The Break Up Between England and the Americans

The Declaration of Independence, the most famous break up letter of all time! It’s kinda funny really. The resemblance between the Declaration and a break up letter. Both involve someone or many people leaving something, like a country (England) and they both involve something that has to do with betrayal.

The preamble of the Declaration of Independence, which explains that the Americans have the right to be treated well in their relationship with King George. The preamble also relates Enlightenment philosophy to the American colonists' situation in many ways. Some ways it relates to Enlightenment philosophy is when it mentions "...are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights..", it is referring to natural rights which are rights that are not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and inalienable. 

A grievance is a real or imagined wrong or other cause for complaint or protest, especially unfair treatment, something that the Declaration has a lot of. The colonists included them in the Declaration because they weren't getting treated well by the King. Like a break up, the put in the things that the king did that wasn't very nice. “Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us” He made the colonists house his soldiers when they really didn't want to but yet he didn't care at all. "He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance..." He refused to let any of the governors pass laws that were important to the people which isn't really good. People need those laws. If they didn't have them then all hell would break loose. All these grievances pointed out the bad side of the King, how he wasn't nice to the Americans in anyway. He put Acts on them and everything. But the Declaration ended it all.

http://patriotsline.com/how-well-do-you-actually-know-the-declaration-of-independence/the-declaration-of-independence-the-grievances/

Social Contract

A social contract is a theory or model, originating during the Age of Enlightenment, that typically addresses the questions of the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual. Hobbes created the social contract so that people can give up some of their liberty for some common security. John Locke on the other hand was a little bit different. He expressed the radical view that government is morally obliged to serve people, namely by protecting life, liberty, and property. He explained the principle of checks and balances to limit government power. He favored representative government and a rule of law. He denounced tyranny. He insisted that when government violates individual rights, people may legitimately rebel.
There were many ups and downs to making our own social contract. It was kinda hard because we didn't really think through different things that could possibly happen with the rules if we were in that time. There were perks to the whole main process of making the rules though. It was fun to think of different rules and you really feel as though you are in charge of a small colony or something. It was kinda easy to think of the question because all you have to do is think of a consequence and add something before it and then you have a pretty solid rule. Overall though, I though it was very easy and very fun.
We had to change a few of the rules. From our classmates feedback...some of our rules seemed to easy and didn't involve much punishment  and didn't invoke fear. Most of our rules had to do with helping others which not many people had put bad feedback on.