Why I Cannot Pick a Party

           

Political parties and political ideology are discussed in chapter twelve of my political science class textbook, Keeping the Republic. While the two political powers have been in place for a long time now, they seem infantile in the way they interact with each other either through the leaders of Congress or different news organizations representing their affiliations in the news. Put those two together and it seems that every minute of news coverage about the government is either about Obama being the Antichrist or the Senate being a group of baboons in suits. All this makes it difficult to make an informed stance on any subject. In any case, the two parties represent a system without cooperation that is blood thirsty to bring each other down. The two United States’ political ideologies and parties do more fighting than creating a better nation.

            A class handout entitled, Deciphering Your Political Ideology on Two Dimensions, (with no other reference) uses statements to emphasize the themes of each ideology, conservative and liberal. Through this, it is apparent that conservatives’ economic views are for less government and social order views are based on historical, usually Christian views. On the other hand, liberals have economic views of more government regulation and social order views of equality. The differing economic views are completely rational. They make absolute sense as to why there is a need for two parties to argue about less or more government. The social order side; however, makes little sense. It would seem that since the conservative view point in economics is for less government regulations would flow through to their ideals on social order. When it comes to marriage, less government regulation. When it comes to religious entitlements, less government regulations. The statement, the government should not have a say on who cannot get married and what schools cannot teach, seems like it should be a conservative view. It seems the only way to differentiate between the two parties is that they oppose every thing about the other.

            Instead conservatives and liberals argue about each social order issue. When it comes to political parties, democrats tend to be more liberal and republicans tend to take the conservative stance on subjects. Sadly however, taking a stance usually means they oppose the other party’s view on the subject. The textbook states that instead of having courses of action about how to reform the current situation, candidates for office simply need a political party to back them up. Without being informed, citizens see the brand of each candidate and pick the one that matches their own (KTR, 355). It continues to state that instead of looking to paint a picture of a better future, candidates tend to remind citizens of the awful past while the current opposing party was in office (KTR, 356). This is done through media and speeches by the candidates. There is a lack of intellectual debate and an abundance of blame in the current system.

            All this bickering shown on the TV leaves the average voter unaware of the candidate’s ability to handle whatever office they are running for. The textbook gives the example of the 2012 election. While Mitt Romney seemed much more experienced and able to handle the country’s economic issues, people voted for Obama because he gave the appearance of caring for the average person (KTR, 357). It is more important for citizens with strong political views to have their party in power than to actually do what is best for the country. This leaves our country with the appearance of inadequacy as almost nothing gets done in congress.

            Our political system promotes inadequacy. It is more important to blame the other than to fix a problem whether economic or social. The only real difference between the two parties is that they hate each other. All this to say, it is difficult to pick a side. For one right thing a party does, they do five wrong.

Work Cited

Barbour, Christine and Gerald Wright. 2012. Keeping the Republic: Power and Citizenship in American Politics. THE ESSENTIALS 5^th ed. Washington D.C.:CQ Press.

(KTR)

Deciphering Your Political Ideology on Two Dimensions (class handout with no reference as to where it came from)

After reading "The Hispanic Challenge" by Samuel P. Huntington

            The article titled, “The Hispanic Challenge” by Samuel P. Huntington gave the argument that Hispanic immigrants, mostly the ones from Mexico, are not like regular immigrants and refuse to melt into the normal America culture. He goes into key reasons as to why he thinks they are practically destroying America; however, his points seem to be more led by dislike of the people than actual facts or legitimate concerns. Three of the details that are skewing facts to seem like a thing are when he talks about contiguity, the Spanish language, and the re-conquest of the southwest and Florida.

            When explaining what he means by contiguity, he begins with what he thinks is the regular way people think of immigration which is people having to come through boat or plane across an ocean to get to Ellis Island. The fact that Mexicans need only to cross a determined line to get here and can keep in contact with their family is a problem. With phones, and all kinds of electronics, it is easy for anyone to keep in contact with their family so this does not seem like it would be difficult for any immigrant from anywhere to keep in touch with family.

            The second part of his contiguity argument makes more sense which is that the income gap between the United States and Mexico is higher than any other neighboring countries which is what led to the overflow of immigration. That is as far as he goes when he should explain how the overflow would be a problem. He did not go into the history of Mexican- American politics like the northern American free trade agreement which created huge inequality in Mexico’s income classes (Villarreal, 2010) as well as Operation Fast and the Furious which funded the biggest Mexican gangs with weapons (Wyler, 2012). The turmoil in the Mexican economy cannot all be blamed on The United States, but the fact that Huntington did not bring it up shows that he is not really looking at the whole issue or all the facts. He also, failed to mention any benefits of Mexican immigrants like the fact that they work for little money doing jobs that are usually hard to fill even with minimum wage. His lack of facts shows his lack of really getting to the truth of the matter and contiguity can be a problem but also has benefits.

            His second argument that seems to be unfinished is about the language. He claims that by the third generation, a normal immigrant’s family would have completely forgotten about their past language for English and Mexican immigrants just won’t give up on their language or ethnicity and even show a dislike for America and English. First of all, there are plenty of places where a group of immigrants refuse to forget their old cultures but rather combine cultures, like Chinatowns, Irish pubs, and other similar places where people have mixed cultures. Secondly, in those areas public places change to the needs of the people. In Chinatowns, I’m sure public schools will have Chinese to English language classes and forms are written in Chinese as well. That is the same on and around Native American Reservations who would also like to keep their language. Once again, Huntington is simply overseeing the state of the nation for his obvious dislike for Hispanic immigrants.

            On the same note, he talks about the re-conquest of the southwest and Miami. He states that they came and are coming, and took over the place with their culture. Again it can be argued that that is what immigrants do and they were simply extremely successful in Miami. He goes into much detail about the success in Miami without ever stating a reason for concern for that as if the details are what he is disgusted by. If people are successful, I do not understand the problem. This article is full of facts that a man has used, badly, to argue his view on losing his ‘normal’ America.

References

Villarreal, M. A. (2010, June 3). NAFTA and the Mexican Economy. Retrieved from Congressional Research Service: https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34733.pdf

Wyler, G. (2012, June 20). Here's What You Need To Know About The Gun Running Scandal That Could Destroy Obama's Attorney General. Retrieved from Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-fast-and-furious-2012-6

¡Beinvenido!

Yo necesito practicar mi español. Por eso, yo creado este blog. Pero, yo quiero hablar mas que español. Este es mi primer post:)