The Devil's Advocate

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Taxing drugs!

In class we talked about legalizing and then taxing various "prohibited behaviors." Here is a newspaper article from today's Denver Post about this issue. Thoughts?

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Rates of Joblessness

The article at this link is interesting because it allows one to figure out which groups of people in American society have been most impacted by the current financial crisis. After manipulating some of the choices, which groups does it appear have fared better, and which groups have fared worse?

Friday, November 06, 2009

Treason?

Article 3 of the U.S. Constitution states: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted."

In Iron Jawed Angels there was a discussion regarding whether or not picketing the office of the president during a war is treasonous behavior. So, is it treasonous to picket the office of the president during a time of war?

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

An Effective Teacher

There is lots of debate these days about how to evalute teacher effectiveness. Some people want to use scores from students' standardized tests, others want to use administrators' evaluations of teacher performance, and various other ideas also exist. So here is my question: if YOU were in charge of evaluating teacher effectiveness, what evidence would you draw upon to decide if a teacher was effective? (Keep in mind that your system needs to be applicable to teachers of various subject matters. I will make things easier by limiting your scope to high school teachers.)

Taxes

We learned how to calculate taxes under a graduated system versus a flat system. What thoughts do you now have about the debate between those two systems?

Monday, October 19, 2009

DADT

Last week we branched out to discuss the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy while discussing military service during the Great War. Here is a related article. Do you have thoughts to share that you did not get a chance to share during class? Please remember to be as respectful in debate on this blog as you are in class.

Friday, October 09, 2009

Obama's Nobel Prize

In an interesting move, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama. Here is a link to the article. Here is your question: should the Nobel Peace Prize be awarded to people in order to encourage their initiatives, or only to people whose initiatives have succeeded already?

Thursday, October 08, 2009

War and Media

While learning about the Spanish-American-Cuban-Filipino War and the Great War we have discussed issues surrounding media and speech. What dangers arise when the U.S. government allows citizens to speak freely during a time of war? What dangers arise when the U.S. government does not allow citizens to speak freely during a time of war?