Harrison Bergeron and V For Vendetta Analysis Essay

Harrison Bergeron and V For Vendetta Analysis - Essay Example In such kind of societies, it is seen that the government is to be feared by the people: it has both the authority and the armed forces to enforce its will upon the people. But McTeigue has other ideas, declaring that â€Å"people should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people,† emphasizing the concept of freedom over oppression. In this case, the researcher would try to expound the statement of McTeige through two outstanding literary pieces: the short story â€Å"Harrison Bergeron† (Vonnegut Jr. n. p.) and McTeigue’s film â€Å"V for Vendetta.† The short story â€Å"Harrison Bergeron,† which was written by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., tries to picture a society with absolute equality, wherein people are actually equal in all concepts (Vonnegut Jr. n. p.). As stated in the story, The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law; they were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else; nobody was better looking than anybody else; nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General. (Vonnegut Jr. n. p.) In able to ensure that all people was absolutely equal, the government actually created the office of the â€Å"United States Handicapper General,† wherein the intelligent would be handicapped by a loud noise distracting them (resulting to the fact that all people would be â€Å"averagely intelligent), athletic people would have to wear weights in order to be as fast and as athletic as normal people, and where beautiful people would have to wear masks (Vonnegut Jr. n. p.). Due to such handicaps, society actually resulted to a collection of individuals who are absolutely equal in every way, all of them stupid, dumb, and following authority without question (Vonnegut Jr. n. p.). This short story, which actually serves as a political satire, shows how the aim of governments to ensure absolute equality actually harms the natural differences of people, and how it both oppresses the rights of individuals to be who they are, harming the welfare of society as a whole. From this message, it can be seen that the freedom of individuals over oppression must be upheld, for it does not only benefit the welfare of the people, but the welfare and well-being of society as a whole. While Kurt Vonnegut Jr. used a satirical narrative to describe how oppression harms the well being of society and makes it dysfunctional, Director James McTeigue opted to use a different way to show why freedom must reign supreme over oppression, and why governments must be afraid of the people: he used the movie â€Å"V for Vendetta† (McTeigue, n. p.). This movie actually talks about the time when the government of Britain comes to be dominated by the fascist †Å"Norsefire Party,† turning Britain into a totalitarian state (McTeigue, n. p.). As the Norsefire Party takes power and gains hold of the parliament (following the bioterrorist attacks that will claim

The Facts Behind Distracted Driving Debate Essay

The Facts Behind Distracted Driving Debate - Essay Example But not for the better it seems. According to a nationwide insurance study, 20 percent of drivers are either sending or receiving text messages while at the wheel of a moving vehicle. Even more startling is the information that these numbers increase to 66 percent when the driver is within the age range of 18 to 24 (Schulte). A sector of our society believes that teenagers are unfairly targeted in these experiments simply because they are young and often impulsive in their actions when at the wheel of their cars. But the reality of the situation is that these figures accurately describe the driving habits of some teenagers within the aforementioned age bracket. In fact, during a simulated test conducted by Car and Driver Magazine, the results of the distracted driving tests showed that when driving unimpaired, a person (regardless of age) requires at least .54 seconds to brake, while it took an average of 36 additional feet for a driver who is reading an email while at the wheel to c ome to a full stop. But more worrisome is the fact that an additional 70 feet of braking room is required by a driver who is composing a text while navigating a car (Austin). People who consider themselves experts at texting while driving claim that they always keep the additional space between them and the next car in order to allow for the required braking distance in the event of an emergency. However, this safety measure becomes irrelevant and useless considering the fact that these people still maintain their normal driving speed while multitasking at the wheel. These road hazards compose 73 percent of the distracted drivers on the road according to statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration – a statistic that results in 89 percent of road accidents involving other cars per the collated data from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (â€Å"Facts about Using Cellphones While Driving†). Those drivers who consider themselves at multitask ing are not familiar with the five second rule. It only takes five seconds for one to take his eyes off the road and end up in a fatal accident with another car. That translates to at least 23 percent of all vehicular accidents caused by drivers whose eyes were taken off the road in order to respond to or read a text message. We can explain it in more visual terms this way: a car can travel 70 miles an hour, the equivalent of 100 yards, or the length of a football field. A distracted driver can cover that distance in 5 seconds (Wilkins). Most teenagers view their lives with a sense of invulnerability. They are adventurous and always willing to push their limits just to see what they can get away with. The most adventurous kind tends to think in terms of â€Å"It can never happen to me† when it comes to possible life altering situations. One of these cautionary tales is from a widely publicized 2008 texting while driving fatal car accident. Writer Bret Schulte retells the stor y as (â€Å"Outlawing Text Messaging While Driving†): A fiery crash made headlines in June when five female friends died in a collision with a tractor trailer just a week after graduating from their suburban Rochester, N.Y., high school. Police discovered the teenage driver had been texting moments before the crash. Similar accidents are happening with increasingly regularity nationwide. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety further solidifies the sense of invincibility carried by most of the teenagers with