The End!

     Our blogging assignment is now officially over! It was a much different assignment that I though it would be. The best part was being able to relate the course to real life situations and also, being able to put in my opinion on the matter. I was even able to learn about a few news topics I wasn't aware of before which was a good way to expand my knowledge. In the end, I think this was one of the best assignments to have because it was a nice change of pace from the regular "read this 20 page paper and summarize it in a paragraph"!  It was an assignment a lot more enjoyable than most!

Before leaving, take a quick look at my top 6 blogs!

Voter Turn Out – January 26^th, 2011

Colonel Russell Williams – February 13^th, 2011

Politically Acceptable or Socially Wrong – February 15^th, 2011

Influenced Views – February 22, 2011

Women In Politics – February 28^th, 2011 

Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs - March 1st, 2011 

Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs

North Korea has extreme censorship on their media leaving their country unaware of the mishaps going on in the rest of the world. They have been creating bans on the Internet, websites and even foreign media. It seems absolutely ridiculous that North Korea can even think of doing this when other countries would not dare try because of the many different aspects of human rights it affects. There have been little hints being thrown at North Korea about the revolt that the people of Libya and Egypt have done to overthrow their nation’s leaders.

As crazy as this sounds, Internet, media and other bans are not human rights friendly, but have you ever considered that sometimes things on the internet are being banned to protect people. The best example I have of this would be Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs. The Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs were 19 years old at the time they committed their crimes. They started off with smaller crimes such as animal abuse. One of the boys claimed it was an attempt to get rid of his fear of animals. This smaller abuse quickly escalated to brutal murders of “weaker” citizens such as pregnant women, drunken men and seniors. The brutal killings were done with items such hammers and damaged their victims to until they were barely recognizably. A source close to the boys also said that a foreign film company offered them millions of dollars to create 40 videos of their murders. All of these videos and pictures were found the boys’ computer that includes pictures of them at their victim’s grave.  Just like all inappropriate videos, a video of the brutal murder of a senior man was leaked on to the Internet named “Three Guys, One Hammer”, cleverly named after a pornographic video to attract attention. I for one think that the video being on the Internet available for everyone to see if quite disgusting. Whoever leaked the video, whoever chose to keep it on their website, and whoever enjoys watching it has to be sick in the head, literally. It’s things like this that the government should have control over the Internet, at least a little bit. The wrong people could see these videos such as children who may be scarred for life. After simply hearing about these videos I was shocked and unable to feel safe in general.

This maybe doesn’t apply directly to North Korea because North Korea puts bans on everything, but it could potentially apply to other things within the Canadian culture. I know most people will say we’ve given up so many rights already and this would be another right. I’m not saying give up all our Internet rights but we should be able to give up just enough so that citizens are protected, especially those who have to witness their grandfather, husband, or farther being brutally murdered by three wealthy teenage boys. It’s also unfair that these murder videos are floating around on the Internet easily available for their loved ones to see. I’d be willing to give up my personal Internet rights so that people don’t have to witness the brutal murder of their loved one. 

Posing with the cat they murdered

Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs in Court 

Women In Politics

            When comparing different aspects of the working environment, you can clearly see the lack of women in many important areas of the Canadian society. Men usually run large business corporations, in Parliament there’s mostly men, and people in the work force are mostly men. This I believe is due to the misconceptions of women. Most businesses believe that women won’t be a suitable fit for their company or for the job position. The company’s specific fear is the relationships that these women will have and the outcomes of these relationships. By that I mean will their employee get married and have kids and become distracted from work. This thought alone is one of the main reasons that women are not being given the same opportunities as men are.  Which also leads to women not being as confident as men are.

At a lecture given in the TED studio by the COO of Facebook named Sheryl Sandberg, she talked about the difference in men and women in the workplace and gave 3 things that women should do in order to make it farther in the workplace. Sit at the table, make your partner a real partner and don’t leave before you leave. The first rule means being proactive during meanings and sitting at the table to be more involved. Make your partner is a real partner means splitting up the work between husband and wife, because often times the female in the relationship tends to do the housework which creates more work. Thirdly, don’t leave before you leave means the manager always feels like he or she needs to be the last one out, but realistically that’s not necessary. All three of these factors contribute a lot to why women aren’t always in better paying jobs or involved within the Canadian government.

This all contributes to the reasons why women aren’t in high power job positions and not in positions such as Parliament and the Senate. Basically showing that the system s failing women. There should be set rules and regulations about how many women can be in power and how many men can be. It needs to be more divided and give women the opportunity to be involved with the Canadian government. But I don’t blame the system entirely, I do blame some women as well who want the chance to do it but have never tried to. With the combination of Canada advantaging the disadvantages and women taking the steps to be in these position, Canada will be on it’s way to creating equality amongst it’s Parliament and Senate. 
You can watch the Sheryl's speech by just clicking here!

Sheryl Sandberg

Gun Registry

In 2001, there was a registry created requiring people within Canada to register their personal guns. That way the police can track the guns to the gun owners and be able to keep track of gun usage.  Being a woman in Canada, I feel as if this is extremely important aspect to have in gun ownership. It’s also a way to attempt higher safety among citizens. Law didn’t require this registry until 2003. After it had become legal, many crimes such as suicide and other forms of gun violence was significantly reduced.

            Guns are not a big part of the Canadian society as they are in America. Gun violence and crimes in America is significantly higher than in Canada. Initiating the gun registry actually helped reduce criminal activity. On another note, there is a lot of media, specifically video games, that I feel as if are influencing the youth today. All of these games such as Grand Theft Auto promote gun violence, theft and violence against women. These are the type of games that surround children today and they grow up to be a lot more aggressive. There have been numerous studies done that showed increased aggressiveness when playing violent video games versus having a more active past time. It’s as if we are creating youth to be violent criminals in the future. That’s why it’s so important to have a gun registry because anything we can do to help track the spread of violence is going to help Canada in the long run.

            Having a gun registry helps track guns as well as helps solve crimes faster. It might be taking away from our freedom, but when it comes to protecting the society as whole, it usually trumps individual rights. 

Clear Violence in Grand Theft Auto (Video Game)

Political Views Test

       I did a test on the Internet that allowed me to tell where I fell on the political compass. I was well aware that I would technically be a liberal but I wasn’t too sure if I was extreme right or somewhere in between. There were a series of questions that asked about my opinion about business, the government, women and my views on certain policies where I could select strongly agree, agree, disagree or strongly disagree. Just like I thought I would be, I turned out to be a liberal! I wasn’t entirely liberal though, I do fall somewhere in between. If you look at the picture posted below, it gives a chart of exactly where I fall.

      I do believe that these days, depending on your beliefs, most people aren’t extremely left or extremely right. The way you view policies and issues might be different depending on the exact issue. This is the case for me, I sometimes go Conservative and sometimes Liberal, it entirely depends on what I personally believe is right or wrong depending on the issue. After getting my results for the test, there were explanations about how the political scale works. There was also an example given on the political scale about the different people in government around the world or well-known icons such as Hitler and where they fell on the scale.

     This showed a good comparison to where I fell on the scale itself. I knew that I was Liberal because my parents have been Liberal for their whole lives, they never really explained why they were Liberal but after going to high school and taking different courses, I was able to get the main ideas that Liberals believed in. If you want to try to take the test on your own, just click here!

Influenced Views

      We had a discussion in class about the different ways that people are influenced in their political views. There were many different influences such as school, parents, friends, and environment, just to name a few examples. Personally, I’ve had two big influences on my political views that have to be certain teachers I’ve had during high school and my uncle. Firstly, my parents were never a big influence on me from the beginning, that’s mainly because they aren’t very involved in politics. Their attitude is that if they have a problem within their district, they won’t find ways to approach anyone to rectify the situation. I believe this is because they were born and raised in a corrupt country that had an unstable government. The government was never about the people; it was a more repressive government rather than a government that empowered people. That’s why their beliefs are more around the idea that the government wouldn’t be able to help them in any sort of situation. I, on the other hand, have a more proactive view on these sorts of situation. My uncle has always been the type to basically say that if you’re not happy about something, you better go out and fix it any way you can. He’s also the one that’s always been talking to me about current political issues within Canada and also around the world. I’ve been exposed to different situations that many haven’t, for example I’ve been to a rally before which was an experience most people haven’t gotten. My other influence has been my law teachers in any grade. I’ve always been interested in law and hope to pursue that in the future, so many beliefs that my law teachers have had have been transferred to me. This might simply be because I can relate to them a lot more than I could relate to lets say my math teachers! Lastly, friends and peers have never actually influenced my choices, I often times disagree with what they think!

Politically Acceptable or Socially Wrong?

      Negative advertisements during elections are plastered all over the Internet and the media. Conservatives against Liberals and Liberals against Conservatives, it’s a never-ending cycle of tearing apart the actions of what each group as done during their term in government. These advertisements are not effective at all during elections, especially on me. Whenever I have seen the advertisements, I’ve just looked at how uninformed their commercials are, they will take a tiny portion of the truth and make it bigger than it really is.  The claims made are just really misinforming people that aren’t too keen about politics and take no interest in it; it targets these people who will listen to anyone or anything screaming negative comments about the parties. It in no way seems professional and it’s as if they are “playing dirty” during election time. You also never know when these advertisement’s can become too much. For example, the 1933 Chrétien attack ad during the Federal elections. The Progressive Conservative Party against Jean Chrétien who was the leader of the liberal party created the commercial. It’s often times referred to as the “face ad” but it focused on his facial deformity that was caused by Bell’s Palsy. This commercial created a lot of controversy and negative campaigning that caused many people to not vote for the Conservative party because of this.  This goes to prove that negative campaigning has no limits with some people and there is a fine line between what is politically acceptable and what is socially wrong.  In a youtube video, I was able to find the exact commercial along with some comments by Chrétien about the video itself. You can view the video just below!

Colonel Russell Williams

Last class, we were discussing deference to authority that is basically respect for the law. Many students had their personal opinions about the police system and said how we have an efficient one. Many people also said that the police do get more respect than others because of the fact that they are the enforcers of the law. Personally, I do believe we have efficient police officers, yet there aren’t enough checks in place to ensure that the people within their jobs are abiding by the rules as well. For example, Colonel Russell Williams who was charged with 88 different murders, breaking Colonel Russel Williams and entering and sexual assaults. Williams was the commander of Canada’s biggest air force base called CFB Trenton but after work went on different sprees that started off with minor offenses such as breaking and entering, which quickly escalated to sexual assaults and then murders. He had countless pictures and videos stored on his computer from the multiple homes he had broken into. This only goes to show that people who are supposed to be respected that are considered law abiding citizens sometimes turn out not to be so. He was a successful Colonel and no one believed that it could have been him. Being in positions of power in society seems to give people the benefit of the doubt and skews people’s judgment as if they are incapable of breaking the law. This again gives some people an advantage over the system that’s meant to protect society. The most difficult part about this all was that it took 36 minutes to read out all the crimes that Colonel Russell Williams had committed.

To read the article just click here, it's more in depth about the multiple crimes he committed. Just below are also pictures of Colonel Russell Williams. 

Russell Williams 

Williams leaving the Court House

Canada vs. America

            Many people believe that Canada has become to “Americanized” and that our roots are based entirely on theirs. I believed that as well to a certain extent. After coming to university and taking a few political science courses, I realized that Canada is made up of a lot of different parts of the world including France, Britain and America. I feel as if we take the best part of each of these places and incorporate it into our country. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, if you look at these countries; they’ve always had some sort of problems, especially America. Canada on the other hand is a calm environment, a place that most people would like to raise families in. With the recession in America, not many people who choose America over Canada. When you compare aspects from America and Canada, Canada wins most of the debates. We have a better health care system, we have a more peaceful environment and we don’t have any major enemies. America on the other hand is quite the opposite. I think the main difference would be that people in America, specifically the youth, vote more often than Canadians do. They believe in more political protest, more involvement and are more in tune to what is going on in the news. Young Canadians, not so much!

            When we think about identity, along with thinking that we have been “Americanized”, we also think about all the other symbols that identify what it means to be Canadian. The best example of this would be Tim Horton’s, maple leaf and the Toronto maple leafs. All of these things are symbols that Canada has created on it’s own, it hasn’t been adapted from another country. Basically, Canada is a great nation because we got to take the best parts of the different countries and incorporate it into our own, but at the same time, create our own identity, which makes us Canadian. 

Voter Turn Out

      Voter participation varies among different countries and also varies among men, women, ethnicity etc. During class we talked about the different cleavages that try to analyze why people do or do not vote. I believe there are two big factors on why young people do not vote. The first one is the fact that young people do not feel as if their issues are being properly represented. Personally at this point, I don’t care about the main issues politicians believe in because it doesn’t affect me right now, my main concern is my education and if politicians were more concerned about my issues, I’d be more likely to vote during elections. Secondly, the voting age in Canada is eighteen years old that isn’t the ideal age to allow people to vote. Speaking from personal experience, I turned eighteen on October 31^st, which was thirteen days after the federal elections. I’ve always been very concerned about politics and not being able to vote had almost made me not care about elections at all. Thirteen days wouldn’t make a difference in the way I would have voted or my political views. This event alone made me want re-examine the political system we currently have. After much thought, I was able to come up with a solution; Canadian politics should change the voting age to six months before you turn eighteen years old. Six months doesn’t make a person suddenly change their political views nor develop them. There are virtually no down sides to allowing people to vote six months before their 18th birthday, it gives more people the opportunity to vote but at the same time doesn’t force people to. On a more personal note, I’m now 20 years old and still have not been able to experience voting at a federal level simply because there was a election thirteen days before I turned eighteen. This is also another way to deter people from voting; it doesn’t give people the experience and exposure as early as other people. For example, for the next election I will be around twenty-two years old and will be voting for the first time whereas someone next to me could be eighteen years old and have the same experience level as I do. This only leads to deterring people from voting and also causing them to lose interest in politics.

Comedic Cartoon about Voter Participation

Political Participation

         Political participation is an important part of the political system; it helps the government realize what the people want and the social changes that are emerging. An example of this would be gay marriage rights that weren’t acceptable in the past but are acceptable now. In my opinion, I believe that political participation is essential in a democratic country, without this governments would be able to make their own decisions because the people of the country aren’t concerned enough to participate. People need to be exposed to all the different forms of political participation and not just through voting. Voting is an important part of participation but isn’t always the most effective way nor does it create social change. Different forms such as having protests and going to rallies is a way to participate in a more active way than just voting. I’ve been involved in rallies and protests and I’ve also helped campaign for local elections in Kitchener. It’s an entirely different experience than just simply voting. It’s a lot more active and you get to be a lot more involved with like-minded people. As Canadians, we do have the right to protest but it’s the right to peaceful protest but not all people are able to do this. Some people become so passionate about an issue that things become more aggressive and violent, especially when joined by people with similar views. This goes to show that violent protest doesn’t help solve an issue; it only creates a hostile situation where no one’s voices are being heard. The best example of this would be the G20 meeting that took place in Toronto and the violent behaviour that came from it. It didn’t create any positive outcomes from having an extremely violet protest. Participating in political events is an empowering way to get involved with the government, but it has to be done in a civil way so that you’re thoughts are being heard and considered. There is no sense in running around like a lunatic because it will get dismissed very easily. 

Violent behaviour during G20 Protest

Outcome of G20 Protest

Blogging Assignment

    Today we were given a blogging assignment to do as a component for the course. I thought it was a strange assignment and it was something I've never done before. At this point, I feel a little unprepared because this doesn't really fall into the typical assignments requested in class! I also thought that keeping a blog of record of something like this would be beneficial to my assignment! So today's the first day and I've been playing around with the design of blog and have decided on my favourite one and also added a picture of our text book as the main picture focus! That's all for now, hope you enjoy reading my blog throughout the semester.