Today’s class conversation was terrific. We spoke about voter apathy, read an excerpt form a Harvard professor and listened attentively to the words of Martin Luther King Jr.
The class discussion seemed to focus on the lack of clear lines between what it means to be a Democrat or a Republican. I think when commenting today we should try to define clearly the differences between Dems and Reps.
Where does each party stand on global trade, civil rights, the war in
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When we were talking about the issues that either party stood for, I really related to the fact that the issues really aren't black & white, there are definitely more grey areas. I forgot who said it in class today, but I agreed that because of the grey area, if a person doesn't directly agree/disagree, they might be discouraged to vote.
Also, the difference between the two parties that I know of are:
Democrats are "liberal"(left) Republicans are "conservative"(right). Republicans believe in the 'trickle down' theory, where if you give $$ to big business, it will trickle down into the community. Democrats believe in taxes to distribute amongst the comminities. On the issue of abortion or gay marriage, the Republicans are generally against them, and Democrats usually say 'I don't agree or disagree' (they're quite vague.)As of now, we have a Republican administration in power (Bush, Cheney, Condi, etc.)
To quote one of my favorite comedians, Lewis Black, "Republican's have *bad* ideas, and Democrats know how to make them worse!" (<- been edited for explitives.)
Excellent start. Like Sam mentioned it is not all black and white anymore. Today canidates have so many stances not just economic policy. It realy is quite immpossible to find someone you agree with 100%.
I think the democratic political party, are the politicians’ for the middle and low class citizens. They come off as the politicians who aren’t about big spending and coming from wealthy families. I think that the republican party, is made up of wealthy politicians who don’t care about the lower and middle class citizens and try to better the country by trying to advance it and try to make it better the republican way with wealthy and spending money. In class I realized that my idea of these two parties are very different from what others think. When I herd Michael Zilber shout “NO, NO, ARE YOU KIDDING ME”, to what the class was saying about the general idea of the republicans being the wealthier political party I was shocked and confused as so the class was. I then realized that telling the difference between the democrat and the republican is probably one of the most invisible concepts of the two political parties. They are both the same in the sense of their backgrounds as Mr. Brown said in class. Both candidates from both parties don’t come from the poorest neighborhoods and had a hard time growing up, but both candidates came from fairly wealthy and involved families in the political world. I think today the biggest thing I learned was that the border of political parties are blurred and its just a campaign of man verses man instead of them coming from two totally different campaigns as it once was years ago. I think that the past has a major role of installing these political myths of the different political parties. I think that both parties want the best possible outcome to come to situations such as global trade, civil rights, the war in Iraq, terrorism, taxes ect., because they deal with the country as a whole trying to make it better and more peaceful. I think topics such as stem cell research and gay marriage depend on the political parties because those are conflicts of interest that affect Americans right of personal choice and health. I think that when it comes to deciding about things such as health and personal choice, there is a major difference in the way people think things should be, and the way things are now. Change is an effect that ripples, and the ripples of peace aren’t as harmful if they were ripples of a candidate making the wrong choice about a personal choice of freedom and health benefits.
Seeing what Sam just wrote, I think that it is true that the vote isnt all blacks and white, but I dont think it matters anymore becuase everyone has their own opionion. I dont think the laws and topics of interest now have to deal with segregation and racisim as they did before when black and white would play a major role in voting.
Lets not get confused when Sam and I said, "black and white"; we were implying that there is no clear cut solution to problems not that there is a lack of racial undertones to the election process.
This article says that voter turnouts is low no matter what happens. In the 1950's more people voted even though now the country is more educated. In the past the party lines were more clear. This is not the case now. There are no clear cut issues now. More and more people are not connected to political parties in the present time. More people in the upper classes vote than in the lower social economic classes. The person who wrote the article wants to know why.
In the past the politcal parties had more clear cut ideas. The Republicans were for big business and the Democrats were more for social issues.
Now everything is changed. Less people are voting the issues are too broad. More and more people are not connected to political parties this is why the independent vote is more important now.
I feel very ashamed that all so many years ago our fore fathers worked adn fought for our constitutional rights and a couple hundred years later less than 15 percent of the population votes. I understand that we all have busy lives, but for the hour or so we take off to show our oppinions and express them freely as individuals makes our points known that every ones vote counts for something. The candidates running for office love that less than 15 percent votes and work with the percentage that does, which is why we must all start voting because we will be of legal age soon and make the politicians work and start actually dealing with the issues.
We cannot keep on thinking that what does it matter if we vote or not it won't help us, because that is us giving up. In alot of ways it affects us it even though it may not happen right away. We must start using our constitutional rights and get rid of this voter apathy.
Michelle Asciote
As we talked about where has all the voters gone, I believe they are still there but it’s the older people who vote. The young voters are there but they might not have a chance to get to vote so the miss that election. People can not be in all different places at once. So therefore the had other places to go. I think more people should get up and go vote. They get to lazy to go vote. In order to get more people to vote they should make more ads but better . The candidates should talk more about how they are going to help the government and make it better. why do people have to bring up this coversation about Racism.
I think that it dont matter anymore becuase everyone has their own opionion. I dont think the laws and topics of interest any one now that we have to deal with racisim as before when black and white would play a major role in this.
Late after this posts
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