Ok, new plan.
So, we have the midterm the Monday after next, March 5th. Next week we will have class on Monday and Wednesday and a special Wednesday evening class on the 28th of Feburary to watch "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," exact time and place to be announced.
For your reading Friday I would like you to read Tocqueville, Chapter 7, from page 235 to 248 (leaving off the very last section). It is a brilliant piece of writing and, if you remember only one thing from the course it is the one I hope sticks with you.
For next week I would like to go back to the reader for Monday and read Lincoln and Martin Luther King's respective pieces on Rights, selections 19 and 20. Lincoln's piece is called "On the Prepetuation of our Institutions," and King's is called "Letter from a Birmingham Jail Cell." If you don't have the reader for some reason I am certain you can find them on the web. For Wendesday morning we will review for the exam.
5 comments:
The five presidents that Truman talked about in his essay as he said were "honorable men, whether you like them or agree with them or not." He says that each one of the worked very hard to get into office, but once they got there, they never knew what to do as president. This has changed a lot in the 20th and 21st centuries because America is involved in so many conflicts not on American soil.
The five presidents before the Civil War were dealing with a conflict that was happening on American soil, so it is easy to overlook it and hope it will resolve itself. Today, presidents are dealing with wars and conflicts that are affecting our entire world. If a president does not come into the White House with a game plan, our nations and many other nations are in a serious amount of trouble. Also, the people of our nation no longer elect presidents without a definitive plan during their campaign. Our elections are so controversial because each president has a decisive plan of action, and what we are voting on is whose plan we like better based on our values and beliefs. Our presidential candidates seriously consider their plans and make sure that they are ready to be undertaken if they are elected into office. The five weak presidents were just running for president, not running for president to become an effective leader of our country.
I think this change is essentially what made the presidency move from the weak institution to the strong institution it is today because we are involved on a global scale and can no longer keep an isolationist policy. (The media has also influenced the way the presidency is viewed as well.)
That is an interesting point. I think that the last two Presidents have, however, been elected without a plan.
Clinton was the first President elected after the end of the Cold War. His informal slogan was "Its the economy, stupid."
Bush had evinced even less interest in international affairs before coming to office. Remember that no one expected foreign policy to be important in his administration.
Do you think, in line with your theory, that we would be in a better position internationally if our last two presidents had been better prepared in foreign affairs before coming to office?
Justin Huckaby
6th paper
The Harry Truman interviews were quite interesting to me. For some reason, minus the dropping of the atomic bombs in Japan, Harry Truman never had a profound affect on me while studying American History in high school. However, I do remember studying the Korean War, and I learned that he had fired Gen. MacArthur. This infuriated me when I my teacher said this. Gen. MacArthur was an important figure from World War II. I thought that Truman’s firing him was the most disgraceful thing I had ever heard.
My point with this writing has nothing to do with the firing Gen. MacArthur. After reading these interviews, I was amazed to see that President Truman would not consider that dropping the atom bomb was a mistake. He refused to ever publicly admit this. This is a great quality that I feel every president should possess. When I think back to last Friday’s discussion on the presidency. I remember that the class seemed to be divided on the issue of whether or not the president should admit mistakes to the public. I said then and I say now that this is a big no. That would destroy every aspect of how our enemy nations view us. Though, yes, admitting a person’s mistakes is a good quality to possess for a one on one basis, it is not a good one for our president. If our president publicly announced that he had made a mistake, it would cause the leaders of our enemies to view us as having our guard down. They would think that we were weak because we had no idea what we were doing. Sometimes this maybe the case, but we do not want our enemies to think this. Resulting from this, we could have another attack like Japan’s on Pearl Harbor or like 9/11. It is just not politically a good move to do admit mistakes.
Even though President Truman did not leave an impacting impression on me, which I feel has a little to do with the fact that FDR is my favorite president and we always try to compare Truman with FDR, he was a really strong president. He had ideas and he accomplished them. I commend him on his decision to never apologize or admit a mistake for what happened in Japan. I’m sure there are a lot of people who disagree with me, and that is fine. I just feel that when it came to how the president should present himself to the foreign world, President Truman had it figured out.
From the Truman interviews, as well as, the class discussion we had on Wednesday I felt that for a president to admit his mistakes successfully he must establish himself in the beginning. For example Pres. Truman was known for making decisions and never backing down from them regardless of whether or not they were wrong or right. Many people criticized him for this, but the majority applauded him for it because Americans felt proud of a president who wouldn't back down from any issue.
In my opinion I feel that the president admitting his mistakes can be a good thing or a bad thing. First off, it can be seen as a very bold thing for someone to come out and admit to thier mistakes, "like a man." So to say that admitting mistakes automatically means it makes us seem weak, is untrue. Second, if a president is willing to admit his mistakes then this would probably make solve problems faster and more efficiently, instead of dragging out dumb decisions just because you are scared to admit your mistakes. I do agree that this type of president would probably be criticized at times, but he or she would also be seen as a very accomplished and successful president at the end of their term. My main argument is that I would rather have a president who would be willing to adjust to the situation when a bad decision is made instead of one who sticks it out simply because they are afraid of the criticism. We are all human beings here and we do make mistakes. You could argue against that comment by saying that is why they are elected as President, but then you must consider the difficulty of the issues they face. Normal citizens of America never have to deal with decisions of near the magnitude of the Pres. I just feel that we should be more focused on fixing an issue than trying to stick them out just because that was the original plan. Just because the first plan doesn't work does not mean you can't try something else, if anything being versitile will make us more powerful than being stubborn. When others countries see that we can take on anything thrown at us they will be more intimidated and terrified than ever.
Michael Moore
paper #6
As I look over the break there is only one thing that crosses my mind. This is about the discussion that we had on either Monday or Wednesday on whether a President should admit that he has made a mistake. I believe that we all make mistakes however we do not always admit when they are wrong because it will make us look like; one we are an ass and two like we are weak. That is the one thing that the leader of the strongest country can not be or seem to be is WEAK.
Also I believe that a President is known not only by what happens while he is in office, but how he handles the situation. The President should come into the office he is elected into with a plan of some sort and if things happen adjust and handle the situation as it comes. As it comes to mind with 9/11 and Katrina I believe that these controversies should be now left alone because the situation is almost resolved. The Bush administration is doing everything in its power to rectify the situation.
Now to agree with Hannah, the five “weak” Presidents of the past were just running to get into office they had no official plan of action that they intended on instituting once they got into office. I believe that the office of the President was put on a pedestal and it was up for grabs. The office was more of a popularity contest mostly composed of bribes and trickery. This is why I believe that recently we as a country have gotten better about who we put into office because we vote on who we think has an actual plan that is going to be instituted and how it will better benefit us as a country. All in all I believe that not only has the Presidential office gotten stronger but it is what made us as a country united and stronger also.
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