The Presidential Debate: The Resident vs. The President

Salem-Keizer Scoring Guide
John Kerry
19 points
George Bush
12 points

Bush vs. Kerry

John Kerry’s argument was better presented, supported and delivered than George Bush’s. The senator delivered his ideas on foreign policy clearly and supported them with factual evidence and historical references. All though he started off the debate scared by Bush’s incumbency, the audience found him relaxed less than ten minutes in. Kerry fell slightly short of my standards when he failed to use vivid vocabulary, but made up for his error by rapidly putting a halt to the president’s insistent hedging. Bush avoided answering pointed questions and intellectually supporting his ideology, equivocating by falling back on his clichéd American value speeches. Our president also provided his trademark circular argument, scolding Kerry’s campaign for scaring troops in Iraq, and misused a ninth-grade vocabulary word: “vociferously.”

Does This Flaming Revolutionary Sermon Make Sense?

With Communism eradicated, the next economic issue for Democratic countries to resolve will be the moral corruption of Globalization. Globalization has opened the door for many international economic opportunities, but so far only mega corporations have taken advantage of the world’s new economic interdependency. They have mainly outsourced, which only benefits a select few rich individuals and corporations. New transportation and communication technology should help small businesses and independent workers by providing goods and services at lower costs and reducing inflation. A step like this will likely be carried out by the U.N. or another globally presiding body, since Bill Gates (worth forty six billion dollars) and Phil Knight (worth five billion dollars) don’t intend to give up any of their precious income to independent convenience store owners in Guatemala.

Zak the Philosopher's Take On The World

My name is Zak the Philosopher and I'm new to this blog. I've only posted one article (The Sub-Human Child Mentality), but I really like this site. I think it's important to give informed youth a voice. We're so commonly chucked into the huge melting pot of American Youth and treated completely generically that we sometimes forget that, like any other group we have unique voices.
Also, as is commonly neglected by arrogant adults, our voices have something important to say. We provide intelligent commentary and creativity without the hinderance of biases acquired in adult life, and our opinions are-usually-passionate and well expressed.
Why do we get mixed in with the rest of the teeming mass? Adults don't know how to deal with us. The grown ups who want to help would rather not single us out in school, for fear offending those youth who aren't informed, and many others are afraid of us. The hegemonal adults in our country need stop worrying about us and start proliferating us.

I have my own blog, where there are plenty of other adamantly self-promoting articles like these. You can visit it at astuteobservation.blogspot.com.

The Sub-Human Child Mentality

This is an article from my other blog: Under the Ice at astuteobservation.blogspot.com that I thought was extremely relevant to this page.

Adults have a common problem of classifying young people as one mass, not normal people but sort of semi-human group with relatively consistent opinions and tastes. Think about it and you'll see what I mean. Signs of it are everywhere: Kid's meals, kid's Post, kid's shows. All this because of the mistaken belief that all kids like the same things. This amalgamation of America's youth is a symptom of a bigger problem, which I call the "Sub-Human Child Mentality." This, quite obviously, is the belief that, as a very wise man so cogently put it, "children are in training to be people." People with this mentality (most of the adult population) assume that children have not developed a full enough spectrum of emotions, thoughts and experiences to be treated as relevant members of society. I, as someone who has recently undergone the change from a childlike mind to a more adult one, can testify that this isn't true. As a child, one is more fresh, more alive, more human in many ways than an adult. A young person hasn't had as many bad experiences as an adult, so their minds aren't clogged with fear. This is why children's opinions should be respected. I'm not trying to pretend that young people can decide everything by themselves. It is incredibly important, especially in the early years, that an adult's experience by factored before a decision is made. In an ideal world, experienced adults would explain the guidelines and limitations they understand from a long life, then let children decide within those parameters what they believe. The Sub-Human Child Mentality has grave repercussions in a young person's life, the primary one being inability to express oneself. Because children are not viewed as people with valid opinions, they don't get chances to say what's on their minds when they're young, and grow up not knowing how to communicate. It's satisfying to avenge all the young people who were classified as "below normal intelligence" or "ADD" because their culture disrespected them and not because they were born with a sub-normal cranial capacity. There are two fronts that must be tackled in the destruction of the Sub-Human Child Mentality and it's replacement with a respect for the young. First, there are the adults who must be re-educated to understand the ideas stated above. Second are the children, who will need no more than freedom and encouragement to make their mark on the world.