Uprisings in Libya

This uprising in Libya, a state in North Africa has gained a lot of international attention. This uprising started on February 15, 2011, and the inspiration for these uprisings is directly associated to the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. These protests are against their government and their leader Muammar al-Gadaffi.He has been in power for over forty years. The protests started off non-violent but have turned violent. The protesters are saying that Muammar Gadaffi has been giving his supporters guns and weapons to use against them and that he is sending patrols around the city. There has been more than a thousand people killed in less than two weeks. The pros of this uprising are that if they succeed they might get what they want which is a better government and leader. Another pro is that no matter what happens they have gained the attention of the United Nations which has already started to do things. The cons of the uprising are that there will be a lot of people killed because of the protests. Another con is that it has turned the people of Libya against each other with the supporters of Muammar and the non supporters of Muammar. When President Obama was asked about this he said that it is time for Muammar to step down saying that he has lost legitimacy to rule with his violent crackdown on the Libyan people. He also said that Muammar should be punished for all the bad things he did. This relates to class because it is an example of the president being the Chief Diplomat. 

Sources:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110227/ap_on_re_us/us_us_libya_22
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Libyan_uprising
www.youtube.com

Gridlock

Gridlock is the inability to accomplish goals. Gridlock is a direct consequence of divided government. A divided government is when one party controls the white house and the other party controls one or both of the houses of congress. Some say divided government is good because it makes opposition to those in power and it limits spending and expansion of undesirable laws. In our government right now there is a divided government. The democrats control the white house and the republicans control the house of representatives. This causes gridlock because if the president who is a democrat wants to pass let's say his new health care bill, he has to put it through congress and without their approval he can not get something done that would probably be very beneficial to the American people. Some say that gridlock does not exist. They say this because they make the point that it is just part of our type of government and that we will have indecision with anything we do. The cons of gridlock are that it shuts down government operations. The pros of gridlock are that it slows down the decision making process which is an example of checks and balances. I think that gridlock does exist and is not a good part of our government. I think this because why should we have two sides in our government when we could all be on the same team and we could make the United States a better place to live instead of just arguing  with each other.





Sources:
Youtube.com
Wikipedia.com
Notes