School Prayer Amendment - Barely Agreed Upon

After we voted in class today on the proposed amendment my classmates and I came up with, I was surprised that the School Prayer Amendment barely received a majority vote. In Congress you need super majority so technically my proposed amendment wouldn't have passed. I figured that with two arguments supporting the amendment, the class would be twice as inclined to vote to ratify it. What I want to know is why five people in the class were against it. I know people don't reply to these blogs very often, but if you do happen to read this let me know. Where we just not very convincing? or what about are argument just didn't settle with you? The School Prayer Amendment is intended to only preserve the rights given to us by the founders. The Constitution is just so vague at times that it is hard to determine how they wanted us to interpret certain laws (such as the First Amendment). Clarification is better than confusion.

Slavery/Involuntary Servitude

I was completely caught off guard by the proposal to pay minimum wage to those in federal prisons who are doing work as a form of punishment. This could start a horrible cycle of those who live under the poverty level committing crimes in order to make money for a period of time, live off the money when they get out, and then commit another crime when it runs out. Once you have been convicted of a crime it is very difficult to get a job in the United States, so a program such as this would only make it harder for criminals to "clean up." What would be the point if you know your basic needs as well as a minimum wage job will be provided for you in jail?

While I agree that prisoners should not be forced into doing physically straining or dangerous work, I think measures other than this amendment would better solve that problem. As for prisons using prisoners to do clean-up work around the community in parks and such, I think it is a little extreme to call this slavery or involuntary servitude. It is a punishment! They didn't volunteer to go sit in a jail sell and request three unappetizing meals a day in fairly poor living conditions. What is preventing someone from arguing that making a child clean his/her room as a punishment or before he/she can leave the house isn't involuntary servitude then? I understand where the argument for such an amendment came from, I just think her argument in class was taken a bit to the extreme

When is Political Violence the Answer?

Never. Political violence does not solve anything that peaceful protests, forms of civil disobedience, and, in some cases, conventional forms of political participation cannot solve. Instead, political violence makes the situation worse by causing many people who may have joined the cause in the first place to reconsider due to the violent nature of the group. As we talked about in class, the most important thing to do today is to gain attention and support for your cause. It is obvious that this can be done without getting violent with rioting, forms of terrorism, and/or guerrilla warfare tactics. If someone were to cause a violent disturbance in a way of trying to communicate to me that their cause was valid and important, I would probably disregard the group all together because of the immature ways in which they were going about drawing attention to themselves. I am all for unconventional forms of political participation, but please, can we act mature and keep it peaceful?

YouTube Serving Its Purpose

There seems to be a concern for the use of new media, primarily YouTube, as a means for presidential candidates to campaign. Because there a numerous political spoofs created by various users of YouTube, it can be hard to determine what a candidate truly stands for. While Obama has been known for posting real stances on issues in YouTube videos, his bias can be turned around in an overly bias video for the opposite candidate by a spoof. We need to realize that the purpose of YouTube as a medium is primarily that of entertainment. The majority of the videos available to viewers are entertaining, sensational, or funny things people catch on camera, such as laughing babies, freak accidents, and music videos. It seems inevitable that such spoofs were created on a site dedicated to entertainment. The only way to solve the bias associated with the videos is to make actual campaign ads have some sort of approval by the candidate visible and for spoofs to allow viewers to access the real information. This seems somewhat impossible to me to implement because of the large number of users of such websites as YouTube, so maybe people should start considering what information they take seriously. I mean, it's just YouTube, should we really be that concerned about its affect in something as serious as a presidential election?

Inform Yourself, Please.

In November, I will vote for the first time in a presidential election. I have never had a tremendous interest in politics, but I feel that I should make an effort now that I am able to participate. I'm not sure whether or not I think my vote really matters, but I do want to be able to say I voted for personal reasons. Because of my lack of interest in politics, I feel that I need to catch up on the issues. I do not want to vote blindly for the party I normally side with without knowing each candidates stance on the important issues. Finding an unbiased source of this information is often difficult. Most websites are supported by one candidate or the other. These usually make one candidate out to be the good guy and the other candidate the bad guy. After accessing this website : http://obama-mccain.info/index-obama-mccain.php I think that the information is reliable. While only major issues stances are explained for both McCain and Obama, I feel that I am on the right track to becoming a more informed voter. I challenge all of you out there who aren't very well informed to gain some knowledge on the issues instead of blindly voting come this November. No one wants a President to be elected because no one really knew what he stood for.

eBay's Latest Attraction

Max P. Sanders, a student from University of Minnesota, was recently prosecuted for putting his vote in the 2008 Presidential Election on eBay. While he claims that it was a joke, I think that this proves to the rest of America that the youth in our country don't think that their vote really counts in an election. With the electoral college system in place, many college students (as well as older members of society) feel that there is no point to voting. Members of the electoral college are not restricted to voting with the popular vote of their state and in states that always vote either democratic or republican the only reason seen for voting is as a civil duty. I believe that this incident has gone way beyond showing politicians that something needs to be changed. Candidates need to start focusing some of their campaigning efforts on our youth to get them to value voting in such elections. While I have mentioned previously that we need to increase voter turn-out, the fact that many young men and women like Sanders don't feel the need to vote does not help create a larger voter turn-out for future elections. It is up to the government and the politicians to realize this and come up with some sort of solution.

To see the actual article go to this website. http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/04/ebay.vote.ap/index.html

Increasing Voter Turnout

Since the start of the twentieth century, the percentage of registered voters that actually vote in the presidential election each year has been steadily under 60%. If you average the number of voters for presidential elections with all other elections since the mid 1900s, the percentage is below 50%. This means that even if a majority of the popular vote is behind a president, it is really only just above 25% of registered voters that truly support the newly elected president. A president's authority to govern the country for his four-year term can be greatly affected by the support of the public. We do not want a president who is not backed up by significantly less than a majority of Americans.
The solution to this problem is to make it easier for those Americans who want to vote, but can't for various reasons, to be able to do so. Making voting day a national holiday would allow so many more Americans who normally have hectic work schedules to get to the polls. Families with children could also take turns watching the kids while one parent is at the polls. It could solve a lot of reasons why many Americans simply cannot vote in elections even if they want to be a part of deciding our nation's president. I believe that this would definitely increase voter turnout and have a positive affect on our country's election of a new president.