2nd Editorial

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The Importance of Ethics

Ethics are an important part of our lives.  They dictate how we should live our lives.  They should also dictate who runs our lives as a collective community.  I agree with Angela Albright’s blog posting “Who Can We Look Up To” http://www.angelasgov.blogspot.com/2012/03/who-can-we-look-up-to.html, at least in part.

Yes, one’s ethics is part of the job.  At least it is as President of the United States.  Who you are as a person dictates whether or not you get to be in the position to run our country.  However, I feel that some parts of an elected officials private life, even if they portray them in a negative light, have nothing to do with how well they represent us.  Take Bill Clinton for example.  Yes, he had an affair, but he also was an excellent President, balanced the budget and put the United States in a period of economic growth, and during his two terms, the American Public was at relative peace.  Does Clinton's infidelity make him unfit to lead us?  Are our leaders supposed to be without fault? 

However, one's ethics in relation to leading a country is a completely different story.  Flip-flopping ideas just so that you can stay away from anything too controversial, being penalized for 84 ethics related violations in Congress.  These things are far from their private life, where their decisions don't affect us.  These are the things we should be looking at during elections.  They speak volumes of their character.

So yes, ethics are important, but we can not expect everyone to be perfect.

Two versus One

In most cases, a two-on-one fight would be considered unfair to the lone contender.  However, the Republican Primary is not most cases.  Rather than it being a team ready to attack President Obama, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney are more like (in an effort not to sound extremely nerdy) an allegiance from the Hunger Games, they have picked off all of the smaller contender and now that there is only one big fish left, they have realized that one of them will ultimately have to kill the other, resulting in them turning on each other.  By doing this, Santorum is giving Obama a huge advantage, by not only alienating Republicans from Romney, but by also preventing Romney from focusing on Obama.

Santorum and his aides have acknowledged that despite having a small following, his chances of receiving the Republican nomination are slim, but they will not stop fighting.  This could only be better for Obama if Santorum was an independent who has close ties with the Republican Party, but doesn’t support its candidate.  By turning people away from Romney, with help from Obama, Romney is losing not only the Democrats and Liberals, but also Republicans who agree with Santorum: Romney is too moderate.  Santorum couldn’t be doing a better job.  By the time the Republicans announce their candidate (big surprise on who that will be), Obama would be more than well rested and ready to fight, while the Republicans would still be recovering from their most recent battle from within their own party. 

From a Republican view of things, this might seem counter-productive to have the party fighting amongst themselves when they should really be focusing on Obama.  However, like many others, I do not mind this development in the slightest.  Let them fight amongst themselves and left the wounded victor to try to salvage those who had been on the other side while facing the brunt of Obama’s campaign.  So go ahead and fight to the death Republicans, and remember one thing as you put in tons of money and time on this campaign, we will all be waiting for you at the main event.  And we will be ready.

Blog 4

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Blog 2

It's only the beginning

When taking the civics quiz, you are initially greeted with the average score of Americans, 49%, and that of college educators, 55%.  I was pleasantly surprised when I scored a 78.79%.  Not as high as I would have like to have gotten, but well above the average.  I attribute that score to having an excellent memory and wonderful high school teachers and professors.


I chose to take the quiz instead of doing a politically bio because I'm relatively young, and was incredibly sheltered as a child.  So my ideas and views of our political system doesn't go much farther than the understanding of it, my opinions are not completely formed.  Although growing up in Austin has me leaning towards the liberal side of the spectrum.  I hope that this class will push me to expand my thinking and help me form my own political identity in time for the up coming Presidential election.