Wars of Choice

In class, we were discussing if the Afghanistan and the Iraq wars were wars of choice.

Alone, I think that the Afghanistan war is a war of choice because the Bush Administration planned to invade there even before September 11 happened. It has also been evident that the US would have gone into Afghanistan even if September 11 never happened. What did they want to do once they were in there? I think one of the motives was how rich in oil that territory is. Also, they have, or still had, a very strong government called the Taliban. So I do think that the Afghanistan War is a war of choice.

I think that the Iraq War is also a War of Choice. In a speech given by US Senator Robert Byrd on March 19, 2003, he states that "We cannot convince the world of the necessity of this war for one simple reason. This is a war of choice." It is inevitable in the world today to know that we are in the midst of a war. The war is a war of choice because the US government could have made the decision to not fight back after September 11, and we would have never invaded Iraq.

The First Amendment

There are certain kinds of topics that are protected or limited under the First Amendment. In the movie "Elf" with Will Farrell, there is a scene when he runs into some reandom diner that has a sign that reads "World's Best Coffee." When he gets into the diner, he screams, "Congratulations! World's Best Coffee! You did it!" We talked about this sign in class. Is it an opinion, or do companies really use that as their slogan? When I see a sign that says "World's Best ______" I tend not to pay any attention to them, because the company that product is coming from is just trying to promote and sell that product.
Another one of the questions that I could not pick a side on was if the First Amendment should limit or protect a government official if they campaign for one candidate. I know it is limited, and I understand, because whoever wins is ultimately running the whole country, but isn't it also right that they should have their own views and should be able to campaign for who they want? So, I have a little difficulty for this one, but I do understand that it has to be limited for equal opportunity accross the country.

Be Good, Smile Pretty

While watching the documentart Be Good, Smile Pretty, I was shocked at how much the mother and daughter had different views on how to grieve. The mother basically told the daughter, Tracy, that she should not feel pain for her father because she never knew him. I thought that was very out of line because if you lose someone close to you and did not know them at all, you still can mourn for them. Also, I did not like that the mother wanted to put away all of her old stuff from her husband after the documentary was made because that shows that she cares, just not enough to want to remember her late husband and keep his old stuff out.
I also had one other question: why did the author of the story of how Don died wait until thirty something years after the fact to publish it? Was it just that he didnt have the strength to write it before then, or that he just did not want the family to know how he passed? I think that he was very selfish in not writing the story earlier because he was keeping information that the family wanted, or even needed in order to actually know what went on.