe that the wisdom of repugnance is an instinctive negative response to an idea or practice that should be interpreted as evidence for the intrinsically harmful. Repugnance should not be the sole determining factor when making a judgement, which is what author Leon R. Kass unjustly bases his against cloning on.