Advisory - Informed Opinions

Ok, so now you all have been going to Advisory for about 7 weeks and you should have a pretty good feel for it. Please weigh in on whether you think it is beneficial or not. is it going to help you / other students be more successful? Do you have any suggestions to improve it?

The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions

Consider the following three comments from the last blog ....

Jocelyn Manchester said...

A terrorist is a terrorist, and if it takes one life to save many then go right ahead.

Mike Smith said...

One person's freedom fighter is another person's terrorist.

Chris Pfeifer said...

I think this whole idea has good intentions but is not a good idea. They said he was deemed a threat, so what is considered a threat? I think now its not so bad but over time, the criteria needed to be considered a threat will be less and less.

... now consider this recent article - our Killer Drone program has a VIRUS!

Any new thoughts on this road our government is walking down?

Life and Death Power of the State, part II

A couple weeks back many of you weighed in on the death penalty - should we give our government the right to take the life of its own citizens? That question was based on the assumption that the citizen had been charged with a crime, had gone through a trial, lost and had been sentenced to death.

Now consider this recent case - U.S. drone killing of American al-Awlaki prompts legal, moral debate

In summary: our government executed a hit on a US citizen who it deemed to be a threat to our security. Instead of arresting this individual, bringing him to court and going through a trial, we decided to kill him. (Of course it is much easier and presents no direct threat to our law enforcement to launch a drone missile strike on an individual rather than arresting him and bringing him back to the US to stand trial.)

Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul stated,

"If the American people accept this blindly and casually, that we now have an accepted practice of the president assassinating people who he thinks are bad guys. I think it's sad," Paul told reporters after a speech in Manchester, New Hampshire, Friday.

But U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-New York, said,

"It was entirely legal. If a citizen takes up arms against his own country, he becomes an enemy of the country. The president was acting entirely within his rights and I fully support the president," King said.

Where do you stand on this?