Freedom of Speech

I feel that freedom of speech, as an ideal, is too restricted.  In reality, the restrictions make sense to me in general.  I can see situations where speech is just as dangerous as an action, or is a strong force encouraging illegal behavior.  Public institutions, like schools, should be allowed to set some restrictions on speech made by people associated with them, especially when that speech is made public.  However, there has to be a line beyond which restriction of speech is not allowed.  Expression by people not involved in a government organization should be as free as possible, with restriction only being considered in matters of national security, such as publicizing leaked information that can be shown to be potentially dangerous to have revealed.  Things that could be considered hate speech, unfortunately, do not usually fall under this category.  Therefore, until it reaches the level of starting a riot, I feel that this kind of speech should be tolerated.  However, I don't think it would be unreasonable to take a closer look at this person due to suspicion as a result of this speech.  I guess overall, except in the most extreme of cases, speech should not be limited by government interference.  I also feel that certain kinds of speech should still be an allowable reason for the government to keep an eye on the people using them.

Electoral College

For the electoral college: efficiency, tradition. Against the electoral college: unfair representation, gerrymandering, faithless electors, and the winner take all system. Aftwer looking over this list, I come to the conclusion that the electoral college should go. When there weren't so many citizens, and communication was difficult, the electoral college's efficiency was very important. Now, with information everywhere, the most relevant part of this efficiency left is that there are fewer votes to count. With the internet and voting machines, even this advantage may become irrelevant. And I don't find tradition to be a good reason in and of itself for anything. The biggest problems without the electoral college, vote fixing and recounts, can be fixed. Recounts can be fixed with electronic counting, and while protecting this process from interference will take continual work, I believe that it is better than dealing with a system that gives some sitizens a more powerful vote than others, and only contains election fraud down to a state level anyway. With a direct election, the actual will of the people can be more accurately read. And with the internet, the problem of campaigning everywhere is shrinking. There will be bugs to be worked out of any new system, so the electoral college would probably need to be kept for a couple elections after a decision anyway. Somehow, though, the electoral college either needs to go, or be updated a lot to fit in with the new reality of the political world.

Eminent Domain

The government's authority to take private property for public use is good in theory and moderation. However, the "general welfare" that it is supposed to promote has been stretched to cover some things that don't do much for the public. While hospitals and roads are necessary, bigger parking lots for a car dealership are not. Then there are things that fall into some kind of gray area, like plans to "improve" neighborhoods by building new houses and moving the former residents out. No matter how you phrase it, this particular use sounds pretty bad, but there are still some legitimate arguments in its favor. Anyway, I feel that emeinent domain should be kept, but with some revisions. For example, to prevent excessive uses like the parking lot example, something could be said about only being used for things that are public services. To me, at least, possibly helping out a business for taxes doesn';t count as a public service. Things like hospitals, schools, and roads do. If this cuts out other uses that are actually necessary, some alternate method of approving specific uses could be found, preferably one that involves the community in the process of approval. Standards for minimum repayment could be set, but this would probably end up failure. In the end, I think eminent domain should remain part of the government's powers, but it should have a few more restrictions placed on its use.

http://www.cagle.com/politicalcartoons/pccartoons/archives/beeler.asp?Action=GetImage

This cartoon shows Obama and a person representing the recession each holding one leg of Uncle Sam (the American public), who is positioned to look like a wishbone. This means that in his attempts to lead the nation out of recession, the best Obama really has is hope, and in the cartoon, he doesn't look very confident. It also shows that however this ends up, in the short term, Americans are in for a very hard time. It could also mean that no matter what Obama does, he can only take a portion of Americans out of the recession, and hopefully it will be a majority.

Filibuster

The filibuster is an unnecessary loophole that allows a minority to obstruct the majority. It doesn't require any new ideas or logical arguments. To me, it seems like it is similar to having a race as extra credit for a math test. The content of the filibuster has no value to the discussion. All it does is waste time in Congress that could be used for something else. I understand that a representative may want to take a stand against a certain bill, but I don't see that as a reason to be inneficient. For another analogy, it seems kind of like yelling at someone to get what you want. They only give in to make you stop. I guess once in a while, a filibuster might happen to be against something that a majority of Americans oppose, but in general this is unlikely. The elected representatives passing the bill are usually concerned enough with how their votes will affect their chances at reelection to try to follow their constituents wishes. If something like that did happen, however, there must be a better way than relying on someone's ability to talk for hours. If the votes to pass a bill are not filibuster proof, then the people in opposition must have some reason to be in opposition. Rather than causing a complete waste of time, they could birng up their concerns. If those concerns still aren't resolved, but the bill can pass, then i guess it's too bad for them. Maybe they can keep the issue alive long enough to bring it back to Congress later.

8 roles

I think Obama's greatest strength as president will be in his role as chief diplomat. So far, it appears that even if he can't follow through on his promises, he is good at convincing people of his sincerity. Not that I don't believe that he's sincere. He is charismatic, and has already established himself as a more accesible president than usual to the rest of the world. His weakness in this list of roles may be that he is the head of his party. He can lead the Democrats into bipartisan deals, but as the head of the Democratic party, his efforts to bring both parties together are already weakened by his position. As head Democrat, he has some authority to influence stubborn members of his own party to try to compromise with Republicans. However, he has no such authority in the Republican party. Unless a strong Republican figure matches Obama's efforts and tries to lead his party into compromise, Obama's position as the leading Democrat will hamper his efforts.

Confessions of a Dove in Afghanistan

from descriptions like this, I see that we probably should keep troops in Afghanistan. Their focus needs to be mainly on building an infrastructure that the Afghanis can maintain themselves once we leave. there will still be attacks, and it will take a long time, but at the moment it seems to me that the most important job is to build up and protect the areas that we can, before trying to open new areas. If we can stabilize parts of Afghanistan, then they can become centers of spreading stabilization. This could happen on its own, but it would take a very long time and many more people would suffer. And by focusing first on the areas we can help now, we can learn how best to proceed with this help before trying to apply it to all of Afghanistan.