Introducing: The 14th Amendment
“No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” (Amendment XIV) is what the Constitution was amended to after the Civil War. The 14th Amendment has been a back and forth battle for decades within the United States because of how it can be interpreted in so many different ways. This is where many personal beliefs of the Supreme Court justices, who rule on whether a state’s actions were constitutional or not, come into focus. We can see that Chief Justice Roberts follows a more conservative viewpoint, or that Justice Ginsburg is more liberal. These are just two broad perspectives that can affect the judicial system in America, which are supposed to be kept to a minimum as due process is a fair and neutral proceeding that views all as the same to reach just conclusions. This is how the United States judicial system is supposed to work, but a bleeding effect has begun to take place. As higher systems are expressing their biases more often, the lower systems and subsidiaries will begin to show their own biases, and therefore create an unjust and unbalanced system. This trickle down or bleed effect will start from the top, and work its way through until all areas have been affected, causing the suffocation of the affected party in many different areas even if it is outside of the scope of the origin point. This can be especially true for the educational system for kids who can grow up and find themselves in the judicial and penal system. Starting from the top can help us see where the viewpoints begin, and the resulting trickle can be followed to more local systems and branches and how that can affect the people involved in the process.
Contemporary American Dreams & Nightmares 