Identifications: Gangs of New York and Liberalism and American Conservatism - Essay Example

Identification Outline 0 Gangs of New York （movie） 2.0 Liberalism and American Conservatism 3.0 Procedural Justice 4.0 Types of Elitism 5.0 War-time Statism Identifications 1. Gangs of New York （movie) Source: The Gangs of New York is a fiction movie that was produced in the year 2002 in the United States of America. Its setting is in the middle of the Nineteenth Century in the Lower Manhattan. It begins in 1840s and then moves to 1860s (Rodney et al., 2011). It is one of the American movie productions that presents the era of civil wars, declaration of independence and the establishment of the Federal Government. At the end, the film shows the fight between two mob groups, one headed by Cutting and the other by Amsterdam Vallon. This falls in the time when the US faced frequent riots and constitutional reforms movements. The movie picks its styles of presentation from the typical traditional American society before independence. The violence that characterizes the movie is indeed the life of a gang. Meaning: This is an American movie produced by Kenneth Lonergan, Steven Zaillian and Jay Cocks in New York (Rodney et al., 2011). The film is a drama of wars between the native residents of United States of America and the immigrants, specifically the Catholics form Ireland. The two groups are referred to as gangs in the movie. The American gang is a protestant group under the leadership of Cutting. On the other hand, the Irish gang, also known as dead rabbit is led by Vallon the priest. During the fight, Cutting uses a knife to murder Vallon. Amsterdam, Vallon’s son from that time takes the knife that Cutting had used to kill his father and plans to assassinate Cutting. He first finds a way of working closer to Cuttings to win his confidence in order to get adequate opportunity to kill him during the great ceremony of celebrating after defeating the Dead Rabbits. Amsterdam meets Jenny and falls in love with her but then retreats once he discovers that Jenny is an affectionate friend to Cutting. His murder attempt however fails but leaves Cutting wounded. Later on, Cutting stabs Amsterdam in the belly and leaves Amsterdam wounded and Jenny nurses the wounds. Significance: The movie is significant in that it presents certain relevant historical themes around the struggle for independence in America. It displays a major theme of this movie; insecurity. As the name reflects a gang life, there is a lot of gang like behaviors in the movie, characterized by stabbing, confrontation and general hatred. The second evident theme of the movie is racial segregation. That of course is visible in the war between the Irish immigrants and Native Americans. Racial segregation is the driving force for the serious fight which apparently goes in circles of fights and revenge. The other theme that this movie displays as significant is romance. It classifies the romance as part of gang like elements, because of the frequent violent around it. The lady Jane is the major cause of fight because she finds herself in between two lovers, Amsterdam and Cutting. 2. Liberalism and American Conservatism Meaning: Conservatism in America is the practice of protection of the traditional American culture and politics. Conservatism originated from the American Revolution, and from then, America has had conservative movements influencing political decisions in both the Republicans and Democrats (Stockton et al., 2004). The characteristics of conservatism are practice of tradition and republicanism, practice of Christianity, and recognition of Western civilization. Liberalism is the practice that emerged after the declaration of independence in America, which recognizes the right of a citizen to perform any act that the constitution has not prohibited. American conservatism has faced a lot of competition among various ideologies. There are different types of conservatism; fiscal conservatism and social conservatism. Fiscal conservatives have conditions that are friendly to low taxation, few laws and regulations and small size governments. Social conservatism upholds the value of the society, and protects the society from secular influences. It supports certain controversial issues in the society such as marriages between same sex, death sentence, abortion and prayers in schools. Majority of the conservatives support Republicans more than the Democrats. They prefer military, strong foreign policy and also support Israel. The conservative movement of the mid 20th century aimed at integrating different strands, with special focus on the importance of unity. Source: Just in the same way that liberty originates from the word liberty, Liberals were principally supporters of liberty. The kind of liberty that American founders were seeking was economic liberty, political liberty, freedom of speech and freedom of religion as stated in the American Bill of rights. Classically, liberalism or freedom meant suppressing the power of government to maximize the actions of a citizen. Apart from the Bill of rights, the other source is in the application of the standards of conservative and liberalist views in the cases of contemporary social matters. Significance: Liberalism and American conservatism are significant in that they show the sequence of dramatic metamorphosis that the American society passed through in the previous century. It shows the impacts of the American Revolution that began in the 1930s and ended in the 1960s. The 1930s revolution assumed that human rights are meaningless except if there is a way to exercise them. One of the American liberals was Franklin Roosevelt who believed that people without basic needs of life are not free (Livingston et al., 2006). The government therefore in this case has to provide jobs, good health and protection against calamities and effects of old age. Conservatism recognizes the fact that people often fails to reach the standards of expectations. In their individual behavior, conservatives avoid the temptations to claim that they are better than others. On social grounds, both Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton were found to be involved in controversial love affairs during the same administration regime (Livingston et al., 2006). However, for conservatives, the application of standards in the judgments was at different intensities. It proves that even conservatives have a form of hypocrisy their preference of the standards to apply. Such denial only exhibit partiality and failure of integrity test and causes conflicts as a result of inconsistency. 3. Procedural Justice Meaning Procedural justice is the practical application of the constitution of the American Federal Government. The constitution has different sections, each dealing with application of a particular area of justice. Procedural justice assumes that every section of the constitution is perfect and only follows a strict application. Even with the assumption, it provides room for necessary reforms. It is a form of justice system that emphasizes on humanity and focuses on legitimate processes. Procedural justice prohibits extra-judicial murders by law enforcers. Upon confirmation of law violation, it gives room for hearing followed by a series of trial sessions before conviction. Even after conviction, procedural justice observes limits of application to avoid the risks of violating the rights of the suspects and the convicts. It recognizes the freedoms that each citizen has since the federal; constitution has protection clauses for each citizen including convicts. The ultimate objective of procedural justice is that people should obey policies and the constitution within their rights. Source The source of procedural justice is the constitution of the United States of America. The constitution is not just a document of laws. It is the only legal authority that controls the application of rational and procedures rules. There are various sections and sub section of the constitution, each of which handles a particular area of legality. The Bill of Rights controls the federal justice system. The structure of the constitution is in the form of actions and expected consequences (Rutledge et al., 2009). The consequences depend on the magnitude of the criminal actions, which covers different ranges from minor punishments to capital punishment (Bartlett et al., 2010). Procedural justice considers consents of adults from the age of eighteen years. Below that, the person is seen as a minor and should consequently be reliant on an adult. The justice system recognized application of applying both laws and citizens’ privileges. The procedural justice identifies contentious areas of the law and recommends necessary reforms. Significance Procedural justice is essential in the execution of justice system. It provides limits of application of the law and observation of human rights to avoid violation of the rights. It enables the jury to apply rational weights of consequences to relevant criminal actions. Procedural justice enables citizens to realize the sovereignty of the state and appreciate the freedoms that the constitution provides. As its name suggests, procedural justice is a logical sequence of steps to follow that ensures fair treatment to all citizens of a country. It strictly ensures conformity to the rule of law and equal consideration of cases in the scale of justice. It takes care of all aspects of life such as social justice, industrial justice and political justice. It protects politicians from elation malpractices and offers appropriate guideline to offering solutions. Procedural justice promotes protection of fundamental rights and humanity in cases where suspects are usually at risk. Procedural justice uses evidences from many witnesses in order to establish the strength of evidences before ruling. 4. Types of Elitism Meaning Elitism refers to the social class to which people belong in terms of social class, education levels and the privileges they have in the contemporary society. There are therefore different categories of elitism depending on the classes. These are political elitism, social elitism and financial or economic elitism. Political elitism is the classification of people into classes based on their political positions in the society (Bartlett et al., 2010). This is where the society places people into royal families and ordinary families. Social elitism classifies people into categories of social positions such as the disabled, the learned, illiterate and semi illiterate. It also places people into religious categories such as Christians and Muslims. Economic or financial elitism places people into categories depending on their financial endowments or acquisition of assets. In this category we have the rich, the middle class and the poor. Elitism determines the amount of information that a certain group of people has access to. Source In the United States of America, the elitism originated from the economic changes of the feudal era. New Institutions came up in the 14th century, driven by the challenges in economy and attempted to contend with the economic depression. This led to the separation of the society into the rich or high class, middle class and the poor. The result of this classification was the standardization of measures of economy for example the weights to assign to units of money. It helped in the development of modern trades. This led to the establishment of the city based political organizations with the control of political leadership. Another characteristic of political elitism was the demarcation of designated territorial boundaries. Non political societies also came up based on common and mutual interests, such as religious groups and social clubs. Social elites enabled people to have distinct identities in the society. The affiliation of a person to the social groups influences the life and personalities of individuals. Significance The significance of political elitism is that it enables people in the political class to exercise and utilize political competence and experience. It also organizes an organization into a well structured leadership. It enforces laws and order through organization policies and procedures, which of course apply within the boundaries of the organization (Hooper et al., 2004). Finally, it assigns responsibility to the leadership, and ensures accountability. Economic elitism as mentioned earlier helps in creating economic standards and application of remedial measures to solve economic depression. Economic elitism gives a standard classification of people into economic categories for the sake of economic studies. Social elitism gives identity to certain groups and promotes communal activities for mutual benefits. Social elitism creates a sense of belonging to a fraternity, and the influence of the social groups shape up the personalities of its members. This can either be positively or negatively depending on the purpose of the group’s existence. 5. War-time Statism Meaning War time statism refers to the inevitable development of a city state or a political organization as a crisis management mechanism wherever wars break out. The development of states becomes necessary during wars in order to resist any external forces attacking a community. Other states simply develop as a residual action at the end of a war season. The best example of this is the establishment of state of Israel in the year 1948 at the end of the Second World War (Chase et al., 2004). Some of the developments are not necessarily that of new states from scratch, but the establishment of internal structures of already existing organizations. It doesn’t always involve the tasks of some political association. Ultimately, a person can define a state as a means of political association by use of political force. Essentially, the establishment of a state requires the use of physical force, and this is where wars come into picture. Even in the modern days, violent and establishment states have a relationship. Source The idea of wartime statism is an ancient one, but remains effective even in the present age. It dates back to the biblical accounts of establishment of cities which always involved wars. For example, the capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, led to the destruction of the temple (Gwinnett et al., 2004). Later on, the builders of the temple did the building work while holding weapons in their hands to defend their community from external forces. The sate of Germany was established as a result of frequent wars. Likewise, the development of the Soviet Union followed the same direction. It appears ironical that for something noble like city building to be realized, questionable activities have to apply for example fighting and even the shading of blood. Significance War time statism is very essential in that it presents the reality of existence and the ever persistent struggle for resources. In state building, the most essential recourse is space. It dispels complacency among people in developed states and encourages them to defend their territorial endowments. This idea prepares whoever intends to join politics to prepare psychologically for war. War-time Statism believes that there is no evidence of power unless wars emerge to test it. Similarly, every state that tends to develop attracts attacks from outside, in attempt to capture valuable resources. This analogy enables the developing states to guard the values of their resources (Chase et al., 2004). Developing states quickly become the envy of the society and at the same time, potential targets for malicious threats from terrorism and external attacks. In the European countries, war led to the acquisition and accumulation of resources. For a state to develop, the state development agents usually carry out 4 fundamental activities: War making, state making, extraction and protection. War Making is the act of rendering their enemies harmless while still. State making is the eradication of their enemies while already inside their territories. Protection is the practice of eradicating the enemies of their clients or rendering them harmless. Extraction is the search of methods of executing the three activities. References Bartlett, J., Whipple, W., & Thornton, M. (2010). The Society of the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. New Hampshire: Wiley. Bartlett, J., Whipple, W., & Thornton, M. (2010). The Declaration of Independence. New Hampshire: Wiley. Chase, S., Paca, W., Stone, T., & Carroll, C. (2004). Declaration of Independence. Maryland: Text Transcript. Chase, S., Paca, W., Stone, T., & Carroll, C. (2004). Men from Maryland Who Signed the Declaration of Independence. Maryland: Text Transcript. Gwinnett, B., Hall, L., & Walton, G. (2004). Georgia Signers of the Declaration of Independence. Georgia: McGraw Hill. Hooper, W., Hewes, J., & Penn, J. (2004). National Park Service - Signers of the Declaration. North Carolina: John Penn. Livingston, F.P., Lewis, F., & Morris, L. (2006). Declaration of Independence, signers fates. New York: Wiley. Livingston, F.P., Lewis, F., & Morris, L. (2006). Who from New York signed the Declaration of Independence. New York: Wiley. Rodney, C., Read, G., & McKean, T. (2011). Cause of Liberty: Caesar Rodney. Delaware: Cengage. Rodney, C., Read, G., & McKean, T. (2011). Historical Society of Delaware - Dec. of Indep. Signers. Delaware: Cengage. Rutledge, E., Heyward, T., & Middleton, A. (2009). CMS Humanities: Declaration of Independence Wordle. South Carolina: Mc Graw Hill. Stockton, R., Witherspoon, J., Hopkinson, F., Hart, J., & Clark, A. (2004). Who signed The Declaration of independence. New Jersey: Cengage. Read More