group 3 is cool

Last Post

2004-12-06T17:19:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed the topic of this class. I have always been interested in politics, even when I was younger. I think that understanding the issues and taking a more in depth look at the candidates makes a person more suited to vote among other things. Looking at the sources that the news is coming from and examining the tactics used by the reporters was also helpful because it makes it easier to know which sources are reliable and which are not. I wish that we could have talked more about local politics instead of focusing on only the national level. Although that may seem like the most important part, it is also the hardest part to change. Focusing on the local level allows people to make actual changes in government because less people turn out for local elections and it is much easier to let your voice be heard and feel like you are making a difference moreso than just voting in an election where millions of other people are voting. In local politics, one voice CAN make a difference and I think it is an important part of government that we overlooked. This class made me go back and solidify some of my political beliefs. The class discussions made me go back and find more information on my own to think about better reasons and evidence to support my opinions. This class was very thought provoking and showed that young people do care about politics and what is going on in the world and are motivated enough to want to make a difference.

Election 2008

2004-12-06T13:17:00.000-08:00

I read an interesting article from a newspaper about the election for 2008. It was all about how John McCain is setting himself up very well for the next election by his actions from the election this year. He defended John Kerry with the Swift Boat Veteran adds because he also had his war survice scrutinized by the Bush team in the 2000 primary. McCain also supported Bush for president showing support for the republican party. McCain also gave some critisims about Bush to the news media. He stayed between the two candidates, not leaning more one way making it so whoever one the election, he would not come out to look bad. I think this will help him if he decides to run for president again in 2008. I think he would have a great chance of succeeding if did choose to run again. McCain, unlike many other candidates runs a clean campaign. Thinking back to the 2000 primaries, he stated that he would not make personal attacks on Bush and he stuck with that, even when the Bush campaign said he opposed helping military veterans. McCain is also a moderate republican. He does not make all his decisions based on what is right for the republican party. He also doesnt try to legislate using religion and making all of his decisions based on the bible. McCain is a good choice for everyone, not just conservatives. I had the change to listen to McCain speak at a campaign event over the summer and he was an excellent speaker. I really hope John McCain decides to run in 2008, he has set himself up well for it and I know that I would vote for him.

Oil for Food and the French

2004-12-06T02:56:00.000-08:00

How deep does the French connection in the Oil for Food scandal? Some suggest that people as high as Chirac could be tied to the scandal and even that the French sold weapons to Iraq on the eve of the US led invasion. So would this improve people’s opinion of the US if countries like France are exposed and found to have been involved in the scandal since they were major opponents of the US led invasion into Iraq in the UN Security Council votes. There’s one thing that’s for sure, that the next few weeks of months in which this scandal unfolds will have a major effect on the world as we could see things from the fall of the UN to the decreditation of important leaders, and hopefully an increase in US popularity. We all know that since the US invaded Iraq our public opinion in the world has gone down as many said we were abusing our power and doing something that shouldn’t be done without the support of the UN. Also, we all know that the UN has typically been considered a very reputable group. But if votes are for sale and someone like Saddam can make billions of dollars off of a program that’s started by the UN and things aren’t changed how can we listen to the UN. Now the worry is that without the UN then the only peace keeping force in the world will become the US since it’s the only super power, but there could be other ways. We can only wait and see how the scandal rolls out.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,140478,00.html

Alabama book banning

2004-12-06T02:09:00.000-08:00

In an interesting story, an Alabama legislator has proposed banning books from public and university libraries that have a gay character in them unless they’re depraved. While one person doesn’t represent the entire states, it’s sad that an elected official would suggest something of this sort. This comes as there are many debates over gays in the US right now in politics. The representative said that the purpose was to keep children from a homosexual agenda because it would ban the state from buying any books that recognized or promoted homesexuality. We could only hope that the state and our country is beyond this type of abuse to gays as this idea. We will see what happens with this bill in the future, but the idea behind this is ridiculous. In many states this year Amendments were passed to define marriage as only between a man and a woman, in a new beginning of the battle that will ensue for a long time to come. People really need to get over their homophobia and realize that if they’re not gay then why does it matter if other people are. It’s not like they’re going to rub off on you. A child who reads about a gay character who is treated normal or even well is not going to make that child want to be gay. This Alabama representative needs to get over his homophobia and this bill needs to be shot down before it goes anywhere.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,140480,00.html

Voting issues in Ukraine

2004-12-06T01:47:00.000-08:00

In the Ukraine there have recently been some problems with the political system. It has been shown that the winner of the recent election falsified many votes for himself and a revote has been called for. Many protesters have been in Kiev for over a week in protests in which they hope to help pass some amendments that would hopefully make the next election more accurate of what the people really voted for. Part of the problem is the winner of the last election was the man who is supported by Russian Prime Minister Putin. The protests come as the election is only three weeks away. The new election comes as the Court in the Ukraine made a monumental decision to have a new election because of the corruption in the first. Some people are saying that this election will determine the fate of the Ukraine for a long time because it will decide what direction they will head in. This is why this new election will be so important to the country. At first when the corruption scandals arose, the US called for an investigation into the corruption. This seems obvious as the US has always tried to be an example of democracy and tried to make sure the people are fairly represented without corruption on the level of voting. Some people criticize that a foreign leader, such as Putin shouldn’t be supporting a candidate over others because it can create bias.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,140528,00.html

Liberals not moral?

2004-12-06T01:46:00.000-08:00

Is it true that liberals are just as moral as conservatives? The likely answer is yes. Many people fail to see the connections between liberal beliefs and religion because they’re blinded by the two major issues at hand right now in the moral platform, gay marriage and abortion. The truth is that liberals have many of the same domestic values as the church. The liberals have been the ones who want to help the poor people, who establish groups to help out people who are having problems, and the people who want more intervention. To me this sounds a lot like the role the church plays, so why can’t church goers side with the liberal views these days? I don’t have the answer to this question, but I can agree that it’s a gross generalization to say that liberals are out of touch on the moral platform. It just seems like the liberals, mainly the Democrats, need to reform their image to get rid of the misconceptions that are being made across the nation. Were the liberals not the ones who opposed the war? And was that not the same stance the Pope took? This is an issue raised in an article by Steven Waldman, which seems entirely correct. I mean are there really that many people in the world that would say that the Pope’s not a moral person? No. Now what can these people do to change their image. They need to change the emphasis of the issues, and change their approach to how they relate on issues. They need to create more pathos in their issues so that they can relate to the moral issues people on the same level.

Important day for Bush as Karzai will be inaugurated today

2004-12-06T01:27:00.000-08:00

The inauguration of Karzai in Afghanistan is set for today, so is this a sign that things are going to get better. The security in the country is on the highest alert in a long time for this day with all security beefed up to make sure that nothing goes wrong. Bush sees this as an important step in the rebuilding of Afghanistan and a powerful sign in the war on terror if things go well because we all know that terrorists want to prevent this day from going well. Karzai has passed the test as he has been elected and the allegations of corruption have been put down. We can only hope that Karzai will be able to get things done. Something that isn’t mentioned a lot that needs to be fixed once there is a governing power in place is the opium problem in the country. Opium is the key proponent of the Afghan economy and Afghanistan is the number one producer of Opium in the entire world. While this is an issue to be dealt with later, it’s important that Karzai come in and be given the proper recognition, which thus far has gone well and if he continues to build his reputation in the country while keeping in faith with the US, things will likely go well for his term that he begins today. The world will be on watch today, lets hope for the best on this important day.

Now that all the talk is over, the real reasons why Kerry lost

2004-12-06T01:14:00.000-08:00

With all the scandals that are being realized in the UN’s connection with the oil for food problem, what’s to happen to the connection between the US and the UN? The US has already gone against the UN when it made the decision to invade Iraq, somewhat hurting the effect of the UN, but this could be even worse for the organization. There are talks that Kofi Annan or a relative of him was involved in a scandal in which Saddam Hussein was making money off of the oil for food program and buying votes in the UN councils. This is detrimental to the reputation of the organization which was formed after WWII to help make the world a safer place. If the UN can’t be trusted to handle something of this level and votes of countries can be bought, how can this type of organization make decisions that affect the world? The answer is they can’t, and unless things are changed and moves made the link between the US and the UN may soon be severed. This would be a blow for the group as the US is the world’s super power and could cause others members to exit. So what’s going to happen to this group which has been a key decision maker in the world since its creation? We will see as more of the scandals are unraveled and changes are made. It has been mentioned that if Kofi Annan doesn’t step down since the scandal went on during his watch that the US will be forced to get rid of connections with the organization.

Scandal in the UN

2004-12-06T01:05:00.000-08:00

FCC in the spotlight

2004-12-06T01:02:00.000-08:00

Sparked by the performance of Janet Jackson and a recent beginning to Monday Night Football, is the FCC cracking down too hard and creating censorship. While I can understand that there are people concerned about what’s being shown to the public, we shouldn’t be creating an environment where networks are afraid to show something because they don’t want to get fines. This really can affect the level of broadcasting and the variety on TV if the major networks are worried so much about what they show that they end up not cashing in on good ideas. This year has been an important one for this issue as the FCC has handed out its harshest penalties ever. So when is the FCC going too far in what they restrict? Is it really too much to show the back of a naked girl before Monday Night Football? The answer is too much, and the FCC needs to hold back on these crackdowns. When it gets to the point where on a related holiday, the ABC networks are afraid to show Saving Private Ryan, is when they’ve gone too far. Yes, the movie is very graphic and gory, but with the proper warnings after each commercial break and at the beginning, there’s no reason why a movie that attempts to depict to show the truths about war and help us remember those who fought in WWII is when they’ve gone too far. Currently some of the major networks are suing the FCC for the restrictions they’ve placed and for the fines, so we will see if changes can be made and free media can continue, with the old standards of show. I can only hope that we can go back to a place where some annoying moms that call to complain about what their children saw can’t have such a major effect on what I get to watch on TV.

Keep filibusters

2004-12-05T22:13:00.000-08:00

Filibusters have been a part of the Senate since the beginning of it’s creation. A filibuster is a way for a speaker in the floor to halter a bill being passed because they believe there is something corrupt about the bill or that there’s a problem with it. Often times the speaker will not even talk about something on topic because the whole person is simply to waste time. Filibusters aren’t allowed in the House because the group is too large, but happen in the Senate. I believe that they are helpful because they allow more time for people to think about a bill before it’s voted on. This is the way it has been forever. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist believes differently. He believes that it’s simply a nuisance tool that helps the minority and that it should be removed. This reasoning is part of the reason I think it should stay because it’s important that the minority be represented, especially in a government that’s dominated by Conservatives because it’s important to have a balance of power in our government. Balance of Power and Checks and Balances are two of the most important concepts behind the creation of the U.S. government and key to it continuing to work. So why would we want to remove the filibuster, well you’ll have to ask Bill Frist that one because I don’t agree with what he’s trying to do, and I think the filibuster should be kept as a tool to be used in the Senate.

Congress lame duck session this week

2004-12-05T20:58:00.000-08:00

For Congress, there’s not much worse news then finding out you have to come in for a lame duck session meeting when you think you finally have some time to yourself, but Congress is now in session to do something about the stalled intelligence reform bill. Some of those who oppose the bill say that they fear that the bill could cause a delay in relaying satellite information to commanders of the army, which could mean bad news. Apparently leaders of the US armed forces have spoke to the House in classified sessions about how they fear this bill will hurt their ability to do their best. This will be the bill’s last chance of getting passed this year, and Pres. Bush has been urging for it to be passed. The major part of this bill is the creation of a national terrorism center and leader. Bush says he will continue to work with Congress to get this bill passed which came as part of the 9/11 panel recommendations. Typically their aren’t sessions during the lame duck period, but this year there have been many because there was a lot still left to be done for the year. Along with this bill mentioned, there was a lot of budget stuff that had to be handled. The part that draws the most concern about this bill is the part where it creates a national intelligence director. The debates will ensue this week and we will see if anything gets done.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,140522,00.html

Gov't intervention in steroid problem?

2004-12-05T20:55:00.000-08:00

The word is getting out, and many records are beginning to be questioned. There are claims floating around that many of our major winning athletes have taken performance enhancing drugs to help give them an edge on the competition, some of which include Barry Bonds, Olympic athletes and many more. Now the question is becoming, if they did use steroids which were banned from their sport, what should the penalties be? Lawmakers are warning that if Major League Baseball doesn’t create stricter enforcement of their steroid use policy, that they will be forced to step in and require stricter testing and penalties. John McCain has said that he would like to see all professional athletes being tested at the same standards as the Olympics. In the past week many were accused in the media that they were reported of taking steroids for enhancement. There has been talk that some of their records could be removed, including Bonds record of 73 homeruns in one season. In the major league, testing once a year is required but that policy expires in 2006, and Bud Selig would like to see that policy extended. Selig has promised a crack down on the issue and harsh penalties for those who broke the rules. Bill Frist has also said that if the problem can’t be addressed by the leagues themselves that government intervention will be pushed as necessary to fix the problem. Part of the concern comes from the fact that young Americans look up to the players and we don’t want them to follow in those players footsteps with the steroid use.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,140553,00.html

Final Post

2004-12-05T18:55:00.000-08:00

So since everyone else is doing this, I might as well. When I heard the topic for this class, I almost dropped it. I was not interested in politics and I must admit that I'm still not. This class was interesting though in its own way. The debates were cool but pretty much only because I like to argue and this class allowed me to do that. The class in general was pretty good but I wish that we had discussed the actual issues a little bit more instead of just what editorials were saying and what tactics the media was employing. The movie "Journeys with George" was really neat and it showed us a different view od the president. The blogs weren't very interesting at all in the beginning because it was as though we were required to do blogs on certain topics. After I kind of started to do blogs on different stuff, they became a little more interesting because they allowed me to express my opinions and I really like doing that. That is also why I liked the class. I really like expressing my opnions to others. The class did excite in me a bigger need to express my political beliefs and to defend my choices. It also made me reevaluate some of my beliefs. The class made me realize that young people need to pay more attention to politics because if they do not make informed choices now, they will never be able to make any difference in this world and their future will not be very great. This class has made me step back and look at the world in a different way which should be the purpose of every class. I enjoyed this class and if I had been able to I would have taken another course with you.

Last Blog

2004-12-05T18:35:00.000-08:00

I noticed for the final blogs a lot of people were just writing about their experience in the class so I thought that I would do the same. I really enjoyed this class over the course of the semester. I am semi-interested in politics so I found the discussions to be very interesting. I also found it very interesting to be able to listen to people that have opinions differing from my own and to be able to discuss different issues with them. When I first learned that the class was going to be at 9:30 in the morning I was a little upset that I was going to have to wake up twice a week, but after the first few classes I found I really didn’t mind waking up to come. I learned a lot throughout this class the first being what a blog was. I had never heard of blogger before but I have found it to be quite interesting looking at different blogs and seeing what other people have to say about things. I also learned a lot about politics. I found my self watching the news and keeping up with current events that I would have never paid any attention to in the past and I hope that that habit will continue. I thought that it was nice that we could discuss things in the class without arguing. Furthermore I never felt threatened in the classroom and I was always comfortable sharing with the class. In conclusion I would just like to say thank you for a great semester and have a happy holiday. I hope that my experience in lit. 1102 will be as good as this when has been.

The Supreme Court

2004-12-05T17:09:00.000-08:00

An important part of future politics is the Supreme Court. First of all, the court, in my opinion is the strongest branch of government. This is because their decisions can not be overturned be either the executive branch or the legislative branch, so they really don't have anyone to answer to regarding their decisions. Also, the Supreme Court does not have term limits, justices are appointed for life, which gives them more power than people who do have term limits. They have no risk of not getting reelected or any constituents to report to. I also believe the court is legislating from the bench instead of strickly interpreting the constitution. They are only supposed to set standards based upon the constitution, but because their power has become so great, they are making laws and legislating, which is not in their expressed powers.

Many of the Supreme Court members are getting old, which means they will not be justices any more either because they are going to die or retire some time soon. Because Bush was reelected, the court will be conservative. He is going to appoint new people who will uphold his same ideas, especially about moral issues like abortion, and gay marriage as well as ideas about affirmative action. This will have a large impact on the legislation of the United States because of the current debates about gay marriage. Bush appointing new justices will pretty much ensure that gay marriage will be deemed as wrong or illegal in most places throughout the country.

The War in Iraq

2004-12-05T15:21:00.000-08:00

Throughout the class, we have discussed the war in Iraq with some people saying it is unjust because we found no weapons of mass destruction. People against the war also stated that we are going after the wrong enemy, that Bin Ladin was the one who attacked us, so we should be going after him instead of Houssain. In defense of the war, it is just to attack Houssain and Iraq. This leader has terrorized his own people. If he is so creul to the people who live in his own country, imagine what he would do to people who are not his followers and are against him. Houssain is an evil man and posed a potential threat to the United States. During the Gulf War, we knew exactly where he was and could have gone in and captured him at this time, but instead, we pulled our troops out, so now we are correcting our past wrong decisions. Also, people argue that our enemy is Al-Quieda. I have a news flash, al-Quieda is not found soley within the borders of Afghanistan. It is not like these people are wearing shock collars that go off when they cross the border into another country. There are operating cells in Iraq and throughout the rest of the middle east. By ending a regime that is training its citizens to attack our country, it begins to lower the potential threat against our country. The US could have used different strategies throughout the war. We, as a country tend to use the first face of power, which is the physical brute force. In order to win this war, we have to use the third face of power, which is convincing the citizens that the old regime is bad. When these countries we are against have the children believing they should go against the United States, it means for generations we will be fighting the same war unless we find a way to stop this kind of thinking. The war in Iraq, in my opinion, is just, but there are better ways to go about winning the war than we currently employ.

Last Post

2004-12-04T23:26:00.000-08:00

I have decided to make my last blog entry one that talks about what I have learned from this class. Well I definitely learned a lot about politics but I know that is not all that this class was supposed to teach. I know the class was supposed to teach how to form an effective argument and I really think it succeeded. I’ve always been one of those people that loved to argue but was never able to form a good reason for my argument. I love to contradict people to see what they have to say about a topic or to see if they can defend what they think but I’ve never been good at actually defending my own points. My arguments usually consisted of phrases like “because I said so” or just plain “I win”. I feel like after taking this class I can now form much better arguments in conversations. I never have enjoyed being involved in discussions about politics and I still do not think I would voluntarily join one, but I definitely feel much more comfortable in these discussions. My family is very diverse when it comes to politics and that has always made me uncomfortable because I never knew how to make a good point.

I know that this class wasn’t supposed to only effect political discussions and I don’t think that’s all I have learned. I’ve noticed that I’m now much more relaxed when a situation comes up in which I have to defend my opinion. I think this class has made a big impact on how I carry myself during an argument. I can now be in a situation where I have to make a valid point to someone to try to persuade their opinion and I don’t feel as uneasy because I feel like I am better prepared to make a good point and be able to make a change in what some one else thinks.

Foreign Countries

2004-12-04T21:17:00.000-08:00

I have always heard people say that citizens of foreign countries care more about politics than citizens of the United States. I believe this more now than ever before because my sister just came back from England and has told me of some of the things she observed while she was there. She told me that while she was there she heard more about the presidential election than she had while she was still in the United States. My sister is a very political person. She always knows more about current events than I do, so the fact that she says that Europeans were more concerned with the election than the American’s is something that I trust her about.

During the election, we spoke of an article that argued that Europeans should have the right to vote in the American elections. The students that my sister encountered that lived in England, for the most part, probably agreed with the author of that article. She mentioned quite a few times while she was there, that there were many English students putting on protests about the election in the United States. I don’t know anyone my age that knows enough about foreign politics to hold a protest of any kind concerning them. In England, the television stations aired live coverage of the Presidential election late into the night and morning. I have no idea when elections in Britain are, much less who is running or who I would support if I lived there.

All over Europe and other nations overseas, there are people who know more about American politics than many people who voted in this years’ election. It is sad to think that citizens of other countries know more about politics in the “most powerful nation in the world” than its own citizens. I guess it can be assumed that if the United States were not the most powerful nation, American citizens would know more about politics in whatever country was more powerful. I think the United States takes advantage of the fact that we have so much power in the world and that its citizens have the power to choose the leader of such a powerful country. I think if the citizens were to realize this they would take the elections much more seriously.

Affirmative Action

2004-12-04T19:09:00.000-08:00

There have been many debated about affirmative action including court cases from the University of Michigan. I believe affirmative action is completely wrong. It is supposed to be making up for past wrong doings for minorities. Why should people now have to pay for the mistakes of people from a long time ago? All people now are given equal opportunity to succeed in the country. Minorities now have all of the same rights as white people and it has been that way for many years now. Society is now more accepting of diversity and people who are unlike themselves. I know that my ancestors did not own slaves, they were working on their own farms in South Dakota, so it seems unfair that I would have to suffer now to give people equal opportunities when they already have equal rights and all they have to do is work hard to make it happen for themselves. While listening to the Neil Boortz radio show, they had a discussion about affirmative action. The guy who was for it said that after years of discrimination, the stereotypes and the ideas of society in general are too hard to overcome and affirmative action is needed for these minorities to get ahead in life. Neil Boortz had very good counter responses to this. He stated that affirmative action is racial and gender discrimination. Boortz argued that affirmative action is no longer needed and that black people are successful without using affirmative action and that not having a level playing field when a person is younger is no excuse for them ending up in jail later. He also said that not all white people have had power passed down to them through generations; they have to work just as hard as blacks to gain good paying jobs in America. All of these are very true points.

The Internet

2004-12-04T14:08:00.000-08:00

Although the Internet has been around for a while it is now starting to have an even bigger effect on how the world is working. The Internet contains a huge variety of information, from sports to politics, from conservative to liberal. You can find anything on the Internet. The newest set of first time voters are the children who grew up with computers and the Internet readily accessible in their homes and schools. Many of these voters are now in colleges where using the Internet is an every day event. I, myself, cannot imagine a world without the Internet.

The Internet played a big role in the election this past October. During the debates prior to the election, viewers were searching the web, checking facts as the debaters were saying them. Every major newspaper and television news station has a website that was kept updated on the current events of the election. Every debate was published online and searchers could find articles supporting the candidate they supported and articles against the candidate they did not support. There are many sites were you can actually find the entire transcript from a debate.

This year candidates made college aged voters a high priority on their list of votes to receive. There were many ads on television encouraging young voters to “Choose or Loose” or “Rock the Vote”. These ads did not actually give any information about any particular candidate so most young people considering voting turned to the Internet to learn about their choices for candidates. Each candidate and political party had their own website where you could learn about the candidates policies on different issues. The Internet was very helpful in informing voters about their political options if they were not able to watch the debates or go to a political rally or learn about the candidates in any other way.

Final Blog; Class Summary

2004-12-04T11:20:00.000-08:00

When I found out that this class was going to focus on politics and the presidential election, I was less than thrilled, as I assume many of the other students in this class were. However, Due to this class, I now have a better understanding of the way campaigning works. I also feel as if this class help inform me of the plans and policies of each candidate, which helped me decide which one I wanted to vote for when the election came on November 2nd. I know that I was probably not the best student in the class and that I did not participate in class discussion as much as I could. I also could have worked on my blog entries a little at a time throughout the semester as opposed till waiting till the week before they were due to do almost all of them. If I had actually worked on them throughout the semester, I might have had a greater understanding of what was going on in class and been able to participate more. However, I did truly enjoy this class and got a lot out of it.

I feel like I learned the most in this class from the group blog projects that we did toward the end of the semester. I liked these because we were able to focus on just one thing, so we gained larger amounts of knowledge about whichever subject or topic that our group chose. While my group did wait until almost the deadline to get things rolling, we did find a lot of good articles and have some really good entries, and I got a lot out of them. I feel like I am very informed about the candidate’s positions about the topic that my group chose: education. However, I think it would have benefited me more if I had had this knowledge before the election as opposed to after it. Either way, I did learn a lot.

Media Bias

2004-12-04T09:32:00.000-08:00

Frank Rich wrote an article in the The New York Times entitled “This Time Bill O’Reilly Got It Right.” The article talks about the fact they Bill O’Reilly “expected the media to brutally dismember CNN and the new boys on John Kerry’s bus” because of the “vicious attacks on Fox News for allegedly being ‘G.O.P. TV’.” The fact is though that Fox News is G.O.P. TV. Some people think that a liberal biased station was bound to come around simply because of the fact that Fox News is conservatively biased. I personally, however, think that O’Reilly had a right to be angry that no one said anything about the fact that two hosts on CNN joined Senator Kerry’s campaign. I think that news broadcasters bring their own politically opinions to the televisions instead of keeping it to themselves. I personally do not think that news stations or programs should be biased toward either party and even if they are, they should not show it. The news should be reported one-hundred percent accurately, not with a liberal or conservative biased simply because of who is presenting it. However, because of human nature, I know this is not possible. Two people, telling the same story, with different conservative and liberal backgrounds, will remember the story differently and therefore tell it differently. They cannot help it. The same thing happens with media bias. However, this is no way to prevent it, so media bias will always be a problem.

Voting Worth the Trouble?

2004-12-04T09:13:00.000-08:00

Jim Holt makes a very good point in his article, “Is Voting Worth the Trouble?” He is right; the probability that any one vote cast in a United States presidential election will decide the outcome of the election is about .00000001%. With such a small impact, is it even worth voting? Holt goes into several different reasons why it seems like you should not vote. However, in the end he says, “The moral, if there is one, is to vote out of duty, not self-interest.” The truth is, voting is a duty, and a right. People often want to criticize the national government or the way the President is running the country. Then, if you ask them if they voted, they say no. If you want to criticize, then you have to vote. If not, you have not right to criticize what they are doing. If you dislike them so much, then go out in the next election and vote for their opponent so that you can get them out of office. However, when elections are like the one this year, more people may be less inclined to go out in vote. They may not want President Bush in office anymore, but they do not want Senator Kerry in office as President either. They fill as if it is pointless. However, like Holt says in his article, they should still go out in vote simply because it is their duty, even if it is for the lesser of two evils as many people called choosing a candidate in this election.

College-Aged Voters

2004-12-04T08:51:00.000-08:00

This is in response to the article in the Washington Post about college-aged voters feeling the tug of recruiters and the article The Tufts Daily that says Kerry’s campaign is focusing on college voters.

The Washington Post article is saying that there is larger number of college-aged voters who are saying that they are going to go out and vote in this election than 1972 when eighteen year olds won the right to vote. The article is also saying that Senator Kerry is dropping in polls when it comes to the support he is receiving from these voters. I am not sure I agree with this though. At the Georgia Tech campus, it seemed as if most students supported Senator Kerry above President Bush. However, this may not be true. The article quotes Robert Lee, a 23-year-old newly graduated student from Colorado State who is now working to recruit members to the College Republicans, as saying “…I feel we’re a silent majority. I think at least half of the students are on our side.” I hope that this is right, because I am a supporter of Bush.

The article in The Tufts Daily says that Senator Kerry is focusing his campaign on college voters. I think this is a very smart move on his part, because college-aged students are who will be their main supporters in the years to come. In addition, they are the future of America. However, the results of a Harvard University poll show Senator Kerry with a large advantage over Bush when it comes to support from college students is being questioned by some college-aged Republicans because of a poll that came out in March that showed President Bush with a lead in support from college students. However, regardless of the polls and their results, it does seem that Senator Kerry is spending more time campaigning to college students than President Bush.

Filibusters

2004-12-03T22:31:00.000-08:00

The article titled “Frist’s Fury Over Filibusters” brings up the issue concerning filibusters in the US Senate. Filibusters are used when the majority party in the senate plans to have a bill passed that the minority is not going to agree with but will also not be able to defeat. Certain bills only have a certain time period in which they can be brought up in the senate. If this time period passes the bill can not be brought before the senate again. To succeed in filibustering in the senate, a senator or group of senators must hold discussion that prevents the other party from bringing their bill to the table. There are certain rules involved in filibustering. I’m not exactly sure what they are but they include rules such as, the senator must remain standing, conscious and talking throughout the entire process. This article is about the current Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist who thinks that the use of filibusters should be made unconstitutional in cases of executive nominations. Even other Republicans disagree with Frist on this issue. They see that if they make filibusters unconstitutional now that it will come back to haunt them when the Senate is led by Democrats again. Frist insists that the minority party is trying to have too much power and is trying to prevent President Bush from nominating Republicans to the Supreme Court. The Democratic Party is only trying to prevent the nominations of a certain 10 individuals who they see as unfit to serve on the Supreme Court. Even Republican Senator Robert La Follette, at the beginning of the 1900’s argued that filibusters should never be voted against because the filibuster is the only thing that the minority party has to try to keep the majority party from having complete control.

Elections

2004-12-03T21:23:00.000-08:00

After finding this site and doing some quick math in my head I’ve figured out that only once in history has a presidential election been decided by so narrow a margin as the last two elections in this country. The last time that the election was so close was in 1916, in the election between Woodrow Wilson and Charles Hughes. This election was decided with a 52% to 48% margin or victory for Wilson. I can only wonder why recent years have brought on such close elections. It is a little scary that a person can be elected president when literally half the country does not approve of him. I understand that the way a democracy works is that “the majority wins”. The only problem is that the majority is getting smaller and smaller. In most elections in the past there has at least been a semi-unanimous choice for the president. Now it seems that no one is ever voting for someone that they like, rather someone that they like more than the other guy. I think it is sad that for the first half of President Bush’s first term in office, it was very difficult to find someone that could actually say that they liked Bush and supported all of his ideas. Only after September 11^th and the start of the War on Terrorism could you ask someone what they thought about Bush and you would actually find someone who would admit that they liked him. I grew up a in very conservative town and found it hard to believe that I could ask adults if they voted for Bush and they would say no and yet he still won. It is disconcerting that in such a conservative town, even the most conservative people I knew didn’t voted for the man and he still won. I think the reason the elections are getting so close is because people are losing trust in candidates and the parties are not electing candidates that the people can feel completely confident voting for.

Faith Factor

2004-12-02T23:22:00.000-08:00

So did the Democrats miss on the faith issue in this year’s election? The answer is yes. The “Faith Factor” article assesses the Democrats failure to appeal to those whose primary issues relate to religion. The answer to the first question is yes, they did miss. Kerry tried to show that he was a faith based person, but he didn’t address the issues at hand this year. An overwhelming amount of people were focused on the gay and abortion issues which obviously many tied to religion are going to side with Bush’s side which opposes gay marriage and opposes abortion. Another big mistake that Kerry made was his mentions of Cheney’s gay daughter, which was a step he never should have made because it made him seem out of touch with the religious issues. Also, the Kerry group waited way too long to try and show that Kerry was a church going Christian, as the world all knew the Bush was as the debates and such began. So why is a nation that was created in hopes of not having ties between religion and government being determined on such an important issues. This is because many people want to vote for a person that carries the same beliefs as they do, and the majority of people in this country are Christians. So will the Democrats ever be able to get this edge back on the religious issues, since liberals are often thought to provide similar things to the public as churches do? Next time they’ve got to create new issues and mention of new topics that put them in a better light over religion or they will lose in this area yet again.

Contradictions

2004-12-02T21:45:00.000-08:00

Reading the article called “The Faith Factor”, by Barbara Ehrenreich made me think of a question that I’ve started to wonder about recently. The issue is one concerning conservatives view on abortion mixed with their view on social services. It is obvious that most, if not all conservatives are against abortion for one reason or another. It is also common knowledge that conservatives are also against most forms of social service (welfare, social security, etc.). The part of this that confuses me is how conservatives can have no problem bringing an unwanted child into the world but when it comes to supporting that same child they are not willing to help. Often times the reason a woman has an abortion is because she does not want the child or will not be able to support that child. If the child were to come into the world the mother would either have to put it up for adoption or would need help providing for the child. Conservatives want to take the choice away from the mother and then not help the mother provide for a kid that she knew from the beginning that she would not be able to support. These contradictions make it hard for me to understand how conservatives could justify not wanting to give financial support to people who need it.

Waldman's article

2004-12-02T21:18:00.000-08:00

In his article, Perverted, God-Hating Frenchies vs. Inbred, Sex-Obsessed Yokels, Steven Waldman points out many stereotypes that are often held against Republicans and Democrats. He uses his article to show how opinions of the opposite party are usually not accurate. He points brings up concerning religion, morals, intelligence and family values. Waldman points out five commonly used labels for each side and tells the truth about behind them. In the article Waldman shows many statistics to support his arguments.

I think this article is a very good thing and I’m glad someone finally wrote something like it. There are too many stereotypes and labels being used every day in political arguments. Every political argument includes party-based tags being placed on members of the opposite party. These disputes do nothing other than offend the other party member. Every group of people, especially ones so large that they consist of half of the country, has a wide variety of people in it. Some stereotypes may hold true for certain members in a group but certainly not for all of them. The only thing a stereotype succeeds in doing is offending the other group.

Waldman does a very good job finding common stereotypes and contradicting them. He points out facts such as the fact that many liberals are just as moral as conservatives. Liberals believe that the war in Iraq is wrong based on the moral belief that a war should not be started unless it is absolutely justified. Waldman also shows that while liberals call Bush supporters morons, they are just as smart as many liberals. He points out statistics showing that the least educated voters voted for Kerry in this years’ election. Waldman article is very effective in disputing many common arguments that are used in political arguments today.

Dinner Conversation

2004-12-02T18:28:00.000-08:00

My house consists of two liberals and two conservatives. As you can imagine this makes for very interesting dinner table conversation. Over Thanksgiving break a very interesting conversation came about at dinner one night. The conversation was between my father (conservative), my mother (liberal), my grandmother (liberal), and myself (somewhere in between but leaning more liberal). The discussion was about abortion. My father is against abortion as would be expected from a conservative and the rest of us were for abortion in certain extreme circumstances. My father was arguing why he thought abortion was wrong for any reason (the whole it’s a human life and it’s murder if you abort it argument). Then my grandmother threw out the argument of “Well what if Catherine got raped and got pregnant? Would you force her to carry that child to term?” This really made my father think. I’m sure he had heard the abortion because of rape argument before, but I don’t think he had ever considered it being one of his own children. I think most people don’t look the every possible situation when they hear an argument like that. People hearing an argument and look at it completely objectively. Although it is good to be able to look at things objectively, sometimes you don’t get the whole picture unless you put yourself into the situation. My father had always looked at the situation with the thought that it wasn’t his daughter having to make the choice so it was an easy decision: abortion is murder. I think when my father looked at it from this view it changed his mind and I now think that he supports abortion in situations of rape because he wouldn’t want one of his children to have to go through all that for a child that it wasn’t their choice to have.

Was 2004 election a realignment?

2004-12-02T18:18:00.000-08:00

Realignment is the process by which one party supplants another as the dominant party in a political system. Since 1790, there have been five realignments in the United States government. Many partisan operatives and political scientists think that another realignment could be happening as a result of the 2004 election which gave the Republican Party a reelection victory in the presidency and gains in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The people that believe this is a realignment argue that the Republican advantage in Washington, D.C. leaves them in a position to win long-term loyalty among key voter communities and create a long-term majority. If this is true, then the 2004 election would qualify as a “realignment election.” However, this election, as is every presidential election, is being scrutinized for evidence of a developing realignment. In the past, predictions of realignment have proved to be untimely. Therefore, there are many skeptics and opponents to the thought of this election being a realignment. Opponents to the thought of this election as realignment are saying that this election was nothing more than a close election in the time of war the broke in favor of the incumbent party. Additionally, Ruy Teixeira, a liberal political analyst whom does not think the election was a realignment, said that the electorate this year “tilted, but it didn’t tilt very much.” Teixeira also said that Bush merely took advantage of the natural power of incumbency, which he believes is accentuated in wartime. However, it does appear that President Bush received a larger percentage of voters in this election that traditionally vote Democratic than he did in the 2000 election. However, exit polls also showed that self-identified independents tended to favor Democratic candidate, Senator Kerry, in this election. The debate on whether this election is a realignment or not will continue for quite some time. However, if the Republicans continue to do as well in Washington, D.C. as they did in this election, it could prove that this election was the beginning of a realignment.

Undergraduate Study Habits

2004-12-02T17:36:00.000-08:00

The survey information given in Eric Hoovers article about undergraduate study habits is fascinating but I don’t think it necessarily applies to all colleges or all college students. I think that there are many colleges out there in which you don’t have to apply as many hours to make A’s and B’s. I have many friends from high school who now attend a college in which they are learning things that I learned early in high school. There are many colleges that do not require as much time to be devoted to studies.

Although I do not spend 25 hours studying every week, there are weeks when I spend more than 25 hours. Weeks such as “Dead Week” at Tech make up for the weeks when I spend less than 25 hours on homework. I may not actually spend 25 hours studying every week, but I have at least 25 hours of work that I could do every week. I think that grades do reflect how much time a student puts into outside of class class-work each week. Although Hoover says that students who did not put in as many hours studying still got A’s and B’s in classes, you have to take into account that some students can cram right before a test and still make an A, and there are some students who, when taking a survey such as this one, look at the questions and say “no, I don’t study that much but I still make good grades”. When these students take the survey they embellish a bit and suddenly a B GPA becomes an A. These and other factors could play a huge role in why these statistics should not necessarily be taken too seriously.

The final post

2004-12-02T00:48:00.000-08:00

I want to make my final post as one that kind of explains what I learned in the class overall. Honestly, when I heard the topic for the class at the beginning of the semester, I wasn't too thrilled. I have never been one that took too much interest in politics, so I figured the class was going to be a drag. But I do have to say that I really did end up enjoying the semester. I learned a lot about something I knew very little about before, and I had multiple chances to discuss my opinions in class. I think that class discussion took a significant part in my interest in the class because it gave me a chance to hear what other people thought about both political and social issues. It also gave me a chance to hear opposing viewpoints and actually opened up my mind to some of the arguments those people held. I was never one to dismiss a differing opinion, but the discussions just let me see other people's reasons for believing in the things they believe in. I also discovered that some people can support a candidate and be totally against his stance on social issues but completely supportive of his foreign or domestic policy. Mostly, the class just gave me an opportunity to hear what other students thought. That's one big thing that I will take away from English 1101: the knowledge that young people have their own set of values and beliefs, and that our voice really does matter in this country.

Apparent Increase in Economy

2004-12-01T18:18:00.000-08:00

I posted a link to an article in August called Excuses, Excuses, which was about the reasons that President Bush’s administration is giving for the poor economy. One of these reasons is the stock-market collapse that started in March of 2000. While both the economy and stock-market have been fluctuating up and down during President Bush’s presidency, I would like to predict that both, especially the stock-market, are on their way up. Throughout 2004, the S&P 500 has been bouncing up and down, but in the month of November alone, following the reelection of President Bush, it has increased dramatically and is now at a fifty-two week high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is also up dramatically from its fifty-two week low that it encountered toward the end of October. While it is not yet up to what its fifty-two week high is, it looks as if it is heading there. Additionally, the NASDAQ Composite is also on the rise. It has been on the rise since its fifty-two week low in August, but the largest increase has been in November. Like the Dow Jones, it is not quite to the height of its fifty-two week high, but appears to be heading there. I believe that the large increases in the stock-market in the month of November are a direct effect of President Bush getting reelected. I also believe that it shows that our economy is on the rise.

Pelosi's Documentary

2004-12-01T13:41:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed watching Journey’s with George, the documentary on President Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign that Alexandra Pelosi made. I loved the way that it showed President Bush as an average, everyday guy who could laugh, joke, and mess up with the media crew that was following him on his campaign trail. I think the thing that interested me the most was that Pelosi was Democrat and she was making the documentary about a Republican candidate for president. I would have assumed that since this was the case that the documentary would not show Bush in a very favorable light, but it did, which shocked me. This is why the documentary is liked by most Republicans like the documentary. Unlike other documentaries, such as Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, Pelosi does not try to make President Bush out to be a bad guy even though she may not have been completely fond of him at the beginning of the film. However, as the documentary progresses, you can tell that her opinion of him also changes to a more appreciably attitude as they seem to develop a sort of friendship. I found it interesting how Bush actually took the time to interact with the group of press. It showed that he did not think that he was better than them. The film does not make Bush look perfect though. It does show him messing up a few times and at one point on the plane, it shows that Bush knows that public speaking is not one of his strengths. He understands that he is not perfect; he is just trying to be the best candidate that he can possibly be. However, Pelosi did not try to make the film bring out his weaknesses; she just tried to show who President Bush really is.

Liberals vs. Conservatives

2004-12-01T13:11:00.000-08:00

I think Steven Waldman did a very good thing when he wrote his article, “Perverted, God-Hating Frenchies vs. Inbred, Sex-Obsessed Yokels.” He was trying to help both liberals and conservatives understand the meaning behind why the others feel they way they do about a certain topic. Now, since the article mentioned abortion and the pro-life believes, I feel it ok to step up on my high-horse and give my opinion on this.

The first thing I want to say is that I am neither a liberal nor a conservative. I have opinions that agree with both sides. When it comes to abortion though, I am highly conservative and I would like to back up why this is so. I am not one of those super-religious people who use religion in the arguments against abortion. I merely believe that, like the article says, life begins at conception, and therefore, abortion is murder and wrong. There is a lot more to it than that though. If you know someone who has had an abortion, then you might agree with me. Abortions are harmful to the women who have them. Most people have heard of soldiers have post-traumatic depression after returning from war, and I’d like to argue that a very similar thing occurs to women who have had an abortion. I have seen first-hand what can happen. My sister had an abortion of twins almost two years ago, and she hasn’t been mentally healthy since then. She went through a time of very serious depression, and she is still suffering from it. This is a depression that was sparked because of the abortion. If could see how the abortion has affected her, you would understand how it is psychologically damaging to any women. Abortions are murder, but they are also damaging to the psychological health of those who have them. This is a belief that most conservatives share on why abortions should be outlawed.

Study Habits

2004-11-30T13:30:00.000-08:00

I have to disagree with Olesya about how the article on study habits reflects students at Georgia Tech. I know from personal experience, that I do not study more than twenty-five hours a week. I would not doubt it if I spend less than ten hours a week studying. This holds the same for my roommates and their friends. Granted, we aren’t the students that are going to get A’s in all of our classes. We’re more like the people that are probably going to get C’s but we’re hoping to get B’s if we are really lucky. I know that I have not spent as much time studying this semester as I should have. Part of this is because I was working with the school’s softball team and it occupied a lot of my time. However, I also know that I could have spent less time on the phone with my boyfriend at night and used it studying. On the other hand, when I knew I had an assignment due, I did it to the best of my ability; I just didn’t take extra time to make it great. I did not ever do more than was asked; I simply completed the assignments. I know that I do need to study more next semester and I plan to do this. I’m hoping to get myself up there near the twenty-five hours of study a week mark.

I do however agree with Olesya that the statistics in this article probably do not count top-notch schools. Technology school (such as Georgia Tech or MIT) and Ivy League school students have to spend a lot of time studying to do well in their classes. Additionally, students who make it into these universities are usually the type of student who are very driven and either do not mind studying or actually want to study.

Still no votes in Leipzig

2004-11-30T13:23:00.000-08:00

Globalization is inevitable. Advances in technology are one of the largest reasons that it occurs. However, because of globalization, government policies are now affecting not only the citizens of the country that made them, but also the citizens of other countries. I completely disagree with the article “Still No Votes in Leipzig,” which proposes allowing non-America citizens the right to vote in the United States Presidential election. I do not think that this means that people from other countries should be allowed to vote in the United States. Citizens of the United States do not get to vote in the elections of other countries, even though their policies also affect us. Most importantly I think, is the fact that voting for a president requires more than just comparing the candidates policies on foreign affairs. Like Olesya said in her response to this article, citizens of the United States have to consider the candidates domestic policies as well. If people from around the world were allowed to vote in the United States elections, they would cast votes merely based on the candidates’ foreign policies. This may or may not be the best choice for president for the American people. Citizens from other countries can not choose what is best for the American people when it concerns domestic affairs. Also, the probably do not really know what is best for us when it comes to foreign affairs. If they want to have a say in what goes on over here, then they should move here. I think that the author of this article just wants to cause controversy, because nothing he writes really holds much value. There are too many reasons that go against what he is suggesting to make what he wants to happen an even half-way plausible idea. I think the mostly simple way to put it is that people from other countries should not be allowed to vote in United States elections. If they want a say that bad, they should move over here and be come citizens, then they’ll have a right to criticize our government.

Student Study Habits

2004-11-30T13:15:00.000-08:00

A lot of the information and statistics in Hoover's article does not apply to Georgia Tech as well as several other "high-education" schools. For instance, I'm sure that people at Princeton or MIT have to spend more than 25 hours per week studying. Studies like this are usually meant to look at schools that do not have as difficult a program as Ivy Leage schools or top tech schools. They are meant to analyze the situation in colleges and universities all over the country who's quality of education does not match that of some of the top schools in the country. Now I don't have a big head, and I don't look down on any other college. All I'm saying is that Tech is up there with the type of education it provides to its students, and that is exemplified by the careers that Tech graduates (the few that do) hold after college, several studies and reviews by newspapers and magazines, and personal experience as well. Most students here probably spend more than 25 hours per week studying because in order to do well on classes, you have to devote a lot of time to looking over the material involved in each class. Especially now with exams next week, several students are spending most of their time either in their dorm rooms or in the library or some other place that offers a quiet environment for studying. One of my first-year friends even commented that she "had never seen the campus so quiet before." So students at other colleges may not have to spend more than 10 hours per week studying and still come out with mostly A's and B's, but here at Tech you have to buckle down.

Resignations

2004-11-29T13:00:00.000-08:00

I was also a bit surprised to hear that six different cabinet members are resigning after only one term. This number seemed a bit high to me as well so I decided to look into it a little bit. After a little searching I found that both Clinton and Reagan had seven cabinet members resign between their first and second terms, so for Bush having six resign seems to be commonplace. After reading this statistic I started wondering why so many of these people resign after only four years. I haven’t come up with too many reasons other than maybe the stress and the time that the job requires to do well is just too much for most people. I can imagine that the stress of a position like secretary of state is unreal and it must take a very special kind of person to deal with it for more than the four year term. All this turnover, however, can not be especially good for the country so hopefully the number will stay at six and no one else will resign.

As for the question of would this change the way people voted if they knew about it before the election, I hope not. I do not believe you should vote for someone that you don’t think is qualified just because you like his cabinet. That would be pretty ridiculous. You should vote for the person that you feel is the better candidate for the job and trust their judgment to appoint the most qualified individuals to serve in there cabinet. That being said would think that very, very few people cast there vote based on cabinet members. Although I too know people that dislike Bush but like Powell or Rice I do not know anyone that considered this when making their decisions on who to vote for. It was simply Bush or Kerry, nothing else.

Why so many resignations?

2004-11-28T22:01:00.000-08:00

Does anyone know if there is a reason why so many people are resigning right after the election? I cant help but think that there were at least a few people in the country who voted thinking to themselves “I don’t really like Bush very much but if Kerry gets elected then we lose Powell and I like him, so I’ll just vote for Bush.” I know quite a few democrats who dislike Bush but still like Powell. I’m still unsure why these people decided to announce their resignations just a week after the election. I have to wonder if they waited until after the election in hopes to get a few extra votes.

I know that sounds very cynical but I haven’t heard otherwise and I can’t think of any other reason to wait only a few days. I also can’t think of any reason why six members of the cabinet would resign within a month of the election. I’m usually not one to think that our government is corrupt like that and I’d be very open-minded about any other ideas other people have as to why this happened.

I also wonder what difference it could’ve made if these people had resigned sooner. I cant help but think that a few people would’ve voted for Kerry if they had known that the cabinet would be so different if Bush was re-elected. I’d be very curious to know how many people would change their vote now if they had a chance. I really hate to think that it would be a significant number, but I really think it may be. Anyone can feel free to comment on this. I’m curious to know what other people’s opinions on this topic are.

Ukraine Election and Voter Fraud

2004-11-28T18:07:00.000-08:00

This is not really about politics in the United States, but I thought it was interesting. I’m not going to post a specific link to any article, because there are a lot of articles about this out there.

The Ukrainian elections seem quite controversial. The fact that one region had a half-million voter turnout increase after the polls had already closed seems more than unlikely; it seems flat out impossible. However, the claims that the increase in votes was a massive injection of ballots in favor of current Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych can not be proven. For all we know, the outcome of the election might have been a landslide victory for Yanukovych with the “fraudulent” votes being cast for the opposition leader, Viktor Yushchenko.
However, I am very glad that the outcome of the United States election did not bring the same outcomes that are now occurring in the Ukraine. After the results of the election were released, Yushchenko said there would be no violence from his side and promised that opposition demonstrators would not attack anything. Nonetheless, the protesters in Kiev, Ukraine’s Independence Square have been protesting for seven days. I could not find an article that said if the protestors were being violent or not. I did, however, find one that said that said both presidential rivals are both urging their supports to not use violence. It also said that Yushchenko defied current President Leonid Kuchma’s call for the protests to end, and urged his supporters to maintain “peaceful protests … here until the end.” On the other hand, Yanukovych has been quoted as saying “I call on you not to take any radical steps. I repeat – none. As soon as the first drop of blood spills, we won’t be able to stop that flow.”

I am glad that Americans are able to accept the outcome of our elections with out protesting. If our election(s) had been as fraudulent as the Ukraine one has been, I think this might be different though. I guess that mostly, I am glad that there haven’t been any large claims of voter fraud in the United States.

Journeys with George

2004-11-24T14:20:00.000-08:00

I thought that Journeys with George was very good and I was glad that we were able to watch it in class. I do not know about everyone else in the class but I have become accustomed to thinking of Bush as the president and I forget sometimes that he too is a person. I know that some people hate George W. Bush because they can no longer distinguish Bush the person from Bush the president that they disagree with on policy. I think that is a sad position to be in. It is a lot like fans that truly hate and in some cases want to harm athletes because they play on a rival team. What I liked most about this film was that you got to see the man behind the suit. I hope that everyone gets a chance to see the president in this way because I think it is important to remember that he is a real person every once in a while.

I thought that it was neat that President Bush took and interest in Alexandria’s relationship with Newsweek Guy. In the video Bush seemed like a very personable very approachable guy. In many instances he was just a goofy, screwball like when he was tossing the orange down the isle and when he was describing how to dress in Texas. He also came across as a very caring individual in several instances. The first way he came across as caring was just by taking an interest in the lives of the reporters for instance when he was giving Alexandria dating advise. The point in the documentary when I believe Bush came across as most compassionate was when he consoled Alexandria after she had taken the poll and was shunned by the rest of the media.

Journeys with George

2004-11-24T11:37:00.000-08:00

At first, I must admit that I was very skeptical about this movie not being liberal in nature as the person making the movie is a strong democrat. As I watched the movie, I started off looking for moments when she was being critical of Bush, but as the movie went on, I started enjoying the movie as a deocumentary. Therer were funny times and serious ones. In the end, I felt as though she did a good job of portraying Bush. It actually made me like him more because I saw him as a man who cared about people and who could relate with people as one of them and not as a superior. It is true that he changed through the movie but that is because he grew more mature and more used to giving the same speech over and over again. He became a politician as well as a regular person, which made him better in my eyes. Journeys With George was one of those documentaries where you can form your own opinion about the subject as the maker intended. It shows the now president in different places and allows the audience to think about the man and decide who he really is. The parts where I thought he was being like a regular person told me that he could relate to most people in this country and the parts where he was giving serious news told me that he could be a diplomat. Other people may think that he is a bumbling idiot or just a pot smoker. In my mind, he may have made some mistakes when he talked but we all do that and he even made fun of himself afterwards, so that made him an even better man. I must admit, that she did a good job when she made this documentary even if she is a liberal.

Did My Vote Count?

2004-11-22T13:14:00.000-08:00

I only live about an hour north of Tech, but I knew that I was going to be unable to make it home to vote. Therefore, I mailed in an absentee ballot. I’ve been thinking though, and I’m wondering if my vote even got counted? When it came to the swing states, the reports were always saying that the precincts hadn’t finished counting absentee ballots yet, so the winner was unclear. In a place where everyone knows who is going to win though, do those absentee ballots ever get counted? I really hope that it did, otherwise, I feel as if my time and opinion was wasted. I am however, happy that I was able to vote by absentee ballot. My county only had one polling place open the week before elections for people to vote early. My mother told me that everyday that week that she drove by the place, the line of people waiting to vote early was not only out the door but down to the sidewalk and then down the street. If lines were like that on Tuesday when the actual election took place, then I am glad that I was able to vote by absentee ballot.

When I was filling out my ballot, I actually felt like I was making a difference. People often complain about the way our government is being run or about certain laws that are getting passed. However, if you ask them if they voted in the election, their answer is often no. If you don’t vote, then you do not deserve to complain about the government. I feel like by voting, I was letting my voice be heard. I feel like I was saying “yes, I do care what my government does.” If my government does something that I do not agree with, I have a right to complain and to let the government know, because I did take part in the election.

Study Habits

2004-11-20T17:24:00.000-08:00

After reading the article on study habits I was not all that surprised. I know that I study less then twenty five hours a week and on almost all weeks I study less then ten hours. So while a lot of people in class seemed shocked by this revelation I was not. However, by and large I do believe that this is different at Georgia Tech and other top notch universities. Most of my friends here do study at least twenty five hours a week because of Georgia Techs rigorous curriculum. Between doing labs, readings, and studying for tests I can easily see how someone could spend thirty or forty hours a week studying here. I think these numbers are pretty accurate though. In fact they might be highballing how much students actually spend studying outside of class. I haven’t talked to any of my friends that attended other colleges that even spend fifteen hours studying per week. Outside of my studious friends from high school I haven’t talked to anyone that even studies five hours a week. The vast majority of my friends attending other colleges spend most of their time going to parties and drinking. Although the numbers probably vary from college to college depending on the difficulty level I think that overall these numbers probably pretty accurately reflect a college student in today’s society.

Why Kerry Lost (in my opinion)

2004-11-20T11:50:00.000-08:00

John Kerry ended up losing the election this year and many people are wondering why. The simplest reason could be that there are more republicans in this nation than there are democrats but even then you have to ask why that is. At least this time, people are debating the reasons why he lost and not whether he lost, and that is a much more interesting topic. Some people are saying that Kerry lost because his political party is perceived as being weak and the republicans are considered strong with moral values. Others contend that Kerry's flipfloppery caused him to lose value in the eyes of the public because he seemed to have no stand on any issue and of course not one that lasted more than a few weeks. Peopl had to ask themselves whether they wanted a president who had no problem saying what he wanted and what he was going to do or someone who was going to appear weak in the eyes of foreign countries. My opinion differs from most topics in the date, as I believe that Kerry may have lost because he tried to appear superior to everyone. It may just be that I am a republican and that is my opinion because of that, but I look at Kerry and the way that he presents himself and I think white collar automatically. I also think ivy league education, prep school, and money. With Bush, I know that he has moeny and that he went to an ivy league college, but when I think of him, I think of a regular person who is working with the people and not managing the people because he thinks that he is better than them and that they are stupid. Kerry seems to hold himself like he thinks that he is better than all of us and that we are helpless. In my opinion, Bush won (Kerry did not lose, he got beaten, and there is a difference) because he seemed like he understood people better.

Should other countries vote in our elections?

2004-11-20T09:22:00.000-08:00

An article was published in a foreig paper titled "Still No Votes in Leipzig," and it claims that since American polices affect everyone else in the world, that evryone in the world should get to vote for our president. Would that mean that mean that we would have to allow noncitizens and non native born Americans a chance for the presidency? Both of these issues would go against the very basis of making ourselves a separate country. We have to protect our country from others that may not have the right ideas. We do not need other countries dictating what we do and how we do it. Sure we can get advice from them in a world council, but allowing them to choose our president? That is completely ridiculous. Plus, every country's policies affect the world in some manner, but we do not say that we should vote in their elections. If they were to vote in ours, we would have to vote in theirs. Then, no country would be separate and everything would be in total chaos. So what would be accomplished in the end? The complete destruction of the framework of the modern world. In addition, foreign countries would only vote for a president based on his or her foreign policies and not on domestic issues. So only the AMericans really understand what it is like to be American. Therefore, the best foreign ploicy candidate according to the world may not help the United States very much at home. So, what would it accomplish to have a good foreign policy and not to have a good candidate on all issues? The Americans would be pretty much out of luck. That is why America votes for its leaders as other countries vote for their own. It is better for everyone that way.

College Students

2004-11-19T22:19:00.000-08:00

I do not think the article about how hard college students work is entirely accurate. It is possible to be prepared for class without having to spend as much time studying as proffessors think is necessary, but they didn't take a lot of factors into consideration. For example, what major the student is in. At Georgia Tech, I hear horror stories from architechture majors about how much studio time they have to put in and I rarely hear those complaints from management majors. I find that I have to do much more studying than I did in high school, but I doubt its near what profs think are required for class. I also don't believe that 40% of the students are making A's. If that were true, colleges would have way higher average GPA's than they actually do. In order to get As at Georgia Tech, you probably would have to study at least 25 hours a week outside of class. I think this is an unrealistic goal. If you take the weekend off and dont study, that means for five hours a day, you should be studying for class, this doesn't include time spent in class. This means that on a day you could be spending up to 10 hours doing work and learning. I dont think the brain can take that much all at once. Also, college is supposed to build character. This means interactions with other people, socializing, learning how to balance work and play, learning responsibility in drinking, and while spending most of the time during the day studying, this doesnt leave much time for the other aspects of life. College students do work hard enough, even without studying 25 hours a week outside of class because we are learning things other than what can be taught in a text book.

Electoral College

2004-11-18T17:05:00.000-08:00

This is somewhat playing off of Olesya’s posting on whether the Electoral College should be abolished or not. As a personal belief, I think that it should be abolished. The reasons that our Founding Fathers had for creating the Electoral College no longer hold up. They didn’t believe that the average American citizen was intellectual enough or knowledgeable enough about what was going to directly elect their President. However, times have drastically changed since then. Our country is more intellectual now than it has ever been. Additionally, most citizens have at least somewhat of an idea about what is going on in American politics. While they may not care that much, they still know about it because of the vast media coverage that it gets. Also, the Electoral College somewhat discourages people from voting. Someone that lives in a state where it is clear long before the election who will win the Electoral votes may not be as willing to go out and vote. They would probably think that their vote didn’t matter enough. If the Electoral College were abolished, each vote would directly count towards electing the president; each vote would be important and could make or break an election. Also, candidates currently campaign more in “swing states” and do not pay very much attention to the other states. Therefore, the citizens of the “swing states” are more informed about the candidates’ issues and platforms. If the Electoral College were gone, the candidates would be forced to campaign equally in all states. This would allow for every American citizen to know as much about each candidate as any other citizen.

The Presidential Election of 2000 brought into perspective exactly what the Electoral College can do. I believe that if Senator John Kerry hadn’t conceded the electoral votes of Ohio to President Bush that the same controversy would have occurred that occurred during the 2000 Election. I believe that if Kerry had wanted to protest the vote that the election would have almost mimicked the election of 2000, even though Presidents Bush had clearly won the majority of the popular vote of the nation. When elections are getting this close every time, I believe that someone should step back and look at the system. From here on out, if the Electoral College is not abolished, every election is going hinge on one major swing state, which may conclude the election results as something different than the popular vote. I do not think this should be the case. I believe that the Electoral College should be gone so that each vote is equal.

Liberals vs. Conservatives

2004-11-17T23:37:00.000-08:00

Steven Waldman's article Perverted, God-Hating Frenchies vs. Inbred, Sex-Obsessed Yokels was an interesting read, partly because it didn't take a side but merely explained some things one party wrongfuly assumes about the other. What it really reminded me of was the very beginning of the semester and one of the first articles we had to read that discussed why liberals and conservatives don't understand each other. That article says that both sides use different words to get their point across but that both sides also have a different way of thinking. This article coincides with that statement. For example, liberals and conservatives hold obviously different views on abortion. Republicans have been known to call Democrats "baby-killers," and Democrats believe that Republicans are sexist because their position doesn't give women a choice. These are two completely different ways of thinking, and two different sets of values. As Waldman's article says, it's not that one side cares about the values and the other doesn't; instead, it's the way that people weigh the values and determine which are more important. The article mentions another untruth Republicans say about Democrats: that Democrats are non-religious and Bible-hating because they support gay marriage. In actuality, as Waldman reports, half of regular church-goers are Democrats and more than 60% of Democrats pray daily. It's a matter of interpretation. People interpret the Bible differently and build their belief systems not only on the Bible but on their surroundings. Some people simply choose to interpret the Bible more strictly than others, even though not everything in the Bible should be interpreted exactly like it says (refer to my second paper for more information :-). Either way, both parties don't understand each other because they have different sets of guiding principles and beliefs. But that doesn't mean that we should be hearing and reading propaganda that degrades either party and takes things to an extreme, such as calling Democrats "Satan-worshipers" or Republicans "religious dictators." Unfortunately, the liberal/conservative war is one that has become rooted in American society and it will not see an end in the near future and for some time to come.

Stereotypes wouldn't exist if people didnt live up to them

2004-11-17T18:18:00.000-08:00

After reading the article Perverted, God-Hating Frenchies vs. Inbred, Sex-Obsessed Yokels, I thought about the stereotypes that are given to conservative and liberals and a lot of them are true. The first truth about liberals was that they are as moral as conservatives. Being the proud conservative I am, I completely disagree with that statement. Morals come from the Bible. The Bible straight up says that homosexuality is a sin and many liberals support gay marriage, immoral. The Bible also discourages divorce and the conservatives hold up traditional family values as important whereas the liberals will make divorce seem like the norm and make it seem ok. I do not know how this author states that liberals are just as religious and moral as conservative when the liberals so blatently go against what is written in the Bible. So this doesnt sound completely one sided, conservatives live up to some of their stereotypes as well. For instance, being uneducated. There are many people in small towns that fit the less educated, racist, god-fearing, gun-toting conservative. If there weren't people like this, then the stereotype would have never been created in the first place, but is this any worse than the poor, uneducated minorities in urban areas committing violent crimes that also tend to be liberal? No. Both sides have the educated and the uneducated. This article did not state where any of the statistics came from and also did not say who was surveyed, when the surveys took place, etc. They could be random numbers pulled from different sources or even from 50 years ago. Statistics can be used to prove almost everything, so in this case, I do not believe they are effective.

What a journey!

2004-11-14T22:25:00.000-08:00

Pelosi's documentary is a bit different from others because, in this case, the person making the documentary does not attempt to slander the other side. Pelosi is a Democrat, and she's making a documentary about a Republic candidate for president, but instead of taking the offensive in critisizing Bush, she lets the people know that he is just another man that can laugh, joke, and occassionaly mess up. This is the reason why most Republicans like Pelosi's film. She doesn't make Bush out to be that "bad guy," as other documentaries do (we are all thinking about Michae Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. The relationship between the press and the politicians they cover, in this case, is said to be relatively personal. After all, they are spending a significant portion of their lives with one person, and there are plenty of other things to discover about the politician besides his or her views on a certain policitical issue. It seems that Pelosi and Bush developed a special relationship in which they exchanged witty banter and, in one case, where Bush sorted out a disagreement between Pelosi and some of the other press members. She gives a little attention to his weaknesses, among them public speaking, but later shows that Bush knows that when he jokes about it on the plane later. This, in turn, proves that Bush is not perfect and realizes that he is human makes mistakes, just like the rest of us. I think that Pelosi's film portrays the fact that even though the media and politicians may not agree on certain issues, the connection they develop evolves from something more important than politics. A good question to pose is whether this documentary would have been different if it had been filmed after 9/11. Since Pelosi is a Democrat, how would Bush's decision to fight a war in Iraq affect the way Pelosi portrayed him in the film? Now that, my friends, is a question no one can answer.

Southpark

2004-11-12T13:04:00.000-08:00

I really enjoyed the Southpark episode that we watched in class. I think it represented what a lot of Americans thought about the past few elections and it got me to thinking, “Are we really just voting between a giant douche and terd sandwich?” No. People that viewed the Kerry vs. Bush election as a giant douche vs. a terd sandwich are looking at all the wrong things just like Kyle was looking at the wrong things in his school election. When he looked at the two candidates he saw two smelly, repulsive choices. However, when the rest of town looked at the mascots they saw two very funny choices that they could really get behind and support. Likewise the people that look at Bush and see a dimwitted, warmonger are ignoring the fact that he has an ivy league education, he’s a self-made businessman qualified to run the country, and that he is actually a very compassionate person that probably dreaded sending troops to die. They people that look at Kerry and see a pompous person who is a traitor to his country are missing the fact that he has done many things the help those in poverty, he bravely served his country in battle, and he stands on his moral values. People that look at voting as a decision between two people need to reevaluate the reasons we vote. We vote for a leader of our great country. We vote to make someone the most powerful person in the world. The office of president is bigger than any one man, terd sandwich or not. You don’t vote for a person you vote for an office you vote out of duty for what the country has done for you. For those people that can’t see past the shortcomings of the candidates and see the positives that they possess need to look at there own lives. Don’t focus on the spec in someone else eye when there is a plank your own. I think it is important to remember that these candidates are human and they are not going to be perfect, but they are good people and they will put forth their best effort. So next time that you think you must decide between a giant douche and a terd sandwich remember that and look for the good.

Journeys with George

2004-11-11T11:39:00.000-08:00

I thought the “Journeys with George” documentary that we watched in class this week was a very positive representation of the president. I’ve always considered myself to be liberal and democratic, and never really like Bush that much. But after watching this film I actually have a more positive view of him. For once I actually got to see Bush as a person not just a political figure standing in front of a crowd giving a speech. Although the creator of the film was democratic (and made that clear at the beginning), the film showed Bush in a positive light.

I could see where Democrats would be able to insult Bush based on scenes in the documentary. They could claim that Bush was acting childish throughout the film. I think I remember one scene when someone made a comment to Bush and he stuck his tongue out at them. While there is no denying that this is childish, it wasn’t really a negative kind of childish behavior. Bush’s childishness was not an immature “I’m still a third grader” type of attitude, it seemed like more of an “I’m a fifty year old man but I can still have fun” playfulness.

On a whole I think Pelosi’s opinion of Bush changed over the course of the video. In the beginning she seemed very skeptical of Bush and his candidacy. But as the film progressed she got closer to Bush and got to know him and her attitude towards him seemed to change. I think I went through a little of the same transformation that Pelosi did. Although I still don’t agree with many of his political opinions, I now think Bush is a better person than many Democrats give him credit for. He actually is human; not just a political statue. I feel much better about his re-election after watching this film.

Can someone make you vote?

2004-11-10T10:49:00.000-08:00

I was trying to come up with inspiration for my next blog looking on foxnews.com at the current news for the day and stumbled across an interesting article. The article was a about an English teacher who made her students as part of the requirement to pass the class. I'm not sure about what other people think, but I don't think that's right at all for a teacher to make someone vote if they don't want to. I understand that she was doing it because it's known commonly that a high percent of student age citizens don't vote when they have the opportunity, but that still doesn't make it right. It's not an English teachers' job to make people better citizens. What she should have done, as was done in our English class is sparked debates over why we should vote and other political issues in the hopes of persuaying her class that they should go out and vote. Even then there are still going to be some people who just don't understand the importance of voting and of making your voice heard. I think P Diddy takes it to the extreme with his "Vote or Die" campaign, but it still stands to prove a point. Voting is a right and something that makes us a part of the U.S. Even though we may not like one of the candidates a whole lot, find one that you like the most and cast your vote. One vote seems like a little, but it can go a long way.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,138088,00.html

Fate of next four years?

2004-11-08T14:26:00.000-08:00

Now that the election is over, Bush is the clear winner, and the country seems stable after the election, what's next for America. Even the market has been going up, and there's been little talk of the bad things happening in the world. Is this a sign of change or just a short term thing that will pass soon? I would like to think that this is the way things are going to be, but as many people realize one of the major reasons the market is doing so well right now is because so many people were nervous about the election turning out like last year with all the disputes and since it went smoothly people felt confident to invest what they'd been holding back. Also, another factor is the lowering of oil prices from their highest points ever to something a little more reasonable. However, even with things going well at home there are still many world wide that would have been much happier if Kerry had one so what will happen in the long term with Bush as President. Often world leaders have liked dealing with a second term President because he doesn't have to make policy knowing he'll be campaigning later on, but is this possible for a President whom many in the world hate.? One thing is for sure, and that is that the next four years will shape the entire future of America and will decide whether the future textbooks will describe Bush as a hero or a zero. All we can do is wait and hope for the best in the next four years we have under Bush, and pray for the best outcome.

Working on a campaign

2004-11-07T09:26:00.000-08:00

So this year, my neighbor decided to run for State House against a guy that has been in office for at least 12 years and is a republican in Cobb County, which is predominantly republican and in a district that is like completely republican. The only thing was that my neighbor, Chris Lake, was a republican but he wanted to get on the ballot in November. So, he decided to run as a democrat...that did not seem like a very good idea to me. So, one night he calls me up and asks me to help him on his campaign and I agree because I am a poor college student and he was offering money and food. On the weekends, I would go by and help his grandmother and mother with the many mailings that had to go out. I sat there for eight hours each day gluing envelope after envelope after envelope. I was just glad we were npot licking them. Meanwhile, the other ladies would be stuffing even more envelopes. I would complete 2 huge postal trays an hour and the pile would be gone after several hours. I would come back the next weekend and the pile was there again. It was a never ending cycle. I was there for only two or three days a week, but Chris's grandmother, who is like 85, would be there every day from 7 in the morning to 7 in the evening working all day. Most days she never took a break to eat lunch. Working on a political campaign is hard work and it is monotonous. While we were in the house doing mailings, Chris was out walking through neighborhoods and knocking on doors. Some days it was very discouraging as he was met by many with strong republican ideals. It was very disappointing when the results came in and despite everyone's hard work, he lost in a landslide and only got 25% of the vote.

Election Day in Cobb County

2004-11-07T08:24:00.000-08:00

So as a first time voter, I was expecting the long lines and the hassles of voting, and I was actually looking forward to experiencing it. But it seems as though it was not meant to be. I went past four polling places on one street, so it seemed that there would not be really long lines. All day, I was planning on doing homework in line and talking with people about politics or whatever the topic was. So when my brother and I drove up to the polling place, it was to my surprise that there were no cars in the parking lot and when I walked in I had to wait forever behind my brother like all of five minutes to check in. They could make the system better if the had more divisions of the alphabet so that people did not have to wait so long because most people's last names begin with a letter in the beginning of the alphabet. It was pretty cool to use the electronic ballot because you could change your vote if you accidentally hit the wrong button or you decided that you wanted to vote for somebody else. I do not know why people were so anxious about using them because they were a lot easier to use. The touch screen concept seemed to be a lot simpler than the punching of the ballot and a lot better for voters because there were no chads to hang or anything like that. Plus the people who were anxious about hackers need not be worried because the machines are not attached to the internet and the ballots were recorded into another machine via a card. As a first time voter, it felt pretty cool to vote especially because I just walked in, voted, and left.

Should the Electoral College be Eliminated

2004-11-05T16:53:00.000-08:00

With the last two elections being so close there has been a lot of talk about eliminating the electoral college. The argument is that since the United States is a democracy then the president should be directly elected by the people. This issue came to the forefront of American politics after George W. Bush defeated Al Gore four years ago while losing the popular vote. I am of the opinion that the electoral college is a good thing and rather then abolishing it altogether it just needs to be tinkered with a little bit.

The fact is that the United States is not a true democracy, we are a democratic republic and therefore that is not a good reason why the electoral college should be eliminated. There are many things that the US does that isn’t exactly democratic. For instance congress is not democratic at all. It is a handful of people elected by the people making decisions for everyone. The people don’t vote on every single issue separately, others do it for us.
Furthermore I think that the electoral college is the best way to protect the interests of everyone. George W. Bush won about two thirds of all the states in the US. It just wouldn’t be right if more then two thirds of the states wanted one guy and the other guy got elected. Furthermore Gore won almost nothing outside of the cities. Almost all suburbs and rural areas voted for Bush. So although shear population might have favored Gore, more of the country wanted Bush. The electoral college serves to protect people that live outside of the cities in this instance and that is why I think we still need it.

Mapping Votes

2004-11-05T13:20:00.000-08:00

I think the "purple" map shows that the country has stronger republican support than democratic support. Some of the states are bright red and more red than blue showing stong republican support. The rest of the other states are around 50-50 for republicans and democrats with the exception of a few states on the coasts which show slightly stronger democratic support. None of the states have a bright blue color showing full support for the democrats. The map of the counties also shows strong republican support. It shows that the democrats only have support of the counties in urban areas or areas with high minority population. There are states such as Nebraska, Utah and Oklahoma which had no counties at all go for Kerry in the election. The results on this map show that the the results of the 2004 election are very similar to that of the 2000 election as far as the amount of counties that Bush won. I think the purple map is more representative of the American public because it shows it as being a little more even than the widesweeping county map which makes it appear that Bush is the clear winner. I wish the county map were the true representation of America, mainly because I'm republican. It shows that the republicans have support in all parts of the country, not just on the coasts, in urban areas and areas with high minority population.

Outcome of the Election

2004-11-04T16:54:00.000-08:00

Well the election is finally over and Bush was able to retain the office of president despite the results of early exit polls that declared Kerry the winner. This outcome surprised a lot of people because they really expected the country to turn on Bush and much of the media seems baffled by the outcome. I think the reason for the outcome is pretty simple though. Although Kerry really tried to push the economy and the war to the forefront he was unable to convince the country that he really stood out on these issues. Although he might have had a slight edge in those departments a large percentage of the population really wasn’t that upset with the job that Bush was doing and if they were they didn’t seem to think Kerry could do any better. That means that where Kerry lost the election was on the moral issues. More and more people are becoming one issue voters and these issues are always moral issues. I think most people believe that Bush’s policy is more moral than Kerry’s. One piece of evidence of this is that 11 states had banning homosexual marriage on the ballet and all 11 made it illegal. Furthermore, because that was on the ballet I would venture to say that voter turnout among those morality voters went up in this election further helping the Bush cause. That is were I think Kerry really lost the election, not on the war, not on the economy, but on the moral issues that seem to really get people fired up and to the polls.

The Electoral College: Should it be Abolished?

2004-11-04T11:44:00.000-08:00

The topic of the Electoral College is a tricky one. Many people argue that it infringes on the popular vote and that we should get rid of it. But in actuality the popular vote and the Electoral College vote have only differed in 3 situations, 2 of them in the 1800s and the third as the popular 2000 election. I think the reason that this is now a hotly-debated topic is because of the 2000 election and several outraged Gore supporters. The truth is that, as in all controversial issues, there are 2 sides to the story. If we do abolish the College, then the tabulated votes would come simply from the raw votes that people cast. Some would argue that would be true democracy and that a single person's vote would matter more. This makes sense, since a person's vote would not be counted towards a majority or a minority vote in a specific state where the majority would get all the Electoral votes, but just toward the overall votes in the country. But it also means that the candidates would not compete over swing states anymore; instead, they would only speak in the states that were the most populated and where they could get the biggest percentage of raw votes. Since the Electoral votes and the popular votes have only differed in 3 instances, I don't think the Electoral college will be abolished anytime soon unless we have another "2000" election.

My Voting Experience

2004-10-31T17:52:00.000-08:00

When I voted, it was by absentee ballot. It was really easy to get one. All I had to do was send a letter to the city clerk of my hometown and give my address and state why I needed an absentee ballot, because I would be out of town on that day. I was provided with everything I needed to vote (except postage to mail it back). The instructions were really clear of what I had to do. I'm glad I got to vote this way, but I would feel like I am making more of a difference if I could have actually gone to a polling place. I think the patience of waiting in line shows the true detication of acting on what you believe in for the country. With absentee ballots, it makes you wonder if your vote will be counted because who knows if it got lost in the mail on the way back, or if it arrived on time to the city clerk and even if it was filled out exactly right, even with clear instructions.

I dont understand why someone would not get an absentee ballot to vote if they were not going to be around for election day. It is so simple, even easier than going to the polling place itself. In my mind there is no reason for a person not to vote, it is made so easily accesable to everyone in the country.

Being in this politics based class solidified my opinions of who I would vote for. I knew from the start that I would vote for Bush and after having class discussions, I had more knowledge of his policies and how I agreed with them way more strongly than I agreed with Kerry. I have always been politically conscious and this class made me look deeper into what was going on and I felt like a more informed voter when I did send in my ballot.

Voting

2004-10-31T13:54:00.000-08:00

My county had absentee voting over the weekend and since I cant get home Tuesday to vote I decided to take advantage of this. Voting was the same as regular voting except you had to fill out the absentee voter paperwork before voting. The electronic voting booths were still used. Voting was open from 9am to 12pm, but my mom thought it opened at 8, so I was there at 8:30 and close to the front of the line. It was a little cold and of course no one likes standing in line, so after about 45 minutes of this, the thoughts of “Is my vote really worth the time that I’m spending in this line?” started to cross my mind. I stayed in line anyway because I had been there 45 minutes and the line was starting to move so I knew it wasn’t going to be too much longer.

As far as the actual voting part was concerned, it wasn’t very exciting because I voted in an election earlier in the summer so the novelty of voting was already gone. Voting also didn’t feel as powerful as I kind of thought it would. Something about poking a little electronic touch screen just doesn’t feel too powerful to me. To me it felt more like an ATM than a voting booth.

This class actually helped me with voting. Before the class started I was pretty sure which candidate I was going to vote for, but during discussions I began to question my opinion. Then after more discussions I became sure that my first choice was correct, but I felt like I now had more justified reasons for it. I cant really say that the class convinced me to actually go vote because I was one of those kids who went to the polls with my parents so I always knew that I was going to vote when I turned 18. That was never a question in my mind. But the class definitely helped me make an educate decision between the candidates.

Voter Fraud: This election will go down in the books!

2004-10-28T22:07:00.000-07:00

I don't know about anybody else, but I haven't seen this much controversy for an election since...well, ever. Democrats are supposedly registering thousands of "new" voters in an effort to oust Bush from the presidential seat. To counter that, Republicans are registering and training thousands of "voter challengers" in swing states to make sure that every person who shows up is eligible to vote. In turn, Democrats are also registering people to make sure that Republican voter challengers do not disenfranchise eligible voters. All in all, election day is going to be chaos. As mentioned in Moss's New York Times article, there does exist evidence to show voter fraud: the 35,000 notices that were sent back and stamped "undeliverable." But surely not all new registered voters are frauds. I'm guessing the percentage may be 50-50, with half real new registered voters and the other half fake. Either way, election day will prove to be chaotic, especially in swing states like Ohio. With Republican challengers and Democrat recruits to protect legitimate voters at election sites, the voting process will become tedious, time-consuming, and frustrating. This exactly is what the Democrats claim is the goal of Republicans, to make the process so frustrating and time-consuming that potential Kerry voters will just get fed up and leave. Personally, I don't think that's the case, because as the 35,000 fraudulent letters show, Republicans have reason to believe the votes will be counted unfairly. Checking to make sure a voter is legitimate will take up a good amount of time because the person will have to pull out ID, social security proof, and anything else the Republican challengers deem necessary to prove legitimacy. Now that would not take up so much time if it was only a couple of people, but if voters flood the sites, as Wooten's AJC article suggests, the whole process will become chaotic and unbearable, with hundreds or even thousands of people waiting in line for possibly hours at a time. But the chaos won't stop at election day. Both parties have their lawyers at the ready, so no matter what the turnout, the day after will be one to remember as well.

Women voters after 9/11

2004-10-20T13:33:00.000-07:00

The article talks about how the female constituents are focusing more on national security than they used to. Stereotypically, women voters are passionate about domestic issues such as abortion, education, and health care and vote for a leader based on those issues. So now that the women are voting on national security and international relations, the candidates must present their views on those subjects in a manner appealing to both men and women. In the old days, candidates could talk war and economics with men and talk domestic issues with women. This could be easily done. Now, the candidates have to figure out what appeals to women and this is new territory for them. Polls show that Bush is more easily adapting to this change in issue focus. In the past, women tended to vote for democrats because they focus more on domestic issues. Now, the gender gap is becoming smaller as women are looking for a strong leader and one who will win the war and keep families safe. The article says that women have seen Bush stand at ground zero in the rubble, seen him comfort families of the dead, and know that he understands the evil nature of the enemies. To women, he has been tested and come through with flying colors. He is a commander in chief. Kerry on the other hand would rather sweep this whole war under the rug and pretend it never existed. He voted against the money for the troops, missed 76% of the intelligence meetings, and is now against the Patriot Act after he voted for it in the beginning. Women see him as someone who contradicts himself, does not stick to his word, and as a weak leader. He may be a master debator but what women want is a commander in chief. This is where Kerry will fail. Plus, he looks like a horse.

Keenan

2004-10-20T13:21:00.000-07:00

The Vince Keenan lecture provided me with some insight into the thinking of my peers. As a "young" voter, I understand that we (young voters) believe that anything decided in politics has no bearing on us. We believe that we get nothing out of it so we do not feel as though we should vote. In actuality, anything that is decided now affects the future. We need to get invoolved and start thinking about the future and what steps we need to take to make it one that we want to live in. When we grow older and retire, do you really think we will be getting social security? We may not care now but we will in the future and by that time there is very little that can be done to fix the system. Progress takes time and if young voters do not realize that there will be no progression. When we finally realize that something needs to be done, it will be too late. That is the problem with young voters, we do not think about the future. Also, we complain and complain about not getting any attention and how politicians do what the older voters want. If you actually think about it in a rational way, we need to get involved now and show them that they need to think about us. Why should they pay us any attention if we do not vote or get involved? Truthfully, they should not. It is not the fault of the politicians that they do what their constituents say, it is ours for not being those constituents. If young voters got together and voted for something they believed in, they would be heard. Do not say that you are not going to vote because the issues do not matter or becuase the politicians do not pay attention to you, vote becuase everything matters and to show the politicians that we care.

Vince Keenan Lecture

2004-10-10T14:35:00.000-07:00

The Vince Keenan lecture was interesting to me. I think he and his friends had a really good idea about making a way for voters to figure out where to vote. The part that I found most interesting was the fact that something like this was needed. Even before I was registered to vote I had a pretty good idea where I was going to be required to vote. I assumed that I was going to vote at the same place as my parents and I was right. I know that most voters don’t live with their parents so they cannot use that information. Maybe this isn’t true in all states, but in Georgia, before every election, a card gets mailed to voters with the poll location and what district they vote in for everything. I’ve only been registered to vote for 6 months and I’ve already gotten 3 of these cards in the mail, and I’m sure I’ll get another couple before the presidential election. I guess living in Georgia, where this is the case, I don’t understand why a website like Vince’s is necessary. I just assumed that all states had a system similar to Georgia’s. But seeing as this isn’t the case, I think Vince Keenan website is a very good idea because it is important to know where to vote.

How 9/11 transformed women voters

2004-10-09T20:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/10/07/how_911_transformed_women_voters/

2004-10-09T20:16:00.000-07:00

Interesting article that claims MTV is rejecting responsible republican government by encouraging young people to vote.

article

2004-10-09T18:08:00.000-07:00

This is an article about tv ads about the election. Its not an issue we've taked too much about so I thought it'd be a good one to bring up.

article

2004-10-09T16:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/09/politics/campaign/09assess.html?oref=login

Gun Bans

2004-10-09T13:06:00.000-07:00

An interesting article I found was Gun bans don't work from the Washington times. I find this is important now because of the recently repealed assault weapons ban. I totally agree with this article. The criminals are not getting their guns from gun stores, going through background checks, etc. Why deny a person the right to carry a weapon to protect themselves from the person who did not get their gun the legal way. Here is a hypothetical situation. Say there is one city where citizens are not allowed to carry concealed weapons at all and there is another city where most people do carry concealed weapons legally and with a permit. Which city is a criminal more likely to go to rob someone at gunpoint and use his illegally obtained gun to threaten someone? The city where citizens can't carry a gun of course. Do you really think a criminal would rob someone when there is a good chance that that person will pull out a gun on the criminal themselves? No, they want an easy robbery. It seems to me that if regular citizens were able to carry concealed weapons legally, after going through permits and background checks, along with gun safety training, crime would go down. The constitution gives the right to bear arms, and I think more people should exercise this right. I would feel perfectly safe if regular citizens carried around a gun with them, maybe that means if someone were coming up to rape me or rob me that another person on the street could shoot the person before something bad happens. Its a faster response than the police and a very good idea to me.

Age Before Beauty

2004-10-06T22:08:00.000-07:00

Unlike the first presidential debate, which I thought to be pretty close with Kerry coming out with a slim victory, I felt the vice presidential debate had a clear winner. Vice President Dick Cheney wiped the floor with Senator Edwards in every facet of the debate. In the area of content Edwards continually made accusations and then followed it up with little or no evidence as well as contradicting himself on several occasions. One example of this is when Edwards criticized the Bush-Cheney administration for turning the Iran sanctions over to the UN while the main criticism he had for they way the Iraq situation was handled is that the UN was not involved. Furthermore, Edwards only answered about half of the questions he was asked. On some occasions he would go off on a completely unrelated tangent that was clearly prepared ahead of time in order to get his message out in the debate. On many other occasions he would use about 70 seconds extending his previous answer and then using about 20 seconds to answer the question that was actually asked. Looking back on the entire debate after I watched it I just didn’t feel like Edwards brought the meat. His arguments lacked depth and seemed very shaky. On the other hand his opponent, Vice President Cheney, not only answered most of the questions he was asked but he also did it in a very deliberate, informative way. From a stylistic perspective I felt Senator Edwards performed even worse then he did on content. He came off as very combative and overzealous in many instances. Edwards took shots at Cheney on every possible occasion, he used very polarizing language like “us” and “them”, and he came across as a brat. In almost every instance when Edwards took a shot at the Vice President, Cheney just chuckled and took the high road. Edwards often times throughout the debate made faces while Cheney was speaking and on several instances he interrupted Cheney during his rebuttals. In other instances when the Vice President finished a rebuttal Senator Edwards immediately began to respond without even asking for the extra thirty seconds. In summary after watching the debate I left with a very bad taste in my mouth. Whereas I now look at Cheney as even-tempered and methodical, I picture Edwards as an overzealous brat with too much ambition.

Swing Voters: the Key to Winning

2004-10-06T17:33:00.000-07:00

The same thing applies to this election that applied to the election of 2000. The 2000 election was won by what, a mere couple of hundred votes? And whose votes do you think those were? They were swing voters, and those swing voters were enough to tip the scale over to Bush. With the 2004 election being one of the most controversial of all time, swing voters are they key to securing that position in the White House. After all, it makes sense that Kerry supporters are going to vote for Kerry and Bush supporters are going to vote for Bush. So how do you win? You win over the undecideds. Most of the undecideds, once again as in the last election, are middle-aged white women who are concerned more about domestic matters than what is going on overseas. These voters want to make sure that the world will be safe for their children to live in, so the candidate that secures their confidence in this retrospect will be the candidate who is going to take that inauguration walk to the White House in November. We had one article that we had to read where the author said most people vote out of self-interest and only very few people vote based on ideology (knowing right from wrong). Looking back on that article, I would say that these swing voters are the ones that vote based on ideals. Just look at it this way - most every Republican candidate's platform corresponds to a Republican set of beliefs , and the same goes for the Democratic candidate. So it will most likely turn out that Republicans would agree with the Republican platform, and thus vote for Bush, and the Democrats would agree with the Democratic platform, and thus vote for Kerry. A lot of people don't even pay attention to the presidential race, and when it's time to vote, they vote for the same party they've always voted for, simply because they identify themselves as being "a Republican" or "a Democrat." The swing voters are different from these kind of people. It's true that a lot would probably vote based on self-interest, but most would wait until a candidate proved himself worthy of their confidence that he will really try to make the world a better place to live in for all people.

Surge of Voters

2004-10-04T13:56:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/04/politics/campaign/04vote.html

I find it very interesting that so many people have waited untill right before the deadline to vote. Maybe since so many new people are registering to vote, it means that there will be a larger voter turn out at the elections in November. What I would like to know is why people are just not becoming concerned enough to vote. From what most areas can tell, this is the largest increase in voter registration. Joseph R. Passarella, the director of voter services in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania has a quote in this article that may explain the reason that there are so many people registering to vote. He says, "The vote was so close four years ago, people are now thinking, hey, maybe my vote does count."
Both the Democratic and Republican parties, along with independent organizations, have been running huger voter registration campaigns for about a year. The pace of registering new voters is particularly high in urban areas of swing states.
I like the idea that so many people are registering to vote. However, just registering doesn't mean anything. We could have the entire population registered to vote, and it still wouldn't make a difference if the people didn't show up at the polls. If all the newly registered voters do show up at the polls this November, it will completely change the way that politicians run their campaigns. Currently, they base their campaigns on percentages of who usually turns out to vote. But having so many new voters cound mess up their system of campaigning. The only way to tell if the increase in voter regisitration will effect anything is to wait until November.

2004-10-04T13:50:00.000-07:00

I found an article that I thought might be good to discuss in class. It's called: After First Debate, Both Sides Work Hard to Sway Perceptions. Here is the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/04/politics/campaign/04spin.html

This is not a world election

2004-09-30T18:43:00.000-07:00

I completely disagree with the article "Still no votes in Leipzig" by Jonathan Freedland. He proposes the idea of allowing non US citizens to vote in the presidential election. The reasons for this mainly boil down to the war in Iraq and how that is a world wide issue, not just one in the United States, but the president of the United States is the one making the major decisions about the war. If the Europeans and the rest of the world wanted a say in how the war was handled, they should have done more than just say they disapproved and would not go into attack Iraq. Now, they want to have a say in how the country is rebuilt and the new government. If they did not help to destroy the existing regime, they should not be able to have a say in how the new one is built. The war is not the only issue of this election. Yes, it is a major one, but there are also issues of the American economy which are just as important. Why should a country such as France decide who is president of America when they are only affected by the foreign policy and nothing of domestic policy? Many of the laws that would be passed during the next four years will affect the people only in the United States, such as issues about gun control, abortion, and gay and lesbian rights. The American citizens alone should decide which candidate represents their beliefs on these DOMESTIC issues. The rest of the world does have a say in what goes on in the world; its called the United Nations. The United States did go against the wishes of the UN in this case, but we were not going to sit idly by and let countries get away with attacking us. Maybe if Big Ben in London had a plane fly into it England would be more understanding of a counter attack on a country. Another reason why the world should not get a vote in the election is like Freedland said, the world is a John Kerry supporter. John Kerry is said to be the most liberal man in the senate and John Edwards to be the second most liberal. Most of the countries outside the US are liberal, so of course they would prefer that kind of candidate. If the rest of the countries in the world were to vote in the United States presidential election, does that also mean that the citizens of the United States would be able to vote in the elections other countries have? I think this would provide great voter turn out if we told the American public they could decide who was in control of France. Taking a wild guess, but I highly doubt the rest of the world wants America to pick their leaders, so why should they be able to pick ours? Bob Dole had the right idea, the rest of the world doesn't matter when deciding who is the best leader for OUR country.

One Vote

2004-09-30T14:13:00.000-07:00

Is voting really worth the trouble? Yes. Even if you are of the incorrect opinion that your vote really does not make a difference, you should still vote. When you vote you are not just making a decision between two or three candidates. You are exercising one of your most important rights. Not everyone in this world has the opportunity to cast their vote in freely held, democratic elections. Countless thousands of individuals have paid the price in blood so that we can vote today. That is why it is so important that everyone exercise their right to vote whether you think it makes a difference of not.
As to the idea that you just have one vote and that it doesn’t really matter is a bunch of hogwash. There are almost three hundred million people in the United States of America and I would venture to say that nearly two hundred million of them are eligible to vote if they so choose. Not all eligible voters are registered to vote and less then fifty percent of registered voters usually vote. That means that there are probably seventy five to one hundred million people that are eligible to vote that don’t. Many of these people probably do not vote because they don’t think their vote matters. Well I’ve got news for you, seventy five million votes makes a big difference. If every eligible voter turned out on election day there is no telling as to who would win. No your one vote probably doesn’t make a difference but seventy five million people’s one vote does.

Can one person really make a difference?

2004-09-30T00:25:00.000-07:00

This blog is in response to Jim Holt's article in the New York Times titled "Is Voting Really Worth the Trouble?" I feel very passionate about this article because Holt's point doesn't only apply to politics, but to any issue that a person may disagree or agree with. What Holt is basically saying is that, no, your vote doesn't count, so why bother going to the polls? Yes, it's true that a single person's vote will most likely not change the outcome of the election, but when you apply his principle to the general public, there's a significant difference. The ideas of one person can influence so many others to agree with that person. Take the obvious example of Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks or Susan B. Anthony. Now imagine what would have happened if they all had said, "Oh nevermind, I'm only one person. Nothing that I do will ever change anything." Imagine how different America might have been. The voice of one person is what, a lot of the time, goads other people into action. Now what if two million people read Holt's article, and say one million were persuaded that their vote really doesn't matter? That would be one million people who would not vote, who would not dare change anything. One million people not voting could have serious consequences on the outcome of the election. The problem is that a lot of people really do think that what they do will never matter in life because they are simply one person, and articles like Holt's help to confirm that thought. Holt is going against the basic American principle of individuality, something that is prevalent in all of America's history. For God's sake, that is how America came to be in the first place!! What would have happened if the Framers said, "Op, forget it. This will never work"??? We definitely wouldn't be as strong a nation as we are today, we'd probably still be under British rule, and other numerous differences. The bottom line is, don't be afraid to go your own way. Don't be afraid to make a difference. You know you can. Be a leader. All it takes is one person to change the course of history. After that one, there will be two, then three, then ten, then a thousand, then a million.

Ah, Michigan

2004-09-29T22:48:00.000-07:00

Vince Keenan's lecture was informative to people about the website to go to if you are a registered voter in Michigan. He also had a good underlying message of, "If you want to do something, you should at least try." Being from Michigan, I knew pretty much everything he talked about through his lecture. The website is actually very helpful and I have used it many times. The design of it is effective. It informed me more about the candidates I had to choose from as well as giving me the resources to get an absentee ballot, including instructions and a search to find my city clerk to contact. If every state set up an easily accessible website such as the one in Michigan, voters would be more informed of where to vote, what the ballot would be like and information about the candidate. In my opinion, a more informed voter is a better voter because instead of just picking a name they recognize or randomly marking a name, the voter realizes more of the policies the candidate has and can make a more informed decision.

Keenan's lecture was also motivational. He showed that a lowly college student could make a huge difference in informing people about politics. It was a message that one person can make a large difference in the grand scheme of things. While delivering this message he did not appear to be overly self confident and saying, "I was a huge success and you can be just like me." It was a message that included humbleness on his part. A question I would have for Vince would be what do you think when people say they don't vote because one person won't make a difference?

Vince Keenan Lecture

2004-09-29T21:56:00.000-07:00

Vince Keenan’s lecture was about his experience in creating publius.org. He explained the problems that he and his friends found the voting system and why they wanted to create a system to inform voters. He went on to discuss the problems he faced in getting the site to the point it is at today. One of Keenan’s main themes throughout his lecture was to dig in and strive for what you believe in. I found his lecture to be inspiration in several different ways. The first way in which I was inspired by this speech was by Keenan’s ability to evoke change. Vince was just one lowly college student and he was able to affect the way an entire state looks at voting. In fact, he now has the entire nation looking to his site for ideas. The second part of Keenan’s lecture that I found inspirational was just the fact that he was able to turn his website into such a huge entity. This just goes to show that with enough resolve and hard work you can accomplish anything. I liked publius.org a lot and it made me wish that Georgia had a similar site. When I voted in the primaries earlier this year I spent a great deal of time surfing the web trying to find information on the various different candidates. I think it would have been a great help if Georgia had a website that not only had sample ballets but also had information on every candidate running. The main question that I had for Vince was what else can be done with technology. Right now the site is just set up to inform the voter, but I was wondering if anything can be done with technology beyond just informing voters; perhaps online voting.

political issue article

2004-09-29T21:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/30/politics/campaign/30EDWARDS.html?oref=login

Vince Keenan: Dig In

2004-09-29T21:41:00.000-07:00

"If you want something, then go for it" seemed to be the message that Vince Keenan was trying to get across to his Tech audience. And personally, I agree with him. This doesn't even have to relate to politics, but to anything in life. What was also great about his accomplishment was that it helped out the general public as well as himself. Like he said, he started it out as a hobby, but then it became a cooperative project with the government of Michigan for the good of the people. More states should do what he did in Michigan, which was basically just to inform people about voting. His Michigan site gives information on how to register to vote, absentee ballots, where to actually vote on the election day, and even a sample voting ballot. In the twenty-first century, the internet has gained more importance than ever before and has become one of the main ways for people to find information about anything. So why not put information where it is readily available? Even if a person does not have a computer at home, he or she can go to a library or a friend's or neighbor's house and access the information he/she needs in a matter of seconds. Search engines have even expedited the process. All you need is the basic idea or word that you are looking for, type it in, and boom, you have a plethera of articles or sites with more than enough information on what you want. So the internet is a great way to inform the American public about voting.

Keenan's speech was also the exact opposite of Jim Holt's article in the New York Times titled "Is Voting Really Worth the Trouble?" As we discussed in class, Holt argues that one person's vote doesn't really matter and that voting isn't worth the energy and the time you put into it. Keenan, on the other hand, informed us that the fate of America is in our hands and that our vote can change everything. So the question I would ask Vince Keenan is this: How would you respond to Holt's article and his opinion that one person's vote is insignificant? And can one person really make that much of a difference?

If you want to vote, then come live here

2004-09-27T20:27:00.000-07:00

Ya know, America isn't perfect. Like I said in my last blog, I don't like the fact that the United States tends to stick its nose where it's not wanted sometimes. But it's not the people of the U.S. that made the decision to go to war. It was the President. Yes, the President is supposed to represent his people, but looking back at how close the 2000 election was, I would say that about half of the American population don't count themselves as being represented by Bush. As I heard one woman mutter while walking out of the theater of Fahrenheit 9/11, "He's not my President." So believe it or not, there are a lot of people who do not agree with Bush's decision to go to war, and they will attempt to change U.S. policy this November. Furthermore, the author of "Still No Votes in Leipzig" argues that people outside the U.S. should get to vote in the next election only based on the U.S.'s foreign policy. We as Americans must not only consider the candidate's foreign policy, but must also keep in mind his domestic policy as well. After all, we do live here. The war in Iraq is not the only issue that we will be voting on, which is something the author overlooks significantly in his article. Freedland's comparison of this election to the Declaration of Indepence in 1776 does not satisfy his argument. 1776 was a completely different scenario where one country had a direct say in what its colonies were doing. Britain directly ruled over the American colonies. The colonies were not free to establish their own trade system or tax system or anything of the sort. On the other hand, every country in Europe has the right and the freedom to establish its own system of trade, foreign policy, and domestic policy. The U.S. does not give orders to any part of Europe on whether they can trade fur coats or not. This is why Freedland's claim that America is the "world's sole superpower" is ridiculous. Yes, the U.S. is one of the strongest countries in the world, but I hear Germany, France, and Great Britain are doing pretty good, too. Freedland also fails to establish his argument on how U.S. policy is affecting the rest of the world besides Iraq. All the says is that the U.S. might be aggravating Al Qaida instead of lessening the threat and that Iraq's neighbors would end up paying for it. But how would they end up paying for it? Why would Al Quida attack it's neighbors instead of the country that is actually "aggravating" them? And if everyone who is affected by U.S. policy should get a vote, that means that groups such as Al Qaida would have a say in American matters. Kind of a scary thougth, isn't it?

So tell me again, Freedland, how U.S. policy affects "the entire world." America doesn't control any countries in Europe, much less has a say in what their foreign policy is. We don't get to vote in your elections; why should you vote in ours? Plus, didn't Britain just withdraw 1/3 of their troops? And you're saying it should get to vote in the next election? Please tell me on what ground. I don't think you're going to convince our President that Europe should vote in the next election when you so blatantly go against him. So please, if you really want Bush out of office that bad, pack a couple of suitcases, buy a plane ticket, and head over to where the real "governed" reside.

No Votes for Foreigners

2004-09-27T14:21:00.000-07:00

Why should people that reside in other countries be allowed to vote in US elections? That idea is ridiculous. I do not care if US foreign policy affects other countries, that is their problem. If another country has become so tied to America that they deserve a vote in our elections then they should seriously reconsider the way that their country operates. The US doesn’t make decisions for anyone else. Countries are free to do whatever they want whenever they want. I have an idea. How about any country that would like the opportunity to vote in US elections be given the right to do so. As a result the US gets to annex that country and begin the process to make them a state. Other countries do not pay us taxes. Other countries do not listen to America when we tell them to do something. Other countries don’t ask us for permission to do something. So tell me, why should other countries get to choose our leaders? I don’t know how the author of this article can seriously propose something like this. Hopefully the author was just suggesting something ridiculous in order to get a reaction from readers. Allow foreigners to vote in our elections would be a terrible mistake that I hope the US never makes. That would be one decision that would actually make me consider moving to another country because I think they idea is so bad.

Kerry Says Bush Avoiding Reality on Iraq

2004-09-23T06:59:00.000-07:00

http://home.bellsouth.net/s/editorial.dll?bfromind=843&eeid=4305524&_sitecat=1504&eetype=article&render=y&ck =

Empty Statements

2004-09-23T06:38:00.000-07:00

The Prince of Tides, Tacking and Attacking

Maureen Dowd, NY Times, writes in this article that Kerry is now focusing on the war in Iraq instead of his tour in Vietnam. She says that although he is talking about Iraq, his words have no meaning. Kerry talks about how Bush attacked Hussein when he should have been attacking bin Laden. Dowd goes on to say that Kerry may talk big, but when it comes down to the issue, he does not have any plans on what to do in Iraq.
Maureen Dowd does not do very well in proving her argument because she brings up issues that Kerry is now focusing on but she explains them away. Instead of proving her argument, she is giving Kerry excuses for not having any basis for his speeches. That is surely a huge fallacy in her article because nobody can understand what she is arguing. Although she poorly establishes her argument, she hooks the audience with her statement about how she had to go from New York to Hollywood to find sincere Kerry supporters. In her article, she uses many adjectives to describe the Kerry campaign. This helps to keep the audience going. Other than her use of a hook and imagery, her article is very poorly written.

Bush Speech

2004-09-22T21:36:00.000-07:00

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040921-3.html

Kerry's good and bad judgments

2004-09-22T21:15:00.000-07:00

Kerry: Bush's Iraq Policy Has Endangered the U.S.

Kerry is right on two major points in this article. He says that Bush had two main rationales for waging a war in Iraq. 1) Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and 2) Saddam was connected to Al Queda. But both of these were proven false by Bush's own weapons inspectors and the 9/11 commission. So why then is the U.S still in this going-nowhere war? Maybe Bush believes that since we started something, we now have to finish it. Or maybe he just doesn't want to admit that he was wrong. Either way, I haven't heard the President talk about any plans for Iraq besides continuing the "war on terror." Bush also said that, looking back on his decision and knowing what he knows now, he would still not have changed his mind about waging a war on Iraq. My response to this is, Are you insane? Or just plain dumb? If you had a chance to do something over, would you not do it right the second time? Would you not go after Bin Laden and Al Queda instead of choosing to start a war that had nothing to do with your cause in the first place? Yes, Saddam is a bad guy, but sometimes it just drives me nuts that the American government feels that it has to butt in on everything that's going on around the world. Yes, I daresay we are the most powerful nation in the world, but it's not our responsibility to ensure that everything is peachy around the globe. Otherwise, we are going to be sacrificing a lot of American lives and equipment for that cause. And it's not the government that has to do the sacrificing; it's the American people. It's our tax dollars and our family and friends who are fighting overseas. In fact, only one person in Congress has a relative fighting in Iraq. One. Anyway, this has gotten way off topic. Going back to Kerry's speech, I do have to say that there are several things that I do not agree with as well. First, Kerry accuses Bush of not having a plan for the war in Iraq. That's true, but the fact of the matter is that Kerry also does not have a clearcut plan. The only part of his four-point plan that actually calls for a specific action, and not to a great extent anyway, is where he says that Bush should convene the world's major powers and Iraq's neighbors so they can talk about providing troops and financial assistance. And he also says that the countries that attend should be given a bid on Iraq's oil. Does anyone else see a problem with this? First of all, if any country was to offer their assistance to the U.S., they would have offered it at the beginning of the war instead of two years into it with no end in sight, so that idea is highly unlikely. Kerry probably envisioned this, which is why he brought up his second point: bribe them with contracts for Iraq's oil. In return for their assistance, any country will get to bid on Iraq's oil reserves. Ah, so countries can say they are fighting for democracy as long as they get something in return. The rest of Kerry's ideas are vague and shortcoming. He simply states that Bush "must do" this and that without saying how to actually accomplish these things. For example, Kerry says that Bush "must get serious about training Iraqi forces." But how? In what ways should Bush do this? In what ways would Kerry do this? How should Bush ensure that Iraq has elections next year and that the country undergoes a reconstruction that benefits its people? How would Kerry see that these things got accomplished? From what I can tell, neither candidate knows how to accomplish an end to the war in Iraq. To Bush I would pose this question: How will you turn this war around so that it doesn't continue spiraling nowhere? And to Kerry: How will you do things differently so that our troops can be home in four years? Based on my observations, if something doesn't change in either candidate's policy, I'm throwing out my vote this year.

A Whirlwind of Folk Songs

2004-09-22T17:00:00.000-07:00

Shannon's blog entry on Bob Dylan's song "Hurricane" emphasizes the widespread usage of narrative arguments to point out the injustices in society and the harsh realities of political moves. I comment on his blog only because I presented the Bob Dylan song "The Murder of Emmett Till" in class. Bob Dylan is a master when it comes to presenting injustices in folk songs. The song that I presented creates an emotional response and makes the listener agree with Bob Dylan without he or she ever realizing that that was the whole point of the song. "The Murder of Emmett Till" talks about a little black boy from Chicago who comes down to Mississippi to visit his aunt and uncle. His friends dare him to talk to the white store owner's wife, and he whistles at her on his way out. Later that night, the store owner and another man take Till from the house and drag him down to a barn where they beat him. After beating him to a pulp, they tie a cotton gin fan around his neck with barbed wire and make him walk down to a river. Once he gets there, they shoot him in the head. This was all for whistling at a white lady in a store. The men are arrested and confess but when it goes to trial, there is an all white and male jury. They do not care about the boy or that the men confess and they let them off. When Bob Dylan sang his song in 1962, the public was outraged at such an injustice and called for the murderers to be punished. His song helped to start a major push for civil rights in America. Shannon's blog about "Hurricane" is much the same. It is about a great injustice that once presented in a narrative argument sparked a public outrage.

The Pipeline

2004-09-22T16:41:00.000-07:00

The Jim Wootoen article, "The Conservatives Find A Pipeline," talks about how the internet is being used by conservatives to dirperse information and ideas that would not have normally been accepted in the media. Conservative comments tend to be labeled as racist or intolerant, so the introduction of the internet into almost all of the homes in America provides an avenue for the conservatives to state their ideas. The internet is a place where people can say what they wish to whomever they wish. In politics, the internet is becoming a key way to retrieve information. That is why the swift boat veterans' protest was heard across the country, that is why the documents on CBS were being analyzed by experts as soon as they were shown.
This article is well written as it starts off with a simple sentence that makes the audience wonder what is coming next. It makes the audience wonder why this election will change the future races. After providing a hook, the author offers evidence of the internet affecting the presidential race. This establishes the validity of the author and provides a basis for his argument. Jim Wooten goes on to talk about how the internet is used by many grouos and how a most of the websites were founded on the idea that the internet is a place to dissminate information that maybe controversial. Jim Wooten easily argues his point through the wondrous use of argumentative principles.

The Hurricane as a Narrative Argument

2004-09-20T23:20:00.000-07:00

Bob Dylan’s folk song, Hurricane, is a perfect example of a narrative argument. Dylan wrote this song in the 1970’s when racism was still a very prevalent problem throughout the United States. Dylan tells the story of Ruben “Hurricane” Carter, a black boxer contending for the heavyweight championship. Carter is driving one night when he gets pulled over by the cops and arrested for first-degree murder. Although, the witnesses say that Carter was not the man responsible for the murders, the police try Ruben for the crimes anyway. They pick an all white jury and more or less fix the trial. Carter was sentenced to prison for a crime that he never committed. Even though Dylan never directly criticizes the racism in the country and in the court systems it is very obvious that that is the point he is trying to make. He makes his point in several different ways throughout the song. The first way in which he does this is through the course. In the course he explains that not only is Ruben Carter innocent but that by putting him in jail you are taking away his chance to become the heavyweight champ. Dylan also goes to great links to show the corruptness of the policemen and courts during this time. He speaks of deals and bribes that the police make under the table to convict Carter even though they know that he is innocent. Finally, Dylan makes his point by continually comparing carter to a thief also in the song. They thief is generally accepted and his crimes are overlooked while they consider Carter a criminal solely because he is black. Dylan’s song is very persuasive and it’s narrative style proves to be the perfect way to expose the injustices in America.

press politics

2004-09-20T21:09:00.000-07:00

Media bias has always been a problem in our world, and the reason why some news sources are trusted more then others. For example, how foxnews here is considered the conservative media, where as CNN is the liberal side of the media. Therefore more Republicans watch foxnews because they want to see their side of what happened in the world today. With humans reporting the news, I think its practically impossible to get news that's completely bias free. So when trying to find a completely objective news source, one must choose the source which they believe has the least bias in their news cast when hoping to see what really happened because different sources will report much different things. This became a problem in the War on Iraq because the things being reported on Al Jazeera were completely different from what would be reported on outside sources such as CNN. So who can distinguish the facts from the opinions, it's a very hard thing to do. The best reporters will always be the ones who can leave their personal feelings out of their reporting and give the most truthful account of what really happened, but even then its not likely to be 100% accurate to the truth. Everything that we've seen and experienced in our lives affects how we view events and actions in the world. That's why two different backgrounded people telling the exact same story exactly how they remember it will come up with two different stories, and they can't help it. Bias is something that cannot be conquered, but can only be supressed to certain degrees.

Charlatan Cheney

2004-09-09T18:03:00.000-07:00

Here ya go

This is the same article I used in my paper, but I just wanted to write some personal commentary on it that I didn't get to include in my paper.

Michelle Cottle has a great style in this article. Although most Republicans wouldn't think so because it seems that she is insulting Cheney and the Republican party. I can see why, though. If somebody called one of the main political figures of my party "Darth so-and-so," I would be pretty insulted myself. But her article is meant for Democrats and swing voters, who, for the most part, would find little things like that entertaining. Along with providing plenty of evidence, though, she makes some good point with her humor. For instance, Cottle says that Cheney neglected to mention anything about African Americans, poor people, union members, single moms, immigrants, and all the other minority groups that exist in America. He only handed out the freedom card to homosexuals by saying that couples should be allowed to enter into "any kind of relationship they want to." Her evidence consists of a list of bills that Cheney either voted for or against, like when he voted against the Equal Rights Amendment and against abortion rights. But her humor lies in the statement closer to the end: "Of course, if having personal ties to an issue is what it takes to get the Vice President in touch with his softer side, we should probably all be rooting for Cheney to discover that , in addition to having a gay daughter, he also has a couple of black grandkids, an illegal immigrant cousin, an aunt with a drug habit, a transsexual brother, a sister who just got laid off from a textile mill in North Carolina, and a long-lost son who's been getting his butt shot at in Najaf." Now that is humorous. Not for Republicans, like I said before, because they see it as an attack on their Vice President, which it really is anyway. But to all that don't support Bush, it makes sense. One thing that I don't think she did well is to involve herself in a couple of name-callings, like saying "Darth Cheney," calling the VP a "dark-hearted, autocratic jerk," and basically polarizing the Republican Party as homophobics. I especially don't agree with the last statement because Republicans don't fear homosexuality; they just think that it is the "wrong" way of life. They think it's something that a person can control, but it really isn't. I'm not going to get into that because this will be a really long entry if I do. Plus, it's not the topic of the article. I like the fact that Cottle considers another point of view: "In light of all this, the Vice President's flash of dissent could, if viewed form a certain angle, be seen as compassionate, courageous--perhaps even noble." She does go on to say that she rejects that angle, but the fact that she considers a different side of the story establishes a better ethos for her as a writer. Altogether, Cottle gives a wonderful performance by writing this article because she appeals to patho, logos, and ethos, and she creates a unique style that other authors lack. Although she does have a few logical fallacies, it doesn't take away from the full effect of the article. I would definitely read other pieces that she has written.

I laugh Moore at you than with you

2004-09-01T14:31:00.000-07:00

I did not find Moore's letter very convincing except maybe of his future in stand up comedy. He makes no points in his letter. He believes that he has the right to address the leader of his own country in such a manner. His belligerence and naivety appall me. Do not get me wrong, I believe in the freedom of speech and press, but for one to earn respect, one must give respect. Therefore, I must say that I cannot and will not ever respect Michael Moore until he learns how to act more like an adult than a child. I have to say that even the democratic party do not even respect him, I believe they have something called tact and grace, but I cannot expect him to know those terms. His letter got me to think about some of the things that people say and how they can be taken out of context, as that is Moore's favorite thing. The first time that I read his letter, I kept wondering why Bush had said such things about Kerry. Afterwards, I realized that those phrases were taken out of context as Bush was probably trying to show that Kerry sometimes cannot remember all the details and was pointing out a discrepancy in the story. Also, one cannot expect the president to be behind everyone who says something about Kerry, just as Kerry is not behind you and your attacks on our president. This is not a huge conspiracy or anything. This letter is absolute rubbish and I only read it now to get a big laugh. Thanks to this letter, I respect Michael Moore less than before, wait that was not at all.
The entire letter was more entertaining than it was effective. It did capture the reader's attention and drew them in, but only to have fun. It was an effective use of irony and satire to convey his message, but next time, he might want to try something else. He stated his mind and his opinions were clear from the start, which are important parts of writing an argumentative piece. I must give him praise for his ability to keep me interested, but I was only interested in what level he would take it to now. This letter was efficiently written, but in my opinion, it was not written effectively.

GRch.4 commentary

2004-08-31T07:20:00.000-07:00

This chapter begins to go in depth in providing the best ways to give a good argument. Described at the beginning are two very good examples of books that became successful on topics that had already been covered before by others authors because they appealed to the many different ways of making an argument and therefore appealed to the majority of readers. This is done through establishing good credibility and background, relating through personal experiences to appeal to the reader’s feelings, and also by making logical connections between reasons and what the author wants to convey to the reader. Although pathos can often be the argument that most sways an author because of how important feelings and emotions are to human beings, logos is the most important in establishing the total truth of something because if proven well enough through logic nothing can be argued against the issue and taken seriously, making logos the best way of trying to establish the credibility of our issue’s point of view. Establishing credibility is a very important part of making a argument. This is why this is such an important part of campaigning for politicians. Through their words they will usually attempt to disqualify the credibility of their opponent and gain credibility for themselves by using words which the average listener may not even realize they’re being swayed into believing about each person running. Diction can play a very key role in how the argument is perceived and whether or not its accepted because it can decide whether the listener will agree or disagree with your issue.

NYC errs

2004-08-31T07:18:00.000-07:00

The article “NYC errs in playing nice with protesters” by Bernadette Malone was a bad attempt at persuasion with little or no coherence to the full truth. Whether I am a supporter of the protests or not, I think it’s ridiculous for an author to stereotype democrats who protest so poorly. The author makes it clear that she is opposed to the protests and likely wishes to condemn them. The only appeal that she attempts is appealing to pathos by trying to show that democrats have bad morals and are bad people who shouldn’t be given a chance to be heard. Even this appeal isn’t done well because as a conservative I read this article and condemned it as trash that should only be read for entertainment purposes or to show how not to write a persuasive article. Her one attempt at establishing some ethos is by saying that she got information from Ted Rall, but I have never even heard of him. The worst comment she makes is the comment about the discount buttons, when she implies that they should give similar ones out to the terrorists to use before they make another attack. The author needs to learn where to draw the line and when to stop. Personally I think that if she puts our more articles like this that she should stop writing all together. Either that or she could learn a few things by reading the Good Reasons book about making an argument because she doesn’t do a good job in persuasion.