Didn't we solve this already?

While in class yesterday, we were discussing court cases that have shaped our laws that we have now. Pretty common sense stuff too. As I got to thinking, one of the cases that we started to discuss seemed way too familiar and relevant. Griswold v. Connecticut seemed to have ties to a current issue us Americans are facing right now.
The House recently passed a Cyber-security bill that is suppose to protect us from cyberattacks by other countries. This seems really fishy to me because it doesn't protect personal information. It just seems to protect big agencies and businesses. Boehner is all for the White House having complete control of the internet, but to me that infringes on our rights provided to us by the first 10 amendments. Who's to say that if the White House does gain control over the internet and they see things that aren't to their liking that they'll just nullify our rights and do what they want?
In high school we're all told to read certain assigned books and one seems to be ringing relevant now. 1984 by George Orwell has stated what it could be like if the government had enormous amounts of power. It's like Big Brother is coming alive and looking for every wrong doer and waiting to prosecute. That's not how governments should be in my opinion. Not even close.
It seems as if our government is just getting bored with all the powers we allow them to have now and don't have enough people to prosecute that they are just grabbing at whatever they can. Despite all this negativity I feel for this bill, I honestly think it has potential to be something useful. It just needs to be rewritten to state EXACTLY how it needs to operate. No loop holes. No sneaky tricks. It needs to state what it is allowed to do and what is not allowed. This seems vaguely familiar to writing the Constitution and deciding what powers should or should not be granted to the government. This is no different. If there's a risk of my freedoms being stripped away because of something so silly like what i'm posting on the internet, then i'm obviously going to go crazy and obnoxiously spread my opinion until my voice and the many other voices that believe the same thing are heard!

Obnoxious proposals are totally in this season!

     Elections are among us and I feel like that's all anyone ever talks about. Some new scandal or ridiculous proposal of a new bill; there's always some new drama. It's like politicians believe that any publicity is good publicity, but is that true? Yes, it's good for the voters to know your name, but I personally wouldn't want my name known for something that creates a major fuss among the public. Especially among the people that I want to gain votes from! These candidates that we have now are just pathetic. It's as if they feel incredibly powerful and untouchable. Even state officials.
     I've become personally irked by these bills that politicians keep trying to pass. Mainly the ones that conflict with our Bill of Rights. For example, several months ago, the National Defense Act or SOPA. These things irritate our public because it goes against what our Founding Fathers worked so hard to establish. Recently, Georgia's state government brought a bill to life that basically made abortions illegal no matter the reason. I wouldn't normally bring this up, since it didn't scream national government, but since I was so irritated, I did some digging. I uncovered the fact that this bill has the support of certain candidates running for president and to me that's absolutely frightening. These are potential people that can rule us and make laws that we, as citizens, must follow.
     Seriously, politicians, you guys, or gals, need to stop being so obnoxiously ridiculous or get out of office. There's already enough screwed up people in this world that we don't need them running this country. Better yet, just stop trying to "better" our country by creating new bills and/or laws. It's times like this that I thank our ancestors before us for building our government system into the slow moving democracy it is today!

Society's socialist?

     In a country that considers them self as a giant "Melting Pot", we sure do have a huge hobby of judging each other. How silly, right? Especially when we judge the leader of our beloved country and create the absurd theories on his motives and decisions. E.J. Dionne Jr. is an opinion writer for the Washington Post and he sheds light on how ridiculous Americans can be in his article, President Obama as an Alien.
     This article is something that I find really interesting because Americans pride themselves on being accepting of people regardless of their skin color or religion. Yet somehow, Barack Obama is an exception. Dionne Jr. made some very valid points. I found it ironic when he mentioned how one day Americans say Obama is a Nazi and the next day he's "merely a socialist". I've even heard many people mention that he's involved in some secret Muslim mission against the US and is working with terrorist. Who has the time to think up such obnoxious conspiracy theories?
     Dionne Jr. made it extremely obvious that the slander against Obama happens with pretty much every president we've ever had. I guess I just don't understand why people elect politicians if they just freak out once their in power and actually doing things within the government. Yes, I think Obama has done things during his presidency that could potentially do more harm than good, but overall, he's had a pretty successful term. Our economy is slowly improving and I believe he helped getting the ball rolling with that.
     This article did a very good job at critiquing our judgemental behaviors and the fact that we bring up horrific past events and try to predict them happening again with over analyzed thinking. I believe that we project our fears unto people of power because it's easier to hate someone that has influence versus someone that is insignificant. It provides some sort of relief to people if they think they can predict future tragedies and try to prevent them. This is why, I think, people slander our country's leader term after term because history has proven that it's usually the people in power that have done the greatest damage and are the most dangerous. Basically, I believe people should suck it up and have faith in the leaders we elect and hope they do the best for us, because I think they do for the most part and I think E.J. Dionne Jr. would agree with me!!

I'm feeling a little hacked today.

   I've always believed that ignorance is bliss, but when it comes to what the government tells us and what they withhold, is it still bliss that I'm feeling? First off, I'm not quite sure if this is the type of article expected when talking about the US national government, but I really think it might be something that should be on our radar when we think about our government. I'd like to believe that the government hides information from us for very valid reasons, but now I feel like I might just have been naive about the whole thing. I'm now more confused than ever with the level of trust I give our government.

   This group of hackers, known as Anonymous, is notorious for hacking government websites and finding out all the dirty details about what goes on behind closed doors in our government. These hackers post YouTube videos, tweet and who all knows what else they do, all to expose information to the public that they wouldn't get elsewhere. Honestly, I'm not too sure how I feel about all of this. I get this sickening feeling that something really bad is going to come from all of this. I'm torn between whether I think these hackers are doing a good thing or not.

   Hacking websites is not an easy task, especially when it's such important websites such as the CIA, the state of Alabama and Mexico's mining ministry's websites. If these people can hack those, what else could they get away with? Could these people potentially be more dangerous than the things our government hides from us? Should us as American citizens feel scared or empowered? We allow our government to have the powers that it does, so we should allow ourselves to trust that they use their powers to protect us, right?

   This article was very intriguing as is this whole hacking political websites business, but personally I'm creeped out. Yet, I can't quit reading about this stuff! If you feel the same way, you would totally be interested in reading this article and even the comments people leave about the subject matter.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/10/us/government-websites-hacked/index.html?hpt=hp_c3