Please press #1 to heap verbal abuse on customer service until upper management decides to get involved.

I had an interesting day today, dealing with financial aid at my university. Honestly this debacle has been weeks in the making and I won’t bore you with endless back story, I’ll try to just give you the major points.

Because of being under the age of 24 (despite having filed my taxes as a single independent for the last two years, supporting myself financially, not having insurance through my parents, and living alone for the past two years as well) for some reason the FAFSA considers me a dependent when it comes to financial aid.

My initial argument with my financial aid department revolved around the fact that, legally, FAFSA is asking me to commit fraud against the federal government, because I’m filing as an independent with the IRS (and no one wants to screw around with the IRS) but filing as a dependent for financial aid services with my school. How does this sound reasonable at all?

Finally I was told that I could submit a dependency review. Two pieces of paper from the school and 3 letters (1 from me and 2 from people not related to me) talking about my current and past relationship with my parents. To prove that I’m an independent.

So I filled out the form, I got a former teacher who I still talk with to write a letter, as well as my friend Robert. I didn’t think there would be ANY possible problem, because (aside from a short few days after I had a lumbar puncture, I haven’t lived with my parents full time (not counting vacations like Thanksgiving and Christmas when I visited) in over two years.

After being jerked around with lost paperwork and incompetent people all over the place…my file finally made it to a financial aid counselor (who I never met, because they keep their offices hidden behind locked doors and work/study peons). What happened?

It was denied.

I got a call from one of those peons I just mentioned and I refused to talk to them. I told them to find me someone who knew what they were talking about and get THEM on the phone, because I refused to ask my questions through a 3rd party and sit on hold for 10 minutes to get an unsatisfactory answer to each one.

I may have raised my voice.

But it’s the only way to get anyone on that level to pass you on to the next person. They have CREATED a system in which, the only way to talk to the people in charge, is to verbally abuse their office workers.

I got passed to a financial aid specialist. Who I argued with for 10 minutes before finding out that SHE wasn’t the woman who had looked at my dependency review either. I told her she needed to pass me to someone who had actually looked at my review and who could actually make executive decisions.

It may have taken some level of shouting and verbal abuse and threats that the college wouldn’t receive ‘ONE GODDAMN PENNY FROM ME OR ON MY BEHALF’ if someone didn’t solve the situation to my satisfaction.

I fully believe that I was channeling 2 parts Ann Coulter and 1 part my own mother at the time.

Now I’m talking to a financial aid counselor…25 minutes after the beginning of the phone call. Half of which was me being on hold, by the way.

Now we get down to the meat of the issue and the most outrageous and incomprehensible conversation I have ever had.

Gabby, full first name Gabriella, tells me that the federal government doesn’t care that I’ve supported myself financial for the past 2 years or that I don’t live with my parents or that they don’t pay for my college education at all.

Her exact words were ‘financial independence doesn’t qualify you as independent’.

Huh?

Wanting to know if SHE at least knows how batshit crazy that sounds. I ask her “could you please tell me what your PERSONAL opinion this is. Please let me know that SOMEONE here understands how insane that sounds”.

No surprise that she wouldn’t give me an answer.

I ask her what WOULD qualify me as an independent. She tells me that I would need documentation from a teacher/clergy member/counselor/police officer of ‘abuse, neglect, or abandonment’.

I kindly inform her that, per federal law, since I moved out after the age of 18 and any difficulties with my parents occurred after that, that I could not legally be the victim of neglect or abandonment and that I also can’t claim abuse, because I’m over the age of 18.

She had no answer for that either.

I asked her to give me a reasoning for why I’m forced into filing as a dependent in the first place.

She told me it was because current federal law allows me to remain on my parents insurance until I’m 24 (my parent’s don’t provide me insurance, they don’t have insurance, so this doesn’t apply…something I told the financial aid department on my dependency review) so unless I’ve been abused or neglected they can’t consider me independent.

Now this next part is the part you really need to listen too.

being that I know some of the coming consequences of Obamacare, and I know that one of them is the ability to stay on your parents insurance until the age of 26, I asked the, very flustered, financial aid counselor a question that she probably didn’t mean to answer.

Me: So does that mean that next year, when Obamacare goes into effect, the age that it takes to become an ‘independent’ in the eyes of the federal government and FAFSA will be 26?

FinAid counselor: Well yes!

So there you have it, this was a long post just to get to this main point. However, I wanted people to understand the backwards thought processes these people operate under.

Live by yourself, make your own money, support yourself, haven’t relied on your parents in 2, 3, 4, years?

Doesn’t matter.

You’re still dependent on them.

Because the federal government is run by incompetents.

No surprise there I guess.

Also, that’s the news no one is talking about when it comes to Obamacare and financial aid. Every moment of Obama’s reign, every decision made, can be traced to one final ending.

Keep people children, keep people dependent, keep them jumping through our hoops and thinking that their only option is to be reliant on us. The more they lean on the government, the more they feel like children, the more rights they will let us take away in the name of ‘supporting them’ and ‘taking care of them’.

That’s what people are missing here. This isn’t about insurance or federal loans. This is about making us into children, with no support system. We can’t let that happen.

How much education can you afford?

I don’t usually discuss education, though I feel strongly about the subject, but as a college student who isn’t exactly rolling in cash, this topic had to be written about.

ThinkProgress (a “news” site that always leaves me wondering exactly how many “glaucoma” patients they have on staff*) has apparently taken issue with something that Romney said recently (surprise, surprise…not). Specifically they had a problem with this part of his speech on the 27th in Virginia.

I think this is a land of opportunity for every single person, every single citizen of this great nation. And I want to make sure that we keep America a place of opportunity, where everyone has a fair shot. They get as much education as they can afford and with their time they’re able to get and if they have a willingness to work hard and the right values, they ought to be able to provide for their family and have a shot of realizing their dreams.

Oh I get what they think they are upset about, but honestly they are just looking for a reason to dislike Romney. If they were paying any attention to his record they would know they were being ridiculous, but really…if a website posts an article named “Four Reasons Why The Court’s Decision To Uphold Obamacare Is Good News For The Economy” they aren’t really trying to be taken seriously anymore.

But I digress.

People are trying to make this statement look like Romney doesn’t care about the poor and don’t want them to get an education, but that’s just ridiculous!

This is the comparison they are making. God, I hope I’m never this stupid.

See the key word here is “afford” and that word doesn’t mean what you think it means.**

The definition of afford:

1. To be able to do, manage, or bear without serious consequence or adverse effect.

2. To be able to meet the expense of; have or be able to spare the price of.

- Dictionary.com

When you bring this term into a conversation of “can I afford this 60″ flat screen TV” it actually means “Do I have this money in my bank account right now?” Or “Will I be able to pay this off with the job I have?”

When you are talking about something such as a smart investment opportunity or education, the question becomes “can I spare the money right now for the pay off later?”

When I went back to school I weighed the cost very carefully. I was very aware of the amount I would have to take out in federal and private loans and I considered whether I could afford the cost and then decided that I couldn’t afford to not return to school.

Then, of course, you run into people *cough99%’scough* who complain that they spent SO much money that they couldn’t afford on their education and now they can’t find jobs and they can’t pay back all those loans they took out while getting degrees in Underwater Basket-weaving and Canadian Studies and Music Therapy. (Those last two are actual degrees…I sincerely hope that the first one is not.) Or perhaps one of these other, equally pointless and wasteful, degrees.

Can these people afford to get these degrees? (Well clearly they couldn’t, or they wouldn’t have been camping out in New York City, protesting other people’s better college choices). The only people who could afford that sort of degree would be someone like Paris Hilton, with outrageous amounts of family money (and even Paris isn’t that stupid, she, to my knowledge, never went to college. Instead she just started her own companies and became successful…without college, imagine that.) Instead maybe they should have gone to get a degree in something that could help them get a good career. Instead of dicking around in Women’s Studies majors, maybe they should have gone to nursing school. Instead of majoring in Religion (sorry Dylan***) maybe they should have gone to Business school or at the very least gotten a teaching degree.

Yes, I’m aware that the cost of college is outrageous, but you can only blame the government for that. You can’t blame them for your stupid choice of major, but youcanblame the government for subsidizing every stupid degree that colleges make available.

Wait, you say, I had to get a college degree to get a good job.

Bullshit. I’ve had good paying, full time jobs, that never once cared about whether I had a degree or not. You either haven’t looked in the right place, or you are looking for a job you will “enjoy”. I will admit, those full time jobs were boring as hell and I hate them, but I was also independent and made plenty of money to do whatever I wanted after paying my rent and saving a little.

But, you say, I want a job I will enjoy. I want a career, so I have to get a degree because those jobs won’t hire me without a degree.

Once again, blame the government and the subsidization of colleges. 50 years ago, people got college degrees for jobs that needed serious training. Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers, (some) Scientists. General jobs didn’t all come with a “those without college degree need not apply” disclaimer. The government subsidized and then degrees, the likes of which wouldneverget you a job, began popping up all over the place just to reel in the students.

So even if your broke can you ‘afford’ college? Well that depends on whether you have a plan and whether you know what degree to get to carry out that plan and whether you are willing to do the work to become successful. If you have those three things anyone can afford to go to college, that’s what Romney meant.

____________________________________________________________________________________

*No offense to those people I know who have LEGITIMATE pain management issues that are helped by a little mary-jane, but I think it’s clear this stuff (or whatever they are taking) is not helping the writer’s at ThinkProgress to ‘progress’ anywhere but the snack food aisle.

**Sort of like how the word “fair” and “equal” have somehow gained new, interesting, twisted definitions for liberals.

***That is what my brother majored in…

I’d pay good money to see what happens when a Christian wants to be President of the Muslim Student Association.

I’d like to thank Mel, from Gay Conservative for posting the link to this article, that I’m about to write about, on facebook.

The only ever time that I’ve mentioned Vanderbilt University on this blog was when I was doing a review of Ky Dickens documentary, Fish Out Of Water. Vanderbilt was her university.

Now they’ve just reached a level of stupidity that is hard to match…unless your part of the Obama administration that is.

Vanderbilt’s new nondiscrimination policy requires all groups, including religious groups, to accept members of different sexual orientations or faiths and allows them to seek leadership roles.

As a result of the change, Vanderbilt reviewed the constitutions of every registered student organization to make sure they were in compliance with the policy after a dispute between the university and a Christian fraternity that expelled a homosexual member.

Student groups now have a choice – they can either revise their membership requirements or they will not be recognized as an official student group. That means the groups will not receive funding and they will not be allowed on campus.

- Todd Starnes, Fox News & Commentary

Do I find the practice of banning homosexuals from certain organizations to be utterly stupid? Yes, I do. After all, at the very least, if you are trying to reach out to them, the last thing you want to do is tell them they can’t be part of your club because they are gay.

However, that should be up to the clubs to decide.

Luckily there are groups on the campus who have decided that this change in policy is…well…bullshit. They aren’t just going to change their constitutions.

The student religious groups have formed an organization called “Vanderbilt Solidarity.” They said they could not in good faith alter their constitutions to comply with the university’s new policy.

…

However, the groups represented by Vanderbilt Solidarity have submitted their applications without making any changes to their constitutions – an act of defiance said spokesman Pieter Valk.

“We don’t want to cause trouble,” Valk told Fox News. “We want to make it clear where we are coming from. We want to be back on campus next year but there are certain principles we cannot move from.”

- Same article as above

The absolutely ludicrous part of this law is in two parts.

First of all, if the group doesn’t want homosexuals or people of other faith in it, it will not matter if they are forced to change their constitutions, they are not going to be any more welcoming to the new students.

And why would you want to join a group where you aren’t welcome? I make a concerted effort to not go places where I’m not wanted if I don’t have to. Case-in-point, avoiding the “Mexican” Wal-Mart on the west side of town. I don’t have a problem with the people who shop there and, in fact, there is a lot of great Hispanic food and spices that I’d like to buy there, however the people who work there and the majority of the people who shop there are not altogether pleased with the pale, Irish, red haired, white girl shopping in their store.

I also don’t intentionally interject myself into debates on Christian forums (anymore) or go attend church services at my parent’s Southern Baptist church. They don’t want me there and I have better things to do with my time than make myself, and others, feel uncomfortable just to stir up trouble.

Other than the gay student kicked out of the fraternity, I’d like to hear how many other students of different faiths or sexual orientations have been ejected from clubs.

****

The second problem is this.

Vanderbilt’s new nondiscrimination policy requires all groups, including religious groups, to accept members of different sexual orientations or faiths and allows them to seek leadership roles.

So…wait. Let’s take the least horrible way this could go and look at this from that angle.

So, say that the Lutheran Student Fellowship (one of the groups protesting this change in Vanderbilt policy) suddenly had to deal with an influx of Catholic students. These students skewed the voting and put a Catholic president in charge of the group.

Lutherans and Catholics don’t get along all that well, in case you didn’t know. (How do I know this? I went to a Lutheran private school in middle school, there was a Catholic church down the street. It wasn’t pretty.)

So now there is a Catholic in charge of a Lutheran group…and a significant number of a Catholics in the group. Now, not only do the Lutherans in the group feel like they can’t discuss their Lutheran beliefs because the Catholics don’t like it, but they can’t even get the President of the group to allow Lutheran based activities.

Now here’s another possibility. A group of Atheists performs this same feat with the Vanderbilt chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, or some other Christian group, and hobble the group. Even if they did not become President and they simply filled the room with Atheist members at every meeting and derailed every conversation about religion into a debate. That would be just as harmful.

Can you imagine the uproar if a group of Christian students did this to an Atheist group or to the Muslim Student Association?

If I went to Vanderbilt I would be breaking my own rule of not going where I’m not wanted and I’d be doing exactly that. Why? Because it would prove a point.

*****

Now here’s another problem.

This new rule only mentions faith and sexual orientation correct?

Well why is Vanderbilt being so sexist?

What if I wanted to join the “Men Promoting A Solution”?

What if a man wanted to join the “Women Law Students Association”?

Why can’t they join up.

Why can’t a man join a sorority?

Why can’t a woman join a fraternity?

*****

Now here is the final nail in the coffin of this issue.

Vanderbilt may be a private university, but that doesn’t mean they can ignore federal laws or Supreme Court decisions.

What the heck am talking about?

Well I’m talking about the 1995 Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston, Supreme Court Case.

[T]he Court ruled that private organizations, even if they were planning on and had permits for a public demonstration, were permitted to exclude groups if those groups presented a message contrary to the one the organizing group wanted to convey. More specific to the case, however, the Court found that private citizens organizing a public demonstration may not be compelled by the state to include groups who impart a message the organizers do not want to be included in their demonstration, even if such a law had been written with the intent of preventing discrimination.

- Wikipedia (Whatever, I know, they have good summaries. You try slogging through a supreme court case brief.)

So, in other words, this new rule at Vanderbilt is violating the Freedom of Association/Assembly of these groups.

[T]he United States Supreme Court held in NAACP v. Alabama that the freedom of association is an essential part of the Freedom of Speech because, in many cases, people can engage in effective speech only when they join with others.

…

Expressive associations are groups that engage in activities protected by the First Amendment—speech, assembly, press, petitioning government for a redress of grievances, and the free exercise of religion.

- Wikipedia

*****

So really, Vanderbilt, what are you thinking?

This is wrong on so many many many levels.

And the school week has begun again.

Not really a huge deal, since I don’t go to class that many days a week, but still…

I take a completely ridiculous number of notes in my classes. Ridiculous!

Mostly because I have that little New Year’s Resolution to study more and note taking is a major part of that. I let myself slide a little last semester. But then again, most of my classes were so ponderous that taking notes would have felt like going from the frying pan into the fire.

Alright, here’s some neat little tidbits I picked up today.

Review of social contract theory, Declaration of Independence, Constitutional compromises….blah, blah, review, blah.

The first half of class was fairly average. We discussed the Articles of the Constitution. Order of ratification by the states. Steps to amend constitution. That sort of stuff. You would have to be there to really get how interesting my professor makes it all. The class is, as I’ve said before, my favorite. I will be looking for more classes taught by this professor in the future.

The best part of class came when we were polled about what our favorite amendment (from the Bill of Rights) was. About 3/4s of the class raised their hand for the 1st amendment, myself included. I have a lot of feelings about the first amendment alright?

Then came the 2nd amendment. I was shocked, for a state like Arizona, that only 3 or 4 people raised their hand. Once again, as we were voting on our top two, I raised my hand.

Our professor asked us to tell why we chose the 2nd amendment and I was completely honest. I said that, “even if the government isn’t on your side about your natural rights (Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness…Property, though it’s not named specifically) that if you have the 2nd amendment you can protect all the rest on your own…no government needed.

So I’m from a family of pro-gun people. I’m not ashamed. My dad is part of the NRA.

But the best answer came from one of the guys who had also answered the 1st amendment like me. He said “The First Amendment is the first step to abolishing a tyrannical government. The Second Amendment is the last step.”

My teacher said that would make a good bumper sticker.

It totally would. I want one when I get a car this year.

 

So on to the next class.

First of all, while discussing the Weimar Republic, our professor says that Germany was home to Hegel and Marx and was a “font of wisdom, knowledge, and civilization.” I’m going to hope that those two things are considered separate and having nothing to do with the other.

Who am I kidding. That was a slim hope.

Though while talking about what brought about the fall of the Weimar, the professor did surprise me by admitting the “deep-seated antisemitism” of Germany at the time. I was thinking he would gloss over that.

The reasons for the fall are all ones that we have heard before.

1. Exorbitant war reparations

2. Hyperinflation of the German Mark.

3. Deep resentment of those that were ‘responsible’ for the German defeat.

An interesting story that I once heard, I don’t know how historically accurate it is though, was that the inflation of the mark in Germany made is so worthless that a man could burn single mark notes for longer than the wood that he could buy for the same amount would last.

Not a good situation.

Not hard to see where a charismatic leader like Hitler, with big promises to fix the economy and restore Germany to its proper place in civilization, could come to power and take over.

Other than 3 pages of notes on the Portuguese “Revolution of Carnations” we didn’t talk about much else and the Revolution of Carnations doesn’t really seem interesting enough to write a lot about, other than that it is apparently considered the “beginning of the 3rd wave of Democratization” in the world.

Also there are some interesting photos from the revolution, such as this one. Which gives a clear reason behind the name of the revolution.

Paterno is dead, but I won’t say Rest in Peace.

I told a friend of mine from high school that there is a very special part of hell reserved for that man. For those of you who are Joss Whedon fans, yes I do mean “The Special Hell”. Paterno may not have been a child molester, but, in my eyes, he wasn’t much better.

In Dante’s Inferno, the lowest level of hell was reserved for for betrayers. Satan, Judas, Brutus, and Cassius were depicted as being some of the main people imprisoned here. Why do I bring this up? Because Paterno was guilty of treachery that is, or should be, on par with any of these. What did he betray? His duty, as an adult, to protect the children of the sports program that Sandusky was involved in. They were under his care and to betray the job of protecting children under your care is one of the most evil things a person can do, in my opinion.

Don’t get me wrong. Mike McQueary is guilty of this treachery just as much, but this post isn’t about McQueary. It’s about the ridiculous notion that we shouldn’t “speak ill of the dead” and the idea that we should say “rest in peace” to the memory of a man who, when knowledge of sexual molestation of children came to him, said (this is satire) “You know what, calling the cops in this situation just seems like overkill. I’ll just tell my boss and hope he does something about.”

A friend of the friend I mentioned earlier said that people “don’t know what they would’ve done in that situation”. Well in that exact situation, if I was McQueary who saw the abuse happening, I would only have a hard time deciding how much to “accidentally” hurt Sandusky as I was pulling him away from the boy. If I were in Paterno’s situation, I might be hard-pressed to decide whether to call the cops first or find Sandusky and kick him in a very sensitive place.

Some might say that Paterno only acted as he did because he didn’t have first hand knowledge of the abuse, he only had a second hand statement from McQueary and he didn’t want to preemptively cause a scandal.

Bullshit.

Paterno (and McQueary, who should have made the report himself before talking to his boss) is in a field that is covered by the Pennsylvania Mandated Reporting law.

 (a)  General rule. Under 23 Pa.C.S. §  6311 (relating to persons required to report suspected child abuse), licensees who, in the course of the employment, occupation or practice of their profession, come into contact with children shall report or cause a report to be made to the Department of Public Welfare when they have reasonable cause to suspect on the basis of their professional or other training or experience, that a child coming before them in their professional or official capacity is a victim of child abuse.

Having another member of your staff report sexual child abuse to you, would seem to fall under the “reasonable cause to suspect” part of that, would it not?

And frankly, Pennsylvania state law shouldn’t even enter in to this argument at all. This is a matter of ethics and morality. If you have even the slightest suspicion that child abuse of any kind is occurring, it is your moral duty to report it to the cops, even if it may cause a scandal. It is your moral duty to hound the police and insure that something is being done. It is your moral duty to, if you are in a position to do so, keep the abuser in question away from children until the police have done their job and investigated the situation.

And so Paterno becomes one of those men who make me sincerely wish that I believed in Hell…or reincarnation. At least The Conservative New Ager has hope that Paterno will pay for his actions in his next life.

I think that makes this one of those times that I hope I’m actually wrong about something and that there is an afterlife (or just another life) waiting after this one.

 

Thursday has been a let down really.

Last night my school’s server was hacked and as a result my first class of the day, Politics and Government (which is my favorite class), was cancelled. Of course I didn’t find that out until I got there, since the server is down and none of the teachers can send emails out to their students. So I got there, the professor apologized for having to cancel class because her lecture for today was stored on the server instead of on her own personal jump drive.

So it was a disappointing beginning to my day…a very long day since I am not leaving campus until 10pm..I have an astronomy lab in about 3 hours. A lab that is over 2 hours long. Ugh. So tired! I’m ingesting large amounts of sugar and caffeine over the next few hours so that I can stay awake in class.

Anyway, my next class was not cancelled and here are a few highlights from today’s lecture.

First the class started out with the teacher making fun of the Tea Party. (Not the historical one in Boston, the current Tea Party…just to clarify.) Making fun of their tri-corn hats (I want one of those!), their revolutionary war era outfits (these also look fun), and the fact that, according to him, they only have legitimacy as a political movement because they “romanticize the history of democracy”.

I find that a bit insulting really.

I also wanted to ask him if he believed that Occupy Wall Street had political legitimacy by stomping all over the constitution and what he thought about them defecating on cars and destroying private property.

I didn’t though.

We discussed the history of Democratization in the world, including Samuel Huntington’s description of Democratization as coming in waves. It’s an interesting concept that I think could apply to any number of civil rights movements over the decades as well. In everything from African American, to gay rights. Everything comes in waves that advance and recede over the years, but the tide keeps getting higher and the waves recede a little less each time.

These things take time. I fully believe, in my romantic view of democracy, that eventually democracies will be in every country in the world. We see it happening every day, even if some of the attempts in the last decade or so have gone a bit pear shaped. (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, etc.)

 

 

He compared Jim Crow laws to Apartheid. Tiny bit of a stretch there I think.

 

 

In the last part of class we discussed the Weimar Republic of Germany, which lasted from 1919 to 1933 before failing completely.

The words from the powerpoint were “from the outset it was beset with problems which led to the eventually collapse of a democratic nation”. Then he asked “if it happened there, could it happen here?”

Maybe it’s my bias, but I think he sounded a bit gleeful at the prospect.

However, I was considering this over lunch and came to the conclusion that the situation in the Weimar Republic was a bit different than ours here in America.

After all they were a fairly new democracy, we are not, which was on shaky legs because of a bad economy caused by exorbitant war reparations, that was in a state of national despair and looking for a leader to find someone to blame for the horrible situation they were in and promise a quick fix to the problem and give them someone to blame.

Wait…

Bad economy, check, charismatic leader, check (at least he thinks so), quick fix to the economic situation (bailouts), and a boogeyman to blame for all our problems (the rich)….

umm….

help….?

What I learned in class on Tuesday.

I missed writing my post for Thursday, but there wasn’t much interesting that we discussed to be honest. Also I had to work a 4 hours shift after class and I worked almost every day after that as well…so I have an excuse.

This week’s topic in my Politics and Government class has been The Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

We spent most of our time on Tuesday going over the Declaration and rather than posting anything of my own thoughts (I think we all know how I feel about the Constitution and Declaration, I mean seriously, if you’ve read even 3 posts by me you should know that.) I’m just going to post a few quotes from the Declaration that I feel are especially timely.

Words in bold are those that I feel you should pay special attention to.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Personally I feel this is one of the most beautiful and elegant political documents ever written. Maybe I’m biased…but so should all Americans be.

My professor for this class is brilliant and has a knack for summing up things in a succinct and hilarious, if not as elegant way, her exact words to sum up the Declaration were. “They weren’t America, not yet, they were just 13 independent states, collectively telling Great Britain to piss off.”

Definitely my favorite teacher this semester.

We talked about the Articles of Confederation, which, for those of you unfamiliar, was an exercise in lopsided governmental power and futility. They gave the congress legislative power to spend money, but no power to tax. So they could spend money on outfitting a ship for the navy, but when it came time to cough up the money, the states could simply say “nah, I don’t feel like it” and not pay their share.

And because only the states could make (and enforce) laws that affected their own citizens, if someone committed a crime or refused to pay a debt in one state, they could simply move to another state. There was no extradition and the state they moved to could not prosecute them for a crime committed under another state’s law.

How keen.

Amendments to the Articles required unanimous agreement from all 13 states, which meant that it only took one state with sour grapes to ruin an entire amendment. This whole “majority” thing we have going these days seems a little bit better.

There is a lot more, but I’ll leave it up to you to do some research. Suffice to say that it was an interesting start of the United States.

Also, this teacher is my favorite because she played this video in class.

She is secretly a huge nerd I think.

In my Comparative Government class we didn’t do a whole lot of lecture, we merely spent a lot of time looking at these two websites.

Freedom House (Which, according to our professor, is ethnocentric because it’s definition of Democracy is too similar to the United States Bill of Rights. All things considered…we have to base the definition off of something and I think that our Bill of Rights is probably the best thing to base it on.)

Democracy Index 2011 – Economist Intelligence Unit

And that’s about it.

In leiu of long blog posts on single topics

The spring 2012 semester has started and I’m sure it will be a busy semester, as I have both work and 13 credit hours of classes to contend with. (I look forward to the summer when I’ll only be doing 3-6 credit hours at a time).

I have 3 Political Science classes this semester and since I don’t think I’ll have as much time to do long posts, as I did over the summer and Christmas break, I will endeavor to post 2 blogs a week (Tuesday and Thursday) after my classes, with a few interesting things I’ve learned in class and some of my observations on what I’m being taught.

Hopefully this will help me with what I’m learning, as much as it helps you learn, even if it’s just learning about how Political Science is being taught into universities today.

Now on to the day’s interesting facts.

The Boston Massacre:

John Adams, an extremely respected Founding Father, was the lawyer who defended the soldiers who shot and killed 5 of the rioters at the Boston Massacre. The riot started with a group of men taunting a British Sentry at the the customs house and escalating to throw objects, cudgels, and near daring of the soldiers to to shoot the rioters. So when it turned out that the soldier in command had not, in fact, given the order to fire and that the entire situation was the cause of unfortunate actions and poor judgement on both sides, Adams was able to get 6 of the original 8 soldiers accused, acquitted. The other two got very reduced sentences with charges of manslaughter. The definition of manslaughter, for those that do not know, is “The crime of killing a human being without malice aforethought, or otherwise in circumstances not amounting to murder.”

My feelings on the subject:

Why is it that, when hearing this story, I begin to think of the NYPD facing off against the unruly mob of Occupy Wall Street? Why is it that I can only compare the punishment of the police in the UC Davis debacle (who specifically told the protestors that if they didn’t move, they would be pepper sprayed)?

 

Mob Rule

Democracy, in it’s infancy (at least as far as modern democracy is concerned), received a lot of criticism.

In 1644, John Cotton called it “the meanest and worst of all forms of government”.

Edmund Burke said that “perfect democracy is…the most shameless thing in the world”.

Pure Democracy was, many believed, a gateway to mob rule. Mobs being large, passionate, ignorant, and dangerous.

And these criticisms came from a legitimate fear of mobs. Eighteenth century mobs destroyed private property, burned effigies of leaders they detested, tarred and feathered their enemies, and threatened people who disagreed with them.

My thought:

Why does that description remind me strongly of the riots in the UK last year, the riots in Greece, and the Occupy Wall Street phenomena.

 

Strangely enough, some people in one of my classes would probably be for the redistribution of grades, a la Oliver Darcy.

Our professor asked us to vote on a problem (only a hypothetical one).

Problem – There are a limited number of points for the class and not everyone can get an A.

Solution 1 – Keep the current assignment structure with grades that are based on performance.

Solution 2 – Distribute points evenly across students so that everyone gets a B-.

Much to my disgust, about 1/3 of the class voted for the even distribution. I would like to think that this was based on the fact that the 1/3 who chose solution 2, were those that usually make a C or lower in classes. Because the reasons given were poor at best and were something along the line of “if we don’t have to worry about grades, then we get rid of a lot of stress and we can just concentrate on learning.” The problem with that is what without some type of grading system, there is no way to prove we learned anything at all in the class. Why bother learning anything, if you are going to be guaranteed a B- no matter what you do and no matter how hard you work, you won’t get any higher grade. Without grades, degrees become meaningless, because having a degree doesn’t mean you learned anything and employers will know that (arguably degrees during this day and age usually don’t prove you learned anything either…not really).

 

“You’ll just have to learn to live with Communism”

In one of my other classes our teacher said that exact thing. He said it based on the fact that we can’t just go into other countries and overthrow communism, just because we don’t like it. (He clearly does like it, but that’s a topic for another time.)

Ironically he forgets that most communistic/Socialistic societies (i.e. Russia), that get large enough and go on for long enough, end up being overthrown, not by outside sources, but by their own people when they get sick and tired of not having all the stuff that capitalistic societies have. Either that or they descend into a terrible economy and horrible conditions for those that live there (i.e Cuba/North Korea) though my teacher seems to have a particular love for Fidel Castro…so I don’t know why I expect rationality on the subject from him.

Also, ironically, he uses China as a basis for why Communism is a good way to run a country. He says this based on the fact that China’s economy is second largest in the world…after the United States. (So big economies don’t exactly denote successful ones do they?) The worst part is, he is completely ignoring that China’s economy got bigger and, possibly, more successful, with every tiny, infinitesimal step they take toward capitalism.

And moves toward Communistic/Socialistic policy haven’t exactly helped our country’s economic failures.

 

Authoritarian regimes aren’t all bad.

Here is the definition of an Authoritarian regime that he asked us to write down, because it will probably be on a test in the future.

“An elite (small) group which exercises authority over a country without regard to it’s accountability or due process of law. It imposes controls over freedom of expression and ability of citizens to organize to make demands and compete for power through interest groups or political power.”

He then asked us if we could give him a reason why Authoritarian regimes were bad, based on this definition.

Well duh, they act without accountability or due process of law. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

They impose controls over freedom of expression and the ability of citizens to organize to make demands. I suppose this depends on your philosophy, but I see countries that restrict freedom in that way (when a small group is calling the shots) and refuse to all citizens the ability to make changes that they want, as being a bad place to live, controlled by a bad government.

Also this is where he mentioned that many of the authoritarian regimes in the world are beloved by the people in the country and begins to wax poetic about Cuba and Castro.

Wait, if the people love the regime there so much, why do they risk crossing the ocean in rickety boats to escape to Florida? Something here smells rotten.

Also, how do you know that the people love their authoritarian government? They haven’t said otherwise?

Wait doesn’t the government “impose controls over freedom of expression and ability of citizens to organize to make demands”. How would they tell us if they hated their government, if their government doesn’t allow them freedom of expression or the ability to organize?

Curious…

 

And in a final display of strange thought…

Britain and Iran have a ton of similarities guys! I didn’t know that!

No wonder Muslims feel so at home there!

Yes, that is what is being claimed. Apparently the fact that Britain and Iran both have leaders who are the head of the church (HRH, the Queen and the Ayatollah, respectively) and they both have state religions (The Church of England and Islam, respectively) means that they have a lot in common as governments.

Maybe on paper…however even on paper they have more differences than similarities.

And anyone with eyes and common sense can see that, in neither case, are those similarities carried out to the same ends.

Why am I expecting common sense from people anymore?

 

——————————————————————————–

Well that’s the end of today’s post and today’s adventure in my political science degree. I wonder what more the weeks will bring to my attention.

#15 Pine Needles and Pretty Pretty Lights

Incredibly short post today, since I was working on my History final until late last night and barely remembered to get this out on time as it is.

It’s officially Christmas around my family’s apartment. We all went to pick out a Christmas tree last night and we decorated…well my dad and I, along with a reluctant younger sibling decorated it, while my mother made sugar cookies (she make the best sugar cookies on the planet, seriously) and my older brother wondered around the living room and just watched the proceedings.

Also there was Christmas music, of course.

Here’s a photo (not a very good one though) of our tree, all lit up.

Anyway, here’s a couple of songs about those lovely, messy, good smelling evergreens we put up every year and dread cleaning up after every January.

#1. O Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

 

#2. Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree

So, like I said, I have finals and a lot of papers creeping up on me.

And I can’t, for the life of me, figure out what to write about in my history paper. I’ve been looking over my books and staring at the prompt and I still don’t have so much as a thesis.

Determined to finish with the thesis and finding all of my citations for the paper tonight, I have resorted to a large quantity of coffee.

Don’t ask me how much.

I’ve just been tossing it back, like shots of cheap whiskey, since 4 this afternoon.

MOAR COFFEE!!!

As a result I am now coming to the realization that I must continuing drinking coffee until I’m done, because I’m at this point.

Just replace the "cake" part with "coffee"

And if I stop drinking it I will have a hell of a caffeine crash coming my way and I will pass out before getting ANY of the work I planned to do today done.

My brain is not working properly. It currently looks like this.

Or feels like that anyway.

I’m not certain if that’s because there is too much blood in my caffeine system, or too much caffeine in my blood system…

*bangs head into wall*

MUST WRITE PAPER!

I love history, but hate history classes and papers. I hope I don’t have many history requirements for my degree.

EDIT@ 2:30 am

I wrote the thesis…plus I outline all five paragraphs for the paper and then stuck a little “Conclusion” line at the end…just in case I forget that paper’s need a conclusion paragraph. I don’t know….It’s 2:30 and I’m just hoping the thesis I came up with is mildly coherent when I re-read it tomorrow.

This is me right now.

Only I know what's wrong...I'm coming down from a massive caffeine high and I have a lofted bed and boy my floor looks really comfortable which is good because I don't think I can make my legs work well enough to actually get into the bed and wow this is a really long run on sentence...Cris don't butcher me for murdering grammar.

I’m putting a bottle of water and ibuprofen where I can find it easily in the morning. Caffeine hangover is almost as bad as alcohol hangover…

*Pictures borrowed from the enormously talented Hyperbole and a Half blog written by Allie Brosh. 75% of her blogs and drawings seem to accurately represent my life in one way or another. It’s scary.