The Most Cop Out Blog I've Ever Written - Apologies

OH MY JESUS HARRY POTTER TONIGT

Slavery

As I started on the reading for today, I was really upset.  Slavery has always been a topic that I really don't like to adress; I know that it happened, I know that it was awful, and I really don't need to revisit the cruelty of the human race ever again.  I was not wrong.  reading again the condition in which the Africans suffered, I wondered how one human being could do such a thing to another.  What would prompt someone, upon seeing someone who looks different than them, to think, "oh hey.  I'll make them a slave and treat them like they aren't a living creature."  HOW COULD SOMEONE DO THAT? Why would they ever think that was okay?  I don't understand.  Zinn started talking about how racism evolved and how it had to do with circumstances.  YThis would mean it evolved because of slavery.  Not before.  So why did slavery start?  i know that money was a big deal, but was it really so important that human decency and morals were sacrificed?  People disgust me.

Helpful or Hurtful?

With the recent election in this country, people have been buzzing with talk of their political ideals. One topic that has sparked a large amount of conversation is the emergence of the Tea Party. Valuing low taxes, small government, and the original Constitution, other parties are left scrambling to make up their minds about this group of would-be fundamentalists. Some think they’re just radical Republicans. Others think that the Tea party is an entirely new party. What many can agree upon, though, is that no matter how this group is viewed, they don’t bode well for the Republicans.

A huge way that the Tea Party hurts the Republicans is drawing away votes from the conservative party. In the primaries for this election, there were several Republican candidates who were beaten out by their Tea Party rival. Christine O’Donnell, for instance, won in Delaware, much to the surprise and dismay of those in the Republican Party. With votes from conservatives going to two different sources, this gives the Democrats a much more favorable chance at the win.

Some Americans are under the impression that the Republican Party can harness the energy and excitement the Tea Party is creating with the people to boost their campaign; they took the House, didn’t they? Wasn’t that the goal? To this I say yes. That was the goal. However, this didn’t actually have anything to do with the Tea Party, or with Republicans either for that matter. The shift toward conservative voting was simply anti-Democrat.

In the history of the United States, protest votes have happened again and again. The populous uses these opportunities to send a message: after September 11, the conservative shift showed that Americans wanted to unite and fight back. In 1998, the democratic vote said, “Keep Bill Clinton’s personal life out of this.” Now, the people of America are simple wondering where their jobs are. They think the democratic government has failed them. Thus, they vote Republican; Americans voted against Democrats and against Congress. The gain of the House has almost nothing to do with the Tea Party at all.

If you don’t believe in the idea of the protest vote, then there’s another reason the idea of the Tea Party being an asset to the Republican Party is absurd. This is clear because a recent CBS/New York Times Poll puts only 19% of those polled as having a favorable view of the Tea Party, not necessarily even supporting them, and 63% of those polled were outright against the fundamentalists. Another poll from the same source shows that most people (60%) think that the economy or jobs are the main problem in this country. Only 3% said the deficit was the central issue, agreeing with the Tea Party. The idea that the Republicans could harness the Tea Party energy to rally the troupes and Take the House is therefore absurd; Tea Partyers really don’t have that much support for the Republicans to piggy back off of.

As it turns out, the slightly extreme views of the Tea Party have, in fact, scared voters away! Very much like this cartoon depicts, independents and undecided voters not taking part in the anti-Congress movement take a look at those views and say, “Well, I think I’ll vote Democrat this time around.” Because many associate the Tea Party with Republicans, their views become the conservative norm. In other words, all Republicans start to seem scary. Additionally, when the Tea Party doesn’t carefully choose its candidates, they loose more votes still. After Christine O’Donnell claimed to have scientific proof that God created the Earth in six 24-hour period and revealed her lack of knowledge of the Constitution (the document she’s supposed to be referring back to) publically, support dwindled considerably. Congratulations, Tea Party.

The Tea Party is damaging the rest of the country’s conservatives, this much is clear. Not only do they not have enough national support to be an asset of any kind to Republicans, but their extreme views and poor candidate choices have deterred those who were previously undecided. And, to make matters worse, Tea party candidates took seats from the Republican Party in the primaries, hindering their chances at taking majorities in general. Sadly for hopeful Republicans, the truth is, the Tea Party is only harmful.

Thomas Jefferson

'Thomas Jefferson, like Leonardo Dia Vinci, was a Jack-of-all-Trades, and master of them all."-William H. Pierson, Jr. in American Buildings and Their Architects

I will be the fist to admit the Thomas Jefferson was an extraordinary man.  He did a lot of really awesome things, such as writing the Declaration of Independence, and building a neat Academic Village in Virginia. Plus, he was just incredibly intelligent and such.  With all of this n mind, there is still no possible way I would ever in the history of life compare him to Leonardo da Vinci.  Da Vinci was, in every aspect, a genius.  For his time, his thinking was so incredibly progressive, that he was shinned as crazy at some point in his life.  Thomas Jefferson was a lawyer.  I know he was many other things as well, and we value the art he made (the Declaration of Independence) as much as we value da Vinci's, but we must remember that these men were years apart, and the entire world looks at da Vinci as a genius!  Ad much of a patriot as I am, there's still no way the two compare.  Sorry Jefferson.

Way to Go, Declaration of Independence

"It capsulizes in five sentences--202--words what it took John Locke thousands of words to explain in his Second Treatise of Government." -Stephen E. Lucas in The Stylistic Artistry of the Declaration of Independence

I just wanted to point out how the writers of the Declaration of Independence must have also read William's chapter on concision.  

Analyzing the Declaration of Independence

"This essay seeks to illuminate that artistry by probing the discourse microscopically--at the level of the sentence, phrase, word, and syllable." -Stephen E. Lucas in The Stylistic Artistry of the Declaration of Independence


What Lucas does to the Declaration of Independence in his essay is quite similar to how we learned in AmCon to analyze poems. He looks for allusions, figuratie language, overtones, nuances, and how each part of the text affects one another. This makes me wonder if absolutely everything that is written can be analyzed in such a way. I realize that the Declaration of Independence was written with the intent of being a beautifully crafted document, but I wonder if everything has such hidden meaning. Do all poems, for example, hide their meaning so well that one must analyze them? Or do some authors simple need to find a rhyming word, not intending for their piece to be dissected and examined. In which case, every hidden meaning one finds in the process would be a creation of theirs, a stretch of their mind to make something fit.  It's interesting how people do that.  But maybe not.  Maybe the author intended for the readers to struggle and pick the poem appart word by word, being purposefully vague to make their point more worthwhile in the finding.  I don't like those people.

The Declaration of Independence

"What at first seems a relatively simple job..." - Davidson and Lytle, The Art of Historical Detection, Pg. 1

I don't know about other people, bit I never assumed that the declaration was a easy write.  In fact, O've always marveled at how it could be done so quickly.  It's incredibly elegant, not too lengthy, and it says everything that needs to be said.  I mean, declaring independence is kind of a big deal, and they wanted to get it right.  It's amazing that they could do so in such a short period of time and without even having voted on the idea yet.  They wrote the entire thing as a proposal to Congress!  I mean, it was edited and such, but still!  That's kind of incredible.  Nice play, founding fathers.

The Rich Rebellion

"The officers and committee members of the Sons of Liberty were drawn almost entirely from the middle and upper class of colonial society." -Pauline Maier

Why? Is it simple because the people on the upper side of society had the means to organize a revolution? They had more to lose, though. Usually it's the poor or oppressed who rebel. I find it strange that those wo had a better, more comfortable life wanted to take the risk to give it up. Perhaps that's what made them more convincing. Or maybe it's simply because they were more arrogant and thought that they could do better. Either way, it's a different circumstance than more rebellions.

Understatements

"Once the imperial government had announced its intention to clamp down on its North American colonists in the crucial areas of taxation, territory, and trade, the Americans responded with a wide variety of protests." -Woody Holton, Unruly Americans in the Revolution

I simply adore this quote.  Mostly because it's the largest understatement in the history of ever.  A "wide variety of protests" somehow sounds so mild and tame.  Perhaps he could be talking about some strikes- the kind with picket signs.  Or maybe some unhappy gatherings denouncing the king.  It doesn't quite seem to do justice to the Boston Tea Party, The Boston Massacre, the several boycotts, oh, and lets not forget, the Revolutionary War.  Overall, I did enjoy the writing in this article as well as the ideas presented, I just though that perhaps the incidents may not have been exaggerated enough.  I mean, this era is kind of a large part of our history; we may as well milk it.  

On Tea

In the excerpt from Empire of Tea, there is a list of all the health benefits thought of tea at the time it was beginning to catch on.  This may be missing the point of the whole article, but that list was something that really puzzled me.  How did they know those health benefits?  There can't have been that much study on tea itself, as it was relatively new, and they hadn't the means of technology to study such health benefits over such a period of time.  Also, nothing can possibly effect that many parts of the body, and blood can't really be purified in such a way.  But, I feel like it would have been immoral to make up such things just to sell something.  Gasp!