Jacksonian Democracy

The democrats mostly saw society as continuing quarrel between "The People" which included farmers, workers, and planters and "The Paper Money Aristocrats" which included people like bankers, and investors. Jackson's Democracy believed in a limited government kind of like the federalist papers the idea of limiting the government was to abolish monopolies and special privileges of the government. So in early America they knew the government couldn't have too much power. They also believed politics and religion should be kept separate. Democrats had most of the everyday common people on their side, not the money hungry bankers, investors, and stock jobbers. However when the democrats decided to do away with all banks and it turned out so much was going on with finances that they had to start banking up again.
A little later on they added the thoughts of equality and opportunity for the white men in the nation. Native Americas, African Americans, and any women were not considered equal. The way of the new democracy shaped the nation because it created a push for negotiations and compromise with decisions in America. Thus creating the foundation of the new American way of life.

ACORN vs. The Government

During the recent debates i heard a quick mention of something called ACORN(Fights Back Against Voter Suppression ) i got mixed up and lost in the gist of the the debate but today i understood the issue at hand. Obama did in deed donate money to the organization however had no tie to the scandal. Acorn claims "there are always some people who want to get paid without really doing the job, or who aim to defraud their employer. Any large department store will have some workers who shoplift." I think this is a very good perspective to come from given to the fact that according to the newyork times "they say the ones with phony names constitute no more than 1 percent of the total turned" this is a very small percentage and of that percentage the false ones had already been flagged for the government to check on "According to Acorn, most of the forms that are now causing controversy are ones that it flagged and that unsympathetic election officials then publicized." Which we witnessed at the debates. In actuality making people sign up 25 people a day was the only mistake ACORN made because they were forced to keep asking people who may have already been signed up or made up people themselves as i read in the Christopher Barkley story. So to sum this up 1% of voters through acorn were fraud, of that 1% the majority of them were flagged, so at that point it was out of ACORNs control of weather people voted twice or not so this really is no scandal. So knowing this we have nothing to worry about because ACORN isn't fraud...or do we? On ACORNS home website they mention what needs to be considered:

"The goals of the people orchestrating these attacks are to distract ACORN from helping people vote and to justify massive voter suppression. That’s the real voter fraud; the noise about a small fraction of the forms ACORN has turned in is meant to get the press and public take their eyes off the real threat, while those hurling the charges are stealing people’s right to vote in broad daylight."

Is this really the bigger concern? according to all of the facts, it definitely is. In Georgia a College student by the name of Kyla Berry got a last minute letter in the mail stating that she couldn't vote because she wasn't an United States Citizen. She knew this was odd because she had been born in Boston. It was too late for her to try to solve this mystery. Apparently in Georgia 2 million people are now having there social security checked to vote. why so late in the year and close to voting? they cant do this. the new york times mentioned "Michigan and Colorado are removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election, which is not allowed except when voters die, notify the authorities that they have moved out of state, or have been declared unfit to vote." I think that this is a much bigger problem and is happening throughout a lot of these states and random people are being flagged for no reason and causing them not to vote. Where as Acorn flagged the people who actually were questionable and if the government overlooked that oh well, at least they weren't doing as they were in other states purposely stopping innocent voters.

no matter what the date. You can always compare a debate!

I remember i was in the 7th grade when the Kerry vs. Bush campaign was going on. Because of my disinterest to learn about the campaign when i was younger, i decided to take a step back and compare then to now.

While i was reading the 2004 2nd presidential debate I immediately caught Kerry s views on the No Child Left Behind act. He had brought it up because it was one of the things the media was saying he changed his position on. So he decided to clear up everything within his first answer.

"No Child Left Behind Act, I voted for it. I support it. I support the goals. But the president has underfunded it by $28 billion."

When i read this i had a flashback of debate #3 when Obama said"Now we tried to do this under President Bush. He put forward No Child Left Behind. Unfortunately, they left the money behind for No Child Left Behind. "

You can already tell that within 4 years things haven't changed. This is where i see the democratic side staying consistent. The republicans don't show as much consistency on this topic when bush never even really talked about this issue in this debate at all, where as McCain attempted to make it a better plan as he called out Obama cutting him off of his sentences.



The Vice Presidential debate

These debates where so repetitive that i thought my mom kept rewinding the DVR recording of it. But it shocked me when she said she wasn't and it was live. Palin focused on being a regular small town woman rather than answering her questions. As a matter of fact she during the debate she stated "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record" It then got to the point where no candidate answered a question and the moderator had to say "Governor, Senator, neither of you really answered that last question about what you would do as vice president. I'm going to come back to that..." So i believe both candidates got too off topic with this debate. However with the 2004 debates i believe just as much finger pointing was going on if not more because the issues with iraq where more fresh. As we can see in this commented cheyney made on edwards "What the vice president has just said is just a complete distortion. The American people saw John Kerry on Thursday night. They don't need the vice president or the president to tell them what they saw. " so apparently that never changes.

WWW.PAYFORINFO.COM

So i was searching new york times for an article on Democracy and the Internet when i came across this fascinating article written back in May. The article had mentioned that ISPs want to start charging users to get on certain websites to get there information. Now this may not be a problem for people raking in 6 figures however what about the middle class and lower class? Imagine if i had to pay to have a blogger account i may not have been able to complete this blog assignment for my teacher. Also if everybody had to pay to read articles on new york times i wouldn't have even read the article so i wouldn't have known why somebody was charging me to expand my thirst for knowledge. I think if companies started charging to access websites it wouldn't be a fair democracy anymore because the sources available wouldn't be equal. But thankfully the "Net Neutrality" bill will be making this discrimination illegal. But i wonder how fast it will take corporations to find a way around this? So lets hope congress gets this bill passed fast...

ATTENTION U.S. teens! Hit the Sales racks!

The economic crisis is hurting a lot of American Teenagers lately. As a teen this article interested me the most 1.because of the comic before the article and 2.because of the stories in the article that i can relate to. The first time i actually felt the economy was falling apart was at work. I work at a resturant in a very wealthy part of san diego. In the houses around the area are football players, baseball players, doctors, vets, fire men, police, etc. Pretty much you have to have a VERY good job to live there. One day it had literally been a few months since the new million dollar homes had opened and there was already forclosure signs EVERYWHERE! One woman came into my job and claimed her neigbor moved at night time because they were so embrassed! The first thing i could think of was what would i do in that situation? the kids or teenagers must really feel the change of just moving into a really good house, coming from a wealthy family and now they have to look up what BUDGET means in the dictionary.

In the article it had a story of a teenage girl whos parents didnt even have time to spend with her because they were so busy with work and just had to buy her rewards. And yet another family who had to call a family emergancy meeting to explain the money situation with there kids. I feel it at my home, my parents almost never can just hand me over 20 like they could when i was younger, every cent on my paycheck is crucial to me, i am really learning the value of a dollar. I do admit im not going to generalize my generation but im not going to lie i do feel like things are my rights not privlages. Like i feel like its my right to have a phone not a privlage, and having to pay for my own phonebill and cable bill i recognize i need to have aplan for saving. Or when i get a real job things will fall apart.

During the WW2 Rationing people could determine what was a nessisty and what was for fun, and this is something my generation needs to grasp fast because everything isnt garunteed anymore.

extra extra read all about it THE 4TH DEBATE!

My group had the 4th debate in the lincoln douglas debates. During the 4th debate Lincoln and Douglas debated against the rights of slaves and Judge Trumbulls charge against Douglas.

“...This was a provision for submitting the constitution to a vote of the people”

Lincoln quoted from Trumbull referring to the Toombs bill. Trumbull claims Douglas added an extra part to the bill after he had proposed it to the people to lead them astray. Douglas retaliated in his debate and this is where the reference to Trumbull really gets good.

“He (Lincoln) spent his whole hour in retaliating a charge made by senator Trumbull against me. The circumstances out of which that charge was manufactured, occurred prior to the last presidential election, over two years ago. If the charge was true, why did not Trumbull make it in 1856, when I was discussing the questions of that day all over this State with Lincoln and him, and when it was pertinent to the then issue? He was silent as the grave upon the subject. If that charge was true the time to have brought it forward was the canvass of 1856, the year when the toombs bill passed the senate”

The debate continued on about the Trumbull charge and brought new information to the people. It is hard to say what exactly the truth was because of the the candidates provided valid points and it is obvious lincoln and trumbull agree in some matters as you can see in their abolition of slavery. But is Trumbull really just bringing his opinion up in order to get another candidate chosen that will agree with him more? Or is he making these comments truly in the consideration of the people?

the candidates views on slavery

Ok so i have a very long quote but i feel like the whole quote is necessary. Lincoln didn't believe blacks had equal rights, but he believed we could live in a world together but separately. It seems as if he views black people as inferior to him but who cares if they live in America just don't let them have control or interact with white people.

there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied every thing. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. [Cheers and laughter.] My understanding is that I can just let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have had a black woman for either a slave or a wife. So it seems to me quite possible for us to get along without making either slaves or wives of negroes. I will add to this that I have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white men -Lincoln

Douglas didn't believe black people should be kept slaves because there were incapable of living as anything else. Lincoln had believed that black people could have there own families and success it just wouldn't cross over to the white people because they were just so much better. and they could be more than slaves. But nope Douglas believed it was slaves they should stay.

I say that this Government was established on the white basis. It was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and never should be administered by any except white men. I declare that a negro ought not to be a citizen, whether his parents were imported into this country as slaves or not, or whether or not he was born here. It does not depend upon the place a Negro's parents were born, or whether they were slaves or not, but upon the fact that he is a negro, belonging to a race incapable of self-government, and for that reason ought not to be on an equality with white men. (Immense applause.)

2008 debates

In the 2008 debates i believe that they were not filled with all of the energy and emotion that the lincoln-douglas debates had. However they did have finger pointing just like the older days. There was one instance where lincoln accused douglas of keeping information about the toombs law from the public but when douglas replies back its is a lot of finger pointing. the debate was quite intriging. I reliezed no matter what the candidates will be the candidates politics are politics. They will twist what they have to say how many ever times they need to just to get the votes of the people.

Whats race got to do with it?

I was more curious to see if the race of the population of each state have anything to do with weather it was a democratic state or republican state. I found that it was kinda of random yes the states had a significant corralation between the two. Although as i expected more southern states seemed to be republican, no matter what your race population is you can never really tell. I expected to see more of a democratic view of living in the states that were more populated with african americans because Obama is running but it really didn't change based on race. Here are a few of the sample results i pulled in from my fact findings.

CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATIC
6% black
36% hispanic
60% white

ARIZONA REPUBLIC
77% white
3% black
29% hispanic

LOUISIANA WEAK REPUBLIC
31% black
3% hispanic
64% white

HAWAII DEMOCRATIC
26% white
2% black
8% hispanic

TEXAS REPUBLIC
11% black
69% white
35% hispanic