Flat Tax or Flat Tire

I am a firm believer that the flat tax system is the way to go. Progressive taxes kind of make sense but it is really unfair for the wealthy people. Why should the rich people have to pay more for the success that they’ve had? They probably went to college for several years and took hard classes so they can get a higher paying job and be successful in life. They had to have worked hard to get to that point and we are going to punish them for their success by raising their taxes. That is a joke. If we ever did switch to a flat tax, all the poor people would be crying because they would have to be paying just as much as the rich people and they would think that is unfair. Well maybe these poor people shouldn’t be so lazy and get bad paying jobs. Maybe they should go out and actually try to do something in their life. Go back to school so you can get a decent paying job. Everybody has the opportunity in life to be successful. It is just weather or not you have the determination to do so. “It'd be hard to find anyone happy with our complex tax system.” This quote pretty much sums up our tax system. Nobody likes it except for the poor lazy people who don’t want to go out and get a decent job. I don’t see how progressive taxes are going to lead to unemployment but that doesn’t mean I am for it. I still think people are going to be working hard for their money no matter what tax system they are going to have to follow. So I believe that the flat tax would make Americans happier and it would be more fair to everyone. 

Deviance in Sports

One of the first examples that come to mind when I think of deviance in sports is when Colin Kaepernick sat down for the National Anthem during a National Football game. This is an example of deviance because it definitely went against the norms of society. When people think of the National Anthem, they think of paying respect to our country and for the ones who fought for it so we should stand respectfully with our right hand over our heart to honor it. Colin had different ideas because he thought that people in this country oppresses people of the colored race. For him to get his protest out, he kneeled down on the ground whenever the national anthem was played. Colin Kaepernick didn’t believe in doing this and respecting the country and everyone in the world judged him and called him stupid for doing so. I totally disagree with him and think that we need to respect our country and for everyone who has made this country so great. His action was unheard of before this game because everyone had been respecting it since this country was created. So this went against the norms of society because no one had really done that before. This is an example of we can see deviance used in sports. 

Who lead Freddie and Mike to failure?

Before I read this article, I was a firm believer that people decide their own fate and they have complete control in what they want to do in their lives. The article about Mike Tyson really made me rethink this because he really didn’t have much control of his life. It all started with the government and then the rest of society took action of his failure. His mom lost her job and apartment due to a recession. Because of this, they were forced to leave and they ended up in ghetto town where there was always crime. He then had to go to a different school where he always got bullied. Kids would always beat him up and steal all the money he had in his pockets. All he wanted was to be loved, so he had to join a gang where he would be able to fit in. They would make a living by going around and robbing houses. He eventually learned how to stand up for himself so he started beating up the people that did wrong to him. The society gave him a lot of respect for his actions but little did he know he was setting himself up for failure. At the age of 13, he decided that he wanted to be a professional fighter, so he started practicing for it. He eventually became one of the best heavyweight champions in the world.

                Freddie Gray really didn’t have a whole lot of control in his life either. Yes, he made most of the decisions in his life, but his childhood growing up was miserable. He was born two months premature, his mother couldn’t read, never got an education, and did heroin when he was born. This has a huge effect on a baby and they aren’t able to develop into normal human beings like everyone else. Before he was even two years old, he got a lot of lead into his blood from the paint and researchers later found out that this would lead to permanent brain damage. By the time he turned into an adult, he had been suspended from school many times, had many encounters with the police, and did drugs quite a few times. Later in his adult life, he assaulted a family friend while carrying some drugs. When the police approached him, he ran away and the police chased him down. He eventually died because the police manhandled him wrongly and did some damage to his spinal cord.

                I am still a firm believer that most people are able to decide their own fate, but in these two cases, I believe that society had the biggest effect on them and how their lives are ran. The government made Mike move to a very violent community when he was very little and the society in the community took over and had a very bad influence on him. If he was older when this happened, I think his outcome would have been very different. He would’ve made better decisions in his life but he really didn’t know better because he was just looking for people to accept him and fit in with. Society had a huge effect on Freddie as well, mainly because of his mother. Because of her, he was not able to function like normal people. He had many disorders because of how his mother treated and raised him and the society that he lived in was not very nice. So I believe that in these two instances, the government and the society let down both Freddie Gray and Mike Tyson. 

The Bronx Tale

First Article       

                No body’s race can be changed. It’s not based on your religion or what you believe in. It’s not based on where you live now or your nationality. Even if you change to a completely different culture, you are not changing your race in any way. It’s based on how you were classified when you were born and you are stuck with it until you die whether you like it or not. Racism all started in the fifteenth century when one group of people had more power than the other. They referred to this as the colonizer and the colonized. The colonizer owned the colonized and they viewed the colonized as objects more than anything. This is when slavery and racism began. All of the slaves were of a black race so that is what made them racist. Racism ultimately reached its highest point in the late 1800s to the early 1900s. The Jim Crow laws created several laws that separated the blacks from the whites and they were not allowed to interact at all. African Americans weren’t even allowed to vote because people were racist. South Africa, Germany, and the U.S. were the 3 most racial countries in the world during this time. During the 1950s to 1960s, racism slowly started disappearing throughout the world. This occurred because of the fight for independence and national sovereignty. In America, it was because of the Civil Rights Movement that helped bring down the rate of racism. Blacks had a lot more rights now and they went to the same schools and restaurants as the whites and there were able to interact with each other.

Second Article

                I agree with William Thomas when he says that everyone is a racist in some way or form. I personally am a racist myself even though it is hard to admit. When I think of Asians, I automatically think of them being very smart. When I think of African Americans, I think of them as very athletic. A lot of people don’t consider these thoughts as being racist, but it actually is because they think one race is better or worse than another racial group. A lot of people would believe that America is the most racist country in the world. This is not true though. Over the past 10 years, America has let in about 700,000 foreigners a year. America even did a study on this. They found out that most people want to live in a neighborhood where 50% of the people living there are of a different race than their own. This goes to show that people want diversity and that they aren’t near as racist as people were in the early 1900s. Also, go look at the United States 44^th President. He was the first African American president this country has ever seen. This shows that racism has gone down a lot recently. We all need to learn how to accept people for who they are. We can’t judge people on their appearance or their race because they have no control over that. We need to look at other people based who they are on the inside of themselves, not the outside.

Third Article

                A new study is going on and they are finding out that Americans are racist because of the culture that we live in. Social media is the main cause of creating stereotypes and racism. In their research, they had a group of people and they would give them a word. After hearing the word, they would say the first word that comes to mind. When people hear the word black, they think of violence, goofy, and lazy. When people hear the word women, they think of them as being weak and uptight. When they hear the word old, they think of forgetfulness, lonely, and playful. The reason people said these words aren’t necessarily because they’re racist, but because we have heard it all over the TV, Internet, Radio and other Social Media. I think this is very true. When I go on twitter or facebook, I always see these jokes about other races and all these stereotypes. We all laugh at them and think it’s funny but it really isn’t right to do so. Social media is a part of the American culture now days and I do believe that it is the leading cause of racism in this country.

                I really think that racism came from the concept that it is culturally universal. Every culture in the world dislikes something about a different culture or they think they are better than other cultures which makes them racists. I don’t think there was a certain time period where racism really took off. It has been here ever since the beginning of time. “The ancient Greeks distinguished between the civilized and the barbarous, but did not regard these states as hereditary.” Racism has been here ever since the ancient Greeks came into the world so Western civilization has nothing to do about where it originated from. Western civilization is just another concept of racism that has already been here. When you look back to ancient Greek history, they didn’t get along with many groups. The Spartans and Athens were two different groups that fought each other. The Greeks went to war with a group called the Persians. “I’m a bit of a racist. I’ll bet you are one, too.” People have always been racist and we always will be. It’s just who we are and we need to learn to accept it. “Literature, movies, TV, radio and the Internet all contribute to the problem by exhibiting the same stereotypes that others work so hard to snuff out.” Social media is a big cause of racism in America and I don’t think that racism will ever go away. There is so much conflict and diversity in this world so there is no way racism will ever disappear. 

Lord of the Flies Prompts

     I agree that a person can be killed not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally. I think when people get made fun of a lot they can be killed mentally. It depends on whether or not the person can take it or not. Home like can also kill a person emotionally and mentally. The way your parents raise you and treat you can affect you this way. If you get yelled at by your parents this can affect you. If they don’t care for you or show any affection toward you, it can kill you. This is how people can be killed without being killed by physical ways.

     I think that our savage self is going to end up taking over if we can’t separate if from our civilized self. I think that our savage self is in our nature and there is no way that we can avoid it. People try to be civilized and try to get along but eventually our savage self will end up taking over. In the book, a lot of people turned away from each other because they wanted to have power and it all happened because of the savage self that is inside of them. Our savage self is what everyone who they are and there is no changing it or getting rid of it.

     In order for a civilization to be created you need a lot of people to make it run efficiently. You need to have an upper class and a lower class. The lower class is going to be the people working in schools, restaurants, banks, farms, etc. Then you need a higher class of people to be in charge of the lower class people so that everything is ran smoothly. This would be like your mayors and presidents. I think that a society is controlled by the people. In order for a society to be ran smoothly, you have to make the people happy and do what they want done. If they’re happy, they will get work done and everything will be ran according to plan and ran smoothly.    

"The Lottery"

1.       I really wasn’t surprised by the end of the story. Everyone was kind of tense and uneasy with each other at the beginning of the story. Everyone was very nervous and they were really quiet. He also talks about how the children are having fun and they are happy which makes it sound like a normal town.

2.       A small village. If it was a larger town, this whole story never would’ve occurred. Yes, it seems like weird things occur in smaller towns or villages.

3.       Everyone had their different ways of going about things and had different viewpoints. Each family thought of things differently. She was very obnoxious and said the whole thing wasn’t fair.

4.       Because when I think of lottery, I think of having a chance to win something. Also, in the beginning, it talks about the kids being happy and having fun. In the end, winning their type of lottery ends in the stoning of a person.

5.       Delacroix – his name means the cross which stands for religious turmoil

Graves – death is near in some way

Summers – it means happiness is near and new life is coming

Hutchinson – stands for protesting because Anne Hutchinson was a protestor.

Warner – doesn’t want this to stop because it is tradition.

6.       When I hear the words black box and black spot, the color black stands out to me which normally means death. And then when it talks about the fetal slip of paper, that’s a dead giveaway that it’s about death. Because it shows that they’ve been using it for generation and generation so it has become tradition. The stones also stand for death.

7.       I think that the writer was against the stoning and the lottery. He explains how people are going away from the lottery and I think that the writer thinks they should too. You can also tell in his voice of words that he is against it.

8.       It represents the laws that need to be changed or thrown out. Just like how the lottery needs to be thrown out because it is wrong.

9.       The Holocaust.

I think that “The Lottery” shows us that there are a lot of people that are very stuck up. People that have been doing the things their ancestors did find it very hard to change their ways. They don’t want to change because it is tradition. Ways need to be changed sometimes because the way people lived back then did things in a very inhumane way. In the past, people had beliefs that today nobody would have ever thought of. The reason these people did “The Lottery” and the stoning was because they thought that they needed someone to die in order for their crops to be plentiful. “The Lottery” also shows us that people have learned to accept violence today. Just look at all the shows on TV that people watch. There is a lot of shooting and blood. Even video games that people play like Call of Duty. There are even 8 year olds that are playing these games that have a lot of blood, shooting, and violence. This just goes to show that humans have learned to accept violence and it doesn’t really bother us. It also shows that it’s in our nature to keep things the same way it has been for generation and generation.

Sally Yates

1.    An Obama appointee serving as acting U.S. Attorney General.
2.   She was basically handed down as Obama's Attorney General to Trump's Attorney General.
3.   She betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protects the citizens of the United States.
4.   She is not convinced that the defense of the Executive Order is consistent with these responsibilities nor is she convinced that the Executive Order is lawful.