Social Issues:
Gun control- Most democrats are in favor of gun control; whereas republicans feel that gun controls laws are unconstitutional because the 2nd amendment is the right to bear arms. I feel that we should have more gun control laws because I think it could help with shootings.
Abortion- there are 2 sides to the abortion argument, Pro choice, and pro life. Republicans are against abortion or pro life, but democrats feel that the woman should be able to make her own decisions which is pro choice. I do not think that abortion is right, but I do feel that it should be a mothers choice.
Immigration- Obama says illegal imigrants should be allowed a chance to become a US citizen, and that the immigrants with an advanced STEM diploma can start businesses in our country, which will help out our economy. Republicans think that since illegal immigrants are here illegally they should be punished, or sent back to their country from which they came from. In my opinion if we can get immigrants to help our country by creating businesses then we should allow them to, I also think they should have a chance to become citizens
Legalizing Marijuana- Right now only 20 states and Washington DC allow medical marijuana to be used, some of those states are Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Oregon just to name a few. There are both positives and negatives for this topic, some of the positives are relaxation, munchies can help people who can’t gain weight, decreased anxiety, decreased depression, and it is very hard to overdose on marijuana. The negatives, Munchies could be bad and unhealthy, forgetfulness, concentration difficulties, dizziness, and nausea. I don’t think that marijuana should be legal at all, because it could lead to the legalization of other illegal drugs.
Same Sex marriage- In my opinion same sex marriage is not a big deal, it should not affect anyone who is not gay. Republicans are against same sex marriage , because they believe more religion. Right now 13 states and Washington DC allow same sex marriage.
Economic political systems;
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. Eventually would cause Socialism
Anarchy: There is no government and the country is usually ruled by a military group. Somali
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.
Economic Systems
Socialism- Everyone is equal, every person gets the same income no matter what they do for a living, never has been a true socialist government.
Capitalism- income inequality, the people who make the most money are the top. Have classes, lower class, middle class and high class.
Differences – democrats and republicans;
Democrats are more liberal , and like to see a change in society, and favor an active role for government in a society. Democrats also tend to favor tax raises.
Republicans- republicans are very conservative, tend to lower taxes, and believe in rugged individualism and the trickle down theory
But not all democrats or republicans agree on all issues in their party.
Income inequality- how evenly or unevenly income is distrubted throughout a country. , it is an issue because the rich people in the us are taking a lot of the wealth, and the poor are getting less. The top 1% wealthiest people in our country have almost 40 percent of the welth. We can help even this out by doing many different things, if a town has 2 schools that are separated by class can be unified, which will break down social barriers, raising minimum waige would also help close the gap between the richest people and the poorest people. If limits are put on campaigns would help minorities have more say in the election.
9/11
9/11 was a terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 by Al qaeda, Four planes attempted to crash into important buildings in our country. Those buildings were the twin towers, the pentagon, and the 4th plane was suspected to be heading towards the white house, but it crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, after civilians took over the plane and crashed it.
our country supported Al Qaeda because they were fighting against the soviet union who was one of biggest enemies. At that time the group was small when you compared it to the soviet army, but they used guerilla warfare to take down small parts of the soviet army. The soviets eventually withdrew from the war in 1989.
Impacts of 9/11; about 3 thousand people were killed during the attack, but because of the attacks Homeland Secruity was created to help stop things like this from happening in the future. It caused the Dow to drop 600 points immediately after the attack, beause of the twin towers being main economic buildings in for our country. 9/11 also caused an increase in airport security, and for a few years after the attack it caused our country to become more united, and patriotic because all of our citizens wanted to take down the people responsible for the attacks.
War in Iraq:
The war in Iraq was an extremely controversial war and many citizens feel that we went into war “just because”. The government gave a couple of different justifications for going into Iraq, such as Iraq had WMD’s which was against sanctions, and that we wanted to help out the Iraqi government. But in my opinion I feel that we went to war with Iraq for cheaper oil, and also because president bush wanted to do what his father had failed to do many years earlier, which was take down Saddam Hussein. He was killed on December 30, 2006. Almost 4500 american soldiers were killed during the war. Because of this war we did achieve more oil from the middle east after sadaam was taken out of power.
Situation in Iran
world powers 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. 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.
UN Millennium Goals
Universal Education: The goal is to get primary schooling for every child, and all children be able to read by 2015. There are 57 million children in the world without the chance to get an education, there is 123 million children between ages 15 and 24 that do not have basic reading and writing skills. Almost 61 percent of the children are women. There has a been a 5 percent change in the gap between literate boys, and literate girls. There are 95 literate girls for every 100 literate boys. The primary education enrolment has gotten to 90 percent in developing countries.
Gender Equality: The goal is to get equal opportunities for women throughout the world, the biggest problems with this are in the middle east, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Yemen is allowing more women to get an education.
Child Mortality: The child Mortality rate is how many children die before the age of 1. Children born into families with poverty are 5 times more likely to die before age 1. The highest rate is in Sub Saharan Africa which is 1 in 10. Children born with mothers that have an education are more likely to live.
Improve Maternal Health: Goal is to reduce the mortality rate by ¾.
Combat HIV/AIDS: Reverse HIV by 2015, right now it is getting better, but there still is no cure. Goal was to find a treatment by 2010, but still has not been found. UN can still help by giving people different types of contraception.
Ensure Environmental Sustainability: Goal is to reverse loss of environmental resources, stop deforestation. Mainly in Africa, and south America. Goal is also to help with sanitation . 200 million of these people gained access to improved water sources, sanitation facilities or durable/less crowded housing
Global Partnerships: Protect trade, help the needs of developing countries, help landlocked countries make things easier to trade. Also to help get internet access to struggling countries. Provide drugs and medicines to developing countries that are struggling. Improve communication with the rest of the world, could do this by getting people cell phones.
Democrats VS republicans
Democrats- Help people out, want more government control, directly help poor.
Republicans- rugged individualism, Laissez faire( less government), trickle down theory(less taxes so rich can create business to create jobs for the poor.
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