Mid-Term

What does it mean to be an “Ethical Democratic Citizen?”

What does is mean to be an Ethical Democratic Citizen? I guess that’s the real question in life isn’t it? If you don’t care maybe you should, and after reading this essay maybe you will get some kind of idea in your head and your own opinion on what it means to be an Ethical Democratic Citizen. But before we can understand this question don’t we have to understand each individual part first?

So here’s a hypothetical. You’re driving down the road in the middle of the night and you come up to a red stop light. You look all ways and there is nobody coming for miles, so you go. A few minutes down the road you start thinking, “Was what I just did right or wrong?” Well folks, that’s ethics. What’s morally right and wrong. Are serial killers right or wrong? Is the war in Iraq ethical? Am I Ethical? To me, ethical would mean that you usually do what you think is “right” in a given situation and you always think about the consequences before you act upon this given situation. Also I think that you shouldn’t ALWAYS be ethical, if you were always trying to be moral and right all the time wouldn’t that interfere with simply just being yourself? “Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.” - Isaac Asimov.

"Democracy is moral before it is political." – Louis Brandeis. Democratic or Democracy. I bet the first thing that popped into your head was the political party right? Well yes, but that’s not all there is to it. Now in the thoughts of Aristotle, to be democratic or a democracy would be a ruling with the mindset that it should make the public happy, or be in the public’s best interest. Wouldn’t this also mean that being democratic citizen would be one who would be usually “seeking the good life for all?”

And Finally, Citizen. “A native or naturalized member of a state or nation who owes allegiance to its government and is entitled to its protection.” For the most part I feel that the dictionary definition sum being a citizen up. But, there are a couple of things I would like to clear up. What do they mean by “owes allegiance to its government”? Because to me it sounds as if they are saying to be a citizen you have to serve the government in some way. But what kind of ways? Not all of us are going to fight over seas and not all of us work for the government. Another part of this definition I would like to revise is, “A native or naturalized member”. Well in the United States, this isn’t true. After living a certain number of years here legally they can become a citizen of the United States. Is this right? Are they ruining what it means to be a citizen for the “native” born? To me, being a citizen means being born let’s say in the United States. If you are born here, you are automatically a citizen. Also, another part to being a better citizen would be being active in the nation’s issues, and like the definition says being “entitled to the government’s protection”.

Now let’s put those three things together. Ethical Democratic Citizen. To me this can only be an opinion, because everybody has their own right and wrongs, at least small things, not something like murder of course. I believe that an Ethical Democratic Citizen is somebody who is always trying to do the “right” thing. Someone who always trying to make everything fair and is generous to other people in need. I also believe that it is somebody who is active in doing this, not just when they feel like it but even when they DON’T feel like it. Being an Ethical Democratic Citizen to me would really be someone’s idea of the “Quintessential American”, but this isn’t always a good thing. I feel that if you are always trying to be an “Ethical Democratic Citizen” then you wouldn’t have much of a personality.

Premise and Conclusion.

Premise - Everybody is special.

Conclusion - Doesn't that make everybody the same?

World Issue Project

http://www.freewebs.com/bethanylizcarter/

Rob Reiman - Values.

"A value is something of such significance, that it guides our life, and it helps us personally to decided what is important and what is not important, that is a value."

Think about Americans today. What is one goal that almost every one person strives for in life. To go to school, to get a good job, and to make money. All our lives this idea is pushed into our heads. Every parent wants to see their child succeed. But what is success?
Think about celebrities such as Britany Spears, or Lindsay Lohan. Didn't they "succeed" in life? We're their values focused on money? If you ask me, I don't think they were. They wanted to sing and act. But when they started making millions and millions of dollars, it turned against them. Can money turn someone so innocent into someone so horrible?

In this article from Cnn.com, it talks about how Americans are just plain lazy. "18% of employed Americans work 48 hours a week which is a lower percentage than Switzerland, Britain, Mexico, Thailand, South Korea, and Peru". It also describes America as a "couch potato nation". American's just want more money for less work. Peoples values of money and success are morphing into obsessions and laziness. If people are going to continue to work less for more money, shouldn't they just eventually make everything free? And if everything is pretty much free, what kind of value is that? Peoples values are just going to turn from being successful to getting more stuff, which could start a chain reaction of bad events.

Data Mining!

What is an ethical democratic citizen's response to this question of securtiy vs. civil liberties as adetailed in the program?

"The reality is that privacy has become an illusion". said in the fourth video, "National Security Letters and Data Mining". This is vey true. On the internet, anything you do or submit can be found and it really never goes away. The NSA (National Security Agency) and President George W. Bush are taking advantage of our freedom and privacy and using the internet and phone calls to gather information from United States citizens to keep the country safe from another terrorist attack like 9/11.

A bill in consideration in November would have allowed the nation's intelligence services to "monitor foreign-to-foreign communication involving suspected terrorists" without a search warrant. According to Donald Kerr, who is principal deputy director of national intelligence, "privacy can no longer mean anonymity, instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communtications and financial information".

But the one question you have to ask yourself is, is this right? People who agree with it, argue that it is for the Nation's own good, to keep everybody safe. People who are against this, would argue that it is going against some major rights to privacy. An ethical democratic citizen, i think, would support this idea. They would say that this is about the nation as a whole and not the individuals privacy.

As for me, i think the government is going too far, too soon. If they have a really good idea that someone is a terrorist or a threat, then go ahead, tap their phones and emails and such. But only when you have enough information to almost prove them a thret. So i guess i disafree with this whole thing. I guess i'm just not an "ethical democratic citizen".



Picture is hyperlinks as are linked words.

Relativism Blog

Relativism according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativism "is the idea that some element or aspect of experience or culture is relative to dependent on, some other element or aspect." In other words, if you believe in relativism, you would believe that in another culture, no matter what they are doing, we don't have the right to stop them or tell them it's wrong. If you don't believe in relativism then its the opposite. If some other culture is doing something you think is wrong, you would think that no matter what culture they are from its wrong no matter what, and other people have the right to stop them or tell them so.
For example, in class, Mr. Viles told us that in Borneo, they have a ritual ceremony where they kill babies, which wasn't true but we all believed it. The first thing that came to my mind was that that was disgusting and horrible. Of course somebody else has the right to go over there and tell them that killing living breathing human beings is wrong. I think that if it involves killing live things then we have the right to tell them it's wrong. But if it was something they were doing that wasn't harming anything in any way we wouldn't have ANY right to tell them what to do.
I think Relativism is a really good approach to ethics because that's what it's all about, deciding whats right and what's wrong, and deciding what you personally think is right and wrong.

Question #2

Has your educational career helped you experience Paideia, in that you have formed an attention to the meaningful as opposed to a focus on the trivial?

I would say no. Who comes to school hoping to "find themselves" or what kind of person they want to be? We come to school to learn the facts, the things we apparently need to know to succeed in life. I guess some people could take what we learn in school and say that in a way the things we are learning are going to trigger in our minds what we want to do with our lives, but as far as finding ourselves and what kind of person we want to be in life, that's not the point of school is it?, that's up to the individual, not anyone else.

http://www.classicalhomeschooling.com/html/paideia_educational_reforms.html This website is the home of The Paideia group, which formed a new way of educating students in a more ethical way. They have 12 "Paideia Priciples" which basically say that all children should get the same quality education, and that they need to learn things like English and Math, but also learn things that they should know to be "successful" in life. Other goals of the Paideia Group are to "prepare students to earn a living, be a citizen, and to be a lifelong learner".

I think that it would be a great idea to have something like this somewhere for people to go to and learn about, but like i said before i don't think that school is about turning your attention to the meaningful, it's about learning what you need to know to graduate, then from there on its all your choice what kind of person you want to be.