Habeus Corpus Video

At first I didn't know what was happening but after a few times of watching it I kind of understand what is happening. This video was sort of a wake up call in the sense that it affects me as a citizen of this country however I don't think I am going to be considered an unlawful enemy combantant anytime soon. It is sort of strange that this act pretty much can consider anybody an unlawful enemy. The fact that this act allows people to be detained without trial makes us all seem guilty. Instead of being innocent until proven guilty, it is now guilty until proven innocent. However, how can you even be proven innocent if you are not put on trial.
It is almost as if our country has taken a step back. One thing about this act that seems to have taken our country a step back is the tolerance of torture. This bothers me because it almost seems uncivil. I find torture unecessary, and really unhumane. The main thing that bothers me about this act is the shift in power. In the past, the citizens of this nation, when establishing this country tried to make it as hard as possible to avoid one person having all the power. However, now people are afraid of George Bush having all the power. In the video it mentioned that there is only one vote in the supreme court that could stop this. My question is what happened to the spread of power and why is it becoming that only one man has almost, or will soon have all the power?
To me it seems the problem is that the people of this country do not care enough. Maybe the shift in power is because the people are not caring enough anymore. In the past the people were afraid of this new nation becoming like what they left. When they were afraid they made sure to spread the power, and to have a corrupt-proof government. Now people are more concerned with other things, as mention in the video, Dancing with the Stars or shows like American Idol. Now people don't really vote even when they have the privelege. Or instead of voting for the president we choose to vote for the winner of a reality tv show. Recently our rights and freedom have been slipping away, because of our carelessness. Although we have more security now, if we were more careful before we would still have as much freedom. This sort of can be compared to the dresscode at Punahou. Perhaps if the teachers enforced the dress code more strictly before, we wouldn't have a uniform now. However, it just seems that people will not really care until it is too late.

Freedom of Speech

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/opinion/15thu4.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The article I chose was about a Women's bridge team that displayed a sign that said "We did not vote for Bush." at an awards ceremony in Shanghai. This offended some people, and some felt as if it was an unecessary display of political feeling. I thought this was an interesting article because it involved people showing negative feelings about their own country in front of people from other countries. Do people have the duty to have loyalty to their country? Is putting your own country's president down in front of people from other countries a disloyal thing to do? In the article it states that "To hold up a sign like that is an act of disassociation, not from this country, but from the failed policies of this president." Is it a bad thing to want to make it known that you disagree with certain things and actions that the president has done. Is this breaking freedom of speech? I find this difficult to decide because if you are not proud and disagree with the actions of what your president, you should be allowed to pubicly display your opinion. In this particular situation, I think it was a little unecessary to do this because they are at a Bridge tournament, and I think as a citizen of a country you should have some respect for the president of your own country. However it is okay to not want to be associated with actions that represent your country and you as an American citizen and display that opinion.

An Artifact of Rebellion

The artifact that I chose to represent rebellion is money. Money is something that can trigger alot of negative emotions and actions. As seen with the Americans and British, money was one of the main reasons why the Americans started to rebel. The British began to tax the Americans and the Americans were not happy. The British thought they had control and power over the English, and they did until the issue of money got involved. Money was enough of a motivation for the Americans to want to become sovereign and rebel against the British.