Jakob+Thomas

If you by chance check this... I am thinking of you.

Pusillanimous??? I must admit, I had to look that one up. What a harsh description of the Democrats. First, you are correct... and I am glad that you have come to the realization that the major candidates for each party differ very little on issues. Yes, the democrats and republicans tend to share similar ideals, but have differing approaches to reach them. Read my comments to journal #6, I could see you reaching this point then. The question remains, how do you choose? You state that character is important. Identify the traits you find appealing and explain why. What makes a person Presidential? Entry 8 is a little weak on substance. You can supplement this by having a discussion or going back to add to the journal: your choice.

12/16/2015 - Entry 8 I started this journal with the intent to talk about the man, the myth, the legend, Donald Trump, but I seem to have had, what alcoholics call, a moment of clarity. I have come to the conclusion that researching all of the candidates to this depth is unnecessary. The view-points for the major candidates all fall within one or two generalizes areas, of which they share a majority of these "opinions" with their fellow party members and even across party lines, because morals within the USA are generally very generalized and are either one way or the other, so the candidates seem to be playing the crowd. What I find is much more important than an in-depth examination is a quick over-view of the major factors that one cares about, and then a more in-depth look at character. Every candidate wants to make this a "Better America" but how they intend to actually accomplish these shared goals is where the differentiation comes into play. That is the major difference between Republican and Democrat, in my eyes at least. I still have not decided which side I lean towards, the more brutish Republicans or the more pusillanimous Democrats. All in due time.

For Journal #7 - Question from discussion: Which is preferable, spending money on abortions or welfare later? Your abilities to assess a situation, reason, take a stand, and communicate your thoughts are so valuable, and will serve you well in your future. I hope you continue to develop those skills, even when it is difficult to do. They will carry you far. I will count part of our discussion toward your journal. I look forward to hearing about your thoughts on Donald Trump.

12/3/2015 - Entry 7 Hillary Clinton appears to be nothing special. She is a typical democratic candidate who supports women's rights, green-collar jobs, marijuana legalization, and moderate gun control. I have looks through what she stands for and nothing pops out at me. The major character trait that I seem to be seeing is that she is a hardcore feminist and that she is flip-floppity in her decisions. She seems to run with the crowd and plays the voters in an attempt to win, similar to Donald Trump, just on the other side of the spectrum. I honestly cannot seem to form an honest opinion on her as a candidate because there is nothing that is truly hers. I do not particularly disagree with her, but at the same time she has no strong arguments for me to agree with either. As of now, I only know her as a candidate that rides the popular opinion and the survivor of her "Email Scandal".

This was easily the hardest learning journal to write because of the lack of raw material for Ms. Clinton.

For Journal #6 - Thank you for all of the assistance you provided for my grad project. I appreciate it. You are exempt from this journal.

Well done Jakob! You have gone in-depth and provided excellent analysis on the candidate. I am impressed. If only we could have more of our voting population conduct research and participate in the electoral system in a meaningful and thoughtful way. I am glad you have moved beyond generalizations with Bernie Sanders and have looked at the specifics. See my comments below, I thought it would be easier to mix them amongst your paragraphs. Your concluding comments show great maturity. Yes, Republicans and Democrats do share many goals in common, and they often do differ on the way to accomplish these goals. Having differing views begins a conversation. Good leaders can manage the conversation without cat fighting and stagnation. If the parities are similar in objective but different in process, how do you vote? It seems you take into account the qualities and characteristics of the person when considering candidates. Is this a correct observation? Great journal Jake! Keep them coming! 11/2/2015 - Entry 5 I have slowly begun to appreciate Bernie Sanders more and more as a potential candidate. Thankfully, I am spending this time to research him because the general public doesn't seem to truly understand what he, and almost all of these candidates, truly stand for. I always assumed that Sanders was a "hippy" that hated guns and just wanted everyone to have free stuff. Essentially, I thought he was a socialist who wanted the government to control everything, as a decent amount of Democratic candidates seem to appear to me recently. The first thing I looked at today was continuing looking at how he felt on education, specifically his free college tuition plans. What I have come to understand form the limited research, is that Bernie wants to offer at least two years of college tuition to those who deserve it. It would be paid for by the government by imposing a "small" tax on Wall Street. I have mixed feelings on this, and I'm sure you may know why Mavrelos. I like the thought that, those who would otherwise not be able to obtain such, would be given this extraordinary opportunity to excel. My fear is that it would be taken advantage of. I have no problem with this program but firstly, I do not think it should only be sent to those who NEED it, but given to those who deserve it. I think accomplishment and drive warrant more opportunities than just being born into a harder situation. I am a large proponent of the idea of "The American Dream" and "The Self-Made Man." So I support it, if it is made much more motivation based, and less financially based ( I can elaborate further if you wish ). Secondly, I feel that it would outsource even more jobs to other countries (China, Mexico, etc...) which would make us more reliant of them. I support a self-sufficient country, or at least as close as is possible in this modern world. So, to sum my opinion up, I believe that we need to spread our workload out among the citizens more evenly, instead of having such a large gap in the middle. You pose an interesting point. Providing 2 years of post-high school education to individuals who "deserve" this opportunity. What qualifies a person to "deserve" the opportunity? How do you assess for accomplishment and drive, the two criteria you mentioned? I believe your comment about those born in a "harder situation" relates to financial resources being made available to individuals of a certain race or income level??? Am I right that you feel providing these two years of college education would be an investment in our country's youth that would in turn impact our future work force? I agree with you on this... but I wonder how would the government manage such a system? I also ask, what about the final two years of schooling? Do students take out loans for those? Are they provided for through this program if the grades earned in the first two years meet certain criteria? As far as foreign policy, I still feel that Bernie is a bit of a push-over, but I'm not sure if that's a bad thing as of now. Bernie wants to end the trade-embargo with Cuba, stating that it has been too long and is hurting both our relations with them, and both the economies. I see both sides to this argument. The first being that if we end this embargo now, we will look weak because Cuba never met the demands we set some 50 years ago. Image is a big part of politics ( unfortunately ) and we need to maintain the look of the bigger, badder force. On the flip side, both the US and Cuba and both being stubborn children who need to get over their differences to come together. I believe, all in all, I support his standpoint in ending this embargo, but how lenient will he be in the future? With Russia and the Ukraine? Only time will tell. The world we live in today is very different than that of 50-60 years ago. Negotiating a settlement with Cuba does make sense. Diplomacy is not a cut and dry process. Internationals Relations is a topic I always wanted to pursue more. Can Sanders walk the hard line with Russia and the Middle East (you mentioned below)? How can the U.S. encourage greater participation of other nations in the world's problems? Are these solvable problems? So many of the Middle Eastern issues date back to the resolutions following WWII. The countries of the ME became pawns of the world powers of the time. How much responsibility should these the world powers take? ... wealthy ME countries take? How do you provide hope to the hopeless? The second foreign policy point that I saw him make is that all nations, not just European and North American countries, need to help Syrian refugees. I agree that many Rich Middle Eastern countries have completely avoided the situation and sent these poor people to a brand new place, with new rules, costums, and religious views. Hopefully the UN and the world will call for Saudi Arabia and Yemen to take in these people. Lastly, Gun Control. This is where I thought I was really going to lose our similarities but I was surprisingly wrong. Sanders has stood behind the same belief, as far as gun control goes, for a long time. He wants to remove assault weapons from the hands of the ordinary citizen and to also end the "Background Check Loophole" which is a large loophole that allows individuals to obtain a firearm the same day that they attempt to purchase it, primarily at gun shows. There is also a loophole that means if the FBI does not respond to the request for a background check within three days, even a licensed retailer can legally sell the gun. Bernie also realizes that guns in Vermont ( his state ) are being used much differently than those that are on the streets of L.A. He wants to take a different approach with gun control that others. He doesn't want to outright ban them, but he does want security measures to be increased more than most others are calling for. To wrap this up, while I do still feel that Bernie may not be as pig-headed as I feel some politicians need to be, I think he is a genuinely caring human-being who wants to give people the chance to do right and I agree with a majority of his largest standpoints. I feel that one thing I'm beginning to see is that the difference between Republican and Democrat is not as much about specifics topics and what should be done, but how to accomplish those tasks. Republicans seems to be more stubborn ( not saying it's a bad thing ) and stuck in their ways because they've seen it work, while Democrats seem more quickly to change and give a fresh start, even to those who don't seem to deserve it.

You have provided some good background information about Bernie Sanders. You bring up the issue of compassion in politicians. There does need to be a line of compassion and reservation. It is a challenge that presidents face. G. W. Bush called his views "Compassionate Conservatism." Thoughts? Do you view him as a Compassionate Conservative?

10/30/2015 - Entry 4 I have been considerably more lazy this past week. While I did not accomplish much in the way of research, I have used this short hiatus to rekindle my interest in the subject. I believe that it was a necessary evil that has saved my sanity.

So, down to business. The small amount of research that I did can easily be summed up. Since I had just finished researching a Republican candidate, I have now switch to a Democratic one. This is, once again, the method I will be using to attempt to remain a neutral researcher. I have started to look into Bernie Sanders. He is certainly a popular candidate between young liberals, and even those who don't know of him. I have only utilized my time enough to learn about six topics.

Bernie, as would be expected, is very liberal. He supports women's choice and Planned Parenthood. He also wants the decriminalization of marijuana and an "end" to the "War on Drugs". As far as crime, Sanders has stated that "people of color are being incarcerated and killed disproportionately." And he aims to lower incarceration rates and to rehabilitate members of the penile system, including returning voting rights to those who have left the system.

All in all I believe Bernie is a caring person who wants to help individuals. He is very ambitious and I respect that, but I feel that he may be too nice and too lenient on individuals. I feel that a leader needs to walk a fine line between strict and forgiving, and Bernie seems overly loose and flows for this position. Hopefully he will change his methodology for completing his tasks because I agree with him on a lot of topics.

Your best LJ yet! See below for specific comments. I suggest creating a matrix for comparison. More detail below. The last paragraph made me think... Where do you stand on these issues? You need to establish that on paper in order for your comparison to be as objective as possible. Good work Jakob, keep it up!

8/10/2015 - Entry 3 I have spent the last few class periods have been spent in two ways. The first being narrowing done the multitude of political subjects into the few that I deem important enough to warrant my time to research. There are so many important topics that I will dabble I, but not in depth. The major topics that I will be focusing on are Abortion, Drugs, Education, Energy and Environment, Foreign Policy, Gun Control, Immigration, Civil Rights, and Economy. These are the topics that I have the most passion about. If a certain candidate has a strong topic on a certain subject that I wouldn't normally research, I will just for that candidate. Great list... I like that you have focused your research.

The second half of these few days has been spent starting my research on Jeb Bush. I have decided that I will go round-robin for my research. I will switch the party that I research after each candidate. I intend to do this so as to not skew my attitude towards a political party or topics. I fear that if I spend two weeks researching jut one party I will either begin to agree or disagree with them simply do to the repetitive nature and mindsets that they will bring forth. I will continually switch between between candidates of starkly different ideals so as to avoid this. Smart! It is important for you to remain as objective as possible.

I started with Jeb Bush because, well I needed a starting point and his name was first on my list. So far I seem to be at a crossroads as far as my opinion of Mr. Bush. I agree with him on some and disagree on others. I believe I will have to continuously tackled the ranking of my most important topics. I will have to determine which ones warrant a stronger place in my heart and mind because I highly doubt that I will find a candidate that I agree with completely. Therefore a mental ranking of the topics will slowly have to become clear for me to truly make a choice. Could you create a matrix... give each issue a weight... then give each candidate a score within this scale for each category. As you progress you can complete the matrix. Once you have completed your research you can total each candidates "scores" and then see which you support the most?

As for now, I will not make strong opinions of each individual candidate. I want to get the research done so that I can compare and contrast their view with each other and with my own. This way no one candidate has an unfair advantage. Now, obviously as I research a quick opinion will appear of them, but I will not go in depth with that for now.

What were your thoughts on the debate and Christie's performance? You make a good point that Bush, Fiorina and Trump are willing to get into the mix and be more vocal. Do you feel Christie did this too?

I am interested to see the chart that you are working on.

28/9/2015 - Entry 2 This last week or two has been an interesting start. The first thing that I accomplished on my journey was watching the Republican Debate on CNN. It was an interesting debate where many topics were brought up, some more pertinent than others. I did not use this debate as an opportunity to determine who I stood by on certain topics. I used this to see who was the major talkers in the Republican party. Bush, Fiorina, and Trump seem to be the major talkers for their parties. They are very willing to stick their neck out for what they stand for and have a decent rebuttal. This characteristic is important enough to keep an eye on because a presidential candidate has to be outspoken. Trump is very quick to put in his two cents of input, which is a good thing, but he also has to be able to articulate a proper point, not just discredit his opponent.

I also spend this week researching the major political groups (Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, and Independent) and found multiple potential candidates to research further. I want to give each group so I have roughly the same amount of candidates in each group. I want to avoid any preset opinions that I have about the parties. I will add a picture of my selection shortly after this is posted.

It is a good idea to compare the two main political parties, however there are more... will you study the Libertarians? ... how about those that call themselves Independent? These individuals have varying views on topics, but do tend to have some common interests that unite them as Independents. How will you show the basic party beliefs/traits.... paragraphs, a chart, etc?

I agree, this country gives individuals the right to vote to impact their representation, but so few actually exercise this right. I believe the number is just over 50% of eligible voters actually vote. They are apathetic. It is very important for you to know what you believe, separate from the parties or candidates. I like that you are not just reading and watching the news, but also that you are talking to others. Through that discussion you will apply what you have learned and in the process will make conclusions. Be sure to talk to people of varying ages and ways of life.

So, what did you learn through the debate last night? Which candidates do you feel performed well? Why? Which candidates do you feel were not effective? Why?

16/9/2015 - Entry 1 I will use this time to complete two objectives that I feel are important for a person my age to accomplish. The first will be researching and, more importantly, understanding the difference between the political parties in our society. Times have changed and so have political parties. Politics is an ever changing being that must be continuously followed for it to be understood. Learning the difference between a liberal and a conservative, a Democrat and a Republican, left thinkers versus right thinkers. I will start with a basic understanding of the political groups and how they differ on major topics. That will give me a baseline for my second objective.

My second objective is one that I feel is more important. I will be turning 18 before the next Presidential election, therefore I believe that it is my responsibility to not only be an informed voter, but also an opinionated one. Voters may know what the politicians stand for, but knowing what they themselves stand for and why is just as, if not more, important for them to vote on their own behalf. Once I have the knowledgeable understanding of the difference between parties and candidates, I will then return to the major topics and form a personal opinion. I will research arguments for and against each side, documenting both, and then debate them with peers or within my own mind. The materials I will use for research are internet sources, books, television, and personal input from others. The first research I will be doing is watching the debate tonight.

I am ready and willing for my adventure through the political machine. Allons-y!