Elections Test

What I think it takes to win a political election in the United States today is to have a big background in politics and to do a lot of fundraising for a cause that seems to be important for the country, state, and/or county you are running in. For example people like in the movie we watched in class where Jeff Smith had absolutely no political background where the man he was running against had his mother, father, and grandfather all served time in office. That is a big deal because when you have a candidate who is just coming out of nowhere and wants to run, as a voter you tend to think that he does not know what he is talking about or even doing. On the contrary, when someone has a huge political background, the voter looks at him or her as a very strong candidate just because his family is in politics. Now with that said, the media really seems to stem off of if the candidate has any political history in his or her life. The media tends to be biased towards the candidate who has the history, other than the candidate that does not. That does not mean that the media is always right, but the media is there for a reason and that is to get voters to make up their minds about a specific candidate, and to dislike the other one they do not like.
Another way elections work today is basically money. At the beginning of the Jeff Smith’s campaign he did not have a lot of money, so he was not able to get his name out there as much as the other candidates. But with the help from fundraising, he was able to get more supplies, better offices, and more people to work for him so that his name was out there for voters to know. To make that money he had to get his money from the Political Action Committee (PAC). The PAC is any corporation, labor union, trade association, or other organization that contribute at least 5,000 dollars to the candidate they choose. And to get the PACs as a candidate you need to be able to persuade their organization that they are the right candidate for them to sponsor. The more PACs you have, the better your campaign can run, and the more voters you are likely to have. Even though the PACs contribute money only once, soft money, another way to get money is from a steady donation from a government or organization, hard money. By getting money from an ongoing government daycare subsides is one example of hard money. To get the hard money is the same concept of getting soft money, but you have to pay more attention to the hard money because they are constantly giving you money, unlike the PACs where they give money once and that is it. But with their support of many organizations they are able to get lot voters to vote for you. As a candidate you want to have a lot of people to vote for you because now a days the voter turnout is significantly low. With the amount of people going to vote being low, you want to be certain that you have everyone’s vote. With the turnout of voters being so low America is going to start to suffer because the candidates try to get out to as many people as possible, so they spend a lot of money on things to get their name out, which makes our economy worse because no is paying attention. As Americans we need to vote no matter what side of the spectrum you are on you need to vote.
The way elections are today, is very democratic because a democracy is the voting of the people by the people. And every candidate is trying to get the people’s vote so they can be office.

Civil Liberties Test

When freedoms and protections collide, protection always finds away to prevail. To support my opinion I will start off by using the case of New Jersey v. T.L.O. In this case a 14 year old girl was taken to her principal’s office because a teacher had a reasonable suspicion that she was smoking in the bathroom. When she got to the office the principal went through her purse and discovered marijuana along with drug paraphernalia. In this situation, she argued that the principal violated the 4th amendment which states; the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. The problem with this amendment is that there are many loop holes in it, for example when you are in school, you are limited to what your rights are and in loco parentis. And with this in loco parentis took over her rights and which allowed the principal to search through her purse. With loco parentis the officials of any school take the role of the parent for the duration of the school day. Ask any parent, and they will most likely say that protecting their children is more important than their freedoms. Another case that helps support my opinion is Dennis v. United States, in which eleven Communist leaders were arrested and charged with the plan to overthrow the government. Their argument was that they were protected by the 1st amendment, and they took that all the way to Supreme Court, in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the government. Even though freedom of speech gives you the privilege to say what you feel, but when that speech crosses the line of saying what you feel and what puts a subject in danger is where the freedom of speech is voided. Another case is Mirand v. Arizona. In this case Miranda was convicted of rape and kidnapping a little girl, but when arrested he was not told his rights. Upon not being told his rights, he confessed and was charged with rape and kidnap. But then he figured out that he was not given any rights to what he can and cannot do while being arrersted. In Miranda's case, the freedom of speech hurt him instead of helped him, and with the rights given to the detainee, he cannot violate the fifth amendment, which is; No person shall be held to answer for any capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury... With the protection of the fifth amendment he was not able to self-incriminate himself unless he was given the opportunity of a council , and was given his rights. With the case of California v. Greenwood, there was a tip that Greenwood was selling illegal narcotics out of his house, so the police went through his garbage cans and found a mass amount of paraphernalia. Greenwood then argued that he was protected by the fourth amendment and said it was an illegal search, but the Court ruled against him for the reason that, his garbage is open to anyone to look through. And with that he is putting people and animals in harms way with chemicals in his garbage. By him putting American citizens in danger, made protection over-ride his freedom to throw anything away in his garbage. When freedoms and protections collide, the govenrment seems to care more about our protection than our freedom.

Test post

This is my test post.