Its a safe bet to say that the United States of America is the best country on earth. Other than God allowing America to be the best, we can contribute this fact to our constitution. The constitution guarantees US citizens freedom and democracy. We can trace these two things to ancient Greece and we see it in Pericles funeral speech.
In Pericles speech, he says, "Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favours the many instead of the few this is why its is called a democracy" (Thucydides). He also says "The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life" (Thucydides). These two statements just screams out AMERICA to me. First off, America did its own thing with its constitution. No other nation had a government like we had until others started "imitating" us. Also America was the only country with true freedom because we had freedom in our government, just like Athens did in this time.
I posted on Caroline's and Jessef's blogs.
I like this comparison of America's freedoms and ancient Greece's freedoms. While we're not a perfect nation, (2020 has been more than enough proof of that,) we definitely have many more freedoms compared to the rest of the world. Interesting to note that even back then, there were some freedoms within Athens that may not be present in some of today's countries.
ReplyDeleteI thought the same thing! The way America has the same pride and nationalism that Athens had is astounding. However, Pericles bringing up Athens and its constitution seemed a bit out of place to me in a funeral speech.
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