What is the future of democracy? Is it a realistic option?

I think that the future of democracy is good, or at least as good as it has been. I dont think that it is a perfect system, but it is the system that has worked for us as a Nation forever and I think that people respect that. We have a government that is 'ran by the people'. I think that this gives people comfort as well as hope. If they have an equal say in whats going on then they are making a difference, or at least doing their part. I do however think that people take advantage of democracy, including me. People complain about government, politics, taxes and all sorts of other things that are happening in our government, yet they do not do anything about it. Our democracy, the way it is set up does give people the opportunity to have a say, however this can not happen if the 'people' are to lazy to go out and vote, or to lazy to be informed about what we are voting on.

So yes, I think it is a realistic option, but I dint think that it is realistic that people will ever be happy with it, even though we could have so many worse options in the way a government is run.

The following link is for an article that was from back during the last presidential election. And I think that no matter what party you are with or what candidate you voted for or supported, you can agree with this article and President Obama and voter apathy.

He states “making change happen is hard” and “people need to shake off this lethargy, people need to buck up”. He is talking about voters, making an effort to go out and vote, and to be informed voters.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/28/politics/main6907246.shtml

Change doesn’t just happen, we have to make it happen.

Voter Apathy cartoon 2 - search ID njun89

R

What is the process to develop an economic policy that provides services and sustainability?

Week 13 Blog

After reading this chapter I see that building and maintaining a good economy with a steady working economic policy is very complicated. It takes many different parts of government to make it run and there is different money involved. In our economy uses taxes, fiscal policy, monetary policy and regulation to make it all work. The way all of this fully works is still a little confusing to me as the chapter has so much information, but I know that these thing keep the money moving in our economy. 

After doing some research on the economy and economic policy, and getting many results, due to the recession, I see that a lot outside of our own government affects our economy as well. Things that are happening around the world with countries that we import and export to affect our economy as well. Some of these things is obviously gas, as well as food, and material products. Currently a war over seas in Libya is affecting our gas prices, or weather affecting the crops of food that we buy.

The double natural disasters that hit Japan will have some sort of impact on the US and our economy. However, only 6 percent of our exports and imports are to and from Japan, so even though we will be affected, it will not be that much. According to 9 news the conflicts in the Middle East will have much more impact on us than Japans natural disasters.

http://www.wusa9.com/news/article/142251/37/How-Will-Disaster-In-Japan-Impact-US-Economy

Below is a link to a cartoon that I found that was regarding Natural disaster and wealth and power. 

http://www.cartoonstock.com/cart.asp?from=stock&basket=yes

How should a nation-state develop its foreign policy in accordance to its values and in connection to the development of its domestic policy?

This is a hard question for me because I still don’t fully understand how it all works, even after reading about it. But I think that we have to be very carefully when making alliances, and when deciding when to support those allies and when to stand down. I think that when regarding the economy it is best to have trade alliances with many. However, when alliances bring on war this can be a very costly situation to our country.
I don’t think that we should be getting involved in a war unless it is directly involving our country. I think that we must weigh the pros and cons of supporting other countries and their battles before we get involved. And have to be aware of the benefits they can bring to us if we ever need their assistance in a war. But like I said this is a difficult situation for me to comment on because I am still a little confused on how it works.

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/FSp-LU7OG3U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This link is to a video I watched regarding foreign policy in the US and war. I think that some of his opinions are a little far out there, but I agree on one thing he talks about and this is that Washington likes war.

How does a government facilitate comprehensive care for its constituents without sacrificing equity?

When reading this chapter and after reading all the discussion, it seems to me that we focus a lot on the people who take advantage of the system, which I totally agree with; however, I would also like to say that the system is not perfect either. In some ways, the system holds people back from moving forward when they are presented the opportunity.

In my Into to SW class we did a project that was focused on helping a woman who was using federal assistance for child care and food stamps who was being offered a promotion at work. The catch of this situation is that the position paid $1.00 more than she currently made, which would put her over the income limit to receive her government assistance, however $1.00 more if income per hour (fulltime=$160.00 a month) is still not enough to cover her and her two kids grocery needs, let alone childcare.

I don’t remember what our group decided regarding helping this woman. Its kind of a no win situation. We could advise her to either not take the promotion and stay off government assistance, while being held down in a low paying position forever just to be able to get by. Or do we tell them to take the promotion and try to get by while improving herself by moving up in the corporate world? Keep in kind that if she takes the promotion she will not meet her monthly income needed to live if she now has to pay for food and childcare.

I have thought a lot about this activity recently. As you all know I just has a baby 3 weeks ago. My first. I go back to work the week after the semester is over, and the baby will be going with me. Thank God!--- Because infant care, per house, cost more than I make an hour, but make more than the CCAP income limit. Therefore, if I couldn’t take my baby to work with me, since I have no family in Denver, and cant receive CCAP, I would either have to quite my job, or pay to go to work.

So, as I agree that far to many people take advantage of the system, sometimes the system creates some of the problem itself.

This is a cartoon that I found kinda funny because I thinik that people dont realize that they are getting some form of assistance while also talk bad about others that do. There are many different types of assistance other than food stamps and housing.



I also found this cartoon which reminded me of many of the other students post for this weeks discussion in regard to people continually having children even though they cant afford them.