Dogmas+in+Democracy+relfection

From everything I have experienced, read, or learned- I have gathered that Americans are a dogmatic people. We have our beliefs and we stand by them with a prodigious tenacity and stubbornness. We hold high and mighty the belief “stick to your guns” and we use our beliefs in the daily war of morality, religion, and politics that is conducted in the media, in public, and in our private lives. The quotes I used were all from rather inflammatory figures, supreme court cases, de Tocqueville, and from The Scarlet Letter. The first quote goes with the first image; Michael Moore believes that religion is used to misguide and exploit the American people. I would have to agree that to a certain extent it is. I used this World War Two image, which supports the idea that if you don’t believe in God, if you don’t pray, and if you don’t feel comfortable stating the pledge of allegiance, then you are not a real American. I thought this was a powerful image and conveys how religion penetrates our lives on a daily basis. The next image and quote are partially to make fun of the ridiculous circus that politics has evolved into. I have Barack Obama’s infamous quote about small town folks looking to their guns and religion fo answers as well as a now well known image of Obama with the incendiary Reverend Wright. Opinions, connections, and small statements all charge the political debates that we engage in as Americans and I thought this little section should honor this aspect of our political lives. The war in Iraq is a very important issue to many in my generation. At Parker we all have a very one sided view of the Iraq war so I complemented this image with an Ann Coulter quote that presents a radically different opinion from the one popular here. The following section was on religion in America. I used quotes from The Scarlet Letter, as well as a painting with the same title, as well as quotes from Democracy in America to articulate how religion can be perceived in America and how religion affects institutions such as the government. The next photograph is of a woman literally throwing away her child to represent an abortion. Abortion is another contentious political issue in the United States and I thought it was fitting to juxtapose this image with an excerpt from the historic Roe v. Wade opinion. The next images are of a KKK march, representing the ongoing intolerance in today’s society, and then a collage I made which incorporates religion, gun rights, illegal immigration and partisanship in America.