Inherit the Wind Blog

“Inherit the Wind” is about a man that had ideas, ideas that were different from their ordinary everyday life. This man (Cates) had to stand up for what he believed in even though majority believed he was wrong. I believe standing up for what we believe in is obviously timeless and universal. There is always going to be a few individuals who stand up for what they believe in and make our world a better place because they chose to do so.
Through reading the play and thinking about standing up for ourselves the first person that came to mind was Rosa Parks. On December 1, 1955 Parks refused to give her front bus seat up to a white man even though African Americans were supposed to sit in the back of the bus. She was sick of the degrading treatment she and many others received, "Our mistreatment was just not right, and I was tired of it" (Parks’ recent book, Quiet Strength, 1994). She believed she was to be treated right and for her it came down to a bus seat, but little did she know with that small act it moved millions. Without these few individuals like Mrs. Parks who stood up for what she believed in who knows where we would stand today.

Promoting Democracy

After reading if “Should Promoting Democracy Abroad be a Top U.S. Priority?” even though I do not think it should be our nation’s top priority, I had to agree with Joseph Siegle. Prior to reading the article I thought I would agree with Cofman and say it shouldn’t be a priority, but Siegle had good information and great points on why we should be promoting whereas I didn’t see really any strong points Cofman may have had. Siegle’s main point that seemed to be stated throughout his half of the article was “Democratizing states move to establish and strengthen these institutions of shared power tend to develop more rapidly” (Pg/43). He started off with saying, “a large amount of political science research in the 1990s suggests that democracies have historically been less likely to fight wars with other democracies” (Pg/41), which is understandable because when I think of a country that has an established democratic government the country handles its own by words instead of action. In other words things like to be settled verbally instead of by force.
There was one piece I took from Cofman, “Why, after all, should Arab democrats believe us?” Which I think does make a good point because the United States has degraded our credibility with others in the world, but we are still putting ourselves out there to try and help things move along even though it may not seem that way to many. It seemed as if Cofman was beating around the bush as to why we shouldn’t be promoting democracy to others. I found his best argument was that it is an enormous cost, but what isn't these days and helping others to have an established government which will provide for better living standards is worth it; Siegle claims, “it is widely recognized that almost all of the world’s prosperous states are democracies” (Pg/47). I do believe we should try to promote democracy best we can to other countries as long as we are very careful as to how we do so.

Blog #4

I agree with Andrew Sullivan who said torture is obviously wrong. I didn’t really have to read the article to come to that conclusion; I have always though that torture was morally wrong and it goes against what America stands for. Charles Krauthammer believes there are three types of war prisoners, first the ordinary soldiers caught in battle that “we have no right to disturb a hair on his head”. Second, the captured terrorist whom is defined as an unlawful combatant meaning he does not abide by the law, also hiding among civilians and targeting innocence. Krauthammer believes he deserves no protection which a lot of people would agree with as an instinct that this person is an awful human being who deserves nothing. Everyone can see that point, but once you get down to that they are human beings too and even though nothing can get lower than what they might do to innocent people they do not deserve to be tortured to any extent.
Finally there are the terrorists with information. Now as the author says this is where the issue of torture gets complicated he is absolutely right. This should be the bottom line reason that torture should without a doubt be abolished. We can all see Bin Laden being tortured and most would just look the other way because we all share the hatred towards him because of what we know he has done to our country. What about those that we aren’t sure of, those we have no proof for? Torturing innocent lives to try and get information is no different in my eyes than what terrorist do to other innocent lives. Krauthammer put a quote in this article I could not help but laugh over, “we do not descend to the level of our enemy”. How can he even think of saying such a thing when we Americans have taken innocent lives and physically and mentally destroyed who they once were?
Sullivan made two incredible points in his half of the article that really stood out to me. “The entire point of war on terrorism, according to the president, is to advance freedom and democracy in the Arab world. In Iraq, we had a chance not just to tell be to show the Iraqi people how a democracy acts. And, tragically, in one critical respect, we failed.” Now to me that says a whole lot in a couple sentences such as we have realized we failed why are we still over there and what else could we possibly be looking for? His last quote in this article stuck to me and relates to my first two lines, “If we legalize torture, even under constrained conditions, we will have given up a large part of the idea that is America. We will have lost the war before we have given ourselves the chance to win it”. That quote is pretty self explanatory and supports my idea that torture is cruel, inhuman, and no where close to an idea when I think of what it means to be an American.