Do Political Parties Help or Hurt America Essay Example for Free

Do Political Parties Help or Hurt America Essay Political parties have been in America since the very inception of the country. Political parties were originally designed to give voice to a group of peoples interests. But as the time has passed, the ideas being presented has been growing less about the people and more about the power and the longevity of the party and the people controlling it. The people are not voting for the candidate that they think will represent them the best but for the D or the R that appears on the side of the name. Should this be the main thing we look to when deciding the leaders of our government? The issue that people take with the concept and general structure of the modern day political parties is the reality of its inability to effectively govern with its supporters. The state must not be usurped by side interests or used as a means of dictating unpopular or even popular laws. In todays parliamentary and representative republics, it is the power behind the party, not necessarily the party itself that decides policy. The question is, in todays capitalistic world, will it be the people or the economic and financial advisers that hold the Party keys? Undoubtedly, it must be the people. However, here we encounter the question of how large a role any particular political party must take within the ideally reconstructed and redefined state. Lets not forget: the state is but a temporary structure devised and built by Man. It is little more than the regulatory body that encompasses the concept of the political party. As such, it stands to be reformed or, in certain cases, overhauled by the parties that reside within it. What the people behind the Party must do, is make sure that their needs and necessary wants be taken up by the Party itself. This is but one aspect of the political party; my concern lies in the eventual and it would happen eventually fostering of a broader party cult of personality. Examples of this can be seen from the U. S. to Asia, from Europe to S. America and Africa. When the people begin to support the idealized face of party politics more so than the spirit of the individual, they resign themselves to the dictatorship of the governmental coalition. Instances of these can be seen in Americas dual-party political system, as well as in certain European states. In essence, the Party becomes little more than a modified form of political and social dictatorship. I would argue that while political parties have their place within society, their role and importance should be greatly isolated and/or minimalized. They should be nothing more than mouthpieces for the people who make up their constituency; as a legislative and governing body, their role must be subjected to the democratic will of the people they represent. I would propose a Democracy from the bottom up instead of the more recognized Democracy from the top down. Because living in a government with no freedom, is a fate worse than death!

Teen Pregnancy :: Teenage Pregnancy

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  While many teens that engage in pre-marital sex never become pregnant, some are not as fortunate. Teen pregnancy has become all too common in this day and age. Some teens think it will not happen to them and do not use necessary precautions to protect against it. There are several causes for teen pregnancy and the effects can be life changing.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Several causes for teen pregnancy are: the need for affection, acceptance, and unprotected sex. One may have a poor home life and look for affection from a peer. The simple desire to feel loved by another person may be a cause for an unexpected pregnancy. A teen may have a low self-esteem and simply be looking for acceptance in the bedroom. However, many teens that have a wonderful, affectionate family and are very confidante are merely looking for the few minutes of pleasure and avoid using protection. As several teens use the excuse that sex feels better with out a condom, an unwanted pregnancy is likely to occur.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One major effect of teen pregnancy is that the child may be raised by a single parent. While most girls are looking for love and acceptance in sex, many guys are looking for the mere pleasure and are not planning on becoming a teen father. The pressures of high school and hanging out with friends may be overwhelming for some teens, so they just leave. Raising a child as teen is difficult, but raising a child alone would be almost impossible.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Many teens become overwhelmed with the stresses of high school and raising a baby; therefore, dropping out of school may seem like the best option. Attending school five days a week, studying for classes, and raising a baby would be overwhelming for most teens. One would have to pay for babysitting and many other expenses for the child that a part time job income could not cover. Dropping out of high school to work full time may seem like a great idea at the moment, but the jobs one applies for may be limited because the lack of a high school diploma.

Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov: two novels in one

â€Å"Master and Margarita† by Mikhail Bulgakov is probably the most famous and the most unusual novel ever created in the USSR. Bulgakov artistically investigated the theme of epic struggle of good and evil relating biblical events to the realities of Moscow in the mid-thirties, having demonstrated that people have not changed in the last two thousand of years except that â€Å"only the housing problem has   corrupted them†[1].The narrative of â€Å"Master and Margarita† is pretty sophisticated, including at least three plot lines: adventures of Woland and his suit in Moscow, story of Master and Margarita themselves, both taking place in Moscow, and a tale of Yeshua Ha-Nozri – a mendicant prophet before Pontius Pilate and an obvious allegory of Jesus Christ. This paper aims to investigate ties between modern and biblical events in the â€Å"Master and Margarita† and show how Bulgakov paralleled biblical characters and events with his contemporari es.Bulgakov’s mission in â€Å"Master and Margarita† was more than complicated because he devoted his novel to such sempiternal topics as love and fear, good and evil, God and Satan. He obviously demonstrated that those topics are timeless, for Master is interested in the same questions as Pilate was 1900 years before. At the end of the novel Moscow and Jerusalem seem to be united in a metaphysical oneness, and two plots turn out to be one. Jerusalem in the case symbolizes immortal ever-being world and Moscow is the world of the earth. At that Woland acts as a figure which ties the worlds, for he â€Å"was   on Pontius Pilate's   balcony, and in the garden when   he   talked with Kaifa, and on the platform, only   secretly, incognito†[2] and then visited Moscow and talked to Master. It is hard to believe, that Woland is a real Satan, he rather looks like exactly part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.The story opens by a discussion at Patriarch's Ponds and nothing unreal happens at the beginning, except for s strange presentiment of Berlioz. In order to continue his narration, Bulgakov needed to introduce the reader into fantastic multi-world reality. He accepts that the reader is so skeptic about existence of God and Satan, that Woland expects to notice an atheist in every window. In this scene Bulgakov puts the words into the mouths of Woland:   â€Å"Bear in mind that Jesus did exist†[3]. Woland says this to Berlioz, but it is Bulgakov who says to the reader: bear in mind that Jesus did exist.After that Bulgakov’s story of Jesus is perceived by the reader as actual, and the biblical world is easily connected with earthly world. Moreover, the existence of the divine reality is proved even by its fiercest enemies – Berlioz and Ivanushka. The latter has blamed Jesus so desperately, â€Å"his Jesus came out, well, completely alive, the once-existing   Jesus, though,   tru e,   a Jesus   furnished   with   all negative features†[4]. Berlioz tells Ivanushka that the rhyme has to be rewritten, but it is then rewritten not by Ivanushka but by Woland. So, concludes Bulgakov, whatever we mean about Jesus in this life, divine reality will remain unchanged.In order to stress the biblical chapters and keep the style unified Bulgakov showed Jerusalem as a vision of Woland or a dream of Ivanushka or a story told by Master or read by Margarita. His tone changes from satiric or sympathetic to unimpassioned speech in the evangelical passages. In contrast, when Bulgakov turns back to Moscow, his characters are   no longer legendary and obtain everyday features. Thusly he achieves to basic aims – inseparably integrates biblical chapters into the novel and creates an illusion of parallel between the two worlds.Events are separated almost by two thousand years of time, but analogies are easy to trace. Both stories happen in May in the days befor e Easter, both in the mid-thirties of I and XX century AD. The weather and temporary changes are almost same. And surely the crowd is the same, whether it is a crowd which gathers to stare at Yeshua’s execution or a crowd in the vaudeville house.  The tale of both worlds ends with the same conclusive phrase â€Å"the cruel fifth procurator of Judea, the equestrian Pontius Pilate†[5], and so Bulgakov shows that the outcome of the novel is justification and recognition of truth. When Pilate, a biblical symbol of a man who yields before evil, shrives, he enters into the moonlight, being â€Å"forgiven on the eve of Sunday†. While Pilate walks with Yeshua by the moonlight beam Ivanushka stands at the beginning of this beam, symbolizing those whose choice is still not sure.The most recognizable â€Å"double-character† is Yeshua and Master – an analogy of Christ and Bulgakov himself. Yeshua does not act as a Saviour, he is rather a creator who faces in comprehension and repudiation. Same happens to Master, whose novel is welcomed by angry critics and who is finally symbolically executed, because he is unable to create any more and falls into insanity. However, his novel is not lost, and later it is read by Yeshua-Jesus himself, so Master’s novel is a story of biblical events and at the same time a link between those events and our world.  In contrast to all other human characters, even Margarita, Master and Yeshua are the only ones who struggle for truth and sincerity to the end. Pilate had a heart with Yeshua and hinted, that only a slight lie could save his life. Yeshua refused and became a martyr. Pilate could not overcome his fear and sentenced himself to everlasting spiritual unrest. Surprisingly, Pilate’s vis-à  -vis in the modern world is Margarita, who leaves Master in a critical moment and has a feeling of guilt for long years. But at the end she is saved by Woland and Pilate is forgiven by Christ.Virtual ly every character in the novel has to face a choice situation and the choice he or she makes in the usual world predetermines his or her future existence in the spiritual reality. Master chooses to forget about his novel and about Margarita and so he becomes Pilate’s accomplice in execution of Christ. Therefore, he is not worthy of light and he never meets Jesus. Divine will is passed to him by Woland, who, in turn, receives it from Matthew Levi. Characters of the paralleled novels never meet together and their ties are limited to communication via messengers and joining into one at the end.As regards the other characters, their choice is rather comic, than dramatic. Berlioz’s uncle chooses to live in Moscow, and the only thing he is interested in when he receives a message about death of his nephew is to receive ownership of an apartment. Nikanor Ivanovich, chairman of the tenants' association', chooses to take money from a suspicious foreigner.The crowd of women cho oses to change their dress at a show arranged by Fagot and Behemoth. Their punishments are ridiculous but this does not mean that their actions will not be judged later in Ewigkeit. Fate of Berlioz is the most frightening warning. Woland appeared to be an adept of a theory â€Å"which holds that it will be given to each according to his faith.†[6] In the earthly life Berlioz has chosen to believe that there is nothing in the afterlife, and Woland has put him into nonentity in the spiritual world.The final scenes of the novel show the idea, that examples of the great masters are never lost, for â€Å"manuscripts don't burn†[7]. They become a part of eternity, and their creators obtain eternal life. So they are able to cross the border between two worlds. The fate of Bulgakov’s novel is the best illustration for this thesis, for it has been published only decades after his death and immediately gained global recognition. Perhaps this was in a way a fourth plot lin e of the novel – Bulgakov’s own life became a parallel for lives of Yeshua and Master.References:Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita. Penguin Books Ltd; New Ed edition, 2004. 432 pages.[1] Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita. Penguin Books Ltd; New Ed edition, 2004.   p. 124[2] Ibid, p. 42 [3] Ibid, p. 18[4] Ibid, p. 8 [5] Ibid, p.380 [6] Ibid, p.275  [7] Ibid, p.369

Notable Quotes from George Orwells Animal Farm

George Orwells  influential, allegorical  novel  Animal Farm was published in 1945. In the novel, the overworked and mistreated animals on a farm all begin to follow the precepts of Animalism, rise up against the humans, take over the farm, and rename the place: Animal Farm. Here are a few quotes from this famous work. All men are enemies. All animals are comrades.- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 1THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.3. No animal shall wear clothes.4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.5. No animal shall drink alcohol.6. No animal shall kill any other animal.7. All animals are equal.- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 2The animals were happy as they had never conceived it possible to be. Every mouthful of food was an acute positive pleasure, now that it was truly their own food, produced by themselves and for themselves, not doled out to them by a grudging master.- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 3I will work harder!- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 3FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 3It was given out that the animals there practiced cannibalism, tortured one another with red-hot horseshoes, and had their females in common. This was what came of rebelling against the laws o f Nature, Frederick and Pilkington said.- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 4I have no wish to take life, not even human life, repeated Boxer, and his eyes were full of tears.- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 4Napoleon is always right.- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 5All that year the animals worked like slaves. But they were happy in their work; they grudged no effort or sacrifice, well aware that everything they did was for the benefit of themselves and those of their kind who would come after them, and not for a pack of idle, thieving human beings.- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 6The human beings did not hate Animal Farm any less now that it was prospering; indeed, they hated it more than ever.- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 6They were always cold, and usually hungry as well.- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 7If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his capacit y, the strong protecting the weak.- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 7They had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes. Chapter 7Some of the animals remembered -- or thought they remembered -- that the Sixth Commandment decreed, No animal shall kill any other animal. And though no one cared to mention it in the hearing of the pigs or the dogs, it was felt that the killings which had taken place did not square with this.- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 8Besides, in those days they had been slaves and now they were free, and that made all the difference, as Squealer did not fail to point out.- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 9 Study Guide Questions for study and discussion.General book club questions for Study and Discussion