History has long been a dreaded subject for many. Why should we have to learn about a bunch of dead men and battle dates? Don’t we all have our own fair share of problems to deal with? However, what we don’t realize is that it is filled with relatable tales of the individual who made decisions the way we do today. History is actually a useful tool that you can use to help understand your rights.
I’m sure we have all heard the cliche, “history repeats itself.” But what does this mean to us? It turns out, this means more than noticing a pattern in the wars and corruption in the world. In our own lives, there are themes that repeat themselves that we can learn from.
For example, if you were to lend a friend something and they lose it, you should keep that in mind the next time that you lend them something. If you didn’t, and you ignored the history between your friend and borrowed items, you should be ready to face the consequences. Caution comes from remembering past events and using them to make future decisions, and without that, we repeat our mistakes.
Maybe that scenario seems petty to you; maybe all of your friends are fairly organized and you don’t care much if an item of yours is misplaced. But how much do you care about your rights?
One of the biggest problems with neglecting history is that your rights suffer. Over the course of centuries in the United States of America, our rights have been compromised again and again. If we don’t know our rights as American citizens, how can we protect them? What use are they to us if we don’t even know what they are or why we have them?
Arizona legislature has recently passed Bill 1062, also known as the “Right-to-Discriminate” Bill that would allow business owners to deny someone service based on the business owner’s religious beliefs and protect the business owner in a lawsuit. In 2004, Arizona also enacted Proposition 200, a Proof-of-Citizenship voting law that prohibited anyone from registering to vote if they could not show proof of citizenship, in addition to the required federal forms.
Luckily, this proposition was turned down last summer, but during its time of legality, it prevented 30,000 potential voters from registering. If we ignore this history that infringes on our rights, what will stop it from happening again?
So what do we do? What history can help us make the best decision to protect ourselves? Most importantly, know your rights and how they came to be your rights. We need to understand how past societies work in order to be a functioning member of our own. Our rights are our means of existence.
In the past, the right to vote was denied to men who did not own land, to those who were former slaves, and to women. But in that order, we have overcome the inequality and now every one of those groups can take an active role in our country’s republic.
Understanding why these groups were discriminated against will keep us from discriminating again. A pseudoscience known as the “Aryan race” was what Hitler used to justify his genocide. Anyone without blue eyes and blonde hair was inferior to those who were blonde and blue-eyed. Racism is what kept black people from voting in America--so now we realize that racism is wrong. Sexism is what kept women from voting in America--and now we realize there is no reason to be sexist.
And this makes for a more tolerant society; a nation who recognizes the past infringement of the individual’s rights and mindfully treats everyone as equals. We now recognize past mistakes, fix them, and then consciously make sure to prevent them from happening again. We develop the ideal mindset for protecting our rights as United States citizens.
History is the foundation of knowledge and it should be understood and used as such. So before you write off history as a whole, just remember--focus on the meaning of events and decisions. Ask yourself why that happened, and access whether or not you feel it was right. Above all, always respect your rights and fight to protect them, the way many before us have. History helps us become better, more tolerant human beings, thoughtfully and wholeheartedly.
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