Posted by 3Madison on December 17, 2009 at 10:44pm
Main Political and Economic SystemsThere are eight major political and economic systems of the world. The first one is Direct Democracy which means the people have complete power. There are no representatives, congress, senate, or house. It would be challenging to run it orderly and efficiently. It works better in small settings like towns, but not for countries. Although no country in the world practices it, most try to strive to have their country like this.Representative Democracy is when people elect representatives for their country to make laws for them. Each state chooses senators, and it is very important that you vote in this type of political system. If you’re unhappy with the decisions that the person is making then you just try to vote him out the next term. The United States is the bestexample of this type of political system. Other examples are Canada, Mexico, and Western Europe.Next is Communism which has two parts to it; the theory, and the practice. The theory is that poor people will rise over the rich and powerful people, and there will be no classes. Everyone will be equal, and the government will own everything. Karl Marks and Frederick Ingles are the ones who thought of this idea, all though they never told us how to achieve this kind of political system. This kind of government is going to hurt the motivation of people, because they aren’t going to work if they don’t have to. The society would be in chaos, and people would take advantage of it. I think that someone will always rise up and be a leader, and then start a different type of government. Those are the reasons why it has never happened in the world. The actual practice of communism, the government has complete control over everything people do, say, and their rights. This is a horrible government to have. There are only five places that still practice it; China, Laos, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba. The Soviet Union was the mother ship thatstarted it all. Fidel Castro and Joseph Stalin are two examples of communist leaders.Dictatorship is one person who has complete or total power over everything. A good example of this is Adolf Hitler.Constitutional Monarchy is a form of government in which there is a king or a queen, but there power is limited by a constitution. They really don’t have a lot of power; they are just a figure head or a tradition. An example of this is Queen Elizabeth, or European countries, or Great Britain.Absolute Anarchy is when the king or queen has complete power, which is basically a dictator. This is the oldest form of government, which has been around since the middle ages. Not all of the kings and queens were bad, but some were. Some examples of this government are in Saudi Arabia, and Brunei.The next economic and political system is socialism, which controls some of the businesses. It is more like a softer communism, because in communism it controls all of the businesses. China is becoming more capitalist and socialist; Some European countries are socialist. United States is somewhat socialist because the government controls our schools and our health care.Capitalism is where people run and own their business; like private ownership. People often use the term laze fair which means the government stays out of it, and let the people do as they please. This type of government strives on hard work, although the down side is that you have very few percent of people controlling the money. Unlike socialism and capitalism you don’t have to worry about the effort that people give. I like this government though because you get to control your fate, whether you want to have a good life or not.Almost all countries are mixed economies. This means they have more than one political or economic system. In some countries businesses are controlled by the government and some are not. In the United States schools and postal systems are controlled by the government, but most things are private ownership; we are mostly capitalism though. Great Britain, France, and Canada are better examples of mixed economies.Major Political PartiesThere are many different political parties in the United States like the Modern Whig party, Objectivist party, and the Americas Independent party. The main two are Democrats and Republicans. Both the Democrats and the Republicans don’t agree on most things. Many people are in between because they might not believe in abortion, but are stricter environmentally. There is a lot of media bias, which means the reporters put their own opinion in it. Some examples are CNN which is more liberal, and FOX which is more conservative. The location where you live can also affect what party you belong too. Democrats are usually in more populated areas of the west coast, and the northeastern part, and the states surrounding the great lakes. Republicans are basically everywhere in between. They are in the Great Plains states and agriculture states. This is just a real broad area of where the two different parties live, and this is not always true.Republicans are usually more religious based, they don’t believe in abortion or gay marriage. They are usually the party that saves money, and they favor lower taxes. Republicans want a limited role in the government, and that people should determine their own future. They believe this because people might start getting lazy if everyone relies on the government. Republicans also believe in laze fair, and the trickle down theory.Democrats favor change in the society, and they spend more money. Liberals believe in increasing taxes on the rich and wealthy. They want support programs like environment programs, anti-discrimination programs, which help people in many different ways. They also don’t agree with the government intervening on their private life, so they are pro-choice and for gay marriage or civil unions at least. They do not believe in laze fair so they support strict regulations on businesses. They make sure that businesses are not taking advantage of people.Republicans are pro-life because they say human life begins at conception, so it is considered murder. Democratsbelieve in pro-choice because they think it is a woman’s choice, and don’t like the government in people’s privacy.Republicans think that flag burning is disrespectful, and that there should be an amendment against it. Democrats on the other hand think it is a right to free speech.Republicans believe in gun control because the second amendment states right to bear arms. Democrats favor stricter gun control because it kills so many lives.Both groups want to save the environment, but the democrats are way stricter about it. Republicans think that extreme environmental policies destroy jobs and damage the economy. Democrats think that we are a major cause to global warming, so they are more willing to spend more money to clean up the earth.Republicans don’t believe in affirmative action because you should be hired on your ability, not on your race. Democrats believe in affirmative action because America is such a racist society that minorities won’t get educated if we don’t have this law.Republicans think that minimum wage should be kept where it is because it helps businesses. Democrats want to raise it to help the average person out.Both parties agree that the prices are outrageous in health care. Republicans believe that it should still be privately owned, because if we switch to universal everyone will get the same poor quality health care. Democrats want a universal or government run health care because millions of Americans don’t have it; which they think is a right. (It would be nice if everyone had health insurance, but I don’t think it will happen.)Republicans think taxes should be cut because it puts more money in people’s wallets, which help businesses. Democrats believe that increasing taxes on wealthy, so they can create jobs and social welfare programs.Republicans believe in spending more money on the military because it is very important. Democrats don’t think that a lot of money should be spent on military because it is not high on their priority list.Republicans favor the death penalty because it is necessary, effective, and fits the crime. Democrats don’t believe in it because it could be an innocent person, and that they could have a second chance.Republicans are against gay rights because they are very religious, and that marriage should be between a man and a woman. Democrats think that it is your right to marry anyone you please.Republicans believe in prayer in school because it is part of their heritage, and because the government should not interfere with religious freedom. Democrats oppose it because they think that it violates the separation of church and state.Republicans feel that we should continue our fight against terrorism. We need to finish what we have set out to accomplish. If we left, things would just collapse again, and we want to make sure the government is stable. Democrats really don’t have a strategy, but they do want the United Nations more involved, and they want a time table set.Causes and effects of Global WarmingGlobal Warming is the heating of the earth’s temperature by many different causes. The biggest cause of warming over the years is due to greenhouse gases. The biggest contributor to that is burning fossil fuels. There are many theories of global warming causes, like humans. We burn fossil fuels, drive cars, and have tons of factories. Some other things that cause global warming are CO2 emissions which are sometimes natural. Water vapor also contributes to global warming. Some other natural causes of global warming that emit CO2 into the air are volcanic eruptions, and solar cycles and cosmic rays. There are many harmful effects for having too much greenhouse gases like; rising sea levels, changes in seasonal weather patterns, increase in weather effects like tornadoes and hurricanes. It can also lower river and lakes that are fed by snow melt off, and it can cause habitat loss for many different plants and animals like the polar bears. The polar ice caps have also been melting which leads to oceans rising. There are just a few simple things to do, to try to prevent some of these things from happening like; ride a bike, save electricity, paper, and water to try to help our planet out.Causes and effects of overpopulationMany people call it the mother of all problems. It is where there are too many people in the world to meet the needs of everyone. The causes of overpopulation are the decrease in the death rate due to a higher quality health care, and better medicines. There has also been a huge rise in the birth rate over the years because of advancing in nutritional science and human fertility rate. There are also treatments to help with conception. Many people have a lack of knowledge on this event, so they keep having more and more kids. We are starting to see and feel the effects of this every day. There are so many people that we are starting to destroy our planet, and the land around us like; our forests and fertile soil. Destroying the forests leads to another huge problem, species extinction. We do not have enough resources for everyone; the hungry and the poor suffer the most from this problem. There are things that we can do to slow it down; example would be taxes, so that you could only have no more than two children.Impact of GlobalizationTechnology advances over the years have made the world a “level playing field.” Which means, due to technology we can communicate anywhere on earth with other people. This all happened through Globalization 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. The real flattener of the world was the collapsing of the Berlin Wall, because it allowed us to see the world as a flat plain. Another important day is when Netscape went public; the common person could get on the internet. As long as you have internet you can learn anything, and communicate from all over the world. People are now offshoring and outsourcing to other countries, which Americans don’t like, because it means fewer jobs for us. In many ways Americans, especially younger people need to be concerned about this, because if China and India keep getting stronger it is going to be hard for us to stay on the top. If our jobs keep getting sent over to different countries, there is not going to be American jobs left.IraqWe first went to war with Iraq in 1990, because they had invaded Kuwait, and then again in 2003. Many people did not agree with Bush when he declared to go to war with Iraq. The three main reasons that we went over there was; to capture Saddam Hussein, find out if they had any WMD, and set the Iraqis free. Saddam Hussein was eventually captured, and the Iraqis life has since then improved. The Iraqi government voted to elect members, which is a huge step for them. Democrats wanted us to pull out, but Bush wanted to stay in there until there government was fully stable. We never did find WMD in Iraq. By the end of August 2010 we are supposed to have most of our troops out of Iraq. Between 35,000 to 50,000 will stay there to keep things under control.AfghanistanAl Qaeda hijacked four of our planes on 9-11, and crashed two in the world trade center, one into the Pentagon, and one in rural Pennsylvania. Due to brave men and woman the situation could have been much worse. Bush then declared war on Afghanistan, because this was where the Taliban was located, that helped Al Qaeda make this horrible day happen. We are still looking for Bin Laden, leader of Al Qaeda, to this day. Afghanistan’s government has been repaired, and the new leader is Hamid Karzai. Obama is now focused on Afghanistan and is sending 30,000 troops there.IranAhmadinejad is leader of Iran, and Ali Khamenei is the prime minister. Even though Khamenei is only a prime minister, everything goes through him. Ahmadinejad wants to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth, and he does not like us because we are protecting Israel. He also believes that the Holocaust never happened. Iran’s nuclear program was set up in the 1950’s. The United States questioned if Iraq was making nuclear weapons, but wasn’t sure. Iran was not listening to anything that the IAEA or the UN said to do. Iran specifically said, that this was just for peaceful purposes. The United States on the other hand thought that they could be making nuclear weapons. We then found nuclear weapons in Iran, and they really have not been trying to hide it anymore.DarfurThe war started because the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA), and the JEM (Justice and Equality Movement). The JEM wanted to over through the Sudanese and battle government forces. The government had favored the Arabs over the black people. Sudanese military and the Janjaweed were one group, and the other one was composed of Sudan Liberation Movement/Army and JEM. The government secretly sided with the Janjaweed and helped them out. The United States had announced that this was genocide, but the UN never did. There was an estimation of over 400,000 people that have died due to killing, being displaced, or relying on aid.RwandaThe two main ethnic groups are the Hutus and the Tutsis, which 85% of them were Hutus. It was a 100 day killing in 1994,that killed over 800,000, which was done by the Hutu extremist. It all started because President Habyarimana was going to sign a peace agreement. His plane was shot down by the Hutus which was blamed by the Tutsis. The UN did not do much to stop this. The main weapon that was used was the machete. The Tutsis (FAR) ended up winning.SomaliaSomalia is a failed state, either because of a war or a natural disaster. The people living in Somalia are not provided with the basic things; like school, or transportation. Families that live in Somalia live on the bare edge, only earning a dollar or even less. So when terrorist groups ask them to join them for a lot more money, it is a very difficult situation for them. They are torn between trying to provide more for their family, or risking their lives involved in this terrorist group.3Madison
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