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".



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