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Impeachment: An Overview

The process of Presidential Impeachment is intended to be a political safeguard for the people and the US government to prevent being taken advantage of by anyone in office. The process is hundreds of years old and has been reinvented to fit the United States’ unique democracy. Its consideration as an addition to a limitation of the President was a subject of passionate debate in the construction of the Constitution. And in the process of the ratification of the law as it is known today, even opposing minds like Hamilton’s and Madison’s came together to help the people of their time understand the government they would be choosing. Impeachment is a political process that is intended to keep corruption and bad leaders out of power. America has a very long history with Impeachment. Lots of US officials, most of them judges, have been impeached in the US. However, there have not been so many presidents to experience impeachment. The impeachment of a judge isn’t so newsworthy and that ...

John Locke's Social Contract and Why We Live By It

           All peoples who are born into any civil society have entered their social contract. This is not a voluntary action. Children are born into the observed obligations of their fathers and so are subject to any laws that the land they were naturalized. It is their fathers who comply with the standing power in order to preserve their rights and serve their interests. This is a state of existence that lies beyond the state of nature. Within the state of nature men are indisputably free. Man is free to live his life and hold his property in any way he sees fit. Unfortunately, that freedom comes along with the freedom of others and others are not subject to the same perceptions that Locke’s theories on man in his natural state dictate. In this state, free men are subject to the brutalities of other free men who would assert their dominance over those who do not match them in might. And so, in order to create more equality in the world we live in, we ...

Repairing US Foreign Aid Measures

Developing countries have been left in the proverbial dust as the rest of the world has developed in rapid succession. The result has been populations of people all over the developing world being left in poverty and with a very poor quality of life. As the disparity between the developed and the developing world has grown, a sense of responsibility to provide them help has also risen. For the majority of these nations, there have been some enormous successes, but there are others who have seen no change. While the truth is that all of these countries were either one measure of success or another, aid has contributed to the common good of people globally and helped millions more living in dire conditions. Aid is helpful in terms of what it is designed to do; the problem lies in how aid is administered. The United States has been an active participant in administering aid to developing nations and in studying its effectiveness as well as the oversight of programs provided in order to ...

What I took with me from the development of the Constitution

The world is given to everyone in common. The difference in acquisition is time, talent, and chance. It is this very principle that is the cause for humanity to have left its place in the lawless wild to live in societies. While living in the state of nature, a state where all people are free to behave, claim property, and live as they choose, they are also subject to the might of another who might be inclined to take what another might have and at any cost. But people, in nature, are also gregarious and, like any other animal, inclined to want to reproduce. There is, then, an inherent desire to be in proximity to one another to increase the odds of finding a mate and people to socialize with. For these reasons, even while living in the state of nature, humans have lived near one another, but have worked for eons to try and create the best system of government that would work for all. The reason man left the state of nature Locke points out that “it is an unfair way of life if the de...

Elements of Humanity in Faulkner's A Rose for Emily

          Humans are innately emotional beings; it is one of the traits connected with the predisposition of the human condition. This tendency to feel is directly interconnected with the ability for people to relate to each other. Or perhaps, better stated, that it is simply human nature to involuntarily be empathic. Humans experience a wide range of very puzzling emotions, but empathy is of the most stand out because of its curious function in the human world. A stand-out example of the puzzling function of empathy is displayed by the townspeople of Jefferson when describing the curious existence of Miss Emily Grierson in William Faulkner’s short story, A Rose for Emily . American economic and social theorist, Jeremy Rifkin explores the phenomenon of empathy in his lecture on his theory about the constriction of an empathic civilization. Rifkin explains the physicality of this emotion: “We know if a spider goes up someone's arm and I'm observing it going up y...

Odysseus: Portrait of a Hero

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The following presentation gives a concise summary of Homer's epic  The Odyssey  and includes the Hero's Journey, old-world art pieces depicting the legendary story and includes how the story is still told in modern literature

Artwork Then and Now: The Odyssey

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Artwork From the Greek Epic Odysseus This Tunisian mosaic is titled: Ulysses and the Sirens. The work comes from the House of Ulysses at Dougga and displays Ulysses (aka Odysseus) tied to the mast of his boat. The piece is dated sometime about the third century and is constructed of tiles. It is a scene from The Odyssey when Odysseus instructs his men to tie him to the mast and not let him go so that he may hear the siren song and survive to tell the tale. The work is on display at the Musée national du Bardo in Tunisia (Ulysses and the Sirens). This work was crafted by John William Waterhouse (1849-1917). He was an English man and Victorian Romanticist painter. This painting is called: Ulysses and the Sirens and dates to the year 1891. The painting is oil on canvas and can be found at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. The work also features Ulysses (Odysseus) bound to the mast of his ship as he and his men pass through the realm of t...