We The People Speech

Just for context We The People is high school program and debate competition evolving the constitution. I placed for my speech. I also wrote this speech by myself with good questions from my Gov. teacher.

1. Why have First Amendment rights been viewed as essential to the functioning of a free

society?

• In what ways have these rights been of particular importance to women and minorities?

• Although First Amendment rights are considered essential in a constitutional democracy,

it is sometimes argued that these rights must be limited. Under what circumstances, if

any, do you think limitations are justified? Explain your answer.

In quoting Frederick Douglas, “To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker ”. I can say what I want when I want, and how I want. I can be a pagan and you can’t crucify me. I can peacefully protest for what I believe in, and you can’t arrest me. I can write articles about my views on social justice and politics and they won’t be taken down or filtered. I can give my signature to change the system and you can’t stop me.

Well, not all liberties are protected under the First Amendment. Press confidentiality limitations are made clear with the case Branzburg versus Hayes. Likewise, free speech rights are not absolute, in accordance with legislation created by the government, such as “clear and present danger”, threats, obscenities, and deformations that are libel. More parameters exist with “fighting words”, as in the case of Chaplinsky versus New Hampshire….

All of the statutes and limitations that have been altered and addressed are due to different time periods and the people in those time periods changing statutes and pushing boundaries. For example, Brower vs Hardwick in 1986.

The supreme court ruled that consenting adults don’t have the right to engage in sodomy in private, so that way there would be an upholding in previous Georgia law that was discriminatory towards homosexuals, but in 2003 Lawrence vs Texas overturned this rule, then further progression in the legalization in gay marriage with Obergfelle v Hodges in 2015…

There is a time and place to which everything can be addressed. With discussion over what laws local government makes, unjust laws, as seen through eyes of the public, have been dealt with in a civil approach. With formality, progress has been made toward approval or protest, but in recent times this has all changed. Protest has reached a new time where athletes in football and other sports have sparked major controversy to what may be considered the appropriate means of disagreement for what is occurring on the political spectrum. By kneeling during the national anthem for a crisis of general oppression to African Americans, athletes such as Colin Kaepernick can be view as disrespecting the value to the flag, no matter their intent to exercise the right to protest.

The idea that he is facing such extreme disrespect and hate speech from opposite views in hindering free speech out of fear. His taking of a knee is completely constitutional and shouldn’t be hindered. “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Evelyn Beatrice

To maintain order, a process should be then followed where every citizen has a moment to debate a law that concerns them. Procedures do exist to permit our nation’s citizens to counter a law or regulation under “Time, place, and manner”. It is self-destructive for the citizens’ cause to go in contrast to laws of ordinance set in place to aid them. If there is not a set system of order, the chaos may then ensue.

You can look directly at protesting itself and how there’s an injustice that comes about with 1963 Edwards v. South Carolina,  South Carolina arrested one hundred eighty-seven peaceful segregation protesters.

I respect the idea of Time place and manner but this is a new time, place, and manner with new ideas and new upcoming.  For example, Roe vs Wade may seem like it’s only applicable for the 14th amendment, under equal protection acts, but it also adjacent to the first amendment because the idea of not allowing women to get abortions stems from our country’s religious background. The idea that women can’t control their own bodies and have secure medical records because of people’s religious beliefs is in violation. The idea that this wasn’t applicable till the 1970s shows that if not now, when?

Nonetheless, our approaches to freedom and upholding it are totally different, but we all agree that every American should have the rights in the first amendment. Our dialogue on these two polar opinions just displays how varied the voices are for what exactly is represented under the first amendment.

Labeling Me?

At least one day in your life you have been bound to hear the phrase “speak it into existence” and science actually shows that’s true. New science and studies with neuro-linguistic-programming have shown that people use words to enact feelings. Natural things happen around people all the time and people attach words to it to associate meaning. This is because of neurotransmission and communication in the brain ( Hamady).  This phenomenon is due to the “cocktail party” effect. For example, when I think about a specific movie I think about my mom. Then because I think about my mom I feel sad, so then I start to feel sad. All I did was think about a movie but, it made me feel sad because of the neurological connections in my brain. That being true, the same concept can apply to what others say about another because all people are doing is using a word that describes a physical thing and then others are taking on the meaning and connection of the word towards themselves. Labeling can have a hand in the performance of an individual be it positive or negative.  

Now, this notion of speaking things into existence isn’t only recognized by phycologist but by sociologist as well and their term for it is  “labeling theory”. In a study conducted by Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institue inform on the fact that there are several ways a person can deal with labels, in this case when diagnosed as mentally ill. They can: keep their diagnosis a secret, try to educate others, or drawback completely from social interaction. These individuals also feel highly discriminated against and devalued. These issues dont just stem out in the manifestations of ourselves in the culpability of others but jobs as well as an individual’s own self-esteem.  (Link et al …400) Then in Phycology Today’s article “Why It’s Dangerous to Lable People” by Adam Alters it is explained that humans use labels to define a complex world around them and it isn’t always the best thing. Because of what people see and how they label things people make more and more connections and assumptions that bring people further from the reality of the situation. In simpler terms, let’s talk about race, biologically the color of your skin has no bias, but in the real world, this affects you drastically politically and economically.

To end, labeling can affect people drastically in the three main components of their lives, socially, mentally and success wise. Gorge Orwell a well-renowned writer touching on the subjects of social injustice and political theory informed his readers that “If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” This means that sometimes in the languages we speak, especially English, our feelings can exceed anything we can formulate with words, but with that being said sometimes language can also have a profound effect on our feelings as humans.

                                                       Work Cited

Alter, Adam. “Why It’s Dangerous to Label People.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 17 May 2010, http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/alternative-truths/201005/why-its-dangerous-label-people.

Hamady, Jennifer. “We Are What We Speak.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 7 June 2016, http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-your-voice/201606/we-are-what-we-speak
Link, Bruce G., et al. “A Modified Labeling Theory Approach to Mental Disorders: An Empirical Assessment.” American Sociological Review, vol. 54, no. 3, 1989, pp. 400–423. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2095613.

Democracy in the United States

If you asked me what type of government I thought we had, I would say a Republic. If you asked me what I thought the United States government was before high school I would probably say a democracy. Democracy is often a word that you hear thrown left and right in America but the American People really aren’t exercising their right to Democracy.  Not only are people not exercising their right to Democracy but the candidates are making it a lot harder for the American people to exercise their right efficiently. Only 49% of the American people voted in the Midterms (Domonoske ) where their voices are actually heard and even then because of two-party systems their voices are limited. If I had the power to shape government to make it more democratic I would change the way laws are made, enact a more democratic voting system, and add further limitations when it comes to campaigning.
In the state of Nevada, the residence has a very large say in the matters of the state when they actually exercise their voices not only that but Nevada ’s lawmaking process is extremely democratic and precise. If I had the chance to change the way the government made laws I would slightly model things after Nevadas lawmaking process. One of the many things I like is that bills in Nevada can’t have “riders” this means that a bill may only have one topic and everything that is written in that bill must only be in direct relations of the bill( Bowers 78). This means that nothing “sneaky” or unrelated can be in the bill. This would make laws more precise on a federal level and easier to read for not only American officials but the people as well allowing better usage of sunshine laws. Another thing that the Nevadan people are capable of doing is voting on laws directly that affect the whole state by bypassing legislation ( Bowers 54). This is something that could change the lives of every American and enhance democracy on a state level. For example just last midterm the Nevadan people voted to legalize recreational marijuana and this midterm to get rid of the tax on feminine hygiene products that is direct democracy. If we were to implement that on a higher level there would be insurance of democracy and higher limitation of the government in favor of the American people.
The next thing that I would change would be the voting system currently in place in America, it is essentially a lie of having options limiting democracy not only a federal level but a state level.  So when you parties like the Republicans and Democrats with money and power and the ability to pay other people to run to take away votes third party systems such as independent parties, socialist parties, and green parties.  Not only does this make it to where the people don’t know much about the other candidates but when you vote for them it doesn’t matter. One way to change the system that could help this problem is a new voting system that helps get rid of the terrier of a two-party system that has Americans voting for people that they really don’t want in power ( Grey, “The Problems with First Past the Post Voting Explained”).  The best way to fix this problem to go straight to the root of the problem, being the voting system itself, change to the Alternative Voting system. This is where you number the candidates that you want in power for the favorite to least favorite. If the candidate you voted number one for has the last amount of votes of all the candidates you vote is cast down to your next choice. This county on a mass scale with all other votes till there is a winner with majority votes by the people (Grey, “The Alternative Vote Explained”). By enacting this it makes it to where the system is open to new parties, the people don’t have to worry about voting for “lesser evils”, and it ensures better democracy meaning a majority of people make the choice not a minority of people.
Last, if I had I could change one last thing in the American government to ensure democracy would to limit the campaigning that happens during election times. Teddy Roosevelt said“ Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism . … We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good.  We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth.” This means that the American people shouldn’t have to worry about big corporations controlling candidates with money and bribes. If I had the power to I would enact a new Amendment to stop corporations from being able to participate in the elections and give money as well as lowering the cap of how much money in total can be donated and spent on campaigning. By doing this you do two things that ensure real democracy, for one you stop cooperation from being able to monopolize elections and you can give each candidate equal opportunity when it comes to running. This leads to more fair and democratic elections for the people. In addition, I would also make the candidates pay fines for “schemer campaigns”  so if they say negative things such as name calling or spread negative misinformation about other candidates they will have to pay a sum of money for every time their add airs. By enacting this it allowed for the American people to have a better opportunity to vote in elections eliminating the feeling of not knowing enough about the subjects at hand to have an opinion.
Democracy is something the American people heavily value yet neglect to use. There is so many barriers from time to fear of lack of knowledge in making decisions and one thing that should never contribute to these issues is the government. By enabling corporations and limiting the say the people have by such a high extent the fundamental values of democracy are lost. By limiting campaigns, fixing the voting system, and giving the people a say on laws on a federal level the fundamentals of democracy that are lost get restored making the American people happier. I learned from a very young age that America wasn’t a democracy and we were a republic, we chose people we thought we could trust to make the hard decisions for us because they believed what we did, but as I grew I noticed flaws in the system. I noticed that the system didn’t seem fair and honestly, couldn’t really tell you why. After this class, I now see why the system isn’t fair and think that its unacceptable and would change it instantly if I could.

Work Cited Baer, Drake. “15 Teddy Roosevelt Quotes on Courage, Leadership, and Success.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 14 Feb. 2016, http://www.businessinsider.com/theodore-roosevelt-quotes-2016-2.
Bowers, Michael  W. The Sage Brush State Nevada’s History, Government, and Politics. Vol. 4, University of Nevada Press, 2013.
Domonoske, Camila. “A Boatload Of Ballots: Midterm Voter Turnout Hit 50-Year High.” NPR, NPR, 8 Nov. 2018, http://www.npr.org/2018/11/08/665197690/a-boatload-of-ballots-midterm-voter-turnout-hit-50-year-high.
Grey, CGP, director. The Alternative Vote Explained. YouTube, YouTube, 7 Apr. 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE.
Grey, CGP, director. The Problems with First Past the Post Voting Explained. YouTube, YouTube, 9 Mar. 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo.

Shakespeare’s Not So Bad After All

I can remember the first time I read Shakespeare, I read Romeo and Juliet in my ninth grade English honors class. I do not think I have ever hated English more than at that point in time. I hated reading this story about two teens who killed themselves for one another when they had just found out about one another’s existence but a week ago. Then in my junior year, I read the Taming of the Shrew and I thought, for a moment, I could like Shakspeare. I loved the feisty attitudes of the characters and really thought he was pointing out huge issues in abusive relationships and women’s rights, but then everyone in my class seemed to romanticize the characters abuse. All these things turned me off completely to Shakespeare whether it was myself or others interpretations of the plays, but this English class has given me a better liking of Shakespeare because of the things I have learned.

The first thing I learned that had completely changed my mind about Shakespeare was seeing that people could not stand his success so much that they had to make theories about how it could not possibly be him. There was no way someone who came from such low economic status could have reached people the way that he did and entertained such a diverse audience. Not only could he not have reached and entertained in such a successful manner, but that he could not have written so intelligently and eloquently. The idea of an underdog who is successful is always a good story, but a real-life underdog that is dead and still cannot be denied the credit people are trying to take away from them is even better.  

The next thing that peaked my interest in Shakespeare was his relationship with Emilia Bassano Lanie. I think their relationship in itself could be turned into a fiction book with liberties of the author being taken, or an amazing play Shakespeare could have even written himself.  I think it would be really amusing if she really was his secret lover, but none the less I personally think that the way she influenced him was thoughtful and caring. So when reading the papers from class, I saw that Emilia had inspired one of his writing to include the character Othello but I also believe that he modeled the character Katherine Minola after her as well. After learning about Emilia,  she resembles the main character Kat in Taming of the Shrew, physically and mentally, both women are passionate outspoken characters who are tough, and both underwent physical and mental abuse from their husbands. Kat in the story speaks for herself, does what it takes to survive the abuse cycle, and delivers iconic feminist lines about using your brain to control a man who overpowers you physically. Shakspeare met Emilia somewhere between 1603 the time Othello was written and 1649 the time of her death. The play Taming of the Shrew was written in 1590 and Shakespear died in 1616 making the timeline possible. If my theory is correct I find the whole situation to be romantic, that he admired his friend or lover so much that he wrote about her in such a powerful way during his time period.

The last thing that really made me want to appreciate Shakespeare was the fact that he might have been gay. When I read the papers from class I bought into that theory immediately. So much that I showed my high school English teacher the day after I took the notes. She laughed at how my mood about reading Hamlet changed after reading the papers from class with this vital information to my “ gay ego”  to support other people who are or were apart of the LGBTQ+ community. Having full confidence invested into the theory, all the jokes that Shakespeare had made in his plays about male genitalia all started to make sense along with him leaving his wife. That because he was in the entertainment industry that he could most definitely have played around with finding  his sexual orientation. It also made sense as to why he would still have children because it was expected of him. This is something that is still happening in today’s culture where people feel forced to carry on heterosexual lives for fear of telling people who they really are because of homophobia. I think the biggest reason I support the idea of him being gay is that if someone so respected and intelligent was gay back then it makes it even more okay for people to be open and gay now. That it doesn’t make people any less human.

After reading about Shakespeare from the papers in this class I have realized Shakespeare isn’t that bad, in fact, I’m looking forward to reading more of his works.  I think the real reason after reading I am more excited about Shakespeare is the better understanding of who he was. More than who he was, who he is to me now.

After finishing this paper I realized a lot of this was self-reflection from me to him, from him being an underdog, a romantic and a feminist, to him being gay. I am all of these things. He is making me feel better about who I am, that even though I’m all of these things, I’m like him, human, and that he’s on my side, the side of humanity.  I’m excited about reading his work because now I think if he were still alive he would be rooting for me and the rest of the people like me. To have someone do that for once would not be so bad after all.

Everything I need to Know I Learned from Quotes

( Inspired from “All I Need to Know i Learned in Kindergarden”   Robert  Fulghum

• “The more I see the less I know the more I like to let it go…”

Red Hot Chili Peppers

• “Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for they fly.”

Morticia Addams

• “There are just as many opinions as there are jerks.”

Grandpa

• “Sometimes to stay alive you gotta kill your mind”

Twenty-One Pilots

• “You don’t know what that means because a kitchen sink to you is not a kitchen sink to me okay friend?”

Twenty-One Pilots

• “We loved with a love that was more than love.”

Edger Allan Poe

• “Everybody is a genius but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.”

Albert Einstein

• “I thought to be a rebel meant I had to drink, smoke and use drugs like everybody else. Not drinking, not smoking, making a difference that’s a true rebellion.”

James Dean

• “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

John Lennon

• “It means that your future hasn’t been written yet .No ones has. Your future is whatever you make it .so make it a good one, both of you.”

Doc

 

Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we listened to the words of wisdom from the broken, put together, falling apart, the ones long gone and the ones who are yet to rise? If we all like the Red Hot Chili Peppers understood that what we think we know really isn’t the case and to let go of what you thought you knew before? Or if we listened to Mrs. Addams and understood that there is no real sense of the word normal? If we learned not to care what people thought because people don’t matter and can be cruel? To understand that the negative thoughts aren’t who we are and that sometimes we have to be destroyed to rise out of the ashes? To realize that we don’t know what someone’s going though Like Tyler and Josh tell us? To understand that everyone is different and good at different things so we would stop putting our selves down like Albert enlightened us on? So we would stop comparing our selves with one another. To learn like James Dean that the true rebellion is doing the right thing in a world where anyone rarely does by it! Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we would teach children and adults that what they should want to be when they grow up is happy like John Lennon’s mom? But most of all wouldn’t the world be a better place if we listen to the Doc and see we write our futures, not statistics, government, a collage letter that said no, or the parent who didn’t believe in you? These are all things that were said by those who are walking on this earth or once did. “ There is nothing new under the sun” so close your mouth and open your ears and listen to the wise ones who have provided you with keys to doors you will soon have to open.
(Spelling mistakes and all) 

A Poem

( Inspired  by Odysseus and the Siren Song an orignial poem  )

Off on my adventure I go seeking the thrill of the journey ahead

I do not watch my step nor tong

I shut my eyes and sing all the day long

Never do I avoid temptation but I walk to the very edge

I feel my feet halfway off the ledge

How close can I get before my fall?

How long can I feel the rush most of all

To hear the sounds of the sirens ahead

But to stay there on the edge

But I’m smart and cunning at best

I have to be because I do not plummet to my death

Iv gone even further, closer to the abyss

I feel on my heels the pressure of the line that separates me from death

But I’m smart cunning at best

Because I leave for something more and am bored of the abyss

I have not fallen to my death

(spelling mistakes and all)