Blog Eight

Tasha recently wrote a blog about warrantless wiretapping.She doesn't think that the “government should have the right to invade our privacy without a court order.” An underlying assumption that she makes is that the government is trying to do some good with this program and with programs involving wide-spread surveillance cameras in public. She accepts the surveillance cameras, but I think that an acceptance of surveillance cameras allows for acceptance of surveillance wires. She sort of alludes to herself later on in the blog by stating “If the government believes warrantless wiretapping is okay, there's no telling what they are going to do next and before you know it we won't have any privacy whatsoever.” She went on to conclude that she “believes something needs to be done before [it] gets way out of hand.” I think that something needs to be done as well, reduce government activity! The political implications of her blog could be that it might reveal to someone some of the government's illegal activities.

Blog Seven

Continuing my “discourse” on decreasing government action, I will now write about why I think the government should not try to control what people put in their bodies. The government has increased its control over what foods, nutrients, and drugs that they want or don't want people to put in their bodies. This is a violation of personal privacy and liberty. I think people should be allowed to get the type of health care that they want, eat the foods they want, and take the drugs they want without punishment from the government. If they can't, then the government is restricting their freedom.

Big companies lobby for certain legislation that benefits them, not the government, economy, or majority of citizens. As a result, dangerous drugs and other products are put on the market while safe products that could serve as preventative health care are restricted, and so are peoples' liberties. I went to an acupuncturist one day and while filling out the forms I found out that traditional Chinese medicine “legally” cannot be used as primary health care in Texas. While I did not have to leave to see a western doctor for my specific reason for visiting, I did not like that I wouldn't have the option of seeing a traditional Chinese medicine doctor as a first resource for health care in the future.

As for “illicit” drugs, I think that a person's liberty to manage their own body should not be infringed upon by the government, even if what they decide to do might be harmful to themselves. I also think that if drugs were legal, they could be of higher and standardized quality which would reduce overdoses, they could be done and acquired in a safer way, and they could also support the economy. In conclusion, I think that peoples' liberties of privacy and the right to health care of their choice should not be infringed upon by the government.

Blog Six

Stefan Covert wrote a blog about his distaste for John McCain and his economic plans. In some aspects I agree with Stefan, and in some aspects I don't. I think Stefan is probably a smart fellow, but I don't think he went into enough detail stating his opinion on the matter, perhaps he was pressed for time. He argued that John McCain has poor economic plans and doesn't know much about the economy in general, and it seems that he thinks that people should vote Democratically instead. I agree with him that John McCain doesn't know much about the economy, but I don't think that Clinton or Obama would really do a much better job. As far as the evidence he provided, the author referred to things that the candidates have said, which I think was sufficient evidence for his argument, though he could have put in some direct quotes. His conclusion may have been a bit overstated and I hope he wasn't accurate, but it stated his position. If a person were to have stumbled upon Sefan's post, he may have been influenced to not vote for McCain, because it was written in a “straight up” style that could effectively influence people.

Blog Five

I could not think of anything that I think the government should do. I thought about it and thought about it, then I realized that I do not think that they should do very much in general. Something I think the United States government should do is decrease its actions. A good place to start would be to bring US troops home from Iraq.

The war in Iraq was based on lies, one of which was that the attacks on September 11 were committed by an independent terrorist group called Al Queda. There are whole websites, organizations, and movies dedicated to showing people that what the government told the public about the attacks was not what really happened. Since there is so much information on that readily available, I will not go into much detail about that here. A good site with more information on that is Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth http://www.ae911truth.org/. Built on the lie of the events of 9/11, President Bush then said that “Al Queda” was in Iraq. Bush also said that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction” (WMDs). He made those claims even though there was no evidence of either.

Year after year there has been needless violence and destruction. About 90,000 Iraqi civilians have died due to the war and several thousand American soldiers have died too. Iraq has become war torn and their economy has been highly damaged and restricted. The technological advancements they had made in areas such as medicine have been displaced. Many of the structures and places resembling their cultural heritage have been reduced to ruins. Numerous polls show that about 80% of Iraqi citizens want the US out of Iraq. Very few Iraqi people think that US forces are there to help the Iraqi people or to set up a true democracy.

A common rejection to pulling US troops out of Iraq is that America can't just abandon the mess it started. Taking the troops out does not equate to abandoning the mess that was made because Washington can still do diplomatic work and space can be made for actually beneficial organizations to go in there and help. The billions of dollars spent on the military effort in Iraq could be spent on reconstruction, and money could also be given to the Iraqi people.

The United States government has done far more harm than good in Iraq and owes the Iraqi people a huge debt. I think the US government needs to reduce it's actions in general, and bringing the troops home could be a good step. Much mending would need to take place, but it took the federal government over 200 years to get the high point of activity it's now at, and it could take a long time to significantly reduce it.

Blog Four

The New York Times has published an article entitled “Pain at the Pump and Beyond”. The article is basically about rising gas prices, energy problems, and how they're supposedly the Bush administration's fault. An interesting thing about this article is that the individual author was not listed. It is simply filed under the opinion/editorial section of the New York Times' website. This raises suspicion because if the author won't even claim or back up their own work, it's probably because they know something is wrong with it. The New York Times has an admittedly liberal bias, which is also important to keep in mind [1]. The Times has a large audience, mostly white businessmen who keep up with the news and politics, and they vote. This article does try to persuade people to change the White House, i.e. vote in a different kind of President.

The author claims that the Bush administration's energy policies are short sighted. He or she says that their policy is based on increasing the energy supply rather than conserving and making energy use more efficient. The author also points out that America is highly dependent on oil, and goes on to explain the impact of newly developing countries and their need for oil. An excerpt from the article states “The turmoil in financial markets -- the White House can take a good chunk of the blame for that -- has driven prices even higher...” The author does not explain how it's the White House's fault, he/she is just assuming this. The author's liberal position is now more apparent because he/she obviously thinks the government should have to deal with the economy.

No evidence is really supplied for his/her arguments about the faults of the Bush administration. Statistics about gas prices and usage rates are provided, but they don't indicate anything on the part of the Bush administration. The author even contradicts him or herself by stating that an energy bill passed just last December was a landmark since it tightened fuel standards for the first time since 1975.

The conclusion states that “A lot more needs to be done to prepare the American economy for a world of scarcer, more expensive energy,” and that to start this, America needs “to replace the oilmen in the White House with leaders who have a better grasp of the economics of energy and the interests of all Americans.” I don't think that the argument was very successful, since no proof was given for the arguments, mostly just distractions and filler. I think the only people who would be convinced are people who already agreed with the author and agreed with the assumptions that the author made. The only belief of mine that this article changed was that which I had in the integrity of the New York Times.

I don't think that this article will have much of an impact on peoples' votes due to its general weakness. Since it's such a weak article, it basically comes down to either a person simply agrees with it or does not. Sure, some interesting statistics are given about other countries' energy usages compared to Americas, but it doesn't really imply anything about the White House when looked at critically. Are the economic and energy problems the fault of the Bush administration? Perhaps. But does this article prove it? No. Holding true to it's being categorized as opinion, this articles is opinion, and hopefully voters can see that and make their own opinions.

[1]http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D01E7D8173DF936A15754C0A9629C8B63

Ralph Nader Running for President

Leslie Hoffecker has written an article for the Los Angeles Times entitled "Nader, spoiling for a fight, says he'll run yet again". The LA Times has a history of being a liberally biased newspaper, and it also has a history of being influenced by advertisers [1]. While it may seem that the Green party is more liberal than the Democratic party, the Democratic party is the main party that liberals align themselves with in the United States. I think that the author of that article has aligned herself with the Democratic party, which is expressed in her demeaning word choice of "spoiling for a fight." She was fair in some regards though, since she did quote Nader's position and defenses. It is also interesting to consider what the Democratic candidates, Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton, had to say about this. As candidates, they had to make themselves look good and point out things they didn't like about Nader, while not sounding too rude in order to keep good public standing. They both seemed to look down at Nader in a way.

The author of the article doesn't give much of a verbal argument, but her position is hinted at by her word choice, and her emphasis on the quotes from the Democratic candidates. The title chosen suggests childishness, and Hoffecker both begins and ends with quotes from the Democrats, the opening Democratic citations being bold. The argument that the Democratic candidates are trying to offer seems to be that Nader did have a negative effect in 2000, but will not have one this year. The candidates are trying to influence voters, and by simply saying that Nader won't have much of an impact could influence voters to agree, and therefore vote Democratic.

As far as evidence goes, there are some statistics provided about the number of times Nader has ran for president in the past and the number of votes that he got. He did receive many less votes in 2004 than in 2000, but no statistics were provided about his current number of supporters.

The conclusion of the article seemed interesting to me. The conclusion was an opinionated quote from Hilary Clinton speaking poorly of Ralph Nader. This reinforced my thoughts that the author had sided with the Democrats. It does follow with the “argument” of “vote Democratic”, but there doesn't seem to be much substance to it.

One of the main conflicts in this article was whether or not Ralph Nader cause Al Gore to lose the 2000 election, and I think that since Democrats don't want to lose to Republicans, especially this year, they're trying to sway voters away from Nader already. The main political implication here was influencing people to vote for Democrats. This further demonstrates how much influence the media has on how people vote.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LA_Times

Ron Paul

Ron Paul is a Congressman seeking the 2008 Republican nomination. As far as I can tell, he is the only candidate of the two major parties in the United States that actually wants real change. He advocates a return to a Constitutional Democracy, which is clearly no longer in place, especially with things that are in place such as the "Patriot Act". Ron Paul has been ignored and harshly brushed off to the side by the mainstream media. Paul Joseph Watson has written an article entitled Ron Paul Cheated Again At CNN "Debate". In this article, Watson wrote about how Ron Paul has gotten less than a third of the time to debate than the other candidates. The media has a huge influence of what people think, including on who they vote for President. This is an important article for students to read because it can help show them how biased the mainstream media is and the need for doing independent research when deciding on who to vote for.