Discussion 10

4.  Should the U.S. Constitution be amended to put term limits in place for Supreme Court justices, say for 10–12 year terms, after which they would no longer be able to serve on the Court?

I think not. My reasoning is that if the Presidents continually appoint new Justices every so often, there will be a steady, albeit slow, flow of newer thought into the Supreme Court. The good thing about having long (life) terms for Supreme Court Justices is that there is an unlikelihood that the Supreme Court will vacillate greatly in its interpretation of the law. If our Justices are appointed by different Presidents and are of different ages, I feel that the Supreme Court will be more balanced. I don't see any harm in having the life-terms, because even 10-15 years, the suggested term limit, is a pretty long time for a person to be in a government appointment.  So, I feel that it will create no greatly negative effects. 

Tara Greiving: Hi Dana, 

I think this is a very clear explanation. I also agree I think having the same one for long terms helps with consistency in the court rooms.

Kristen McPherson: Hi Dana!

I think your thought on having one long term instead of different shorter ones will definitely help keep things the same in the court room. But also having some change could be good.

Web Critique 15

Website Name:  http://amnesty.org
Operated By:  Amnesty International
Funded By: Donations

The website of Amnesty International is a very good resource to people who would like to have their eyes open to human rights violations around the world. I believe the best feature of the website is the ability to look, by country, at current human rights violations. There is also a downloadable PDF file titled “The State of the World’s Human Rights”. Amnesty publishes such a report each year outlining the state of human rights by region and by country. They offer the report in a good number of different languages. There are many fantastic education resources on the site, many of which are in other languages than English, such as “Human Rights Bingo”, education blogs, the link to Amnesty’s site www.respectmyrights.org which has two great interactive tools, the Poverty Trap, and the Housing Journey regarding how lack of housing affects human rights, and more. Overall, Amnesty International is doing good work. I don’t personally agree with all of their stances, but they are a loud voice for many many good causes and their website is a big part of their movement. 

Instructor Notes - Equality & Civil Rights

Instructor Notes for Week 12 - Chapter 16 - Equality & Civil Rights It is amazing to many that the hard won civil rights we are studying this chapter this week are now being questioned by some in our society. Beginning with the issue of race, there is an excellent book entitled The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, the former director of the Racial Justice Project of the ACLU in Northern California. She also served as a law clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court. In it she says, “Recent data shows, though, that much of black progress is a myth. In many respects, African-Americans are doing no better than they were when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and uprisings swept inner cities across America. Nearly a quarter of African-Americans live below the poverty line today, approximately the same percentage as in 1968. The black child poverty rate is actually higher now than it was then. Unemployment rates in black communities rival those in Third World countries. And that's with affirmative action! When we pull back the curtain and take a look at what our "colorblind" society creates without affirmative action, we see a familiar social, political, and economic structure--the structure of racial caste. The entrance into this new caste system can be found at the prison gate.” An excellent synopsis of the book can be read athttp://www.econ.brown.edu/fac/glenn_loury/louryhomepage/teaching/Ec%20137/The%20New%20Jim%20Crow-from%20The%20Nation.pdf (Links to an external site.)  If you have not read it, I suggest you put it at the top of your list. If you don’t have time to read the book, watch this video - THE NEW JIM CROW Online Documentary   (Links to an external site.) During the 2012 election cycle, we heard and read about irregularities with our various state voting systems and the number of voter suppression laws that have been passed in numerous states. It was not really that many years ago that women finally got the right to vote in this country and now many are being disenfranchised by these new laws. Once again, the issue of affirmative action is before the Supreme Court of the United States. After integrating our schools with the famous Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case in 1954 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, we now see many of our schools walking back their integration policies used for years, i.e. here in the city of Wichita. The 2012 election cycle has also highlighted class wars between the top 1% and the 99% and the “War on Women” concerning equal pay for equal work and personal health choices for American women.   All of the above issues are still relevant today so pay close attention to this chapter this week and you will be better able to discuss these issues and make decisions about who you want to represent you and your family at the local, state and national levels. Finally, with the most recent issues being raised about local policing and our civil rights, I'd like to share this video with students so that you will be protected if you are stopped by the police. Most of our officers follow the rules and will not use undue force with the public. But, it is good to know how to behave in these circumstances and hopefully have the best possible outcome.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDptsf81lVc&list=UUV3Nm3T-XAgVhKH9jT0ViRg (Links to an external site.)

Instructor Notes - Order and Civil Liberties

Instructor Notes for Week 11 – Chapter 15 - Order and Civil Liberties Again, we are studying a very important chapter about a topic that can directly affect your lives. The textbook does a thorough job in describing the separation of church and state, freedom of the press, the 2nd amendment and others. It also discusses your Miranda rights but I think it is important for students to fully understand those rights. Everyone has heard Miranda recited on television numerous times and often seen the person detained talking verbosely to the police.  This is not a good idea as many find when they later go to court and do find that their own words are held against them. Privately owned prisons are now a big industry in this country and they often contract for quotas that local law enforcement must meet. Yes, that is correct – the police need to send a minimum number of people to prison.  Therefore, I strongly suggest that each of you take time to watch the video linked below and never forget what it says. Share it with you friends and relatives. You are an American citizen and you have rights. Don't Talk to Police  (Links to an external site.)   Dana's Note:::I really do recommend the video in this post. Good information!!!

Instructor Notes - The Courts

Instructor Notes for Week 10 – Chapter 14 - The Courts Again, as in the previous chapter, this may sound like a very boring chapter to students but this is an important and fascinating subject area about a sector of our government that actually affect all Americans with their decisions on a daily basis. Anyone who has ever served on a jury, or has had to go to court as a defendant or a petitionerknows the sense of finality of a court decision. We need to understand our judicial system in this country as one never knows when one might find themselves in court being profoundly affected by the court process and/or decision. So, pay attention to this important section as it might be very critical to your personal life at some point and as the two cases below illustrate, the courts are making a difference in our political lives most of the time. This is an especially critical time in our history with recent cases that have even affected the 2012 election campaigns. In June 2012, the Supreme Court upheld President Obama’s health care overhaul law, the Affordable Care Act, saying its requirement that most Americans obtain insurance or pay a penalty was authorized by Congress’s power to levy taxes. The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joining the court’s four more liberal members.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/29/us/supreme-court-lets-health-law-largely-stand.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 (Links to an external site.)  Another important earlier case, Citizens United (2010), remains a quite controversial decision. In this case, the Court “held that private corporations, which are nowhere mentioned in the Constitution and are not political membership organizations, enjoy the same political free speech rights as people under the First Amendment and may draw on the wealth of their treasuries to spend unlimited sums promoting or disparaging candidates for public office. The billions of dollars thus turned loose for campaign purposes at the direction of corporate managers not only can be but—under the terms of corporate law—must be spent to increase profits. If businesses choose to exercise their newly minted political “money speech” rights, they must work to install officials who will act as  corporate tools.”  http://www.thenation.com/article/169915/citizens-united-and-corporate-court# (Links to an external site.) Cartoon: Wasserman, The Boston Globe

Discussion 5

Prompt: When has unconventional participation been successful in bringing about political change in U.S. history? Are those instances viewed differently in hindsight than they were at the time? Why?

I think that the reason that unconventional participation is so successful in bringing about political change is its ability to draw public attention. The media usually covers these occurrences and brings the issues to public attention. Then, citizens will make a choice about the issue.  A major issue that was brought further to the light through unconventional participation is the Selma march in 1965. The awful governmental response to the demonstration only further alerted the public to the problem. Then, pressure has been continually placed upon politicians about civil rights, even to this day.  Looking back upon the Selma demonstration, however, there has been a huge change in climate for blacks, and the demonstration is now viewed solemnly as a day when those facing voting right discrimination stood up and were successful in awakening the nation to the civil rights issue. Now the attitude of most black and white people alike is a gladness that change has occurred for those oppressed in our country. This change is a direct result of the attention brought to the issue by the numerous forms of conventional and unconventional participation performed in the past. If no one were to speak up, nothing would have changed.  

Third Discussion

Here are the options we had for discussion number three: 

1. Why do you think religion plays a role in forming our political ideologies, as the chapter suggests?
2. What role do recent technological trends--such as smart-phones, the decline of landlines, caller ID—play in making accurate polls either easier or more difficult to conduct?
3. What is your reaction to the case of Kenneth Biros?

I chose number 1. 

Here is my response: 

"Why does religion play such a role in forming our political ideologies? I would say that is because our religion(or in many cases choice of non-religion) is not only our deepest-held hopes and beliefs, but also our lens through which we see the world, come to terms with the evils in the world, and make our decisions. It only makes sense that our religious beliefs would come forth in our political ideologies. In many ways our religious beliefs come to be a large part of who we are. And since our government is for the people, by the people, our religious beliefs do play a part. How that fleshes out is often tricky, and rightly so, for the constant tension actually serves to create a perpetual act of protection of religious freedom and rights. "

My response to another:

David said:

"Personally one of the most disturbing things to me is homicide. I can not understand how someone can brutally kill someone or stab someone multiple times. Kenneth Biros should have been left in prison for the rest of his life, and not put to death. Killing someone does not make the person pay for what he or she did. Society needs to get rid of the bad people yes, but that is why we have jail/prisons. I did some research and found that it costs more money (tax payers) to execute an inmate than it cost to keep the inmate in prison for life. I am a firm believer in law enforcement and keeping the peace and order, but I do not think that we should waste money time or energy on hopeless individuals. If they chose to repent and save their soul that is their choice to make while they serve time. Our priority should be to catch these individuals and incarcerate them but not to kill them."

I replied:

"You make a good point, David, that life imprisonment gives a chance for repentance. I have a dilemma in my mind between justice and mercy. You are right that it is more costly to execute than to imprison. This is simply because of the expensive litigation and appeals process. An interesting piece of information regarding giving time for repentance is in the case of Jeffrey Dahmer. His case is easily the most disgusting, heavy, mind-blowing series of murders I have ever read. After I read about it I felt physically ill for quite a few minutes. He was sentenced to 16 life-sentences rather than execution because his state had outlawed capital punishment in the late 1800s. At the end of his life, he is said to have repented and been baptized as a Christian. And he didn't care that he died. He felt he was sinning just by remaining alive. He was said to have not cried out while being bludgeoned to death in prison. Crazy stuff. Lots to think about. "