Thoughts on Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Buy Nothing Day

On thanksgiving my family and I usually have a lot of people over our house and we all eat and mingle and such. Everyone usually brings some food and we make the most food because we're hosting and everyone seems to have a good time. There are a bunch of kids and its always my job to entertain them but I don't really mind as long as people are having fun. Thanksgiving has become more of a family time then anything, people do lose what the whole holiday is based on though which is genocide. Genocide did come up during the break but not until Saturday and it was very brief as if no one really wanted to speak about it. On Friday my family wanted to go shopping but we decided not to because we didn't think it would be worth it because of all the craziness. The Wall mart incident that happened on Black Friday really opened my eyes because is it really that big a deal that people couldn't have waited a couple more seconds to go inside the store like normal people? It really has become the AWOL to consume as much as possible, especially on things we might not need but because its on sale people make a big deal. Im not complaining about this way of life I just feel as though things could be done differently.

Deeper In The Constitution - B

In section 1 of Article 4 it states that each state has to respect the laws of every other state. What that says for gay marriage is that if two people of the same sex get married in one state that means they are married in another state. While Gay Marriage is not legal and accepted in many states, they will have to accept them as a married couple. The Full Faith & Credit provision allows people to have more freedom because they can do things that are legal in the state where they live and states where it isn't legal.
The amended portion of Article 4 which begins "No Person..." means that slaves that are in one state, run away to another state will not be free due and must be returned to that state. This is important because back when there were slaves (and who knows there still might be some slaves out there in the US) will not be able to become free just by running away, if this law didn't exist then slaves all over would attempt to run away more then usual.

The 2nd amendment states that a well guarded militia has the right to bear arms. That I believe is because the Government controls that militia and it is to guard the country only, to protect and to serve. The 2nd amendment says nothing about regular citizens owning guns and that could mean if a state were to ban guns completely that would be allowed because it doesn't say in the constitution that regular American citizens who are not in a "well guarded militia" have the right to bear arms.

Lethal Injections and/or the Electric Chair completely contradict the 8th amendment. They both contradict it because the 8th amendedment states that those kind of things shall not be deemed necessary. So the fact that this stuff still happenes is a violation of the constitution which is also reffered to as the "Highest Law of the Land".

Constitution Assignment

Part A:

The Preamble - We as the people of the United States establish the constitution of the United States to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty.

The Branches & They're Powers:

Legislative Branch -

Article 1

Powers - They make laws, controls money, declare ware, oversee government, and can amend the constitution. Congress is basically what this branch is all about, in congress there is the house and the senate. The house consist of 435 seats. They start tax bills and impeach officials. The Senate consist of 100 seats (2 from each state). They start laws as well except for tax laws. They also give advice and consent to the president on appointments and treaties.

Executive Branch -

Article 2

Powers - The executive branch can execute laws, execute congressional decisions, commander - in - chief , certain emergency powers, appoint judges (which have to be approved by senate) and can make pardons. The executive branch is the President and his cabinet. The president can do everything listed and can also Veto bills.

Judicial Branch -

Article 3

Powers - The judicial branch can find a law or action unconstitutional, this is called the Judicial Review. This branch can also administer courts. The Judicial branch is more the Supreme Court if anything. The structure of the branch/supreme court is that there are 8 Assoc. Justices and 1 chief Justice.

When doing this assingment and the assignments on the constitution for the past couple of days I thought it was going to be hard to really remember this and get the basics of it but after doing this assingment especially it helped me a lot and I feel like it feels much easier to grasp.

Questions & Insights:

1. What does learning the constitution now in the 11th grade say about the AWOL?

2. How much power do we as the American People really have?

3. Who does the constitution benefit more the People or the Government?

4. Why is it that the judicial branch seems to have less power then the other branches?

5. Why does it seem as if the Legislative Judge has the most power?

How Capitalism Works and the Good About It

The definition of capitalism is "an economic and social system in which individuals can maximize profits because they own the means of production." In lesser terms capitalism is a market that doesn't have government influence. The basics of capitalism is that there is a "Invisible Hand" that really controls everything that happens in capitalism. The invisible hand is the theory that conservatives use to just let things happen in the world of capitalism, no one tells anyone how to run there business or what price to sell things, the invisible hand kind of "controls" all of that and it makes things happen. When I say make things happen I really mean that it forces competition between other business. Thats a good thing for the consumer because it makes it so that the companies are making better products that are cheaper to buy in order to compete with the competition. Another good aspect of capitalism is that the government has no involvement so no one tells us how much to sell or how much to buy for.

I, Pencil Summary and Analysis

Summary: 

I believe that the main idea of the story I, Pencil is that the author Leonard E. Read wanted to show us that it takes so much to build one little item. Not one person can make one object, it takes people and machines all around the world helping out when making products such as a pencil. The pencil is created by the natural forces (the Invisible hand) that controls people and things and makes people trade for goods/services. 

Quotes: 

1.  "Think of all the persons and the numberless skills that went into their fabrication..."

2. "Their motivation is other than me. Perhaps it is something like this: Each of these millions sees that he can thus exchange his tiny know-how for the goods and services he needs or wants."

3.  "...most individuals will believe that the mails could not be efficiently delivered by men acting freely. And here is the reason: Each one acknowledges that he himself doesn't know how to do all the things incident to mail delivery. He also recognizes that no other individual could do it... No individual possesses enough know-how to perform a nation's mail delivery any more than any individual possesses enough know-how to make a pencil."

Analysis: 

The deeper idea of the article, the main idea behind the main idea I believe is Capitalism. When the pencil speaks of the people that make it and the different materials needed to make it are all simple to the main factors of capitalism. The Labor in this story are all of the people (workers) mentioned in the story such as, the miners. The land in the story would be the tree, the seeds that plant the tree etc. The capital would be the saws, and the trucks. All of this is then provided by the household which then helps the factor market. The business makes more money because of the fact that the household is providing (through taxes) the cost of making all of these products (the pencil). While they're making more money they can make more of the product and then sell it to the household. In the story the person or thing that controlled all of this was the Invisible Hand. The hand can be construed as the Profit Motive, which is the chance for businesses to make more money. People buy into capitalism because of all the goods that come out of it. 

Project - My AWOL

AWOL from Karl Lawrence on Vimeo.

In this video I have included my friends and family members. I have also included one of my favorite songs to go along with the Slide show and I have included some people my parents work with. Everything in this video has meaning to me. I would have liked to include some video but I did not have the resources to do so. I would say that from this video you can see that my way of life is greatly influenced by my family, friends, co-workers, and Music. If it weren't for those things and those people then I don't know where i would be in life. From this video you can tell that my way of life may not be the same as others due to the fact of the close bond i share with my family, while some others may not have that bond at all. I also love music and I like the song because of the smoothness of the song's sound and that's how I like my life to be. I like my life to be nice and smooth with no real major bumps in the road. While i may have conflict with my family and friends some of the time, we still get past the conflict and resolve them, and that's basically my way of life, being able to resolve conflicts and build off of them to form better and stronger relationships.