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September 5, 2012

Michelle Obama DNC Speech

Michelle's speech was a lot about family, mostly her family, but there were a few times where Barrack was brought up like a subliminal message. Near the beginning of the speech, he popped up a few times, but it was for a few seconds only. It felt like she was promoting Barrack, but while surrounding those moments with the big picture of family and love. It was a nice speech and she did a pretty phenomenal job of promoting Barrack. It just seemed strange to me that he was being promoted in that way. I don't know if it was just me or she was using Barrack in a subliminal message to pop the idea into our head.

September 8, 2012

Barrack Obama DNC Speech

President Obama brought up his reform ideas for the education system, but didn't elaborate on most of the specific details involved in the plans. He did not go into depth about the student loan reform and how he was supposedly going to be making student loans more affordable and easily obtainable. He was able to prove a lot of his points very well with the use of rhetoric. When he spoke about general issues with the country, he used rhetoric to provide the audience with pride and comfort. He touches on very different issues in some cases than Mitt Romney. Obama brought up student loan reforms while Romney spoke about jobs and taxes mostly. I feel like Obama brought more to the table because he included tax and job reform as well as student loan reforms. Overall, Obama had a better speech than Romney in the sense that he provided the audience with more comfort and that he brought up more issues than Romney.

September 12, 2012

Prompt: “The government should have the right to investigate to the fullest extent any suspicious person and their activities.”
The government should have absolutely no right to investigate any “suspicious” person to any extent without reasonable suspicion. The Patriot act has pursued possible terrorists based more on racial profiling and vague suspicions. One example is in the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) files first challenge to the Patriot Act. Mary Lieberman, executive director of Bridge Refugee and Sponsorship Services, was approached twice by FBI agents seeking information on Iraqi refugees. These Iraqi refugees fled Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s reign over Iraq, but they shouldn’t be profiled as terrorists solely based on the fact that they are Muslim and Arab.  It’s violating the First Amendment in the sense that a lot of Arabs were also being profiled for their religious affiliations.
Arabs were not the only ones being investigated. People of all ethnic groups and affiliations were investigated without even knowing half of the time. When the Patriot Act started, a lot of citizens did not know that they were being spied on and it was a huge violation of the Fourth Amendment which states that, “No man shall be subjected to unlawful search and seizure.” In the ACLU files, it is clearly stated that, “Ordinary Americans should not have to worry that the FBI is rifling through their medical records, seizing their personal papers, or forcing charities and advocacy groups to divulge membership lists.” Americans should not have to worry about these things day-by-day.


September 17, 2012

I agree with this statement to the extent that students’ rights are somewhat removed from the picture as in most cases today. There’s a difference between balance and complete obedience. I’m not saying be a rebel, but there are times where students deserve rights. Everybody has their rights and usually, those rights are respected. Why is it that children and students can’t have their own rights and have them respected? Why should children and students deserve less respect than adults? School is more of an obligation than a privilege in some cases, but when people are in school, they should have all of their rights while respecting others’. This statement undermines those rights in the sense that it’s providing an alternate reason that is supposedly helping the students.
There are a few reasons why this may be true. One of them is how students may tend to abuse their rights while ignoring others’. For example, there needs to be some way to prevent students from disrespecting the teachers. By taking away some of their free speech while in class, there is a little more order. There are a few reasons why this may not be true. One of those reasons is that you are taking away rights to free speech and possibly other things. This is something that the forefathers thought wouldn’t happen after they wrote the Bill of Rights.

September 18, 2012

Article Link:

I don’t think that computers should be programmed to have personal thought process to the point where they feel emotions. This was interesting because I never thought of these devices in this way. I don’t think that they should be protected by the First Amendment because these computers and programs are programmed to speak and act in a certain way and that is the complete opposite of what the First Amendment actually stands for.

September 21, 2012

Origin of the Video

This article explains a lot on how there was absolutely no censorship involved with this movie and how nothing was done about this because the director was protected under the First Amendment. From what the article stated, no government or state power intervened or responded to this and it came as a little bit of a surprise because usually, our government intervenes with most national issues that might provoke potentially hostile countries or people. The reason this didn’t happen was because it was part of free speech and they can’t arrest him for what he said. When it came to censorship of this, there was absolutely none. I thought that the FCC was supposed to keep an eye out for these things. It’s ridiculous that they would miss this and allow this to play in theaters. Youtube should have blocked this video because I have seen a lot of videos on Youtube that are racially offensive and offensive to religions and they’ve all been blocked from what I’ve seen. Usually, movies and videos like this are censored or removed.




September 24, 2012

Jewish protesters vs. Nazi supporters in Skokie, Illinois

I can relate this because I am part of the Jewish culture (not the Jewish religion) and I find this to be very offensive to the culture itself, especially when there is a Holocaust survivor in the crowd. This case was offensive to many Jews in a town populated with Jewish people and the verdict in the Supreme Court was even more offensive. After the socialist party was arrested and was tried, the group brought it to the Supreme Court and the court found the arrest unconstitutional, therefore, allowing the party to march downtown and have their rally. I found this to be ridiculously offensive and I disapprove with the verdict.


September 25, 2012


I have already done a blog post on this article, but it was really something that I wanted to present to the class. It is about the issue of giving computers the right to protected free speech. I can relate to this because I use technology a lot more than most people would and I have encountered this issue myself. I think it is ridiculous to give computers rights such as free speech, but as fast as technology is growing, it seems like computers will have emotions and a full human-like thought process. So I stand by idly on this issue. The issue of First Amendment rights given to computers has never occurred to me as often as it might be brought up on the internet, but to actually try and think of this as logical from a governmental standpoint is a little absurd. There may be valid arguments, but I don’t think it is as important as the people in this article make it seem.


September 26, 2012

Hazelwood vs Kuhlmeier

This case was about students’ right to free speech and freedom of the media. The essential question was, “Were the students protected by the First Amendment when posting it in the school newspaper?” This case is relevant to a lot of students, including me, especially when it comes to family problems. Students, and youth in general, should be able to express their feelings about their families or parents and I would love to express some problems when it comes to my family, but I’m worried that what I say might not be thought of as fair towards my parents. I believe that the verdict was unjust because of the clear fact that students and teenagers receive no respect from elders especially when it comes to school and rights. Students have never had the same rights as most of the U.S. and that is dehumanizing to us. We feel like we’re useless because we have no rights and we get no respect. This will always be the case in most situations involving students’ freedom of speech and this case was a clear example of that exact point.


October 9, 2012

Is it the government's job to fix health care?  Why?

I believe that it is the government’s responsibility to fix the health care in our country, but I feel like the health care system is being run by the health insurance companies. I don’t know if there are still all of those deregulations involving the corporations and economic freedoms from 2006-2008, but that might be contributing to the health care system problems right now. Private health insurance providers charge more than Medicare for their services, but supposedly provide better services. I think that this is absurd and that the government should take control of this situation, as people use private services for health insurance and they’re getting duped. Maybe the government might be able to change this problem if they intervened.

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