Governmant Lesson 80 essay

Franklin D. Roosevelt's Four Freedoms

      Franklin D. Roosevelt's four freedoms from his speech that he made on January 6 in 1941 covered a very basic foundation for individual rights and liberties of the American people, beyond that which the Bill of Rights already put down. His speech was aimed at the American people, but he claimed these rights were for people everywhere in the world.

      He added to these rights three years later in his State of the Union address.

      Most of what he spoke of seems to be simple decency from one man to another,

and what Franklin wanted was to have Congress implement this second Bill of Rights, with an eye toward moving ahead after World War two with greater security at home for American citizens.

English Lesson 50 essay

Effective Literature

If I were to pick one piece of literature that has affected me deeply, it would be The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Now, I don't read very much in my free time, and what I read might not be considered actual literature, being mostly fictional novels for young adults. But one week I was stuck in a auto body shop with my father and I had aught else to do, and I picked up The Hobbit to pass the time, and all I wanted to do while I was reading it was to keep reading it, even up until it was time to leave and continue our business. But all I wanted to do was stay in Tolkien's fantastic world for a little while longer.

That is the only time I would say that a piece of literature has affected me so much.

English lesson 40 Essay

          Writing dialogue from memory

          When writing dialogue from memory, is it best to write with accuracy of what was actually said, liveliness to make the narrative interesting, or with succinctness?

           I do not think succinctness is very important, as dialogue that is too concise is not very interesting, or realistic.

            Some degree of accuracy must be retained, or else your recollection will be untrue, but it is difficult to remember what exactly was said, so too strong a focus on accuracy would be unrealistic and tiring.

            Liveliness, however, is quite important for a good narrative that one enjoys reading. Though too much would certainly be unbelievable, the dialogue would be boring without it.

            In conclusion, I would say I believe that a good amount of both accuracy and succinctness are necessary, but liveliness is the most important for dialogue.

           

Government Week Five essay

Federal Subsidies

If the people give power to a government to help them, they give just as much power to harm them as well. One situation in which this concept is applicable is monetary subsidies.

Where does the money come from that is being used for subsidies? The money comes from taxpayers. Taxpayers pay money to the government under the assumption that the government will use it to protect and better the country. But if the government gives subsidies to large corporations, then the money is not going where the taxpayers wanted it to go.

Since government is created by the people and for the people, then if the government puts taxpayer dollors toward something that will not benefit the people, or if the dollars go toward something that the people do not wish to put their money towards, then the government is not doing its job. None of this has to do with wether or not the government should be giving out monetary subsidies, it simply has to do with the logic behind Federal control along with subsidies.

In conclusion, we can say that if the people want the government to give Federal subsidies, there must also be some level of Federal control.

English week five essay

Momentous occasions

While I wouldn't go so far as to say that I haven't had any turning points in my life, I can't exactly say that I have very many. The simple fact is that I haven't had a very 'interesting' life, but perhaps I could name a few.

For one, the decision I made a few years ago to not wear T-shirts or shorts and exclusively wear polo shirts and long pants was fairly big for me. It wasn't 'life changing', but it certainly was a change. But it wasn't very big, and probably not very interesting.

This change, however, is fairly large; we moved from our apartment in New York to a house in Ohio. Now, it was not as big as moves from one state to another often are, as we did not live in New York for very long compared to how long we have been living here in Ohio and we were homeschooled so we did not have any 'friends', but it was quite momentous for me.

The biggest turning point by far, though, was the death of my brother. It was a very big change as I'm sure the loss of a loved one always is. I don't think I can go into specifics.

As I said, I haven't had very many turning points, but these few were big changes for me.

English Week Four Essay

A Story of Note

If I had to pick a single story from Lerher's book A Bus of My Own that grabbed me I would have to pick the story near the beginning of the book where he and a bus driver from his dad's bus company were driving their passengers tot he next stop and the bus had no brakes.

This story stood out to me because I can relate to it; I have been in a vehicle that has no brakes before, on more than one occasion. This story had me tensing and wincing as I recalled my own experiences of fearing a crash at any given moment.

It also struck me during this story exactly how miraculous it was that the bus did not crash on the busy intersection when the driver was unable to stop the bus at the red light on time and the bus went straight into the thick of the cars. Surely, the chances of all of the cars stopping on time and letting the bus through were very slim.

There are, of course, many stories in his book that are worthy of mention, but this one was the one that stood out to me the most.

Government Week Four Essay

Bastiat's Argument

In Bastiat's essay “That Which is Seen and That Which is Unseen”, he discusses economics and economic fallacies. A summary of his argument follows.

Basically, he says that in economics, there are the effects of the actions of an individual that everyone sees, and these might be apparently good or bad. For instance in his broken window fallacy, he says that the man whose window is broken will be a benefit to society because he will have to buy a new window and that will give somebody somewhere the job of replacing the window and it will put his money into the system.

The part which is unseen, though, is that the man ultimately loses an opportunity because the wealth that he now has to spend on replacing his window could have been spent on something else that the man wanted or needed and the person who would have sold him this product is the ultimate loser, as he can no longer sell his product to the man.

In accordance with his title, Bastiat's essay was critical of those who look only at that which can be easily observed in economics and encourages people to look for the winners and losers in the economy that are not so easily seen.