America does not live up to its mythic vision because as “the land of the free” because as a country, we violate the right to life. The Declaration of Independence is an important document written by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Ben Franklin, and many others. This founding document, written in 1776, was signed to free Americans from the oppression of Great Britain and serves as a reminder of the ideals and values our country was founded upon. According to the document, Americans are born, “by their Creator with certain unalienable rights”. This means that by …show more content…
The first right that the document mentions, is “life”. This is why we have laws against one man or woman killing another, because not only is it morally wrong, but the document that our country was founded upon, is strictly against it. Therefore, if someone commits a murder, that person will go to prison as a form of punishment. But a number of states take it one step further and allow those criminals to be sentenced to death through the death penalty, which is basically the “legal” way for one man to take another’s life. The death penalty is our own government intentionally disobeying The Declaration of Independence and our own rights as Americans. Some might argue that the death penalty can give the family of a victim of murder the closure that they