Dictators

Dictatorship:
1. a country, government, or the form of government in which absolute power is exercised by a dictator.
2. absolute, imperious, or overbearing power or control.
3. the office or position held by a dictator.

Dictator
1 a person exercising absolute power, esp. a ruler who has absolute, unrestricted control in a government without hereditary succession.
2. (in ancient Rome) a person invested with supreme authority during a crisis, the regular magistracy being subordinated to him until the crisis was met.
3. a person who authoritatively prescribes conduct, usage, etc.: a dictator of fashion.
4. a person who dictates, as to a secretary.



OK, now, my reason for all of this:
We decided to completely destroy Iraq's governmental system and replaced it with our own. While dictaorships are a bad thing, it could possibly work for some cultures. I jsut put in the definitions, to show that the first definitions of both words do not say anything negative.

Let's Play Pass the Opressees

Iraq was oppressed by Saddam Hussein. This was a well known fact. Many people say that since they did not ask for help, we should not have gone to "free" them. There are just as many people who say that they could not ask for help. The fight goes on and on and on.

One thing that I rarely hear about is how the Iraqi people have gone from one oppressor to another. look, I know that the United States does not want to consider itself an oppressor, but I think that in this case it is. I want so bad to believe that it is one of those things that they do not realize, that it is all based in good intentions. This does not make it any less bad.

But, I mean we are trying to force them to have our government. We are still over there with military force...etc...

But back to the good intentions: In Of Mice and Men, Lenny was filled with love. He smothers others with kindness. I wonder if this country is a more dangerous version of Lenny....

Drowning in Democracy

I wonder if everyone is aware that we are literally drowning the Iraqi people in democracy. You cannot force people to change their government, especially as quickly as we are trying to. There are some points I would like to make about the democracy we have here in the United States:
1. We desperately wanted it. it was not forced on us.
2. It took a lot for us to get it going, and running somewhat smoothly-- look at all of our amendments
3. It is still a flawed system. if we still haven't perfected it, how can we expect to impose it on someone else?

Patriotism?

patriotism: (dicionary.reference.com)
love of country and willingness to sacrifice for it
and
devoted love, support, and defense of one's country; national loyalty.


There is, I believe, a big difference in these definitions and the contemporary notion of patriotism. Many people today appear to believe that patriotism is equivocal to blindly following the government and the rest of the majority. This may be considered patriotism in totalitarian countries, but not in any free nation. In a free nation, part of showing your love for the rights you have is using those rights. Speak up when you disagree, make changes.

There are at least two things that I have found that may be part of the problem (I am sure I can think of more, given time):

1. People don't know what it means to be patriotic
2. People don't know their rights. I commented on this on one of Nick's blog entries. People don't know enough about their rights to realize when to use them and when they are taken away. If they knew about this, then I think that a lot more people would be standing up for what they believe in and being truly American.

A bit of a rambling rant....

This may be slightly off topic, but it is, at the very least based on something that Johnson said in class: He said that Barney, everyone's favorite dinosaur brought up a messed up generation. (Well, not in those words.....I am paraphrasing.)

All of the Barney follower were brought up being told that it is right to have our own opinions and that we are all special. This gives unrealistic views about individuality and self-righteousness. Someone said that having the right does not mean that you are right. And far too many people don't get this. They think that because they have the right to think hat they want that they are automatically right in their thinking.

But back to what I was going to say:
Barney saying that everyone is special reminds me of the No Child Left Behind stuff and the way that so many high schools will push students foreword even if they are not up to the level etc. And it all made me think of a quote from a children's movie that got it right. Dash in The Incredibles said: "I everyone is special then no one is special."

There is no truer statement. Being special is being unique and different. if everyone is that, then how can anyone be that?

Anyways, Nikki is done rambling for the time being.

My Art and Philosopy Expiriment

My hypothesis: If given an abstract work of art with a lot going on in it, we will get a wide range of differing interpretations due to everyone's individuality.

Counter hypothesis: Despite our "individuality," we all think similarly, and we will only get a few completely different interpretations.

Professor Johnson showed his second Art and Philosophy class the painting that can be found at this link http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/math5.pattern/Janson.p766.gif. I believe he asked them to say what they saw. Sadly, all of the responses were not interpretations, and I would like to do the experiment again.

Total # of responses: 14
Said that the work was "busy": 2
Said that it was "Chinese Art": 1
Purely commented on it's form and nothing else: 4
Said that it was "instruments of life": 1
Said there were faces in the work: 1
Said there were "undersea animals": 1
Said there was anger: 1
Made a circus related comment: 2

This last one, I do not know if I can take seriously, because no matter how hard I try, I do not see this, and feel that the remark may have been sarcastic:
"A boy in glasses riding a tricycle through a fiesta where there are balloons shaped as a lobster and an Incan Warrior': 1

The Is-Ought Challenge

We have been challenged to come up with a bunch of "Is" statements in order to get the "ought" statement: "Hurting is wrong."

First off, I am changing it to "Hurting without just cause is wrong."

1. When you hurt someone they recieve pain
2. Pain, according to humans, is an unpleasant feeling in the extreme
3. Humans do not like to have unpleasant feelings in most cases
4. Humans base things on morals
5. Human morals say that causing pain and other unpleasant feelings are not right


We need to attribute the ought claims, which Johnson says makes it an "is" instead of an "ought".

I still think I win...