Friday, October 3, 2008

Party Platforms

Issue #1 - Education

Education is really a place where you see the differences between the two parties. Of course, both parties share the same objective, to educate our people, but they differ on how to do it.
On the issue of school performance, Republicans are big supporters of letting people choose the school of their choice if the school they are assigned to is labeled as “dangerous” or “failing” schools. Democrats on the other hand, being very big critic of the No Child Left Behind Act, want to abolish this school labeling practice; they say it doesn’t solve the problem. Democrats say schools should be reworked and rebuild, not just to be labeled as “dangerous” and “failing” and be left alone.
Minorities and religion are another factor where you see the differences between Republicans and Democrats in the education field. Democrats are much friendlier to minorities than the Republicans; they encourage students to learn more languages, especially the America Native languages. Also, they tend to be very patient with students who do not speak English. Republicans on the other hand, from what I understand reading their platforms, is that the biggest objective is to learn English and little less sensitive to people who don’t speak English or foreign languages.
But of course, the biggest difference between the two parties in education lies with religion. Republicans are big supporters of classes for boys only or for girls only, equal classes for religious purpose, and of course, the right to sing The Pledge of Allegiance. Democrats didn’t even mention those issues.

Issue @2 - Territories/Regions
I know we only had to pick one issue but while reading the platforms, I came across something that I thought was quite shocking, the issue of U.S. territories. The Democratic platform talks about granting the right to self-determination and self-government to territories such as Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Hawaii, etc??? I wasn’t aware that we have been having these issues that we have territories that want to succeed from us, expect of course, the Republic of Texas. I think this is shocking! If those territories start succeeding, imagine what kind of precedent they would set? There are hundreds of frozen conflicts through out the world who want to succeed from other countries, and when they see territories in U.S. succeeding, I think this country will collapse.

1 comment:

Gator said...

You make some interesting comparisons but I wish you had included better documentation with quotes directly from the platforms to more clearly illustrte the differences you were describing. Does the Democratic platform really talk about "the right to sing The Pledge of Allegiance" as a campaign issue?