Peaceful diplomacy is the best method of foreign policy

If the city of Hong Kong were a nation, and if its national sport was not ping-pong or badminton, it would certainly be haggling. Aside from being a center for business and exports, Hong Kong is a center of diplomacy. Even the alleyways are filled with diplomacy, matters of convincing others that the only way to get what they want is through a controlled "gateway of desire". Customers want some produce or illegal technology. Shopkeepers want money. The gateways here consist of prices in cash, but the gateways of bargaining nations have tolls in lives. Military "diplomacy" remains the most effective form of foreign policy for nations with powerful armies despite modern ideas, though smaller countries can also survive on the backs of the stronger nations due to a growth in international shared morality.

Hard power, as military power is often called, is the most effective method for large countries to get what they want. Even President Obama, who stressed using diplomacy in the Middle East during his campaign, admits in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech that Hitler could not be stopped with peaceful diplomacy and that al Qaeda is much the same problem. The effectiveness of diplomacy depends on being able to relate with the opponents' ideologies. Even this diplomacy need not apply only to wars. According to Nick Hwang, a Chinese student at Polytechnic School, China's military is often used as a very heavy bargaining chip for economic gains. He believes that China, like the imperial dragon that symbolizes the nation, is only currently appeased by its economic dominance over the world, when many of the other nations serve as serfs. Many people find safety in the idea that the conceptions of the United Nations and "international law" will protect the rest of the world, but as described by the Italian Renaissance political scientist Niccolò Machiavelli in The Prince, there are certain priorities countries must follow. The United Nations is effective in many aspects, but not global law, especially when the National Forensics League of America released to US students a debate on how to deal with international criminals. Furthermore, in Rwanda, the UN's "army" could not mobilize to protect the civilians. As Machiavelli puts it, such idealistic and futuristic fantasies cannot override military reality.

Countries that lack the redoubtable armies can also survive The gateways that control the wants of China are easily dominated by China's military power. If China wants something, it can blast through the door. But what of a country like France? If France was the world's sole provider of some sort of new more efficient energy source, China would quickly have it. France, in this case, has a harder time of controlling the diplomatic situation. However, if it fed a small supply of this energy source to America, America would protect it, though nothing stops America from taking over. One idea is that America, being a western power, would feel less of a reason to destroy France for this energy source. In James Cameron's film Avatar, the military might of the humans is countered by the military might of the native Na'vi. In the movie, both sides are incapable of associating with the other alien entities. Jake, in his avatar form, is much like France in that the natives have no reason to really keep him alive. Nonetheless, they save him as a matter of trust. This trust, described by the philosopher Jane English is means enough for helping one another. Because trust is inherently decreased by differences in both culture and military might, the idea allows most small powers to stay competitive because the larger powers tend to be solitary and cannot grow as much alone without fighting a war on all sides. Trust, or fear for that matter, is the key goal of diplomacy. Lack of trust or hatred causes an alienation that cannot achieve anything.

When a tourist from America walks into a Hong Kong market, prices tend to soar because the tourist is a foreigner. He or she can force a low price by threatening to call the authorities on bootleg merchandise, but knows that they are alone and doing so will further alienate them.

Liberalism at Poly is totally normal

I'm running out of stuff here... I should read more...

Although iTunes and Limewire now replace music stores as predators of American teenagers' wallets, the popularity of rock, pop, and rap that screams anarchy and leftist propaganda remains a fact on the charts. Quality of music, which by today's technology, is always readily accessible, has taken a backseat to the messages and advertisement of these Democratic battlecries. The diversity of American politics is dying out. American advancement in ideology will fall unless power in the media that dominates our young minds is balanced.

The American banner is a call to liberty and political freedom. The American media is a great hypocrisy. It might be easy to say that the romanticism is just more suited to the media and youth, but one might remember how propaganda in Nazi Germany for the far right also appealed to the youthful generations. The San Francisco experiment described by Todd Strasser's novel The Wave shows how susceptible even the borderline-socialist youth of San Francisco can follow the far right. Being able to develop free and new ideas depends on the existence of uncharted space that develops individually. In the Taoist ideas expressed in The Matrix, development of the world stops when the world is conquered because humankind cannot expand anymore [Matrix]. Ideological development cannot survive on leftist ideas alone.

It is the media that has the widest tubes force-feeding thoughts into today's young. As expressed by Johnnie To's film Breaking News, the media is in charge of modern society. Just as the Hong Kong police is much dependent on public image, any competent politician today must be a master of Twitter or Facebook. In another example, Newsweek published an article on Oprah, who can control the economy of literature or food on a whim like a Greek goddess, demonstrating the power of celebrity. It is only so long before Lady Gaga takes over her throne for the next generation. The point modern conservatives are missing is that Lady Gaga's songs are not a threat to society and that the media in general is not bad. Fox News is right. Garnering support from the youth must now be an active competition. In a survey taken by Polytechnic School's newspaper The Pawprint, it was revealed that the vast majority of students associated with the Democratic Party with only a slim minority taking more conservative views. The same newspaper also published a report on how the proper conservatism of Barry Goldwater is being replaced by religious fanatics that cannot attract the young with their fire-and-brimstone sermons [Pawprint]. If anything is really attacking American freedoms, it is more likely to be the leftist media.

The Republican Party currently still has funding and adequate power, but its political and literal capital are draining quickly following the election of President Barack Obama. Today is a time when America depends on this party to come to the modern age. Should it fail to do so, the United States will fall, not into socialism, but the stagnation of thoughts. A coming age of liberal media oppression will turn the minds of the coming generations into still ponds where flies lay their eggs.

The ultimate purpose of government is to support the lowest tier of society

I want to clarify that this is an essay for practice, not a response to the events in Haiti. Anything said here should not be taken seriously as part of my political ideologies.

Where has the food chain gone? Is it no longer a contest of powers. Even as humans' strength is replaced by abstract wealth, humans should not forget where they came from. The steel-clad nests and synthetic fur that masks them cannot deny their instincts as animals to succeed. For one to win, another must lose. But today, success is dead. Even the weakest may live off human welfare. Resources are redirected from progress to drag the weight behind society. Governments today waste too many resources on the futile cause of supporting the poor when only the strong can fully utilize them for human advancement.

Spending money on the poor is a matter of hollow hope. If providing housing or welfare accomplishes anything, it is lifting the spirits of the weak to be further crushed. In a collection of economic and philosophical studies provided, but not created by, Santa Clara University, the existence of the lower class is an inherent part of our legal system. The entire legal system, the studies state, is based on being able to classify and verbally oppress this lower class. As a result, the only method to ridding America of poverty is scrapping law across the nation [Santa Clara]. Furthermore, even if throwing this bone to the poor may benefit a few, that money or land can be used by the economically strong. Philosopher John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism emphasizes the maximizing the chances of the best outcome. If the criterion is wealth, a few pennies given to the poor is certainly insignificant compared to that same money becoming dollars in the hands of the rich. Certainly, this would not mean the death of the poor. After all, killing the lower class removes a significant part of society and lowers the middle class. But as John Steinbeck demonstrates in his The Grapes of Wrath, the rich may or may not help the poor, but the real responsibility of helping those desperate families like the Joads falls upon other poor families like those in the camp or on the road [Steinbeck]. If poverty is to be solved, it just cannot be through the government. Having people fall below the poverty line is a fact of life, but having those in the highest classes is a blessing of society that is not constantly limited by the nature of poverty.

In the world of economics, there may indeed exist a "rock bottom", but no other extreme exists. Being able to maximize that extreme is the main purpose of all human entities. In the political analysis of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's The Will to Power, governments serve as entities whose purpose is to maximize the success of their members. Ideally, human society becomes like a pride of lions, each individually powerful and each strong. However, through the "moral responsibility" of governments to help the poor, human society is more like thousands of rats, weak and filled with disease. The dollar that becomes a hundred pennies for the poor can be the fifty dollars that becomes part of the research that cures cancer or the dollar that pays for a few bullets that uphold democracy. Similarly, in the Malthusian mind, the poverty line is more of a population check that serves to ensure that only the strongest succeed and provide a clean solution to an overpopulation of competition in the large capitalist markets. Such overpopulation can lead to a collapse of the economy, and thus a depression where everyone is poor. Even if wealth is not in direct relation to ability or power, any competent peasant should be able to squeeze through this poverty line without any help [Malthus]. Helping the poor is not a viable choice presented to human society, but optimizing human values is.

When a lion kills something, there is nothing "moral" for it to give it up to the flies. Most flies that hatch will not survive for a purpose, but there are so many. If for some reason, every lion got together to decide to feed the flies, they would go extinct. Helping the poor is a luxury governments cannot afford. Human nature dictates that we have ambitions, but it also dictates that we feel compassion. Governments are manifestations of our ambitions and we cannot weigh it down with our compassion.

Biggest issues: Organization, logic, aesthetics...

History should document the voiceless

As the writer George Orwell said, "who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past". History is a biased collection of stories censored by the victor. Columbus "discovered" America because he killed the natives. The Civil War was all about slavery because the North won. As documentation evolves technologically, the question of whether to remember the lives of the conquered becomes a matter of choice. A common conception is that the winner of the war has a responsibility to the memory of the corpses trampled beneath their feet. As a matter of respect, history should hold the memories of the voiceless, but only as long as it does not endanger the lives of the living.

The bias of history is apparent throughout the textbooks fed to the nation's youth. If "education" is certainly the priority of courses in history, those of adequate age should have full access to this information. According to local residents of Hong Kong, a lack of information for the sake of a nation's pride jeopardized lives with the outbreak of the SARS virus. Trying to maintain pride and quell chaos, the Chinese government hid SARS from international eyes, and help, until it appeared in Hong Kong. In this case, censorship of recent history was fatal. In a science fiction rendition of historical "censorship" analogous to the terrorism of the Crusades or the conquest of America, Michael Bay's The Island, depicts a dystopian future where the government hides a stock of human clones underground so that their originals, who had the clones made for organ transplants, are unaware that the harvesting of an organ results in the murder of a human being [Bay]. Burying the truth in history often gives the victors too much power, as stated by George Orwell. Without society's willing knowledge acting as a moral check, full control over history can lead to ruthlessness. Being able to understand a situation is a vital part of making moral decisions. As explained by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, the noblest decisions in life are autonomous and well-understood choices. To deny access to historical information is to gravely limit human morality, reducing humans to animals.

In rare cases, however, historical bias will be necessary to the maintenance of a healthy state. In Johnnie To's film Breaking News, the power of the Hong Kong Police is greatly dependent on public reception. Its effectiveness in enforcing the laws in such a complex and important city in Hong Kong required the "putting on [of] a show [trans.]". The case of an officer surrendering to bank robbers was turned into an issue of a father staying alive to support his family as part of a campaign to garner public support for the police. Similarly, in a discussion with Nick Hwang, a Chinese student at Polytechnic School in Pasadena, an agreement was reached that, while the Maoist authorities may have taken it too far, their destruction of the "Old Ways" was a vital part of managing the heavily-populated People's Republic of China. Much of the "Chinese censorship" against things such as facebook is not a backwards form of oppression, but a method of preventing an uprising of a fifth of the world's population [Hwang]. Even Kant would agree that some measures must be taken for the greater good of the people.

Controlling the past is the bloody cherry for the victors of history's battles. History is a well chosen collection of stories. It seems fitting that anyone who could would choose to have lived a fantasy of a life, for sake of shame or judgement. The power of history is a prize of denying the consequences of a war. The power to change history usually comes at the price of thousands of lives. So there should be no more need to lose lives. Sustaining life is the ultimate criterion for most moral decisions, especially that of whether to abridge history. Such a choice is literally a choice between life or death.

I hate conclusions. Actually I just hate my own writing.

Patriotism's Validity

Same rules.

A person should not follow his/her country if it denies rights to that person.

In 1791, men from Pittsburgh began a small insurrection against the newly formed United States Federal Government to protest a tax on whiskey. This event, known as the Whiskey Rebellion, sparked the first use of federal power against citizens. The result was the end to the rebellion and a debate over whether it was appropriate for troops to quash a rebellion when the federal government was actually causing the civilian's unrest. It was later decided, due to the youth of the country as well as the non-vital value of whiskey, that the federal government had power to do so. In essence, the government, so long as it serves its people, deserves their patriotism, but the people may rebel if the government ceases to do so.

Patriotism to one's country is a matter of respect granted in return for rights and opportunity. Without the support of its people, as in the Whiskey Rebellion, a government is unable to provide these rights and opportunities. As explained by John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, a country's government can be analogous to the purpose of a watchful parent. It must maximize the health and happiness of each of its children [Mill]. But just as a parent may not simply spoil their child, a government should not collapse to insignificant disturbances. In some cases, as in the usage of martial law, Mill explains that denying people of their happiness temporarily can be justified by their ultimate well-being. Furthermore, as Christian writers Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges show in their book The Servant Leader, leaders must look for the best of their people in the long-run. In many cases, they may even have to sacrifice themselves for the best of their people. Followers of that leader will then return trust and obedience for their own safety and liberty [Blanchard and Hodges]. For a government, the relationship between it and its people is a mutual bond. When either one syphons power from the other, the bond is polarized and broken. And even though soldiers give their lives for a country, one must not forget that that country also supports their family and friends.

Nonetheless, it is all too easy for citizens of a nation to blindly follow their country as long as they are fed their basic needs. But here lies oppression. Hitler's Reich, for example, was not some great matter of brainwashing. The writer Todd Strasser explains in his novel The Wave, how an experiment in a high school demonstrated the lack of difficulty with which we can succumb to totalitarian regimes. While it appeared to be a positive fad, the Wave ended up a dangerous entity on the campus. Soon the Wave penetrated every aspect of students' lives [Strasser]. And the social saturation of government's influence is certainly a dangerous thing. While it might provide for the time being, Herbert Hoover's Rugged Individualism speech shows how quickly letting the government's tendrils into every niche becomes a breeding pool for socialism and its even worse oppressions against individual freedom [Hoover]. Thomas Jefferson, in writing the "Declaration of Independence", held in mind the fear of such a government. For when a government ceases to serve its people and the position is reversed, those people have adequate reason to "dissolve the political bands" that held them together [Jefferson].

The waltz of patriotism and totalitarianism requires much grace and balance. This dance holds nations and the people within at stake. George Washington's response to the Whiskey Rebellion sustained the government's ability to support its people at the cost of a few. Nothiadf l; hsj...

English Final Score? Five Bottles. My Score? B probably. FML.

In my compulsive quest for self-improvement, I have decided to practice writing in coherent English with random topics... I'll start today without too much evidence. This is a timed essay. Here's a random prompt:

Restrictions are the best way of breeding creativity. It is by the existence of the "box" (or the burrito) that one can be creative, creating progress for the community.

The fact that Disney's song "It's a Small World" rings in the ears of people all around the world serves as a testament to the song's message. Our world is indeed shrinking. The concept of creativity is no longer the easy matter of finding unused space. Instead, human progress today is driven by innovation, not originality. Thinking outside the box has become thinking around the box. For when a city has reached its limits with one-story houses, it will not search for more space, nor will it cease developing. Rather, those one-story buildings become two-story buildings. Even when the skies are indeed scraped by the city's towers, development will continue. Innovation today proves superior in advancing technology and society to random creativity when humankind cannot afford to waste resources on a mental gag reflex to puke out new ideas.

Innovation, the concept of creativity growing on the box people try to escape, proves most reliable in today's society. Success in a game is not determined by the breaking of rules, but by the following of them. To break the rules to win is to play a different game. But even the creation of a game requires rules just as vines grow on a fence. In the view of Mark Rosewater, a designer of the card game Magic: the Gathering, restrictions breed creativity. When the game was first created, no such restrictions existed. As a result, many of the original cards were over- or underpowered. Zendikar, as Mark Rosewater explains, is the product of innovation. Rather than creating a new type of card or rule set, he explored the old idea of "lands" in a way the players had never seen before. As a result, the game sales have gone up, even in the midst of the failing economy [Magic]. While it may seem like Magic is not growing, it has indeed managed to develop in a still climate. Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American writer and transcendentalist, continues, in his "The American Scholar", to discuss the nature of creativity. Innovation is indeed creativity and just as effective. Minds growing off of minds is the way the American intellect was developed.

Creativity has long been considered the idea of being able to just think differently. Thus humans strive to value every voice in society. As the psychiatry professor Thomas Szasz explains, the mentally ill or deficient think differently, thus provide a new perspective on life. He claims that it is ignorant to label biological abnormalities as defects [Szasz]. Whether the mentally "different" can yield such fruits of intellect is certainly up for debate, but it is irrefutable that many of these individuals may be dangerous or difficult to take care of. At the present moment, can we claim responsibility for every person even when they may hurt another. While one can call this genocidal, this is not eugenics. People do not put these people into positions of power. In the Bible, Jesus teaches his disciples that to lead, they must serve the people [Bible]. Leaders, and thus those who must use innovation, cannot be those that people must constantly support their health for an insecure intellect. A leader must set an example. As Her Majesty, Cambell Biology AP dictates, science is a matter of minds working off one another. A few accidents here and there have produced things like penicillin. A million monkeys in a lab is worse than a million monkeys on typewriters because there are stakes (Campbell).

Damnit. That was 50 minutes. I didn't get to a conclusion or anything, but we'll see my development. Also, I tried to think of a way to do evidence, so it was mainly wikipedia and a few of my most recently visited pages online. FML

The Media

A fire in a dense forest spreads faster. This is the main principle of gossip in such a small academic institution as Polytechnic School. It appears that if Yale or Harvard decline our pleas, each one of us is already well trained in diplomacy. We are all, as I sometimes joke, Ministers of Propaganda and Enlightenment.

My friend Anna has stated that she wishes to avoid the limelight, but it has gracefully managed to find her in every uncomfortable niche of shadows the school can offer. Ironically (I do acting and generally strange activities), I feel the same way. Many people often try to find me, but I'm usually hiding, not from social interaction (haha, if you get that), but from the drama. It's useless, really. We live in the age of media. The gods Facebook, Skype, and Twitter have dropped their wrath on me already.

You cannot hide from the media any more. My reputation is greatly diminished by recent events, things I don't think I should be blamed for. My trust is everywhere, exploded, dripping from the walls and ceiling. The conspirators have moved on to their pedestals. Apparently, it's my fault for caring, for suffering. I was the lamb on the altar. Still it surprises me that they broke up after a week and that I seem so shallow to the world. Would it make sense that I'm so shallow if I really suffered this much? It's because I'm not. But that's not what high school wants. It wants an image.

Learn this lesson. There is no escaping the media. Those in power must learn to wield it. As a resident of Hong Kong and Los Angeles, I understand its application in the world today. If a terrorist attack gets through, few really care that much about how fast or effective the response is, but instead the number of tweets about it. The age of media has brought an age of terrorism and scandal. It's a game of hot potato.