Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Open Post (Please respond by Friday, April 20 at 8:00 AM)
You asked for it, and I listened. Without further delay, this is your "open blog post" week. Your task is to post on anything happening in the world of politics, government, or anything else related to topics we have covered in this class. Respond to your classmates posts, start a healthy debate, and let's see where these conversations go!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
15 comments:
Today, the world of politics received some long awaited news. Rick Santorum has finally decided to suspend his campaign until further notice. While he has not said if or when he is going to "resume" his campaign, I think that this is probably the political way of saving face and dropping out of the race. I think that this is very welcome news because now we finally have a clear candidate; Mitt Romney. Romney is now the only person who has even close to the amount of delegates needed to be the Republican nominee. I am very thankful that these primaries are finally over, and that we have a clear winner. However, there are two problems that stand in Romney's way and they are called Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich. Even though neither of these two have any chance of being the nominee, it is not until Romney gets all the delegates or both of them drop out that Romney officially gets the nomination. Hopefully, these two will get the hint and drop out to back Romney. It is imperative now that the Republicans know their nominee to band together and focus on the real opponent; Obama.
Finally, the Republicans can stop wasting money on useless campaigns against each other and start raising money for the race that it actually important.
Alright. Here we go. FREEEEE FOR ALLLLLLL!! P.s. I am angry at you Mr. Shannon for not writing these exact words. So I will let it slide this time, but just letting you know, its not cool. Anywhoo here we go.
Nichole I do not like at all how you said that a certain someone has NO CHANCE of winning the republican nomination. And you all know I am talking about Ron Paul. Just the fact that he is still in the running proves that he has a chance of getting the nomination! Though these chances may be slim, they are definitely not none. And so for this blog post I would like to tell you all why my main man Ron Paul should be the next president of the United States! YAYYYYY!
Ron Paul is a believer in freedom, honesty, and the Constitution. He stays to the guidelines that have wonderfully guided our country and would not use the constitution to gain power. He knows what the economy needs to get our country out of debt, and he realizes the budget cuts that must be made and that he cannot start something without the money to pay for it.
He is also an intelligent and caring man who believes in equality for all people naturally. He has even said, "We don’t get our rights because we’re gays or women or minorities. We get our rights from our creator as individuals. So every individual should be treated the same way". He agrees that people should all be treated equal as long as it is safe and they deserve it in their behavior.
He also is a very moral person who will not stand for unjust killing. This means abortion, unjust wars, euthanasia and more. He is everything we should hope for in a president. And what I find the greatest about him is that he stands up for what he believes in no matter what people think and he sticks with it. That is why he is still in this race. And that is why he should be president.
Elect Ron Paul in 2012.
Mr. Shannon you'll probably get mad at me for opening this can of worms but I cannot help but think about this because of the topic we discussed today. We talked about racism and everything of that sort and I could not help but think about how sometimes minorities have the upper hand at getting things. I actually agree with the fact that this should be okay, to a degree. I feel that it may be unfair if we look at it as whites, but considering the fact that minorities have been treated so bad for so many years, I think it is common sense to finally give them something more. I think it is dumb that people complain because if you are more qualified for something, then you probably would not have a hard time finding another job. Using racial guidelines allows us to help get the minorities out of the ghettos and slums and into the better societies which most whites live in today. It gives them better futures for themselves and their children, and we should allow this to happen. Just my opinion and I really wanted to say this today so I figured I'd blog about it.
Although I understand what Katie is getting at with the whole, minorities used to be treated poorly so it's our way of "making up for it" i still do not think that giving minorities the upperhand at getting into college based on race is fair at all. When it comes to applying for college or for a job, it should not be requireed to ask the persons race. If a college is only accepting someone based on their race and not on their own personal qualifications then how is that even remotely fair to someone who has worked very hard to achieve greater things. Just because someone is caucasian does not mean that they are rich, come from a good neighborhoos, or have great opportunities. But if they have worked hard o achieve good grades and perform well in life, then they, regardless of race, should be accepter. For example, if a caucasian male, from inner-city cleveland attended a publicv high school, worked hard to receive a 3.75 gpa, took part in service and sports and an African American male came from the same type of neighborhood, went to a public high school, got a 3.1 gpa, did not do any service or any extraccurriculars (not saying this is a typical African American or being racist in any way, it's just an example) both apply at the same college and the African American is accepted over the Caucasia, then that is NOT in any way giving every eAmerican an equal opportunity and it is almost being racist against the caucasian. Rewards such as going to the college one wants or getting a decent job should NOT ever be decided on race, rather the qualifications and history of the person's actions.
When it comes to the issue that Katie brings up I also agree with Andi. Most colleges, even though they do not come out and admit this, try to accept a certain amount of minorities. This is greatly unfair to students who have worked hard their whole life and still may not get in where they would want to because they got cut off for minorities. I personally believe that college applications should not require sex and race in the application, but should look at applications based on their accomplishments. I understand that minorities were treated horribly in the past; however it is the 21st century. Racism still does exist but it is not as bad as it used to be. Colleges no longer discriminate on race. We can’t dwell on the past anymore. Colleges should be required to judge every applicant fairly. Every American is granted the right to achieve success. Whether you work for it or not is your choice, however we should all be given the same fair opportunities no matter what race you are. This is a very controversial topic for many people and I am interested to see what it might lead to in the future.
Although I agree with Grace's point that you should be admitted into college based on your academics and achievements, I do understand the other side. Not to stereotype, but a good amount of African Americans who come from urban areas have a harder chance of getting into college and having the motivation to finish high school because there are so many temptations in today's society. You can even expand it to say that anyone no matter what race is faced with this challenge. However, if there aren't a certain percentage of minorities in each college, then someone might say that that particular college is being racist, even though the truth may just be that whoever deserved to get it in was accepted. I'm definitely not saying that this is okay, but if you think about it, all colleges have a certain quota for whites and other minorities such as asians and latinos. If those groups were all equal and there weren't any minorities in the world, then it would be different. Overall, I agree with Grace when she mentions that the application process shouldn't require applicants to fill out their ethnicity if they choose not to. That way, they could publicly make known that they weren't trying to reach a certain quota and that all the applicants who applied were chosen based on their essay and academics.
In regard to what Katie brought up, I agree with Andi. Just because there has been racism in the past, does not mean that the acceptance system should favor minorities. Nowadays, colleges are so worried about having diverse campuses, they set a bar for minority acceptance, and offer scholarships based on strictly race. That is definitely racism in reverse. If minorities want to be treated equally, then they should not get special treatment. Equal opportunity comes with equal responsibility, meaning that they need to work just as hard as everyone else to acheive success. There's no way that one can strive for greatness if everything is just handed to them because of their skin color. It's definitely frustrating, especiailly during the college search/application process. Even though minorities have the same rights as whites now, racism will always exist, in one way or another. If all men are created equal, than each one should have to earn their rewards. No one should be given preferential treatment, whether you are black, white, yellow, pink or striped. Period.
What a great time for an open blog post! There is so much to talk about that is happening right now! I would first like to start this off with Obama...and the Secret Service. If you all have not already heard, while the President was in Cartagena, Colombia, 11 Secret Service agents along with other officials are alleged of bringing prostitutes back to their hotel with them when they were supposed to be on duty for Obama. When I saw this, I thought it was quite comical that Obama either does not have enough control over the people that serve him, or the standards are not high enough for Secret Service agents. Obama's comment on the whole situation was:"I expect that investigation to be thorough and to be rigorous. If it turns out that some of the allegations made in the press are confirmed, then of course I’ll be angry". Really? I think that it is sad that all he had to say is that he would be angry. If I was the President and found out that the allegations were true, I would have them all fired. I do not blame him for this incident, but I think his reaction to it was very vague and shows that he either does not know how to handle the situation or won't take control over it. The whole thing to me is just crazy and I think that it should have been handled quickly and efficiently. It has been the headlines in the news for a week now, and if I were the President, I would be embarrassed on their half and try to get to the bottom of it right away.
My next part of my blog is about Rick Santorum dropping out of the race. I was sadly on vacation and didn't get to find out until I came back, but it is about time the Republican party starts to figure things out! This is a huge relief for the Republican Party and now they can focus more attention on Mitt Romney and the overall goal of beating Obama. The ads are starting up and every morning I watch TV it is commercial after commercial about why people should not vote for a certain person. Those are going to get old by November... I know we already talked about this in class, but attacking Romney's wife for being a stay at home mom is really sad. If women have the option to do that, then they should take it if they want to. Some people are better at some things than others and everyone has dreams. If someone wants their future to be a stay at home mom, who is anyone to say that is wrong? I want to be a lawyer, so is someone going to tell me that if I have kids that is wrong if I continue to work? Elections can become very petty and annoying sometimes. I am excited, however, that now the race can really begin because of Santorum no longer running. It will be interesting to see who will end up in the White House, because I think it could go either way right now.
Thanks for giving us a free for all! I would like to talk about the Republican’s “war on women.” I have never heard about this before and, from what I understand, it basically has to do with the Republican Party trying to gain more support form women. So, Barack Obama currently has an 18-point lead with female voters in key swing states and Mitt Romney and the Republican Party obviously wants to try and win these voters back. And that’s where this whole “war on women” began.
I thought I wanted to talk about that but there are a lot of different things that the war on women encompasses and I would like to specifically focus on how the Republicans in Congress are blocking a renewal of the Violence Against Women Act. Sorry if that first part was confusing and unnecessary. Anyways, The VAWA is a United States federal law that allowed investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against women. It also created funding for domestic-violence programs and new Civil Rights remedies for women who were victims of gender based attacks. The act had a far-reaching effect on gender-based crimes. The law was intended to reinforce protections within the law for women affected by violence by stiffening sentences for perpetrators and enabling access by women to civil proceedings. The law is now facing resistance for the first time since it was enacted. Republican’s are obstructing the laws renewal because it now contains language protecting Native Americans, immigrants, and LGBT Americans. The law has been unanimously renewed twice in the past and the Republicans resistance now has struck up a lot of flack from the Democrats. I can’t imagine why anyone would be opposed to this law as it reduces domestic violence and sexual assault. Now the democrats are in war against the “war on women” and it appears that the Republicans are struggling. Vice President Biden gave a very passionate speech about this issue and other political figures have spoken out about how they can’t believe that the renewal of this law is even being debated in Congress. I have to agree and even though the Republicans opposing the act as are likely to step down soon, I don’t think that anyone should have been trying to thwart it in the first place.
So, yes that is all I have learned about this little thing that’s going on and, therefore, all I have to say!
Free for all’s are the best. Anyways there are two main things I wanted to discuss. First off, a lot of people are talking about who is going to be the Republican vice presidential candidate. There have been numerous names thrown out, but four people seem to be consistently discussed. Condoleezza Rice (Bush’s Secretary of State), Rick Santorum (former Senator and possible Republican nominee), Marco Rubio (Florida Senator), and Chris Christie (New Jersey Governor) are the most-discussed possible Republican VP’s for 2012. I’m really glad that these people are the frontrunners for the VP position. I really like all of them, even though I don’t know that much about Rubio. They are all very different though, so it will be interesting to see who will be running alongside Romney. Personally I think ‘Romney Christie’ and ‘Romney Rice’ sound the best…
The other thing I wanted to bring up was the recent scandal in the Democratic Party. Between this and the drama with the Secret Service Agents, I almost feel bad for Obama. Almost. Anyways, for those of you who don’t know, the state Democratic Party chairman refused to resign under the weight of a political controversy involving allegations of sexual harassment and a secret settlement agreement with a former staffer. In most situations like these, the person quickly resigns and tries to make it disappear. However, David Parker refuses to resign as chair. Parker also called for a referendum on his job. Since the 2012 Democratic Convention is in Charlotte, North Carolina, this is creating a lot of drama for Obama’s campaign. While this scandal hasn’t become big news yet, there is a good chance that it will soon be national news.
Lastly, a very popular and lifelong-Democratic mayor has recently switched to the Republican party, creating more drama for the Democrats and Obama.
I writing in response to Patricia's blog post about how environmental issues are often overlooked in politics but still prove to be an important topic which needs to be addressed. I think the environment and the economy go hand-in-hand because often the environment is supplying the economy the resources and materials it needs to prosper and flourish. Patricia is right, the topics of abortion, financial plans, and government reform often take the spotlight during election time. Topics such as technology, drugs, and the environment are thrown on the back burner. Protection, preservation, and education about the environment needs to be addressed.
To go into a little more detail about what Patricia had said, the Green Party addresses topics that range further out from that of planting trees in the forests. If you read their website carefully they talk about subjects like tax reform and immigration control. The Green Party believes taxes are too high for the middle-class worker and not high enough for large corporations and the wealthy. It is of no doubt that if the Green Party is elected into the presidency not only will our country recycle more, the government should run the same way it does now- addressing the same issues prevalent to society today.
Third parties often are under-represented and do not collect enough votes to make an impact on presidential elections. There have been cases though in history where third parties have emerged as strong powers, such as Teddy Roosevelt from the Progressive movement. I think that if Green Party were able to draw more attention to their efforts and/or show the political world how important the issue of the environment is, then it is absolutely possible for the Green Party to arise as a strong third party candidate possibility. Either way, I think all parties, third, Democrat, or Republican, should address the environment as a topic of equal importance to that of Social Security.
Well since this blog post is a FREE FOR ALL!!!!!, I am going to write about a topic that I am exceptionally passionate about when it comes to the economy. First of all, as I'm sure you know, I find the whole "we are the 99%" movement to be utterly ridiculous. There are not just two different kinds of people in the America. There are still divisions in class. The middle class does still exist much to the apparent disbelief of some people. I also get irritated that people call out the wealthy people in the world who somewhere along the line, someone worked very hard to earn that money. Families don't magically become wealthy. Someone worked hard for that money and then made good decisions so they could keep it. Anyways, earlier in the week, I heard on Good Morning America (during the five minutes I can see every morning) that people were attacking Republicans for wanting to cut taxes for big businesses. I find it exceptionally irritating that people take this as the Republican party completely disregarding the lower class and completely favoring big business. That is not the case. What people don't realize is that by cutting taxes, it is creating jobs. When companies pay lower taxes, the can afford to hire more employees because they have more money to spend on that. This is incredibly important due to the state of our economy. Cutting taxes for big business is an attempt to lower the unemployment rate by giving businesses the means to hire more employees.
Also, as a side note, I feel like America is becoming too much of a country where we focus on the things we do not have instead of the things we do. This shift is affecting the way that people view government and how policies are implemented.
I am glad that the republicans were able to figure out who the presidential candidate is going to be. I give credit to Santorum and his decision to drop out because for a while he wasn't that far behind in the race, but now the republicans can come together around one candidate. However I don't agree with the fact that democrats are attacking Romney's wife for being a stay at home mom is ridiculous. In the past many women have fought for equal rights for women in this country and one of those rights is choosing a profession. If Romney's wife wants to stay at home and take care of her children than she has every right in the world to do that. My mom is a stay at home mom and she works just as hard and sacrifices a lot more than some people who do work, and this is after she worked hard to put herself through college. Also, no matter what Romney's wife does it is not her name that's going to be on the ballot it is her husbands. The fact that people are judging a person based on what his wife does for a living is not fair. It is amazing what people will say to degrade another person.
For the free for all, I decided to respond to this article (http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/marijuana-rally-in-trouble-1422639.html) that I found on Google news about the yearly protest that occurs on April 20 at the University of Colorado. The goal of this protest is legalize recreational marijuana use for people 21 and older. The protest draws attention to the university because the protesters smoke marijuana on the campus, and this year the university is cracking down. One student organizer said that the students’ First Amendment right to protest was being violated when the campus told them that they were no longer permitted to do this protest on campus, but I do not think that this is true because the activity they are engaging in is illegal at the federal level and most other states are fine with this federal law. Americans do have the right to protest in conventional ways, but they are not simply allowed to just engage in an illegal activity. I think that this is a waste of time for people to be protesting because people should not have so much passion for an issue when it concerns only their own rights as an individual to have more freedom to overindulge in controlled substances. These people are not concerned with bigger issues that will affect everyone but instead they focus on issues in their own subculture. I think that if Americans as a whole went out of their way to think about how issues affect other people besides themselves, then our country would have so many less problems. These protesters are definitely taking advantage of the First Amendment right to protest in order to be allowed to smoke marijuana all day, and I think that is not only illegal but it is also selfish because they are not thinking of the effects that this will have on the rest of society.
I agree with Katie 100%. I feel like African Americans, not all, will use what happened to them as a fall back to make it seem like all their life they have not been treated fairly. In reality, we are all equal now, regardless of the racism in our country, because we will never truly be able to get rid of it. I feel like their is a double standard when it comes to African Americans. They can call us derogatory names and we just have to take it but God forbid we say something derogatory to them, it gets blown out of proportion. I am not saying that we should be calling each other inappropriate names but this is just one example where I believe African Americans think they can say/do what they want, which I can not stand! We all should have the same level of respect for each other whether we like that person or not, but we are no longer in a country where African Americans are slaves and for that, we should respect them. But in return we should get the same amount of respect from them. I know some African Americans think that since the Whites were the ones who enforced slavery, that we are all bad, and take it out on us, but this is no longer happening and therefore the hostility and racism toward one another is just unnecessary.
Post a Comment