It's test week!
1st & 3rd period: Your test is Tuesday. Make sure your RIO study guides are completed! Portfolio information is on the Extra Credit page.
4th period: Your test is Monday/Tuesday. Homework the night of the test is to read pages 249-263 and the Telegram from a Parallel Universe article. A reminder that your George Washington extra credit is due on October 5th for all classes.
Everybody might want to check out this article from Sunday's News and Observer. If you read it and post an intelligent comment here, I might give out a little bonus on the next quiz.
My problem with the Tea Party wanting to revert to a similar government that the founding fathers wanted is that we left that kind of government because it is impractical to use the same kind of ultra-conservative gov't with 13 states as with 50. That's why we have 27 amendments to the Constitution. Our gov't has evolved from what it was then to what it is now to meet the needs of a evolving country, and it seems counter-intuitive to suddenly jump back two hundred years and try to start over.
ReplyDeleteConnor Killian (4B)
I agree with the above comment. I also think that the members of the Tea Party are merely using the public's respect and admiration of the Founding Fathers to get elected to office, and they have no interest or concern for the policies and beliefs these men stood for. No single group can "lay claim to the U.S. Constitution," because the document was a compromise forged from the differing opinions of many men, and it does not represent the ideals of a single political faction, but the people of the United States as a whole.
ReplyDeleteAdam Sullivan (4A)
Not only do the members of the Tea Party use American Pride as political leverage, but with biased-media like FOX news, Tea Partiers have a way to broadcast their protest to like-minded Americans.
ReplyDeleteThe claim that the Tea Party's policies represents the values of "the Founding Fathers", a very broad and contradicting group of ideas, is illogical. The Founding Fathers represented different ideas as to how to interpret the Constitution, where as the Tea Party as a group have a single perspective, that of a limited government.
The social conservatism of the Tea Party (their views on immigration, gay marriage, abortion, ect.) movement runs counter to the founding principles of America, which protected personal freedom (specifically, religious freedom).
Jacob Wells (4A)
I agree with Jacob. It is impossible to give any one group credit for shaping the constitution, because the constitution was esentially a compromise between the parties that existed at the time. To say that the Tea Party as a group represents all the people who created the constitution is completely false. Not only do the Tea Party's views represent a small portion of the peopulation, their very strict ideas on how a country should be run and what it should stand for are represented in very few areas throughout the constitution.
ReplyDeleteCasey Harris (4A)
I agree with Casey's comment that the Tea Party can not represent all of the founders of the constitution, especially since some of the true founders were the people at that time. It is unrealistic to assume we can live in today's society on the same ideals people did hundreds of years ago. The constitution is a compromise between two parties, as are many decisions we make today. The Tea Party needs to spend less time drilling their ideas and more time working with those less conservative than them to make compromises everyone can live with. Altough extreme, not all Tea Party idea are terrible, however, they must focus on the good of all people, not just the ones with the same ideals as them.
ReplyDeleteRebekah Gordon (4a)
Everyone has made very valid comments. I would say that the author pinpoints the whole truth in his last input when he says that no party can claim ownership of the founding fathers or the Constitution. Our parties are different from the parties from the founding times. Not only that but, as Casey said, the Constitution was an agreement between the founding fathers, who came from different parties. I think that for the Tea Party to relate themselves to the founding fathers and claim that they share their views is a stretch of the truth because as they may share some of the views that relate to their particular party, the views from founding fathers of a different party might not suit their taste as well. Their use of relation between the founding fathers is simply an appeal to proud Americans who might not know about the partisanship behind the Constititution.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the tea's party desire to read the Constitution strictly because the Constitution was written about 300 years ago and it should just be used to guide us. A lot of things have changed since the Constitution was written. The document should change with us, as society changes. The things that are important to Americans now, are not the same as it was when the Constitution was written. The Constitution is still important to the United States, we just have to apply it to our lives in this time and day.
ReplyDeleteVeronika King
4A
The Tea Party refers to the Founding Fathers as if they were a single unit, which isn't the case at all. Alexander Hamilton is very different from Thomas Jefferson, who is different than John Adams. The Constitution is a document of several compromises, and does not favor one particular political party. Another reason why the Tea Party's ideals are flawed is that we set up an amendment process for a reason. Every amendment to the Constitution was created to solve an issue in America. If we were to start all over, then these amendments would mean nothing, causing more problems in our country. I think the Tea Party fails to realize that the Founding Fathers disagreed on many topics, and the true impact of what would happen if we were to "start over."
ReplyDeleteMichaela Cragg
4B