Conclusion

Oh, the humanity!

It seems I have just been hit by a large truck that will permanently disable me for the remainder of my blogging career.  I will be unable to perform my duties as a blogger for the duration of my time on this Earth and therefore I will retire.

It is with my deepest regret that I answer some final questions:

Analyze your first blog -- did you reach your goal?
My first blog post is here.  It talks about religious freedom but I never touched that topic again, diverging towards patents and technocratic interests instead.

So, if by "did you reach your goal," you mean "completely diverged from the original topic" then yes!

How did your blog evolve over the semester?
"Oh No Government" started out with an OH NO scale that determined how bad things were, but later posts became fairly irrelevant to that (like the Lemon Test post) and that kind of petered off over time.

Also I started talking about patent law a ton and sometimes not.

Analyze your best blog entry - what made it so and does it still resonate today?
The Foxconn Riot post is more relevant than ever with Apple becoming the new big business.  Definitely the most well-written considering the suicide of that many employees at the same time really needs to be covered, and it hardly is.

If you had the chance to do it over, how would you approach it differently?  Give advice to novice bloggers.
Be more broad and opinionated and relevant.

That's all!  I must go nurse my wounds.  Farewell!

Free Riders

Here's a quick run-down of how democracy works.

Someone makes a law that says "people cannot wear silly hats," and everyone loves it.  No longer will anyone roam the streets with unrelated headwear in the presence of the citizenry.  Everyone loves it, except the Silly Hats Crew.

Oh, no, they hate it.

They're going to lobby for change.  They'll run around the city setting up bake sales and putting posters on trucks, they'll throw eggs at the mayor's house.  And sooner or later, they start getting arrested; some for misconduct, some for public nay-saying.  Others for wearing silly hats.

But there's a good percentage of them that stay silent.  These are known as Free Riders.  They watch as their interest group hashes itself over for the right to wear silly hats, and they're simply on the sidelines.  Maybe it's apathy?  Maybe.

Logically speaking, it doesn't make any sense to join a movement.  One can simply wait and reap the rewards when everyone else joins.  Of course, if everyone follows this logic, there's an issue: the movement never occurs.  This is the Free Rider Problem.

Historically, some groups have fought this issue by creating incentives for members.  Some labor unionists get free transportation for lobbying.  Others get more power in the group's structure.

This is prominent in virtually every movement in modern times.  Look at, say, the Occupy Wall Street movement.  It's possible that you may be against the economic climate of today's world, but there's no reason to protest when everyone else is going to be doing that for you.  And if a good percentage, say, 30%, of people think this way, then you get a massive decline in participation that kills the collective interest.

OH NO SCALE: OH NO

Debt Ceiling

The growing federal debt has left many Congressmen worried over the future of the country; if it hits the debt ceiling, it would cripple not just the U.S. economy but those of all that depend on U.S. dollars.

In his first weekly address of the year, President Obama claimed the “fiscal cliff” compromise as “one more step in the broader effort to grow our economy and shrink our deficits”, but believes that another “manufactured crisis” over the debt ceiling could be detrimental to the economy.

Continuing his effort to frame the looming fight over the nation’s debt limit, Obama makes clear “one thing I will not compromise over is whether or not Congress should pay the tab for a bill they’ve already racked up.”

“If Congress refuses to give the United States the ability to pay its bills on time, the consequences for the entire global economy could be catastrophic,” he said. “The last time Congress threatened this course of action, our entire economy suffered for it.”

Obama promised to do his best to lower tax rates but that is only something the future can claim.

Gun Violence

Admist the Connecticut school shootings, many Congressmen have decided to press for tighter gun restrictions.

 “I think you need to put everything on the table, but what I hear from the administration – and if the Washington Post is to be believed – that’s way, way in extreme of what I think is necessary or even should be talked about.  And it’s not going to pass,” said Heitkamp, a member of the National Rifle Association.
Heitkamp further stressed the importance of mental health, which many believe to be the true source of the issues.

The effort to address gun violence by the White House was after 20 children were shot and killed last month in Newtown, a city in Connecticut.

The major acclamation by the public is over gun rights and whether or not certain guns should be protected or banned.  The Constitution clearly states that one should have the right to bear arms but there has been controversy over which arms are dearly necessary to the protection of the citizen.  Assault rifles, for instance, are very strictly offensive and are not needed in a defensive situation.

Personally, I believe that the stance that guns must be kept for defensive situations is a bit bogus.  There are better ways to defend a household, such as tasers or pepper spray.  Guns for recreational use should be regulated.  Meanwhile, the main focus should be on mental health; the true violence lives there.

Tracking Polls

One of the first successful polls came in the form of Literary Digest’s presidential polling in 1916 where, they created a straw poll.  A straw poll is extremely unscientific and based solely on luck, and therefore when they predicted Woodrow Wilson’s victory, the public was amazed, describing it as “uncannily accurate.”  However, twenty years later, it predicted that Alfred M. Landon would defeat Franklin D. Roosevelt, with the opposite actually occurring – by a landslide as well.

This sparked the need for more scientific approaches to polling.  Political analysts and statisticians began to track the errors of Literary Digest.  The first was fairly clear; it sampled from largely the middle class by gauging opinion from telephone directories and automobile owners.  Wealthy Republicans were therefore overrepresented in the sample.

The second error was timing in which questionnaires were mailed to sample subjects in September, neglecting the two years after in which the results would change.

The third and final error occurred due to the method of sampling; only those individuals who cared about the election greatly would respond while the majority (78%) simply did not respond to the surveys.

The Gallup Organization responded by making its own poll which was much more scientific than the techniques used by Literary Digest.  Gallup was much more successful than the Literary Digest, predicting almost every election until 1948 when he miscalculated the very close competition between Thomas E. Dewey and Harry S Truman.

Polling has nonetheless become a  lucrative industry of its own.

Jurisdiction

The Judiciary Branch of the United States is often neglected in the public view of government, with much more press being directed to Congress and the President of the United States.  There are, in fact, many courts that make up the judiciary branch; the Supreme Court only sees a few cases per year.

Most of the cases begin in district courts, or trial courts, where original jurisdiction occurs.  Original jurisdiction is the first time a case is heard in court; often this is used to determine the facts of a case.  Almost every case filed ends in the trial court, with 90 percent of cases ending in a court of original jurisdiction.

Very few, therefore, make it to appellate courts.  Appellate courts deal with appellate jurisdiction (surprise!) in which they are only applicable in reviewing the decisions of trial courts below them.  They do not have original jurisdiction and often hear appeals of cases from U.S. regulatory commissions, legislative courts (such as the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and the U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals), and of course, lower federal courts such as district courts.  Even fewer, about 0.1% of these cases, then make it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court handles cases from appellate courts but also those from the U.S. courts of appeals, the Court of Military Appeals, and the highest state courts.

However, unlike the Court of Appeals, it is possible for the Supreme Court to hear a case of original jurisdiction in cases between two states or when the dispute is international, relating to foreign ambassadors and diplomats.

Luckily, most disputes never even make it to court at all, as disagreements are often settled between the two parties.

Executive Law-making Ability

The drafting of laws is typically the realm of the Legislative Branch of the United State government.  They are the only branch with law-making power in that they can propose a bill to the floor of Congress.  The executive branch can only approve or deny the bill once it reaches his office.  Therefore, he acts as a check on the law-making branch and nothing more.

However, this does not run true.  The President's power to veto a bill (in which he rejects and kills it unless Congress can provide an overriding opinion of at least 2/3rd) often shapes a bill, in that lawmakers make concessions to prevent a veto from ever happening.  In this sense, the President can pre-emptively influence laws before they reach his desk.

It is, in fact, very difficult to override a veto once one happens.  Congress must have a majority in favor of the bill (2/3rd) which is extremely difficult to attain; in over 200 years, 2,500 presidential vetoes have occurred and only about a hundred were successfully overridden.  Therefore, a veto is essentially an outright rejection in most cases.

There are different forms of veto.  A regular veto occurs when the President simply denies a bill that arrives at his desk.  A pocket veto occurs when a President refuses to respond to a bill after 10 days while Congress is in recess (if Congress is active then the bill becomes law).  Many Presidents use the pocket veto to subtlely declare his disapproval without outright rejecting it.