The Interactive Constitution

There are many things in the Constitution that may be confusing for numerous reasons. Sometimes the way in which a sentence was written in 1787 may not parallel with our modern syntax, or the topic that is being addressed doesn’t make sense and the list goes on. Fortunately there is a website that can clear up many misunderstandings of the Constitution. Here the National Constitution Center offers an interactive Constitution. You can go through the whole Constitution and click on the highlighted parts (every sentence is highlighted) and it explains what the Framer is conveying. I clicked on this sentence: “The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.” This may seem vague, so here is what I got from the explanation that followed.
The Vice President is a member of the executive and legislative branch, thus he is a member of two branches and the only person who enjoys this duality. He is also the Senate’s “presiding officer” and has the ability to be a swing vote for when the House is divided. This “is one of the checks and balances the executive branch has over the legislative branch.” Now, read the selection from the Constitution. It should make more sense the second time through. I believe that this site (http://www.constitutioncenter.org/constitution/) is very useful and beneficial to the understanding of American government and of the document that binds a nation together. So next time you hear a reference to the Constitution, or have some research or just want some clarification, visit this website and it should be immensely helpful; it was for me.

Choose Your Candidate

The 2008 presidential election seems closer than it actually is. Candidacy has already been announced for the presidential election and we have over a year before we get to vote. With all of the candidates already competing, it may be difficult to “sort out” all of the messages that each candidate is giving. A fun quiz to take to see what candidate suits you best can be found on http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460. It consists of eleven questions, each question also have a part that asks you how important the given issue is. At the beginning of the quiz, it asks for some background information such as age and your zip code “Basic Demographics”. The quiz only takes a few minutes to complete and the questions are fairly narrow and pertinent to the issues of today. I was a little surprised by the outcome.
The quiz gives you the list of candidates that suit you from best to worst. The candidates that it gave me that suited me from best to worst went from Republican to Democratic candidates. My number one match was John McCain. I agreed with him on every issue except marriage, where I favored an amendment that would define marriage between a man and a woman. Here is the list of candidates that followed in order from which ones suited me from best to worst: John McCain, Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompson, Jim Gilmore, Mike Huckabee, Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback, Mit Romney, Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Chris Dod, and Mike Gravel. As you can see, the list is comprehensive and although my listing of every candidate that fit me may seem superfluous, it is to demonstrate that this quiz can be very useful.
I am a Republican and knew that I was going to have a Republican candidate that fit me best. But, I did not expect it to be John McCain. I was thinking more along the lines of Mit Romney, or Fred Thompson as my number one. For certain candidates, I thought that I would agree with them on many issues, but I was very wrong. I disagreed with Mit Romney on Stem Cell research, abortion, social security and many others, but I thought we would have more in common. Not only did this quiz give me an idea of who suits me, but it also let me know that I need to do more research. I highly recommend if you want a better idea of who you should vote for (though you should not use this as your final decision maker) that you take this quiz, and if you are unsure about a question that you find information about the given topic.

Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005

The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 became official legislation on October 17, 2005. This Act was formed to make it more difficult for people to claim bankruptcy under Chapter 7 in which all debts are relinquished. Instead of making it so simple for people to file bankruptcy under Chapter 7, harsher requirements for claiming bankruptcy were issued such as: Increased attorney and liability costs, Mandatory credit counseling and debtor education, Increased attorney liability and costs and many other requirements. According to opensecrets.org the top lobbying spender of this bill was the Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber of Commerce is “the world’s largest business federation, representing over 3 million business of every size, sector and region”. Why would the Chamber of Commerce have such an interest in lobbying for the Bankruptcy Act?
The Chamber of Commerce helps to promote trade in its city, prevents unnecessary competition, and collects statistics that are beneficial to its members. So why would it be interested in the Bankruptcy Act? R. Bruce Josten Executive Vice President, Government Affairs of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wrote a letter to the House Of Representatives that stated “bankruptcy reform will prevent wealthy debtors from using bankruptcy to wipe out the debts that they can afford to repay, and from passing those debts on to the millions of businesses and consumers who cannot afford to pay someone else’s bills.” How did this Bankruptcy Act help the Chamber of Commerce? One would assume that there is a reason that the Chamber of Commerce spent the most money on getting this act passed. As stated before, the Chamber helps to promote trade in its city. If someone files bankruptcy when they can actually afford to pay their bills, how can the Chamber promote, or even facilitate trade when others are left to pay for debts? Also, this would result in unnecessary competition because any extra money that businesses and consumers had would be spent on bills rather than furthering their business or personal wants and needs, thus their competition would have an unfair advantage.

FOOD Share

Participatory and pluralist democratic models are polar opposites of each other. The former wants all citizens to participate in some type of political construct. Whether it is for the Neighborhood Watch or the Kiwanis, Participatory adherents believe that being involved in these institutions will make people more democratic. In other words, people will be more likely to be politically involved, thus having more control of factors that can greatly affect their lives. Pluralist democracy takes a different stance, it purports that not everyone needs to be involved in politics and goes so far to say that not everyone will be involved in politics. Yet, this is fine because there is someone else, usually an interest group who is representing your own interests.
So what does this have to do with FOOD Share? My Theory and Practice of American Government Professor asked the class to get involved in the campus’s Service Day. So I signed up to help FOOD Share for the day. Located in Oxnard, it is part of the Nation’s Food Bank Network and it “gathers and distributes food, serving those in need through a network of charitable agencies.” (foodshare.com) Along with about fifteen other people, we took food that had been damaged during handling and packaged it into cardboard boxes. There were three main boxing areas for Cereal, Crackers and Cookies, the rest of the food went into a separate bin. The jobs were divided up: some sorted the cookies from crackers from the cereal, while others took the ripped and torn packages and taped them up. Others then boxed the food and put it in its proper area. I had none of those jobs. See, the food had already come in boxes, some were the typical corrugated shipping boxes while others were the open cardboard boxes with handle slots (like the ones that are used for produce viewing in markets or the boxes you put your food in after shopping at Costco) and there were many other boxes that I do not know the names of. All of these boxes needed to be put in the dumpster to be recycled. Our project leader wanted to maintain his reputation of using the least amount of dumpsters to be filled up with the greatest amount of cardboard boxes. I enjoy doing manual labor, and it was the most demanding task that was offered so I volunteered. For approximately three hours I unfolded, stomped on and ripped apart cardboard boxes and put them in the dumpster. Then I would hop in the dumpster and jump on the boxes to compress them as much as my weight would allow me. I have never in my life had such a dynamic relationship with cardboard boxes and will never look at them the same.
Besides what we did that day, or why we did it, who it was done for is the most important aspect. There are hungry people, who with their own economic resources could not afford to buy themselves or their family a meal and now, (in small part because of what we did) they will be able to eat. But why volunteer? Why take the time out of the day to work for no monetary profit when there are other things that are needed or wanted to be done? Whether it was for ethic, religious, moral or other reasons the fact that there was participation is what is important from a political point of view. Now, can this help someone become more democratic? Does being involved in this activity or other ones like it mean that someone is therefore more likely to become politically active because they are active in their community? From personal experience this is usually the case. But, does everyone need to be politically active? Does everyone need to vote, or do people not need to worry about voting because there is an organization that already is pushing for their interests? This is something that we have been discussing in my Gov class and is an issue that many political theorists and scientists still debate.

The Ethicist

In the podcast at www.nytimes.com by Randy Cohen, AKA, The Ethicist, Mr. Cohen addresses two queries of John from Washington and K.C. from Denver. John was the witness of a sexual harassment crime at his workplace. One of his colleagues used the camera of his cell phone and filmed under a female colleague’s skirt while at a company meeting. Later, John then saw his male colleague download the material from his cell phone onto his computer and then continue filming! Surprisingly, John does not know what to do. Cohen, after explaining the legal implications such as sexual harassment and invasion of privacy violations that this man committed, says that “ethically” John cannot ignore this and should have related the problem to an authority immediately. It is blatant that John should have, without any reservation, reported this pervert to someone who could have properly handled the situation. Having to write to Cohen to ask if he should report a sex crime is agitating and shows the ignorance of the concern for other citizens that we should all have.
The second question, which may actually have the need of an ethicist, deals with a contractor working on a project for which a client has allotted a week to ten days to finish, but K.C. the contractor believes that he can finish it within a few days. The question K.C. asks is if he should finish the project in three to four days and “suffer the loss of pay” or drag it out for the allotted time and receive more money. Cohen offers a great solution, which once again as with the first problem should have been executed at the time of the dilemma: tell the client that he can finish the project in a few days, but ask for more money due to his higher expertise, require a “flat fee”, or a “bonus for early completion.” This way the client won’t be paying more money than expected and K.C. can receive the same amount of money without carrying any guilt.
It is always comforting and reassuring to have a person, especially an educated and qualified one, to help you with your problems whether they are small or large. There are many problems, that with the tool of common sense can easily be solved and with no external help, leaving you with the residual feeling of accomplishment.