Logan Simmons
Mr. John Hardison
American Literature
(Honors)
15 November 2012
America’s
Disguised Symbolism: The Chicken Law vs. Tax Puppetry
For
decades, the Gainesville, Georgia law, “You may not eat chicken with a fork”,
has been in affect. Even though the city’s people have managed to shun this
act, it continues to play a betokening role in our government. With that, I
believe it is un-American to enforce a law that states you may use a utensil to
eat something you desire when our government is using us as citizens like
utensils to retrieve what they desire. Since the start of our government, the
people that consist of it have buried themselves in the thought greed which has
later lead to the comparison of money being the chicken in this situation.
“The
world is very different now”, as John F. Kennedy states in the Inaugural
Address; and that it is. In this day in time, people will use your skill, your
friendship, your wealth, or even your dignity to salvage something for their
benefit. Unfortunately, this occurs in many situations. As citizens, we tend to
ask ourselves, “What am I good for?”, or even, “Am I good for nothing?”. The
answers to these common asked questions lie in the actions of our government,
and most aren’t ever reassuring. An example is taxes; an aspect of our nation
that seems to cut our financial and self-esteem day by day.
Merriam-Webster
Online states that a tax is “a sum of money demanded by a government for its
support or for specific facilities or services levied upon incomes, property,
sales, ect.” In 1862, America issued their first tax to support the Union’s
Civil War effort. Taxes today, on contrary, tend to be more of a burden on
citizens. As what was stated earlier, taxes are what seems to be money demanded
by the government for its support. Although this is technically true, it does
not apply to our state of government today.
Currently,
the government is using disguises to mask the distraught of our economy to
later continue to obtain money. In 2012 alone, there have been a handful of
economic scares that America has failed to recognize, or even have failed to
act on. Gas prices, oil crisis’, loss of small businesses, and unemployment are
just some of the abundant flaws that our government is ceasing to improve. On
the bright side of the situation, there are some aspects of the government that
we can place certainty on as far as taxes, but on the contrary, there is still
an amount of skepticism of the placement of our federal tax money. The job for us as citizens should be to
strive to uncover the blanket that the government has placed on the secrets
that lie in their hands that concern our money.
It’s
easy for people to completely and utterly over-look small city laws that tend
to be placed in the back-shadows of our mind, but when it compares to something
bigger than our knowledge, we must consider connecting that symbolic bridge. We
must learn to place ourselves to act when we see that the government backs up a
law that perfectly mirrors their own actions for the better of our nation.
Holding back as Americans must never be an option. “…I have no fear of our
struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are presently misunderstood”(King
Jr. 180).
*Please give feedback in comment box that follows these five criteria:
1. Is my thesis clear and/or strong?
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5. Do you agree/dissagree with my essay? Why?
Works
Cited
"Welcome to the Purdue OWL." Purdue OWL: MLA
Formatting and Style Guide. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012.
<http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/>.
"NEWS." RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Nov.
2012. <http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/3/24/chicken-poultry-statue-town/>.
"Dictionary.com." Thesaurus.com. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 27 Nov. 2012. <http://thesaurus.com/>.
