Merits of Terrorism

For this week’s blog post it is on the merits of terrorism. This is interesting because as we learned in class and from our nomenclature assignment, it is very hard to define terrorism. I firmly believe that you cannot use the word terrorism as a universal term. Terrorism must be used on a case to case basis and should never be used as a general term because there are so many factors that go into an act being called a terrorist act. As far as the question of whether terrorism works or not, I believe in many cases it does. Take September 11^th for example. These extreme groups such as al quieda wanted to be known and to be heard and to get their religion out there so people knew not to mess with them. In this case it obviously worked because what did everyone talk about, the Muslims. You know the old saying any news is good news, well in this case even though bin laden and Hussein were being talked about in a negative way, they now have a spotlight on them and are getting large amounts of attention. This brought upon a greater respect for the Muslim culture. By a greater respect I don’t mean that Americans now want to join this religion and learn about, but more similar to your star football player that’s a cocky ass hole. Even though you don’t like him you still are civil with him and don’t mess with him because you know how strong he is and you are almost scared of him. Me personally I guess I could be considered an extremist in the sense that I feel no pity for the Muslim culture after what happened on 9/11. Like the article I had to read in class about the lady who wrote the story the day after the attacks, I agree with her that anybody that had a smirk on their face that day should be held responsible. Personally I am not against war, but I believe that is we are over there trying to put a democratic government in place and all these people are worried about is blowing up things, then we should get out of there so these terrorists cannot harm our soldiers. Terrorism is a tough term that should not have a generic definition attached to it. For example all the 5 situations we went through in class all were different situations and to some they should have been considered terrorism, but to others they thought they shouldn’t be.  

Debate 4

The basic argument of debate four was either for world involvement or against world involvement. I am going to have to say that the con side came out on top of this debate. I agree with what they were saying in the sense of what America’s involvement in the world should be. The blonde girl on the con side brought up some good rebuttals when the pro side was talking about how good some areas are because of what we did. In response, she said how do we know where this culture or area would be if we did not interfere with them. For example in the case of the Iraqi war, we are over there trying to force our ideas and our ways onto a society in which democracy may not be the best system for them to run off of. Yet like the girl for the con said we have our noses stuck into too many other countries business and it is going to cause more trouble than it will good. The pro side came back to this statement with; well someone has to be the evil so it might as well be us. I strongly disagree with what they had to say about this. The pro side did have a few things that I agreed with such as when they talked about the freedom of our country. The kid from Toronto spoke mostly on this when he said that everyone wants to have freedom like we Americans do. I think this is very true because everywhere you go in the world it seems that either they are happy to see Americans or they are jealous and unhappy to see Americans because of the freedom that we have. The con side had a rebuttal to this as to we are not the only major country that everyone looks up to anymore. The con side said that there are other countries out there that are just as big a player in the world and who have just as much freedom as we do. This is easier summed up by saying that there is an evener playing field now than there was in the past. The pro side’s idea about this was that we were the foundation in which many of these other countries formed on and without us, the countries would not be what they are today. I must say that I agree with what the pro side has to say about this issue.

Debate #3

For the third debate, we covered the topic of colonialism. The debate was probably the worst out of the first two I'd have to say, but there were still some great points made on both sides. I have to say that the con side really took the cake in this debate. There first point they brought up was how colonialism exploits the people and their resources. They make the point across that these colonizers were coming to these areas for their own good and not to help promote economic development like the pro side was saying. I have to firmly agree with what the con side said about this. The whole idea behind colonialism was to expand the empire and gain more riches, wealth and resources from other areas. Another point that the con side brought up was about how colonialism destroys independence and self determination. I do not feel that this point hit as hard as the first, but the way they talked about how people coming into another country that has been doing for something for so long a simpler way, then having an outside source come in, set things up and leave would do more harm than them just not coming in the first place. Another strong point that the con side had was issue dealing with national identity and racism. They used an example from Africa when the Europeans came over, they left leaving the power in the hand of a few crooked and corrupt chiefs that were racist toward other tribes. Also the cons put down what the pros said about how colonialism is an inevitable process because they say how the culture has survived for thousands of years and now this culture feels the need to come in and help out. No, these places do not have to do this and the only thing they are in it for is to better themselves. I do agree with the pro side when they talk about how different concepts would not be as widespread as they are now without colonialism, but then again I agree with the con side when they say well who says that we are right to force it upon these people. Overall, the pro side had a very westerner point of view while the con side obviously took the complete opposite. In all, I figured out that colonialism can be both a good and a bad thing.

Debate #2

This week’s debate was on the Electoral College. I thought overall the debate went fairly good. Both sides had some good points and both sides had some points that were somewhat confusing. I will talk about some of the points that the sides made and throw my personal input from the debate in as well. I will first talk about the con side. Their idea was that the Electoral College is a negative system for many reasons. The first point they brought up was that with the current system it is reduces the chance of having a minority president. What the pro side had to say to this was that if people really wanted and had enough support behind a third party candidate, then they could possibly win the state. The con side then talked about how if the 3rd party received 40 percent of the votes and the two major parties each got around 30, then once taken to the house, the third party would eventually loose. The con side also talked about the fact that since voting numbers are down, the Electoral College may have something to do with it. They then talked about how many people believe that if they think there vote is not important, then they just assume to not vote. There one major example was that if a candidate needs majority vote to win, then if one candidate gets 500,000 and the other gets 700,001 votes, then 200,000 votes were wasted because all the candidate really needed was one over the five hundred thousand. They also talked about the case that since we are in such a two party system many people vote against whom they do not want to win, instead of the candidate that they want to win simply because they feel there is not one they have full trust in. The pro side thinks it is better to have a two party system because the chance of a third-party or independent candidate getting elected is slim. So therefore what they say is that it is a mean for indirect voting. This part of the lecture was very confusing to me because I do not have a solid grasp on what indirect voting is. The girl from the pro side that was sitting nearest the center had much to say about this but to me it was all just rambles. To me the side that won the debate was the con side. I liked when the one gentleman brought up the facts that a couple of the states had more population than one state by itself, yet this one state had more electoral votes than the others combined. I think the Electoral College is a system which has more negative issues about it than the positives. I feel that a better system which could be used is a true one person one vote system. The pro side say that the electoral college is meant to be an equal representation of the people, but unfortunately it does not work out that way. I know you said in class during the break that if we do the one vote for every person and each one taken individually, then the idea of a recount would be impossible. Yet I believe that there must be a better way of voting than the current system in place.

The Merits of Colonialism

For this weeks blog topic we had to write about colonialism. There are many positive and also many negative sides that go for and against colonialism. I really do not know what side I stand on when the topic turns to colonialism, but I do have my opinions both on the pro and con side. First, I will talk about the negative parts of colonialism. Many people say that colonialism is a good thing because it benefits the country that is being colonized. Well in many cases this is not so true. The reason that countries that go into another to colonize it is not to benefit the country. The reason they go to these places is because there in something in that country that the colonizers want. For example, when the Europeans came to the Americas it was to explore the area and find things that benefit them. In this case they took back things such as spices and riches. It was also about expanding the empire. We as humans are greedy and want more and want the most. Therefore colonization is a mean of getting these things to be stronger and wealthier than other countries. Obviously from a western point of view colonization was a good thing, because if not for it we would not be here. But for the countries that have been colonized while there was already an indigenous population there, this has caused turmoil and has been a negative effect of colonialism. The example of Africa comes to mind when I think about some of the negative effects of colonialism. The first thing the colonizers did was exploited the resources in the continent for the better good of the Europeans, not the African populations. They then developed some parts of the continent while leaving the others undeveloped after stealing their resources. Then they gave authority to some of the warrant chiefs which were corrupt towards the other Nigerian citizens. But on the flip side many people say that the Colonialism in Africa brought along many positive effects. Some say that it brought along an education system in Africa, whether it was successful or not. Also it brought many of the western civilization ideas to the country as far as technology and modern ideas. The problem I have with colonialism is that if you go into another country and try to enforce your ideas on a community or culture that does not want your input, then that is immorally wrong. Just because we do not live in huts and have a third world way of life does not mean that the people that have lived for thousands of years need our "help". The reason I think this is because I watched a documentary about a year ago about a handful of kids in different African cultures. Some were wealthy white kids, some were wealthy blacks, some were middle class white and black, and some were poor white and blacks all over the continent. And out of my surprise the ones that seemed the happiest were the ones that live a more primal way of life than the others. These people are happy people that have survived for centuries and their traditions have not changed much at all. So who's to say that if we come into these peoples lands and try to force something on them is right?

Who Should Vote?

Before I get into this issue, I would first like you to watch the following video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm1KOBMg1Y8  Now that's done, I will try and touch on my opinions of who should vote. This is a really tough topic for me because I feel strongly that people who vote and are making a decision on who should run our country should be educated enough to make a wise decision. That being said my ideologies on voting are not very rational and would never actually be the set ways that we vote, unfortunately.  So here goes nothing! First, I think that there should be a mandated test voters must take to become registered voters. If you think about it, if you have some whoha who cannot make logical decisions in their own life, why do we want them making decisions for our country. The test would not be something like the SAT obviously, but it would be something more like the GED. I understand that would never work so maybe we could just make it a law that to vote you must have graduated from high-school or have passed the GED. Secondly, the voter must not collect benefits from the government due to pure laziness. This is what gets under my skin the most. To collect welfare and benefits (not including legal disability) such as unemployment there must be documentation that these people qualify. So for unemployment, I know in Florida, they just started a system in which if you are receiving unemployment then you must provide documentation weekly that you are applying for jobs. The only way a person can be a registered voter ( in my system) and not have passed high-school or the GED test, is if they are currently employed or have been employed recently and are paying taxes. For welfare, that in itself is another story. What we need to do is implement a system that prohibits the families who keep spitting out kids to collect more welfare while they are sitting on their asses to not be able to vote. Obviously they have a mindset that they deserve something from the government while other people are out working and paying taxes to support these leaches. I really could go on for days about who should be allowed to vote, but seeing how my views are "radical" and would never be implemented into the system, I am going to end there.

Debate #1

Overall, I believe that the debate went pretty good for the first one. I was on the pro side of supra nationalism so obviously I thought that we had the better argument and presented it better. The reason I say that was it seemed that the con side was contradicting themselves in some of the things they said. Some points that they would make would be points providing evidence for our side. Our main points were: less border control/ controversy, small economies working together, security of smaller countries, and allocating resources. I liked the way the debate was set up, but I wish there was more room for debate instead of just saying  your point then have the other side say something about it, then back to you. If there was room for actual back and forth without it having to be so organized, I feel that it may of been a little better. I do understand that it has to be organized that way or else it may get out of hand. The con side had a few good points, such as when they talked about if one country had a resource then why should they have to share it if they are in this supranationalism type of system. I believe that we made a good point back to that when we said that some our going to gain and some are going to loose, but that is just part of. The fact that they made statements about people loosing their cultural identity did not help the much. One of the girls used examples from different tribes and saying that one got tvs and it just made things go downhill. Well if they did not want these new technologies, they wouldn't have got them. I beleive that if you go to one of the tribes they are talking about and let them live in an American home for a month, they would say there is no way I am going back to where I came from. They would probably tell there relatives to come over and live with them. That's one of the points that I think the con side failed on. Overall, the debate went well and I enjoyed participating in it.

Merits of Supranationalism

This weeks blog post was on supranationalism. I found supranationalism to be a very interesting topic. In my own personal opinion I believe that seeing how we are already such a globalized world supranationalism is not too far away. The reason I think this way is because the merits of supranationalism far outweigh the negatives. If you take for example the problems we face daily here in the United States about border control then it is a good example of why we should go to this supranationalistic way of going about things. We as tax payers are paying money for the government to spend on protecting our borders. I looked it up and it is millions of dollars per year in many different sectors of border and immigration control that we are spending. People bring up the idea that with supranationalism, the people begin to loose their cultural identity and such, but saying that there is not borders does not mean that people cannot still have there cultural identity. What it means is that there will be less regulation. So say we have people that can now come over from Mexico legally. These people will most likely move into an area with a population that is similar to what they are. Therefore, the cultural identity is still very strong within that group of people. This idea of supranationalism is also good because we can have a better distribution of resources. If there are 5 major "countries" then the resources that would be in just one country, such as oil in the middle east area, would now be spread out over many countries in this supranationalistic region. Not only would this be one of the major pluses, but also the idea of joint military would be a good idea because now instead of having hundreds of militarys fighting against each other, we would be one large military. The best point that I saw in all of these was about the economies. If countries with smaller economies can come together to form one large one, then they will be able to compete with the larger ones.

About Nick Sellers

I am currently a junior at Florida State University. I am majoring in Geography with a second major in Interdisciplinary Social Sciences. For my Social Science major Urban and Regional planning is my primary focus. I am from a small town in central Florida known as Eustis. It is located about an hour north of Orlando and about an hour south of Ocala. Growing up in Florida I enjoy the outdoors. I am an avid hunter and fishermen. I pride myself as a college student that eats most of the year off things I have harvested in the field, such as deer, hogs, turkey, and fish. I am currently working on campus for Aramark which is also know as Seminole Dining. I am in a program with the company known as the student manager program which has taught me some very interesting and beneficial business strategies and know hows. Ultimately I plan on doing some sort of land analysis and land surveying for either a state agency or private corporation.