Louisiana

I don't think it was the Louisiana purchase was a good idea at the time. For a new country, we were pretty cocky I think. Obviously it was a good decision to stay out of France's whole revolution situation and making the country twice as big as it already is, it kind of is a big risk, because the government just made a system that works...for the small country that America was before. We had a hard time figuring everything out for just the few states that we owned before the Louisiana Purchase. Although obviously this was a good deal, 15$ million for everything up to the Rocky Mountains, but we aren't ready to govern a country thats 100% larger then what we're used to. I guess at the end of the day though, we knew that this opportunity wouldn't come again, so we have to take a chance and just do it, also it's better to know you're neighbors, in case they're planning on attacking you. So in this case, we were buying our neighbors land. It would get us more respect too, among the rest of the world, who sees us as a small country that has no support and is kind of poor, land=power, but money=power too, if you use the transitive property, does land=money? Because we definitely needed money.

Help the french?

Although in almost any other case I would say we should've helped the French, in this case, I think that we had a good excuse. As I think maybe it was Joe saying, that in 2003 and 2001, we had been a stable country for a long time, so we had a lot of experience under our belts, and we could afford to take time and help Afghanistan and rid them of the Taliban with Operation Desert Storm. I think that because we've all lived through that experience, people get a strong opinion in their heads that that's what America's about, helping people and getting favors in return, so when people are asked if they think we should help France, they automatically assume we should because we're known to be kind people with good morals. Despite America's reputation, we have to remember that like all countries, we went through a beginning phase too. It's completely illogical to stop in the middle of creating the American government and working out all the kinks in the system to make everyone happy, and leave it all behind to go help France. Don't get me wrong, I think we owe something to France for helping us in our revolution, but right then was not the right time, sometimes we have to focus on getting our act together before we can help someone else. I think that leaving the country kind of idle could cause impatience with the people. If something goes wrong, if they start to rebel a tax or get angry, then we'll have to force ourselves to leave in the middle of helping the french and that could cause french resentment, especially if the revolution gets out of hand because everyone knows france has america on their side, they might raise the severity of the rebellions and if we left, it would leave the French to a worse fight that they'd be by themselves on. Also, I think we shouldn't help France right now because no doubt would we make enemies. A new country has enough problems to fix, they don't need enemies on top of that. We were already disliked by all the world's monarchs. If we gain respect from countries, then when the French need us, we can help them and we won't bring in more enemies into the French's problem, because more countries will respect and like us, and maybe can make an alliance in the future, which obviously happens. No doubt do we owe France something, at the very least, some support, but it just wasn't the right time to do that.

Today in class.

Today in class, we took notes and I'm not really 100% with what we're learning right now, mainly because I think personally, I'm not the kind of person that is interested in politics. I'm not interested in what goes on in the government, which is probably a bad thing because basically we're learning about how the government was created, and the decisions they had to make, and the problems the government has faced and how they fix those problems. We're learning about how the government is managing their flow of money, they're taxing whiskey and I think it's kind of mean that they put tax on whiskey because the farmers that can't afford much use whiskey as currency, so their "money" is being taxed. I don't think this was what the government should be all about, it should be about helping the people of the country and making the country stronger and having the people be more patriotic, and united. If anything, the government could try helping the farmers pay for what they need, or at least leave them alone, this makes the whole country look nicer in general and more inviting. They're trying to get away from the cruel monarchy that they call England, but it just makes the government look more selfish I think. They should rely on the people that can afford taxes and the people that can afford taxes should be willing to help the people that can't afford taxes, because I think that's just the way life should be. We're one country and we should strive to be good, well-rounded people.

Passing in storyboards

I got William Paterson on the founding fathers quiz and I didn't know who he was before, and in my VoiceThread, I said it like Pay-Ter-Sin, because there's only one "t" which implies the "a" is pronounced like "a", not "ah". So please if my VoiceThread sounds dumb because of the pronounciation, I am sorry.

VoiceThread

Friday's Class

I think I already made a post for this, but whatever I'll do it again. In class we talked about who should elect the president I think, if I remember correctly. I think there was a little dispute about those games Mr. Boyle told us about. If the band t-shirt was speech or not. And I was thinking, it doesn't matter if it's speech or not... the school can ban whatever it wants. If shirts like that cause problems in a learning environment, I think the school should be able to ban it. I think the problem we were looking at was whether or not the punishment was too harsh. Even though I'm student, I still think that the school can ban clothes in school. We're lucky to not have a dress code, so honestly I think people need to calm down and just get over it when they get in trouble for wearing strapless shirts and tiny skirts. It's not appropriate in school, you're supposed to be learning, I don't think it's necessary to look really formal, but be respectful at least. I know I'm getting off topic but I can't stop. I know a lot of people were saying he should be allowed to wear it in school, but why fight the school? It's a school... you're not going to win, schools have so many priviledges, as Mr. Boyle said, the second we cross that threshold, we have little to no rights. And as long as we're in school, (until we're 18, adults) I think we should just live with the fact that if a teacher tells you that you can't wear a mini skirt, (which is just as expressive as a band shirt would be) then spare us all the drama and wear pants, honestly it's not a big deal. I think the only thing that's worth debating, is the punishment the student recieved. Personally, I thought expulsion was going a little overboard, but that's just me.

Due Dates Pushed Back

Today Mr. Boyle gave us the weekend for extra time on our storyboard and voicethreads. I've already finished everything, but I haven't embedded the voicethread because I'm waiting to go to my friends house so I can use his computer because he can embed stuff onto his blog really easy, and my computer doesn't. Also, I found out that we have a quest on thursday about the constitution. I'm pretty confident about the material that I expect to be on the quest. Today a lot of my confusion about the electoral colleges was cleared up. I understood the gist of what it was, but I wasn't really sure why it was considered the best system for electing the executive. Now it makes a lot of sense, the people get an indirect vote, so technically the people choose the president, but it's through their election of the electoral colleges, and not the state legislature. I think this evens out power more too.

and also, was that guy the french principal?