Burlington High School
Burlington, Kansas
Teacher: Devra Parker
The Great Mother Bee
By Miranda Blazek
Grade 12
A stoic bee-hive is nestled among abandoned spider-webs in the eves of an ancient building. As it hangs there, it invites feelings of cold conformity. Hundreds upon hundreds of busy bees bustle to and fro, uniting themselves to achieve a single common goal: to survive. But wait, behind this seemingly serene society lies a dominating force; a queen bee. She is a miniature Hitler, if you will, who rules the colony with an iron fist. How can this single entity dictate to so many others? Simple; she grants all her workers life, but in doing so, she strips them of their individual rights. Instead of reveling in freedom, the colony lives and dies as one, as clones of the great mother bee.
However a strange analogy this must be to our own society, it can be, in some instances, an adequate one. We, as citizens, are bound by certain laws, and we must conform to certain regulations put down by our leaders. Unlike the lonely bee-hive, we are given individual rights. Yes, we are governed by a main figure head, but no governing body can be as ruthless as a queen bee, who allows only compliance in her family. The entire system the government has set up is put in place in such a way as to protect common goals of the people, but the people protect their own individual rights.
Sometimes these protected rights are given up for the good of the entire community. During fourth century A.D., under the rule of Diocletian, a wave of economic hardship fell upon the Roman kingdom. Diocletian, through inflation, was forced to issue an edict that fixed maximum prices and wages throughout the empire; this led to a loss of individual freedom. People all across his territory had to pay huge amounts of taxes and soon all forms of trade and commerce faded away because of the loss of money. The entire system failed.
I believe the system was unsuccessful because individual liberty was overlooked. Yes, Diocletian had to do what he had to do, which was try to save his lands, but in doing so, he silenced his people’s voices and became deaf to the crashing of his empire as it fell to the ground in ruins.
The people during Diocletian’s reign were unable to rely on other people because everyone was in dire need of food and money. Instead of revolting against the emperor to change the money system, they were forced to accept it and suffer the consequences. In the end, this ruler’s idea of great reform was nothing more than a black hole that took away all individual rights, and in doing so, it destroyed the kingdom.
Through this example of history, and many others like it, our own founders placed their own rules on certain monetary values. George Washington is quoted: “We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.” In every word of that sentence, our great first president is correct. We cannot look back on the failures of the past, like Diocletian’s attitude towards money and individual rights, unless we are to learn from these disappointments. If we cannot learn from the past, we are doomed to repeat it over and over again.
Now, although some believe America is controlled by money…. I do not believe this.… Although money does have an important [role] in our society, there is much more to our country than coins and paper.
Choice. Just say it out loud. Choice. It rings like a tiny silver bell through America. Choice is what our country was founded upon; choice of religion, choice of voice and power.… Sandra Bullock, a well known actress, was quoted saying, “I’ve made mistakes, and I know why I made them, but I made that choice. Nobody’s ever made a choice for me.”
People everywhere, every day, every second of their lives make choices. What tie to wear? What pen to use? Who to vote for? What should I say about this or that controversy? It is the choices of the people that have made this nation so astonishing. Where would we be without choices? Could we still be under the rule of the King of England? Would we be ruled by a dictator? I believe that if we had not stood up for ourselves and our personal rights, then, yes, we would still live under the rule of some sort of king or dictator. We cannot and will never give up these freedoms that have kept the United States strong and in control of many dire situations.
Many things have changed since the 1700s. People are technologically advancing, new ideas are popping up everywhere, and people are questioning just how much freedom we are really granted. Two-hundred years ago, a document was written from a perspective that was adequate to that time period. Now, in 2007, people question if the Constitution can hold up in these very different times. I for one believe that the document was written during that period, but it was written in such a way as to be timeless. Sure, it has been changed throughout the decades, and it has been thoughtfully rearranged to fit the different times. It has survived all this to shine light on a small little thing called choice. I believe the Constitution was written on the sole basis of the choice of the people. We would not exactly want to be a little drone bee under the rule of the queen bee, now would we? I do not believe that we can be a bee in any sense of the word. We are not clones of one another and we do protect our individual rights, even some a little too strongly sometimes, but they are always held firmly in our hands, away from the stinging of any rules too strong to take them away. Let the great mother bee have her world, and let us have ours in all its freedom and glory. Let us raise our voices to the sky and shout, “Yes, I am an American!” For that is truly what we are: choosing to be an American and basking in that shining light.
Answers to Questions Regarding the Required Reading
Q1-What do you think Justin Reiter meant by including the following in his essay?
“…if the people are not accustomed to the freedom they will be angered by the inequality.” Were you angered by some of the things Justin said in his essay? Did you agree or disagree?
I was angered by certain comments in Justin Reiter’s paper. First off, in his opening paragraph, he states that people cannot be free when it comes to income or social classes. He also confirmed that people have the choice to make something of their lives, that all paths a person takes are their choice. I do not agree with this. I am an American and I am accustomed to all of the freedoms I am granted but I am angered by the inequality of our country. Yes, people do choose how they want to live or how much money they want to make, but for many, their dreams of becoming something better is squashed by societies “rules.” People cannot go anywhere when society limits their talents and society does put a strangle hold on peoples’ rights. I disagree with Justin’s wording in his essay.
Q2- Explain: “He felt that the common good could be served by each individual pursuing self-interest.” To whom did Chris Carney attribute these feelings?
Chris Carney accredited these thoughts to James Madison, the creator of the Constitution. Madison helped to change Roman Republic ideas, which promoted a system of common goods, into a more American idea.
Q3- In the next to the last paragraph in her essay, Faith Doyle discuses Emperor Diocletian and his Edict of 301. Relate that to the essay topic.
Faith Doyle relates Diocletian Edict to her essay by providing a reason why the government should not rule the people. Diocletian Edict was mainly value neutrality on everything, which is just that the government put money controls on every commodity. Pandemonium began because although the government was trying to help the people by keep all prices low and also by feeding people, it enslaved the population and soon prices shot up anyway. Although the government tried to make people happy all they really ended up doing was to generate unhappiness for a whole population.
Q4- Kelly Lanier says in her essay: “Even though everyone is born with the same rights here in America; sometimes a person can step on or take away the rights of another person.” Relate the example she gives and give us another one of your own.
Kelly Lanier relates this sentence to a person owning a gun. However, if this individual who owns the gun shoots another person, they are taking away this victims right to live and be free from harm. Another example includes a person ignorant of the Miranda Rights because they were not read to him/her during an arrest. This infringes first on the freedom of speech and second on the right to know the reason why you are being brought in for questioning.
Q5- Explain what Joshua Spencer means when he says that “individual liberty is a fragile, yet powerful, asset.” How does he relate individual liberty to dictators? Do you agree with his assessment? Why or why not? Be specific.
In Joshua Spencer’s essay he describes dictators as determining that, with individual liberty people can be a threat. I do agree with Joshua’s assessment of how a dictator could view masses of people and how they could be a threat to the rulers’ powers. Individual liberties can unite a people to try and achieve a common goal, which is also true. For a dictator to really take hold over a state he has to make the people depend on him, so he takes away those individual rights in small, invisible ways.
Q6-Luke Hall asked “Will we maintain our freedom or destroy it to be safe?” How would you answer that question?
I believe we must maintain our freedom. If we destroy it how could that possibly make us safe? It would take away our rights to all sorts of needed freedoms, even the right to speak out. How could we possibly think it safe to destroy our very words that pass our lips? If we give up our rights we will only kill our country and our freedoms by handing power over to the common goal. Yes, some rights we need to give up in order to remain a united country, but we cannot completely destroy our freedoms for safety, there will be no safety in obliteration of liberty.
Q7- Some people, according to which student essayist in 1999, suggested that “the Constitution's framers might have 'put greater emphasis on the protection of the community over individual liberty', had they seen the world today.”? She doesn’t agree. Do You?
Annie St. Romain was the 1999 essayist who suggested this. I do not agree with this statement either. The framers probably would not change that part of the constitution whether they had written it today or a hundred more years into the future. The community has enough protection which was already set as such in the constitution.