Semester Test
Describe the major social issues in the United States that we discussed in class.
Social Issues:
Gun Control: Democrats favor gun control. Republicans think gun control laws are unconstitutional. (protected by 2nd amendment-Right to bear arms) I think that we should not have laws to increase gun control.
Abortion: Democrats think that it is a woman’s right and they should make their own choices. Republicans think that abortion should be illegal and restricted by law. According to the map on the political power point a minor must notify one parent before getting an abortion. I think that it’s the mother’s choice. Two sides to this controversy; pro-life and pro-choice.
Immigration: Republicans think that illegal immigrants are here illegally and should be punished for their crime. Obama says that illegal immigrants should be granted amnesty and given a chance to earn citizenship. Obama also thinks that people with an advanced STEM diploma should be given green cards so they can go out and start good businesses and help our economy. I think illegal immigrants should be sent back to their country when caught because they broke a law to get in our country. The wall is also being added to, to make sure that no people can cross illegally. The US government is also using unmanned aircraft to find people using heat seaking technology trying to cross the border during the night.
Legalization of Marijuana: Marijuana is legal for medicinal use in 20 states and Washington D.C. I think that it should be legal because I think it is less harmful than cigarettes. There are many positive effects and negative effects of marijuana.
Positive:
-Relaxation
-Munchies (help people eat more)
-Decrease anxiety
-Decrease depression
-Very hard to overdose on marijuana
Negative:
-Munchies (eating too much could be unhealthy)
-Forgetfulness
-Concentration difficulties
-Oversleeping
-Dizziness
-Nausea
-Getting high if taking too much
Same Sex Marriage: I think people should be able to pick who they marry, and the government shouldn’t be able to tell them who they can or can’t marry. Same sex marriage is legal in 15 states and Washington D.C. Most democrats think that it should be legal and think that there should be laws in place to make sure that people get equal protection as non-same sex marriages. People that don’t agree with it think that it is not a real marriage, and think it deprives the child of a mother or father. Lots of major religious groups disagree with same sex marriage.
2. What are the main economic and political systems that are practiced in the world and how do they differ?
Economic and Political Systems:
Representative Democracy: People vote for a representative to go to congress and trust they will vote for what they want him to. United States is a very good example of this, but a lot of countries have this aspect of government.
Direct Democracy: The people control and vote for things in the government. This type of system is easier with countries with a small population. Switzerland is a good example of this system.
Absolute Monarchy: A king or queen is in charge and they have complete power over their country. They do not have to follow a constitution, and have no limit of power. Some countries with this system include: Brunei, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Swaziland, and Vatican City.
Constitutional Monarchy: This is a form of government where a king or queen has to follow a constitution/certain set of rules. Their power is limited. Countries with this system include: Australia, Andorra, Belgium, United Kingdom, Canada, and Japan.
Communism (Practice): The government owns the things that are used to make and transport products (such as land, oil, factories, ships, etc.) and there is no privately owned property.
Communism (Theory): Karl Marx’s theory was to spread all the wealth equally between the people. He also wanted to give equal amounts of land to everybody.
Anarchy: There is no government and the country is usually ruled by a military group.
Dictatorship: A country has dictatorship when there is a leader that rules over everybody and they can make laws. What they say goes. Two examples of dictators are Kim Jong Un and Hitler.
Socialism- a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies
Capitalism- a way of organizing an economy so that the things that are used to make and transport products (such as land, oil, factories, ships, etc.) are owned by individual people
3. What are the major differences between democrats and republicans in the United States?
Differences between Democrats and Republicans:
Democrats: Liberal, favor change in society, oppose government intervention into one’s private life, support regulations on economic activity and businesses, favor an active role of government in society, want to increase taxes to support systems.
Republicans: Conservative, favor limited role for government, favor lower taxes, believe in trickle-down theory, believe in rugged individualism, and believe in laissez-faire.
NOT ALL DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS AGREE ON ALL ISSUES WITHIN THEIR PARTY!
4. What is income inequality, why is it an issue and what can be done to help improve it?
Income Inequality:
Definition: Income inequality refers to how evenly or unevenly income is distributed in a society.
Why it is an Issue: The rich are taking a lot of the US’s wealth and the poor are getting a lot less. Pretty much the saying “The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer” comes into effect in this situation. Prosperity is not being distributed equally; instead it’s being concentrated in the hands of a few.
What Can be Done?: Break down social barriers, unify public schools if there are two schools and they seem to be separated by class, raise the minimum wage, higher taxes for the rich, give workers more power within their company by creating unions, and limits on campaign spending could help the minorities with not as much money have a heavier influence on elections. Rich people are pretty much buying the winner of the campaign. One more thing that could help would be giving money to the poor.
5. Discuss 9-11 and the impact it had on the US.
9/11 was a terrorist attack on the United States on the date of September 11th 2001 by the terrorist group of Al Qaeda. There were four planes and each one that was taken over was sent to take down some aspect of our freedom: Twin towers (economical), Pentagon (military), and the last one of the four planes was supposedly sent to crash into the White House, but it was taken over by civilians and crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. (Political)
The US used to support Al Qaeda because they were rebelling against the Soviet Union, which was one of our biggest enemies back in the 70’s. The group was very small compared to the Soviet army, but they weakened the army by taking out small parts at a time. The Soviet Union eventually couldn’t handle the group and withdrew from the war in 1989.
Impacts:
Death (About 3,000 were killed in the terrorist attack on 9/11.)
Homeland Security was created to protect our country from something like this happening ever again.
There is increased security in airports/on planes. (Full body scans, no knives, pat downs, no large containers of liquid, air marshals, increased security of cockpit.)
Positive effect: Made our country more patriotic for a few years because everyone wanted one thing; to go in and kill who was responsible for taking the lives of 3,000 Americans.
Decade of war in Afghanistan which has killed about 2,000 total US military soldiers.
Our budget for our security agencies also increased by a ton.
Deportation has been another impact of 9/11. The number of illegal immigrants being deported doubled after 9/11.
After 9/11 the DOW stock market dropped 600 points immediately because the twin towers were major economical buildings.
The attack also led to one of the largest spending programs in US history; the War on Terror.
6. Discuss the Iraq war and the impact it had on the US.
The Iraqi war started because the US wanted to remove Saddam Hussein from power. The US military wanted to disarm Iraq of all weapons of mass destruction to stop these weapons ending up in the hands of terrorists. The US wanted to free the Iraqi people and end the human rights violation of the governing Baath party. Saddam Hussein was the dictator of this party and he had gassed his people. His army invaded Kuwait and the US sent soldiers into Saudi Arabia to try to pressure Saddam to pull his soldiers out, but he didn’t. The US then invaded Kuwait and pushed out all of his forces in about a month. This war lasted for March of 2003 until 2011. The US entered Iraq because we knew Saddam Hussein was there. Some soldiers caught him in a hole, and he was hanged by the Iraq government. Saddam may have said he had nuclear weapons as a bluff so Iran, the country’s biggest enemy, didn’t attack them.
The impact the War in Iraq would be of course casualties and cost($$) but also that it became very negative in the US because people started believing that the US lied to the people as far as why we went to war there(WMD's). Then Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke out and it became even more negative.
Cost=800 billion
Number of US military casualties: 4, 486
7. Discuss the Situation in Iran
Six world powers and Tehran reached an agreement that states Iran is to limit its nuclear activities in return for lighter sanctions. The six world powers that came to an agreement are the US, UK, France, Russia, China, and Iran. This group is also known as the P5+1 group. The United States launched a nuclear program with Iran in 1957. But the U.S. pulled its support when the Shah was overthrown during the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Iran signed a treaty saying they would not build any nuclear weapons, but they did anyways. India and Pakistan also have nuclear weapons, but they did not sign this treaty. As part of the deal, Iran has to reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium to 20%. Iran also has to stop all enrichment above 5% and dismantle all machines that are used to enrich uranium. A machine that they use to enrich uranium is a centrifuge. If Iran doesn’t do this there will be more sanctions added, and more pressure will be put on them.
8. UN Goals:
What are some of the major problems the world is facing, what are the causes of these problems and what is being done to help solve these problems?
Universal Education:
We want to ensure, that by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling. The UN wants all children to be educated and be able to read by 2015. This is a goal for the UN because there are still 57 million children in the world that do not have a chance to go to school. There is an astounding 123 million children aged 15-24 that lack basic reading and writing skills. It’s amazing that 61% of those 123 million youth are women. There were 95 literate young women for every 100 young men in 2010, compared with 90 women in 1990. The number of out-of-school children dropped from 102 million to 57 million from 2000 to 2011. Primary education enrolment in developing countries reached 90 per cent in 2010. This problem most majorly affects people in poverty ridden parts of South America, Africa, and the Middle East.
Poverty and Hunger
Poverty and hunger are major problems throughout the world. The UN wants to halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1.25 a day. The target of reducing extreme poverty rates by half was met five years ahead of the 2015 deadline. However, there still are 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty. The UN wants achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people. 384 million workers lived below the $1.25 a day poverty line in 2011—a reduction of 294 million since 2001, so they have still not met this goal. There is a gender gap in employment. There was a 24.8 percentage point difference between men and women in the employment-to-population ratio in 2012. The UN’s third goal for this topic was to halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger. The hunger reduction target is within reach by 2015. About 870 million people throughout the world are considered to be underfed. 100 million under the age of five are still underfed and underweight.
Gender Equality
The UN’s third goal is to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015. The world has achieved equality in primary education between girls and boys, but only 2 out of 130 countries have achieved that target at all levels of education. 40 out of every 100 wage-earning jobs in the non-agricultural sector were held by women in 2011. This is a significant improvement since 1990. In many countries gender inequality is a major problem. Women continue to face discrimination in access to education, work and economic assets, and participation in government. Violence against women continues to weaken efforts to reach all goals. Poverty is a major barrier to secondary education, especially among older girls. Women are largely relegated to more vulnerable forms of employment. Women also are less likely to have formal work arrangements, and are therefore more likely to lack decent working conditions, adequate social security and ‘voice’ in their company.
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