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's Notes-Constitution/Federalism

CHAPTER 3 - The Constitution & CHAPTER 4 - Federalism

These chapters will be a great review for those who have had previous classes in the history of our country. Pay attention because so many people in our country have forgotten the basic foundation of our government and it is important that we understand this so we can all be responsible and knowledgeable voters.

I hope that you are beginning to feel comfortable with the format of the class now that we are into the second week. Please let me know if there is anything that is still unclear to you at this point.

Obviously, this is an online class and everything you need for it is contained here in our class site and your textbook. However, the textbook publishers do have a website that you may access if you are interested:

Here is the link http://college.cengage.com/polisci/janda/chall_dem/10e/student_home.html (Links to an external site.)

Internet Links Relating to Book Chapters (Links to an external site.)

This link takes you to the Student side of USpolitics.org, where they list over 300 Internet links organized by chapters. Excepting for links to television networks, newspapers, and 2012 presidential candidates, all links are annotated, showing source and content. The number of links range from 4 to 51, and average about 15 per chapters. They are organized within topic areas for chapters with numerous links. All links were working when they were created on September 9, 2011.

Unfortunately, our textbook does not adequately cover the Constitutional foundation of the separation of church and state. There is much division about religion in the USA since the rise of the religious-right. I post the meme below as a reminder that we all have a RIGHT to our own opinion about anything in this country . . . but that means we must respect the rights of others. In this class we all agree to disagree in a friendly and civil discussion where we listen as much as we speak. 

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. "

Separation of Church and State Discussions

Original Prompt:
What does the separation of church and state really mean? Why did our forefathers feel this was such an important concept? This website may have some answers for this option http://www.au.org/ (Links to an external site.)

My Response:

Well I will preface this by saying that I agree with the Constitution's statements on the topic of religion. But it is important to note that "the separation of church and state" is NOT in our constitution. Quoting from the Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". That is IT. That is all the Constitution says to the matter. Is that restricting the Government or Religion? It seems to me that the statements are mainly separating the Government OUT of religion. How can the values of the people and the Government of those people be truly mutually exclusive? Maybe that is the tricky thing of our day. So many different value systems bringing conflict. Even the website prescribed for us, www.au.org (Links to an external site.) seemed hostile or condescending toward religion in many cases. The statement "separation of church and state" was in a personal letter by Thomas Jefferson helping him to further describe his ideas of the "importance of limited government to prevent its interference with religious activities"1. This statement was outrageously taken out of context from there on out. To say that our forefathers thought this was an important concept may be stretching it a bit, for most of the founding fathers may very well have never heard the statement. That is not to say that the concept of religious liberty was important to them. It obviously was. And they carefully crafted the Constitution to accommodate the incredibly diverse United States of today. We should all be thankful that the values of our founding fathers resounded to the sound of liberty and freedom and equality due to their Christianity. In many religions, the value system differs so greatly that we could not have hoped to have such a long-lasting form of protection for our liberties. 

1 A well-cited article (Links to an external site.) which goes further into the fact that "the separation of church and state" is not in the Constitution and the implications of that fact for religious freedom

Responses to Others:

(1) I agree Kody that merging the two would bring many of the same tyrannies that England had at the time. If you read the Declaration of Independence though, the tyrannies were much more all-encompassing than religion. The King was basically being a dictator to the States, in addition to ruling tyrannically in many ways in England, not in the least by instituting a Church of England, the Anglican/Episcopalian Church, and requiring compulsory adherence to its dictates and the giving of money to the Church. 

(2) Hi Tami, I see that you said the church of England was Catholic. Actually the Church of England was the Anglican Church, which is Protestant. In our book it actually talks about how many Catholics were sadly persecuted in the revolution time. However, Catholic France was our ally. Interesting. I tend to agree with Taylor here that what they were wanting to escape was the government's tyrannical hand in their religion. They were forced to pay huge tithes to the government run Church. And they had to worship in the way of the Anglican church, which is according to this site

 (Links to an external site.) the same as the current Episcopal church. Imagine if the diversity of even America's Christian Protestant churches were pressed into the window of the Episcopalian practices. Of course they would want freedom from that.