Guest Blogger: Steph Bany

This past week we have been talking about the House of Representatives and the Senate. I have learned a lot of new things, especially since I had not paid any attention to the Government and how it works. The most surprising thing I learned about was the Filibuster, which is used by the Senate.
It confused me that such high powered and influential people used a tactic like talking about nonsense for hours to avoid a problem. I can understand that they are a part of the minority and don’t have another way to combat the majority, but maybe they need to think of something better and less annoying than chatting aimlessly. You would think that the people who run one of the most powerful countries in the world would not resort to acting like third graders as a solution. Maybe instead of reading the phone book or showing pictures of their grandkids, senators could actually talk about the issue they are opposing. Perhaps a better way to filibust would be to explain your view of the problem and convince others that the bill is or isn’t a good idea to pass. The bad thing is I don’t see this happening anytime soon. Senators are too busy supporting their own parties then to form their own opinions about issues. Which is way they always go back to the regular “Aaron Adamson 253-684, Andrea Anderson 938-3844, Alexis Appleton 587-4813…”
Filibusting is a tactic that unfortunately seems to work when you are the minority and don’t want a vote to take place. I know if I were in the Senate I wouldn’t last for more then maybe 2 hours listening to someone talk nonsense, I can hardly imagine endearing 24 plus hours. That’s why if I were ever to run for office in Congress it would be for a seat on the House of Representatives where speeches are limited and have relevance. Until the filibuster is eliminated you won’t find me on the Senate. Hopefully our Senators will no longer have to act like third graders, and they will find a way to discuss their issues like the suitable high powered people we elected them to be.

-Steph Bany 10-23-09 APLG

Senator in a Hostile Climate

An article that references several of the topics we have been discussing about Congress including: the law-making process, committee membership, partisanship, etc. (I could probably keep going). Interesting read for all you "green" students. Comments are welcome, encouraged but not required!

Mr. Thompson

Guest Blogger: Emily B.

Welcome back from MEA, I hope you were all thinking of the wonderful class of APLG. I know I was (*wink wink*). Now that we have the big test done, we all now know what these tests are going to be like. We know how to study and what to study. What I'm going to discuss is what we talked about today in Government.

We were all asked to pull out a sheet of paper and draw Minnesota. This, I might add, is harder for some. Then we were asked to write down the five largest cities within the state. While Kayla and I were trying to determine which the five largest were, I thought to myself how sad it is that we have know idea. Of course we got the first three, but after that we were lost. I thought, "We live in this state, but we have no idea what is going on and how it is growing," After we guessed the five largest cities we were asked the population of the state. Most of us have common sense so we were in the general ball park. Then we were asked how many congressional districts there were. I was stumped. My guess was 52. Some peoples were up in the hundreds. Some of us (um... me) had no idea what a congressional district was let alone how many there was. What does this say about the people in the state of Minnesota? You have to realize that our class is advanced, and half of us were lost. What about the people who never took an advanced class, dropped out of school, or never had the opportunities that we do? How do they vote correctly when they don't even know what they are voting for? Most of us are 18 or almost there. Are we ready to be able to vote? For goodness sakes I don't think I am, I just learned what a congressional district is.

Congressional Republicans Look to Real Possibility of Gains

This article appeared in yesterday's Post Bulletin editorial section (I am sure several of you have already read it). Since we are now headfirst into a study of Congress, now is a great time to start thinking about the upcoming midterm election. Read the article and offer your classmates a 2-3 sentence gem about the upcoming Congressional elections: Democrats vs Republicans (sorry 3rd party members). Should be blogged by Monday the 26th.

Mr. Thompson

Pic and test prep

Hat tip to Thomas and Hannah for the pic! How does this view in the context of your Constitution studies? What's the case history?

Ready for the test?

Guest Blogger: Marina M.

During the symposium on the Constitution today, an interesting thought entered my mind. Although we may have disagreed on a few points, we generally came to a consensus that alterations must be made in order for the Constitution to stay relevant and survive these changing times. For some reason (even though we are finished with the philosopher’s unit) this reminded me a lot of Jean Jacques Rousseau. Although he said “Yesterday’s law is not binding to-day”, I do not think he would agree with our decision to update our laws.
Rousseau talked a lot about the death of “the body politic”, saying that governments are basically born to die. A good constitution basically just prolongs this inevitable demise. “Let us not even dream of making it eternal.” He compared the legislative power as being the heart of the State, while the executive power as its brain. According to Rousseau, we can live with a weak executive power, but if the legislative power ceases than the State is dead. He emphasized that if the laws are upheld for a long time, they become rich with tradition, “while wherever the laws grow weak as they become old, this proves that there is no longer a legislative power, and that the State is dead”.
This doesn’t seem to make sense to us. If there is a law that cannot stand the test of time, why would we keep it? Instead of watching our State die, we as Americans see this flaw. That is why we are so obsessed with making changes. We refuse to believe that our government is anything but immortal. And why can’t it be? If we can find the happy medium between changing old laws but keeping fundamental ideals, who’s to say we won’t prosper forever?
That is why it is important to continue to update laws; even our forefathers could see this when they proposed the idea of Amendments in the first place.

Obama Peace Prize

Here's the NY Times article on Obama winning the peace prize for “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

Guest Blogger: Sam P.

Rhetoric is nice and all, but it has been blogged to death. You could say I have “bigger fish to fry”. That is why I am going to blog about the government side of APLG. As we all know quite well, for the past few days in class we have been dissecting the US Constitution and its amendments.

What really interests me in particular are the amendments. I am intrigued by the way that these 27 amendments can give such life to the Constitution; they can turn it into a living and growing government which is capable of changing with the times. Capable, yes, but willing? Not always. It took a war to pass the 13th amendment giving slaves freedom and still another five years for voting laws to ignore color of skin and race. Another important amendment that seems logical enough is the 19th amendment, women’s suffrage. 129 years that women could not vote, 129 years where men would look and say women voting is ludicrous. Yet now 89 years later how obvious of a decision to ratify the 19th amendment; how ludicrous do these men’s opinions seem to modern Americans?

Now when I look at today’s national issues, for example gay marriage and abortion, I see the same thing happening. I see future generations looking back 100 years from now at us saying how obvious to allow gay marriage, how obvious to allow women’s rights to their own bodies. In essence our “hot button issues” of today are not really that hot, they are just tough and uncomfortable paradigms for us as a country to embrace, make our own, and adopt into our constitution.

Just as the founders of our great country struggled with their own “hot button issues” like the abolishment of slavery and women’s suffrage, we as a nation today must also struggle through our own modern issues. Today such issues carry with them great strife and discord. However, tomorrow’s Americans will not only be capable of dealing with these issues, but more importantly willing to accept the truth behind them.

“Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.”
–Robert Frost

Guest Blogger: Kayla K

Isn’t true that after you realize something, it being the knowledge engraved on your brain, you often find yourself using it daily? Or in other words find the rhetorical techniques that are used in everyday life? Or is it your new interest in today’s politics and where the president travels? Well I’m going to move from using rhetorical questions to giving examples how just a few rhetorical techniques and our new knowledge are used in daily life.

After enjoying that very brief thesis it is easy to move onto the daily used rhetorical techniques. Once reading and analyzing the Declaration of Independence, Julius Cesar, the three George Orwell pieces, it is now simple to see the many techniques authors use to get their point across. But it is not only authors who use the methods of the rhetorical devices; it is used in every language. Myself being a teenager in high school, I find trouble lurking everywhere I step. For an example my mother uses great rhetorical questions to ask me in many different ways of “How do you feel?” about the laundry not being finished or “Is it okay?” to miss curfew. To be honest for her to clearly demonstrate her frustration toward my behavior, a strong use of diction is used, which may also relate to pathos or the emotion we feel while arguing. Although the techniques of rhetorical questions and diction are my mother’s favorites, she also excels in personal anecdotes, or stories, of how things used to be in her childhood.. After our little argument is finished it is explicitly stated that the laundry should be done and there is no excuse for being late for curfew. It is now easy to see how simply rhetorical devices are used in everyday life.

Not only is it important to study the ways authors and speakers present their material in literature, it is also important to use it in the life of politics. The debate was on between students as we were to present the best plan for America after the Articles of Confederation would no longer hold up. Was it the Virginia plan which appealed primarily to the larger states with a higher population? Or was it the New Jersey plan which thought the Articles of Confederation had not done wrong, and the opinion of slaves counting for population was bazaar? As much fun as it was arguing about the pros and cons of each plan the class was finally introduced to the Connecticut Compromise, which was about as equal as the opposite plans could be. Although there were a few rough spots in the compromise it would soon become the basis of today’s government. With the involvement in the debate it was easier to understand the problems and challenges America faced before the Constitution came into effect.

As I can see my diction and syntax use are not quite to the collegiate level, and the Federal papers are still a challenge to read, my only goal is to let everyone know what the seniors in the mind-boggling class of APLG are learning in the beginning of the month of October.

The Supreme Court Starts its New Term

For those interested in the Supreme Court, Judicial Review, controversy or just have a few extra minutes to get ahead of the curve for when we actually study the Supreme Court, here is an article prepping the upcoming Supreme Court season.