This article encompass more than just an explanation of why America is becoming divided against itself. It poses many questions that we as Americans need to answer and figure out solutions to in order to fix this downfall. Why is it that today's America is not the same as America has been in the past? Why was it so easy to agree as a nation on issues in the past? Why has there been an increase in extreme politics in the last 20 years? These are just a few examples of questions the article has asked us to answer. Please read the article and give your feedback.
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"Unity is strength." is a saying in China. It seems that the saying is correct now. The broke of MN's government in 2011 was a good example of the problem of the structure of this country. The central government should find out a way to make the relationship between the states in the US closer. The central government should also become more powerful.When one state is in trouble, the central government should help it out immediately. Only unity could make a country stronger and more powerful.
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ReplyDeleteTo my understanding, Americans expect everything to be handed to them. Government isn't the only thing to blame, we need to point the fingers at ourselves as well. We can develop the unity to change our views. We have come to the point where we as Americans can change that, Unity takes a community to accomplish.
ReplyDeleteThe troubles our country is facing today is heavily blamed on the government. People are angry and upset with how things are being done. They seem to forgot, many of them voted these politicians into office to represent them. The blame can lie within the government but we have to remember that some of us voted these people into their place. The government and this country were not always bad, not until many different issues were pressed upon us and took a toll. We can't control the issues but how we work around them we can. The country is splitting apart due to the blame game which ends up causing even more issues. Good can come though, if we try to work together and push away our own opinions to find a successful resolution. "The power is in our hands to change course. And indeed there is a growing sense in the country that people are finally getting tired of this particularly rancid level of divisiveness." I do believe people are realizing that unity is needed and that many are willing to try it. We are a country that can change and if we can accomplish by becoming unified then we will make this country better than it has been.
ReplyDelete"As the old saying goes, we get the president we deserve..."
ReplyDeleteThe first point the article was trying to make is that it's not the politicians that are the problem. Politicians are just amplified, more enthusiastic reflections of what the core of our society is or is becoming. In order to change our politicians, our government, we have to change ourselves as a whole first.
To springboard off of what Andrea was getting at, we've all gotten into this conformist, cowardly rut where we don't want to do anything different or we'll be 'pushed out' of the group. It's human nature to want to feel accepted and the easiest way to do that is just to do what everyone else is doing.
The author uses logos when describing how less Americans are classifying themselves as moderates in later years. He uses these figures to illustrate that are problems are caused by people becoming less likely to compromise.
ReplyDeleteHe repeats the words community and unity. this strand is trying to convince us through repetition that in order to solve the problems we must work together.
Americans in todays society are always trying to find someone to blame when it comes to our government system. If were more logical thinkers we would realize that the people that run our government systems are individuals that were voted for by the people. This is not just on a national level. When things fall apart on the state level it shouldn't automatically be the national governments responsibility to clean up the mess. As citizens we have to be careful who we allow to run our city, states, and country. We must also look at what is causing are problems rather then running directly to the government wanting them to fix it.
ReplyDeleteThis article talks about how we (us) have chosen to make this government spread apart. How “us” is the reason why this is happening. The logos used in this article are very affected in getting the readers to choose a view. The quotes made by the three different observers and the percentage used to describe how Americans have classify themselves as less part of the government, is what makes the logos. While the way he demonstrates reliability by getting facts and having respect for the audience by using a certain tone, is what makes the Ethos. “The good news is that, as with any self-inflicted wound, the power is in our hands to change course”. We have the power to choose better candidates to represent our country and make everything united once again. We just have to make better decisions and work our hardest to not blame but to create a sense of unity again.
ReplyDeleteThe article tells us that the government is fallin apart. The reason for this might be from ourselves. The arthor uses the word home, community, our to show that our country is spliting and this fact will deeply influence us.
ReplyDeleteAfter readinng this article, readers might blame less on the authorities or the politician.Imagine if you are selected as the politician, you may do what you are despite now as the common people. In addition, readers might think the situation of the dividing nation is not as bad as we think. And this passage will also strengthen the patriotic emotion of the reader.
Lakeisha,
ReplyDeleteWhat you are saying is 100% positive, although most politicians these days say whatever they want in order to get into office. Once they are actually in office they fend for themselves and vote how they want, regardless of the people. We as Americans can only base our voting on what the politicians “say” are their stances on issues. We have no way of foreseeing if they will follow through, while in office. One way to solve this problem is to limit the terms of these senators and representatives. This becomes a national issue because Congress would need to pass this law, and they will never make this a law because it will limit their own time in office.
Politicians have become so divided lately that they try more to stop the other party from accomplishing anything, rather than get anything done themselves. With the constant role reversals upon election day politicians see that if they block the party in power from accomplishing its goals, then they will undoubtedly be voted in once the next election rolls around. This works both ways once the power has switched hands. This creates a never ending struggle that simply blocks any and all progress either party attempts to make. The only time anything gets done is when an issue has bipartisan support, and nowadays that is an incredible rarity. The very essence of our government, the ability to vote in officials seems to be working against us. Politicians would rather please the public, and show the voters how the other party is failing, rather than actually trying to improve our country. This cycle is fueled by voters that buy into the party system; they see the Republicans failing so they vote in a Democrat, and vice versa. When you look at how slow our government can be in making decisions and passing laws, this is what you have to blame.
ReplyDeleteOn a somewhat unrelated note, it’s interesting that a lot of the differences between the parties nowadays have more to do with morality than government. Issues like stem cell research, gay marriage, abortion, and religion have been dividing the political parties needlessly for years, and none of these issues have anything to do with running a country. They do however place voters solidly within party ranks, as people with certain beliefs about these topics often align themselves with the party sharing those beliefs, despite any political beliefs they and a party might have in common.
In my opinion. As it is said in the article, many of us Americans are deeply angry at politicians in Washington and the broken government they have created.Americans are facing a problem that is they think it is government's responsibility to make fair policy and try to blame the government for all the mistakes. And it can be proved because the article points out,in 1992 Gallup found that 43% of respondents identified themselves as moderates, 37% as conservatives, and 17% as liberals. In 2009, conservatives and liberals were each up 4% and moderates were down by 7%. And it indicates the Americans prefer to observe rather than participate, which results a decay of unity.
ReplyDeleteI've read something like this before, where states like Texas or Alaska want to be annexed from the United States, and this was a couple years ago. So i feel like this is a pretty important issue. Especially since we as citizens of the US can change that, instead of sitting around and getting mad or upset about all these politicians that aren't doing what we think is the right thing. Everyone looks at the President to fix things right away, and that's just not how it is, so everyone wants to get mad about it. Also many people, unfortunately, see politicians negatively, when it should be the other way around since we picked them to represent us. Basically what I'm trying to say is that our government gave us citizens the power to shape our own government, and if we want to save it, instead of getting mad about it, we should take more of an active role in changing the negative aspects of our government, so our nation does not split apart.
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ReplyDeleteThe article began with author's view point of today's relationship between politicians in government and citizen under the government by quoting old saying, 'We get the president we deserve'. The meaning of this word in this article can be presumed that some bad issues in one nation such as financial difficulties or poverty are not all responsibility of politician leaders. In sober truth, we can see frequently that citizens do demonstrate of impeach to people who is politician leader or president. Ironically, the people who have been accepted as leader by citizens are also sometime got impeached by citizen. This is not like ‘Citizen A’ or ‘Citizen B’. The real conception of citizen should be derived from whole as one group for developing a nation and avoiding economical risk. I believe politician leader should be considered carefully, not following fancy background of candidates. After considering all of these, I would have to say my own word, 'The leader who is elected by mistake is scarier than any other enemy.’
ReplyDeleteI really liked how Xiaoyuan Xu mentioned unity. I agree with this statement, but on a slightly different level. As the article mentioned, Americans used to trust the government with a lot of things, probably mostly due to the fact that the government never gave us a reason to not trust it before. But since the Watergate, and other political scandals that the artile mentioned, American's do not trust the government as much. I think the best way to gain that trust back is to be unified with the government. Unity between the power and the people is key.
ReplyDeletePeople are too quick to immediately blame someone else. They rely on the government to do everything for them and as soon as something happens that does not favor them or causes them anger they are very quick to forget that they were the ones who voted these politicians into office. Maybe the problem is what we the people demand of our politicians. Yes politics is very corrupt, but many times the way a politician will vote is based on what his or her people want because that politician thinks about reelection. The problem is maybe we the people do not always know what is best for us. More unity may be able to help the country to an extent but having the freedom to make choices for ourselves was what this country was built on and so our unity must come by other means then making the government more centralized.
ReplyDeleteOne of the impressive sentences for me in this article is "our politicians are also a reflection of the public they represent." This is the real meaning and significance of democracy. In some way we feel that the US government is losing it. However, the author reminds us to consider if ourselves are responsible for that lost. Only when each citizen devotes effort, a healthy and new economy environment can be built.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, politicians are too corrupt to see what they are doing to the nation. But its not entirely their fault. The changing mentality of people is also to blame. In my home country of India, this is the case as well. There are too many divisions within the different political parties of the different states. This creates more divisions within different states, which are already very ethnically and culturally different.
ReplyDeleteWhen I’m taking a politic course in my first quarter in “us”, classmates are talking about current country issues specifically. Everyone wants to know why America is going over the hill. As an outsider of all kinds of events and policies here, I try to figure out the reason of declining of American status in Economics and Politics. As an advanced country, US still have plenty of advantages compare with other countries, but I would say citizens are being managed and dominated by a really small group of outstanding and powerful person. Though people insist that we are born equal, most of us do not have the capability to change the rule of the country.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, from my observation, American teenagers prefer to focus on entertainment, movies and superstars but not political issues and technology evolution which are considered so seriously to young adults. There is another thing I want to mention is that efficiency is not as good as I thought. For instance, when I’m solving problems of my bank account in a bank or checking out in a supermarket, officers took a lot of time to talk with me or do things inefficiently. If I may take 5 minutes to open an account back home, I may take several hours here to do the same thing. Also, it’s kind of inconvenient to drive an hour or two to go shopping. Residents here might be adjust to it really good. However, to some extent, people are wasting their time to do simple stuffs. Furthermore, if a country wants to be powerful, we still need to be intelligent and acknowledgeable to be competitive in their career. Stress would drives you to work harder and efficiently, so I would rather say that progressing need everyone’s efforts to make things forward even if you are already so satisfy of what you have.
I don't want to be offensive, but just show my personal perspectives. Hope everyone don't mind.
Many things dont go the way you want it to go. But some things cant be changed in a heart beat. Political issues with the economics problems. As the article says (our politicians are also a reflection of the public they represent). Many people turn to the next person to blame. The government system go through the same though times as we do and many dont realize that they want American to be good with no political issues.
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