Voter Purge in Florida

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Hegel

“One word more about giving instruction as to what the world ought to be. Philosophy in any case always comes on the scene too late. As the thought of the world, philosophy makes its first appearance at a time When the actual fact has consummated its process of formation, and is now fully matured ... When philosophy paints its grey in grey, a shape of life has meanwhile grown old. And though philosophy can bring it into knowledge, it cannot make it young again. The owl of Minerva does not start upon its flight, until the evening twilight has begun to fall.” (p.20) - Hegel, Philosophy of Right

Hegel

“If we get no further than looking at a given content from the standpoint of reciprocity,” Hegel says, “we are taking an attitude which is really unintelligent. We are left with a mere dry fact; and the call for mediation, which is the chief question in applying the relation of causality, is left still unanswered. And if we look more narrowly into the dissatisfaction felt in applying the relation of reciprocity, we shall see that it consists in the circumstance that this relation cannot possibly be treated as an equivalent for the notion, and ought, instead, to be known and understood in its own nature. And to understand the relation of action and reaction we must not let the two sides rest in their state of mere given facts, but recognize them ... as factors of a third and higher order ...” (Enzyklopedia, Sec.156, Zusatz.)

What Hegel means by this is that we must not, when speaking about different aspects of national life, for example, be satisfied simply to point out their reciprocity, but must search for an explanation in something new, something “higher,” i.e., something which conditions both their very existence as well as the possibility of their acting and reacting upon one another. Where, then, are we to search for this new, this “higher” something? (George Plekhanov, The Meaning of Hegel)

It Is Time To Take A Stand For Change

American Crossroads and Crossroad GPS, the infamous Karl Rove's Super PAC has begun to step up its assault on the President and in turn our Nation. The commercial plays out on a tablet PC, a rather subtle promotion of technology to give the appearance of a cutting edge manner. Most of the clips used in the campaign add are from 2008 during the Presidents election run. These liberal policies that President Obama championed during his campaign have been stymied at every turn by a fundamentalist Conservative Republican mentality. Karl Rove begins by attacking President Obama for wishing to assist millions of homeowners at risk of losing their domicile. The add then notes how 1/5 homeowners are still "under water" refusing to elaborate on how the Republican dominated house struck down two initiatives by the President to assist American homeowners. The first was the Home Affordable Refinance Program in July of 2010 with assisted several hundred thousand American's refinance their homes. By December the Republicans, bitter at the President's success, repealed the law declaring it a waste of time. Naturally any program which prevents multinational investment companies from liquidating working American homes would be a thorn in the side of the elitist Republican and Tea parties.

President Obama learned very quickly the nature of his opponents whose only desire to maintain a status quo steeped in the economic theory of the Trickle Down Effect. January of this year, the President announced another attempt at assisting the millions of Americans fighting to keep their homes. President Obama's plan is to address the heart of the problem for millions of borrowers, they owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth. Republicans salivate at this notion, because for a party of "personal responsibility" and individualism, this is an opportunity to pounce and take from those who are literally less FORTUNEate. The President is not recommending a complete amnesty of all overdue mortgages; on the contrary, he simply wishes to amend the system of predatory lending which has allowed working class individuals to fall prey to multinational investment companies.  The restructuring of the homeowners original mortgage may come at a loss to the banks, but this should be a penalty absorbed for inflating a market that has become the backbone of the American way of life.

Karl Rove's Crossroad GPS's then claims the President in his 2008 campaign, promised not to raise taxes for citizens who earn less than $250,000 a year.  This is followed by an assessment of "Obamacare" which conservatives refer to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as, in which numbers from the Heritage Foundation are used to claim the President implemented 18 different taxes.  The Heritage Foundation is a neo-conservative think tank in the pocket of Republican and Tea Party advocates.  The alleged 18 different taxes are really just the reshuffling of finances in order to pay for the PPACA.  Most of the taxes would only affect insurance companies and those citizens who earn $250,000 a year or more.  Rove even claims that the mandate which requires every citizen to receive health insurance, is a tax which would amount to hundreds of dollars a year for those who are negligent. The mandate has been the most controversial portion of the act despite its conservative origins.  It is the Republican or moral majority which stresses the need for all citizens to spend their capital on car insurance or their children's education.  This is the same party of Ron Paul who said the uninsured should die.  Let us also remember the Republican's were willing to end our historic Democratic process in order to defend the wealthy from receiving any tax increase.

It ends with a clip from the President's first days in office when he promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first time.  Since he made the remark, the Republican and Tea Party have taken every opportunity to discredit President Obama's reputation and ignore every policy or initiative he has championed.  People speak these days of a partisan political establishment in which the politics of ugly dominates.  The sad truth is that President Obama has done everything in his power to remain a middle of the road president alongside the likes of Reagen, Bush I and II and Nixon.  If we truly desire a nation which leads the world into the 21st century, we must throw full support behind the president and his party during the upcoming elections.

The Funniest Tea Party Campaign Video I Have Ever Seen - Courtesy of The Eric Andre Show

Women's Rights, Indentured Students and a Party of the Have's

When President Bill Clinton says Romney would be "calamitous" for the US, you can bet the house, their is some substance to the accusation. For all President Clinton's moral indiscretions, he was a savvy politician and a shrewd business man. Under his leadership, the United States entered the Digital Age with tenacity. His Presidency can at best be described as a moderate era in politics, where Homosexuals were denied equal rights, the poor were kicked of welfare by the hundreds of thousands and corporations experienced exponential growth. President Obama has followed this moderate approach as the next generation of Democratic leadership, his track record so far has been in line even with his predecessor, President George "Ol' Warhawk II" Bush. The Republican party appears to be working against itself as Romney pushes his "Woman's Propaganda" on the electorate, his party continues to slander any notion of gender equality.

A bill proposed by the Democrats would have made it easier for women to pursue legal action against wage discrimination in the work force. The idea behind the law is to guarantee women have the same employment protection as their male counterparts. The legislation would have been a success on several fronts; as an employee the piece of mind knowing you are being treated at a fair market value at your position will only increase production.  Moreover, the system of misogyny that the United States General Accounting Office observed in 2001, is the same reported by the United States Census Bureau on June Fourth.  It would seem the only way the United States political establishment would be willing to listen to any argument in favor of pushing for gender equality within our Constitution, would be if Christ himself were to stump for the cause during the next mid-term election cycle.

Mitt Romney is a Golden Child of the corporate financed mentality that women are not suited for a man's business.  This is the very same perception which has stymied the Obama Administration's attempt to alleviate another strain on our nations economy, student loan debt.  In 2009, one of the Administration's first initiatives was to promote a restructuring of the student loan system and regulating the practice of predatory lending towards students.  Once again we have a situation where the President makes a legitimate attempt towards strengthening the confidence of our nation's workforce, creating innovate policies for the future and Republicans can only play the partisan role.  The irony is that President Obama's most recent plan would lower interest rates students must pay on loans, which the Republican adametily oppose while advocating the continual reduction of interest rates for corporations and wealthy tax payers.

Vote Mitt Romney, He Will Let Uncle Big Business Control Our Existence

The Right Captain for the Ship

American Children Trained To Be Criminals

The late 1990’s and well into the new millennium, a series of high profile incidents in which youth brought weapons to school with murderous intentions has had a lasting impact on how the United States perceives the criminal actions of it’s children.  A view developed within the public that “youth offenders are qualitatively different from previous generations in the viciousness of their crimes (Hoge, Pg. 15).”  In fact most state’s moved to simply begin trying children as adults in order to alleviate the public image of violent, murderous children overplayed and stereotyped by the media.  

                According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, beginning in 1992 until the end of the decade, 48 states and the District of Columbia overhauled their respective legal system’s to allow the prosecution of children as adults (Statutes).  In fact, only Nebraska and Wyoming chose to keep their juvenile courts in their original form.   As of 2007, over twenty states had laws which children as young as fourteen may be eligible for the Adult Criminal courts.  Colorado, Missouri, and Montana allow for children at the age of twelve; Kansas and Vermont allow for children as young as ten (Statutes.)

The legal term is a judicial waiver, it is the practice of a Juvenile Court justice to pass their duties on to Adult Criminal courts.  Florida is the most notorious state for dumping its children into the Adult Criminal courts.  Florida is one of several states which allows for prosecutors to suggest whether a child should be tried as an adult rather than the court or jury of the defendants peers.  Under Florida’s prosecutorial transfer statutes, the state consistently leads the nation in the incarceration of juveniles in adult penal systems.  In 2000-2001 Florida would send 486 youth to Adult prisons, by 2004-2005 the number would drop to 296 only to spike to 603 in 2008-2009 (Hernandez).  Moreover, a Human Rights Watch/Amnesty International report released in October of 2005 analyzed the trend of “Life Without Parole” sentences for children between the ages of 14-17.   Pennsylvania, Michigan, Louisiana, Florida, Missouri, Illinois each had over one hundred children serving life sentences (Human Rights Watch, Appendix B). Pennsylvania , Louisiana, and Michigan each incarcerated over 300 children on LWP charges, while Florida remained close behind with 273.

                John DiIulio, a professor from Princeton authored a controversial paper titled How to Stop the Coming Crime Wave in 1996.  The essence of the work came to a statement in which DiLulio declares “by the year 2010, there will be 270,000 more juvenile super-predators on the streets than there were in 1990…” (Human Rights Watch, Background.)  Conservative pundits quickly caught onto DiLulio’s hysteria, driving the idea of “super-predators” through the public conscious in order to harden the criminal justice system.  The reality was that violent crime amongst juvenile’s has been steadily decreasing since the 1980’s despite a gradual increase in the disproportionate amount of minorities incarcerated compared to their white counter parts committing the same crime.  Moreover, the number of youth committing homicides in 2002 was comparatively low ranking alongside the year 1976 (Human Rights Watch, Background.)
                Risk factors become the primary goal in isolating and evaluating the child who commits violent crimes.  Issues like peer influence, paternal absence, inadequate educational and public institutions for juvenile’s create a distorted view when attempting to understand why youth commit crimes society generally associates as “adult actions (Hoge, Pg. 34).”  A New Zealand study conducted in 2004 followed 1,000 people over a 30 years period.  The results highlighted youth who are incarcerated earlier were labeled “’life-course persistent’ group who tended to offend more frequently, with greater behavioral diversity, and whose offending last well into adulthood (Hoge, Pg. 38).”  It is no secret that the United States is a capitalist Republic in which the pursuit of profit supersedes most notions of human dignity.  The reality is that we have a national incarceration rate of one person in prison per ninety-nine people.  The ability to segregate portions of our nation’s youth in order to prepare them for a long life behind bars is becoming a booming industry fully financed by the United States taxpayer dollar.
    
 

Work Cited

• Hernandez, Arelis R. “Cycle of Crime: Ever more young offenders sent to Florida adult courts.” 15 Oct. 2010. The Orlando Sentinel. ONLINE. 10 June 2011
• Hoge, Robert D, Nancy Guerra, and Paul Boxer. Treating the Juvenile Offender. New York: Guilford Press, 2008. HARDCOPY.
• Human Rights Watch “The Rest of Their Lives: Life Without Parole for Children Offenders in the United States. Appendix D.” Publications: Reports. Human Rights Watch/Amnesty International, 11 Oct. 2005. ONLINE. 10 June 2011.
• Human Rights Watch “The Rest of Their Lives: Life Without Parole for Children Offenders in the United States. Background: Youth on Trial.” Publications: Reports. Human Rights Watch/Amnesty International, 11 Oct. 2005. ONLINE. 10 June 2011.
• “Statutes.” Ojjdp.gov. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, n.d. Web. ONLINE. 10 June 2011.