Don't Look Now, You're Being Americanized!

So I’ve done two days of political blogging, and I’m a little tired. So today I’m going to discuss a topic that comes a little more easily to me: The Pledge of Allegiance. This may seem to be a bit more of a rant than my previous posts, but this is after all a blog, and that’s how I’m feeling today.

I’m going to start with the most obvious problem: “Under god.” The United States of America is in no way intended to be “under god,” and thus such a statement has no place in a recitation of allegiance to America and American ideals. This nation was created as a secular nation, outside all influences of religion or faith.
Easy solution: Put the Pledge back how it was before 1954, which is the year those two words were added. In case you were not aware, before 1954 the Pledge ran “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

But that easy solution isn’t enough; I do not think that the Pledge of Allegiance should be recited in schools even without the words “under god.” Children are taught from a young age to recite the words with no knowledge of their meaning. They are taught the words completely out of context. If I’m not incorrect in my definitions, I would call this indoctrination and brainwashing. Students should learn to believe in America through knowledge of its history and current political and cultural state, not through a poem pledging their allegiance to something they know little about.
The Pledge also alienates those who are unable or unwilling to recite it, such as Atheists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and those who believe in globalism, or in fact anything other than American supremacy.

On a side note, the Pledge of Allegiance is a poem written by Edward Bellamy. How would you feel if you wrote a poem which masses of people recite, except that they decided to just change a bit, add a few words, to add some extra meaning? I highly doubt Edward Bellamy would support additions to his poem to “make it better.”

-Ilan Seid-Green

The Senate Finance Committee's Health Care Bill . . . Finally

According to CNN http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/16/health.care/index.html the bill would cost about 850 billion dollars over 10 years. Unlike some of the other health care bills proposed, the health care bill created by the senate finance committee would mandate that every American be covered by health care. If I understand this correctly and I am not sure if I do, they are also not calling for free health-care. The senate committee wants to establish non-profit health care corporations that everyone has to buy their insurance from. Rather than being free for
everyone the government would simply pay part of the health care depending on the individual.

I am a liberal and proud to be so. However, I think this plan is ridiculous. It is one thing to make government health care optional so that the less fortunate can buy it, but I am not supportive of replacing everyone's health care with the government care. On top of that, what is going to happen to the private insurance companies if this bill passes? The insurance industry is a big industry in America and this would be a huge blow if not a fatal one for it.

How far will Obama stretch his power?

In class today, Commissar Silton commented on the expansion of executive power from the Bush presidency, and how Obama has kept many of the new toys Bush left for him.
Bush imposed signing statements, allowing him to interpret and decide how much he will or will not obey a congressional bill, therefore giving the executive powers of interpretation formerly held by the judicial branch.

The Obama administration has chosen to keep many of the Bush imposed novelties to the presidential sphere of influence, including the right to confine whoever they choose under the "unlawful enemy combatant" card, as seen when Obama did not detain Al Marri, a citizen of Qatar who was held captive for five years without charges but left the possibility that he could detain people in this manner in the future.

To clarify my position on this topic, i must explain my views about the role of the president. I believe that first and foremost, it is Obama's job to look out for the safety of the general population and to solve the nations greatest problem, which is the failing economy.

While Bush imposed powers stretch the executive influence beyond the comfort zones of many informed citizens, such as my family and myself, Obama has begun to revolutionize the scope of presidential power.

Firstly let me point out that the Obama presidency, more than most before it has become iconic to Americans in many ways. When Mishelle planted an organic garden, so did countless american families. The media has gone far with its support of Obama and has taken it to the point that millions of people practically worship the man. Whenever Obama says something interesting to the public, it is sure to make headline news and have more influence than could possibly be safe.

On monday of this week, President Obama was asked about his thoughts on rapper Kanye West's outburst during the VMA awards, after telling the reporter that Kanye's actions were "very inappropriate", Obama called West a "jackass"

While some may view this to be an honest mistake on the president/overlords part, i think that considering how influencial the comment was, it was highly inappropriate for him to even answer to the reporter. Obama is taking a sharp turn into meddling with peoples lives, and does so with power no one else has. His comment will permanently affect Kanye West's career more than any amount of celebrities siding with Swift ever could. In addition, the idea of the predident publicly taking sides in the multitudes of overinflated dramas in Hollywood startles, frightens, and even stops me in my tracks.
With Obama chiming in in Swifts defence, millions more people will have found out about this 'outburst' of Kanye West and will have inevitably sided with Swift having formed an image of West in their heads that was hand made and solidified by Obama. At this point i believe that if the president made a speech on why wearing pink crocks makes sense for everyone, nearly everyone would be wearing them sooner or later...
The real issue with this is that Obama is using his influence as president and his popularity to inflict his views upon the masses, while the Swift incident did not pose a particularly controvercial view, it did pose a fundamental question that all of us should be asking. WHATS NEXT?
Will our God Obama dictate his opinions on peoples lifestyles, life choices, or even their beliefs through his influence over them? I believe he is on his way... and it is just the another step for him to begin his control over the world of entertainment, a step that with his comment, he has effectively taken.

A Comment on the State of the State

So yesterday I investigated government spending and control. Today I'm going to step down a governmental level and attempt to tackle problems in the California legislative system.

Two main parts of the election of Legislators in California lead to an inexperienced and ineffective legislature.
First, the ability of the legislature to determine the boundaries of its own electoral districts, which leads to what is known as gerrymandering, the act of redrawing electoral districts in order to manipulate the election in favor of a specific party. This in effect creates separate districts solely for each party, which in turn leads to the election of extremists on each side. Having extremists in the legislature makes for an inability to work across the aisle - legislators who cannot work together and cannot compromise.
Second, short term limits. People think badly of career politicians, and so think that they do not represent the people as well. With term limits we can keep career politicians from controlling the government. Or something. However, all term limits do is make it so that there are not enough people who actually know about the political system of California to be elected, and so people who know less must be elected. Thus we end up with a new crop of neophytes each election; people who know little to nothing about politics, who have to learn how to be legislators, as well as learn the content matter and figure out how to vote.
A highly connected problem is the tendency of voters to vote for people they like, not people who will do well for them. People vote for actors, movie stars, well known figures to lead their government - people who know nothing about politics, and thus do a lousy job of running the state.

Now that we've analyzed the failures in election of legislators, we should look at a major consequence of the above mentioned problems. Money is being cut all over California because of the failure of the California legislature and Governor to pass a budget on time, and their inability to pass a meaningful budget that raises enough money to pay for necessary services.
The first problem that leads to this is the necessity of having a two-thirds vote to pass a budget. A two-thirds vote is near impossible to achieve with the gerrymandered districts and resultant extremist.

Second, legislators are just people: people need incentives to compromise and get things done. They have no consequences for failing to pass a budget on time, and thus have no reason to compromise in any way to do so.
Last, California is an extremely large state; it has a huge population, and a huge economy. But the state government cannot run a deficit to keep up with said huge economy.

My proposed solutions for these problems are simple and as follows:

Get rid of term limits (if you don’t like the legislator, vote her out of office), and have an independent committee redraw the electoral districts in a fair, non-politically biased way.

In these ways moderation can be encouraged, lessening tension and increasing ability to compromise.

I am sadly unable to come up with a viable solution to my last articulated problem, of California’s large economy run by a state.

Links O' the Day

Yea, let us now change the subject.

No one is immoral here! Certainly not Max. Trollish on occasion and in desperate need of a work-study in less than fully privileged community, sure, but he's still a mensch.

Fun stuff I read today:

Stanley Fish sees the dark cloud of curiosity -- certain to blow Sam's mind. The comments thread on this (which is edited by the NYT) is unbelievably smart. Wow.

Are Universities Doomed? Holy moly, I am about to be replaced by a computer. That stinks. I totally agree that the communal experience of an academically legit residential college is a sort of luxury; after all, there was a reason some of my classmates affectionately referred to Bowdoin as "Camp Bo-Bo." Nonetheless, the credential, for better or worse, matters.

Domestic Violence is a pre-existing condition?? We live in a wicked world. h/t: Steve Benen at The Washington Monthly.

Blogging note: h/t means "hat tip" which means "I found this thing through this other site, so a tip o' the hat to them."

Did Bush really refer to Obama as "this cat?"

Consider this an open thread. If you don't know what an open thread is... you should read more blogs.

I'm Sitting in the Dark with no Water Waiting for my Disability Check

So I've been hearing a lot in the past week about pro-free market capitalists rising up against so-called government control. Now why don't we take a look at what exactly they want the Obama administration to "take its hands off."
First, they want less control of the free market. Fewer regulations, they call for. They want to be free to do what they want; free to have their banks collapse and businesses fail. I think that deregulation is a great idea - if you want more failures such as the Lehman Brothers' last year.
For example, one way that the government controls the market is through the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission (FDIC); which guarantees people's life savings accounts. I'm very much a fan of looking carefully at the consequences of things you support. These people don't seem to remember that the freedom they so strongly call for leaves greedy bankers free to lose the life savings of their investors.
Second, they want the government's hands off their money: for instance, "hands off my Medicare and disability insurance!" No matter that the money they want the government to stop controlling is in fact coming directly from the government.
Last, income taxes! We can't stand to pay income taxes. The government is already taking too much of our money; they don't need more of our hard earned dollars. But really, they ought to get to work on fixing up those roads, and they better not stop giving me water and electricity, and by gods they should really make the postal service better... Oh wait.

-Ilan Seid-Green

Health Care Reality Check

This article from the NYT about Med students' summer job experience would be great for anyone thinking of a career in medicine. The spirit of the article is pro-reform, but it does not wade into weighing the trade-offs of different proposals or the political game amongst various government officials.

The Commissar Is In Town

As most readers of this blog know by now, Aragon HS has been identified as a school that indoctrinates instead of educates its students because Assistant Principal Silton (sic) obviously wishes to cultivate a cult of personality around President Obama. See this post for more over the top nonsense regarding yours truly, Commissar Silton.

There is a relevant 1980s music video, of course:


FYI, I have copied below the response I sent to the administrator(s) of hillaryis44.org. While I wrote this mostly for my own amusement, I really do want to live by the principles that I articulate in it. In other words, while I am very transparent in class about what is fact, standard interpretation, alternative interpretation, and my opinion, admitting the possibility of bias is not the same thing as being truly objective and fair to alternative points of view, and that is what I'm striving for. I don't think that goal is incompatible with being honest and witty, but if you think my balance is off, I'd like to know about it and not have you suffer in silence through my brainwashing. A former student recently sent me a link to this article relating to this theme, which I generally agree with.

To Whom it Concerns:

Thank you for teaching my point better than I could have ever hoped for.

I absolutely stand by my decision to use hillaryis44.org as an example of a bad political website in my AP Government curriculum. Nearly everything at your site illustrates conventional propaganda techniques, seemingly driven by a typhoon of bitterness and personal malice.

The first amendment is alive and well in my classroom; I'm about as anti-censorship as they come, and I have nothing to hide. I wonder if you have the guts to print this letter on your site in its entirety? Or will you censor it, quote it out of context, or ignore it?

I’m verbose as well as transparent, but my students know I respect them as young people quite capable of holding their own convictions. In fact, I got the impression that some of them resented your presumption that they were incapable engaging with and negotiating my course of study with a sense of perspective.

I do not respect hillaryis44, however. This place is a cesspool of conspiracy, paranoia, propaganda, and hyperbole. Exactly the sort of website to be on the watch for, from any extreme.

To be frank, most of my students are smarter than anyone participating on your site, and I had no trepidation about sharing news of your silly post about me with them immediately when I saw some in the hall at lunch. We got a good yuk out of it.

Those students that happened to follow the link I provided to hillaryis44 during the original assignment had universally commented about your breathtaking nuttiness. Those students that didn't happen to use that link (since the assignment was to discover their own favorite sites) will surely check you out now. You've totally demonstrated the perverse fun of trolling, unfortunately, which I'll have to un-teach somehow, but on balance I'm glad more of my students got to engage with this example than otherwise would have. What a terrific way to bond with my students! We may not know much, but at least we aren't blinded by hatred. That's a pretty good starting place for a Government class these days.

Aragon High School is a happy place of learning, full of talented faculty serving a diverse and supportive community. It is a wonderful place to teach. I have had a nice record of success there, and am confident the entire school community would get a good laugh out of your nonsensical accusation of indoctrination. I say 'would' because I doubt very many people will waste their time with it.

Alas, I am not a high and mighty Assistant Principal, just a teacher. Nor am I a communist -- far from it. Since your labeling me has no credibility, I won't claim damages. Instead, please accept my thanks for helping me bond with my new students. Maybe next year I'll pick out a different extremist website as a counter-model.

Or maybe not.

In any case, I will most surely be playing some Pink Floyd on Tuesday morning in class. I think it will be one of the highlights of my career.

regards,
Scott Silton

Texting Becoming an Issue

We are teenagers.. and most of us text constantly. I know that I use texting as a basic way of communicating with someone I am not with at the moment. Texting is beginning to become a problem though as,"The phenomenon is beginning to worry physicians and psychologists, who say it is leading to anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation. " There has not been enough time passed yet to conduct experiments linking to health issues, but there are other problems at hand. Teens especially stay up late at night wasting much needed hours of sleep, and text during school despite school codes. This in turn is causing teens to have falling grades and be sleep deprived. Who knows what is going to come of this recent study, but it seems to have created awareness of the issue of over texting.

US Govenment holding majority of GM Stock

The US Government has provided over 50 billion dollars to general motors, and now with GM looking at declaring bankruptcy by this coming Monday the US is faced with holding over 70% of GM's stock during the restructuring. What I see as a possible issue with this is that employees of General Motors may blame the government for closing factories and laying off workers. Although GM insists that the Government will have no involvement other than holding stocks within the company; and that GM managers will be in charge of renegotiating contracts and selecting product lines. What reaction do you think employees will have to the government involvement?

Maddow Calls Out Obama On His "Prolonged Detention" Policies

A different view to Obama's prolonged detention plan. How we can put people away for something they might do in the future... check it out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jshogbjtYs&feature=related

Prop. 8 Court Ruling

As much as it depresses me to say this, I certainly agree with the ruling of the California Supreme Court that Proposition 8 was a legal proposition under CA law. I wish that the court had had the power to strike down Prop. 8 and return California to those ever so brief times of marriage equality, but by following proper judicial protocol and ruling on the case on its specific merits (whether the subject matter qualified as a proposition), not on the moral feelings of the court.

Seems to me this ruling might even help the marriage equality movement in the long run, as some charges of morality-based judicial activism may no longer hold water...

For those of you who, for some reason, have the desire to read any or all of the decision in its entirety, the document is here

Saving others through Autopsies of the fallen

I found this to be an interesting article about how the US started doing autopsies on fallen soldiers. The US has done over 3,000 autopsies more than any other nation and the findings have been life saving. Not only has the US learned about enhancing war equipment, but also the US has been able to make medical advances. An example of this is lengthening the tube to help air get into a collapsed lung;after autopsies researchers found that over 50% of soldiers could die from a collapsed lung simply because the tube was too short to reach the lung.

I am glad the US started doing autopsies of soldiers we have been able to learn a lot and enhance our armed forces. Do you think this should be done? Or should soldiers be left at peace after defending our nation?

"A Blatant Violation of International Law"- Obama

President Obama declared Monday that the United States and US allies would “stand up” to North Korea; after North Korea set off what looks to be its second nuclear bomb testing. Obama acted quickly working with allies to come up with an international remark to the bombing. North Korea has become too much of a threat with nuclear weapons at hand and they have a proven capability to set of a nuclear weapon. Obama says this is, “a blatant violation of international law” and something needs to happen to stop this. Opinions? What should be done to stop North Korea? Are nuclear weapons really a realistic issue?

Resume Immigration Talks with Cuba

The Bush Administration suspended immigration talks with Cuban dictatorship in 2004, but now President Obama wants to re-open for talks with Cuba; hoping to discuss safe and legal migration for Cubans to the US. Cuba has been problematic in not allowing Cuban citizens to retain exit permits in order to leave the country, even though Cuban citizens have been able to get visas and jobs within the United States. Obama wants to solve this issue and start a safe immigration to the US, and the immigration should help Cuba as well “The administration is missing opportunities to make real change in Cuba by not conditioning this type of opportunity on the regime acting to stop denying its citizens exit visas and charging exorbitant amounts of those whom they chose to let exit,” says Sen. Robert Menendez.Do you agree with Menendez? Do you think this is a good idea, to start Immigration talks again?

Emissions Political Cartoon

This cartoon is about Obama’s recent emissions standards of 35 mpg. I thought it would be a good addition after the article posted on the new emissions standards a few days ago.

Simple Walking Test-- Tell You Your Mortality Rate

I thought this was interesting….
A simple test of:
Exercise/ walking- measures your “cardiorespiratory fitness, or how well your heart, lungs, muscles, and blood vessels work together to use oxygen and produce energy.”During the test administered by ones physician one either walks or runs on a treadmill and the inclines change along with the speed of the treadmill. A doctor can then rate how well ones cardiovascular system is and how that can relate to your death.
This test then can determine if you are at higher risk of losing you life within the next couple of years compared with your age group. Cardiovascular fitness is now linked to most causes of illness/dying. Do you believe this? Can a simple walking test really tell me if I am going to die before the rest of people my age depending on the fitness of my cardiovascular system?

World Economies Plummet

There has been a recent plunge of world economies. I recommend that reading this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124286297167741263.html

Abortion Speech at Notre Dame

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/us/politics/18obama.html?ref=politics

On Sunday May 17 Obama made a commencement address at Notre Dame on abortion. Obama did not speak of taking sides but rather spoke of, “open hearts, open minds, and fair-minded words;” to help prevent unwanted pregnancies and support women who keep their child. Still many protesters waited outside campus shouting “baby killer” and speaking out against having a pro-choice advocate speak at a Catholic Institution. Was the decision to have President Obama speak of abortion at a Catholic school ok? And was this just a typical protest? Thoughts anyone?

Senate Refuses to Allow Closing of Gitmo

Today, the Senate decided to disallow the releasing of prisoners Guantanamo. The decision was based on the desire for a firm plan on what to do with the detainees once they shut down the prison. It is a completely understandable stance that the Senate Democrats are taking. There needs to be a 100% clear plan on what to do with these potentially dangerous individuals. Obama has also stated that he plans on presenting detainee policy this Thursday.

Also, I read that the Senate won't be able to remove the detainees until Sep. 30th. It was stated that government doesn't have any spare money to transport them. So, Sep. 30th is when they will be removed, simply because the government needs to get some money to spend on it.