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This is true. Monorities are always left out of decision making. Those in power think that minorities do not know how to think critically and do not understand decision process. However, is it all about how smart we are? Or is it about making the best decision for the betterment of the polis? Minorities and people with low income bring something else to the table that the affluents dont. Diversity of ideas and polices is the best way for empowered participation to acually be empowered. Similar to the Hobson's choice- a list of options will already determine how people think and will make an option the only reaasonable possibility.

Certainly the minority has good ideas. If they are driven enough and generate support, they can get these ideas across. After all, it is said that seeming like the underdog is good for generating support in public policy. It is not all about how smart minorities are, it's about how their strategies work for gaining a strong influence.

This statement is true, I feel that minorities are left out because communities and schools want to keep traditions how they have been for hundreds of years. Minorities are left out of decision making because many times other minorities feel they are not receiving the same amount of attention and it becomes a problem for the whole community. Minorities and people with low-income bring new ideas and traditions to the community that are good for the community. What they are doing at Harembee Academy is good for the community and it shows how minorities are gaining power and showing the community that they are just as important as the people that have held the same traditions for years. Our communities need to be well-diversed and adopt the some of the same ideas from the community surrounded by Harembee.

Also, when excluding the minorities a lot of diversity is taken out of decision making and I found what we discussed in class, about how a diverse group will come to a better solution to a problem than a group of smart people from similar backgrounds and groups.

I agree with the example that we talked about in class. There is also a reference to Plato in this. In "The Republic" Plato says that tradesmen who are good at a trade think that because they are good at one thing, they are good at everything.

I agree that this statement is true. Generally those that are at the end of the pyramid do not get much say. People who have wealth, power, and an education tend to do very well, and their say if heard by others. Money has a lot of say in the matter and those who do not have much access to it, will suffer the inevitable consequences.

I agree with the above quote and statements. Citizens are driven by the idea to live the "American Dream." People strive for success, and education and over everything making a lot of money. We are a economically driven society so we tend to associate power with money so naturally minority groups are factored out in terms of having a voice. I believe that it's crucial for these minority groups to have a voice because in reality they are effected by policy decisions just as much as anyone else, if not more. They should be granted the same benefits as a wealthier member of society when it comes to the generation and implementation of laws.The government should not decide who benefits from policy...policy should benefit the polis as a whole.

I agree with this statement. Minorities often get looked down upon when they bring an idea forth by the more privileged because they feel as if the minorities don't know anything because of their background. However just like we discussed in class it is the diversity of ideas put together that makes the best decisions.

I can see why he says that in the piece, the biggest motivator to listen is money. Look at presidential candidates as much as they need the first person he talks about to vote for them, they need to money, power and influence to run, they all fall under that category. Education is also an unbias world so someone who is less educated has taken it upon themselves to end up like that. Minorities yes this is true, it is extremely unfortunate for that to happen and it should never but is prejudice able to be solved in our country? we can only hope.

dont really feel like this statement is true, with our president there voices are definitely heard.

I do agree with the fact that money and wealth is a huge part in being successful and having a voice in the community, or world. But the whole "culture" issue has made progress. I am not saying that everyone is treated equally, because there are a lot of discrimination still going on. Like what Chelsea has said. with our president, there is progress, but for the most part there is still some unfairness going on.

I agree that this statement is true. The voices of minority are considered less important when they shouldn't be. It's only fair when deciding on a solution to consider everyone's opinions. if you do this, then the solution will most likely be a better one because more voices are being listened to and more ideas are being bounced off each other to form the best possible solutions. Everyone is affected by these decisions and the Polis as a whole should get the benefits. I also agree that when you choose to ignore the voices of the minority, there is a diversity factor that is being taken out. I am not saying that the minority is going to have all the right answers, but I feel that everyone has a right to speak and be heard. These voices should at least be taken into consideration when making decisions that are going to affect them as well.

I feel that this is sadly the truth in most of our country. Their are the few instances when these vocies are heard but never on a national level. Just ebcuase someone is in a less privilaged position doesn't mean they don't know whats best for them. In order for government to really work everyone must be heard.

This is the strength of how accountable autonomy is supposed to function. It balances a highly centralized rule where many people or groups do not have their interests heard and decentralized rule where small factions can easily gain control and ignore the interests of others. Finding a right balance between the two extremes would decrease their respective weaknesses, allowing more representation of people's interests.

I agree with tavish that the goal should be finding a middle position where we can take advantage of the pros of both while minimizing the cons.

I think this is a good example for other underprivileged areas to take a more active role in their communities vs simply moving out as they gain more wealth or demanding the money take more money from other areas. More can be achieved by working together and fixing what is wrong in their areas.

I agree with Tyler and I think it's great that instead of blaming others for their poor initial condition, they do something about it. I see a lot of people complain about their current status but rarely do I see any sort of follow-up in trying to improve the situation. I'm glad to see that there are at least some people who do try to improve.

I think the fact that the community saw something they wanted to change and went ahead and made it their own project is really great. We do not see that very often anymore so the fact that someone did does make me feel better about how this could happen in another community that wants the same results.

Agreed. I feel like its a big pity party, times are hard no doubt but I see more people giving up than trying to make their neighborhoods and community's better. This is great that they did what they had to.

I think it is a good thing that the changed the name to give the school more value to both the community and faculty however, it doesn't change or help the school with money issues or test scores.

This is a great idea. I think that one thing that would help this country is tailoring curriculum to what would actually make students who stop after high school have a better chance at a successful career. I read a book once that explored why schools in inner cities are so unsuccessful and basically the reason he argued is that the information and system is so irrelavent to their lives that the students do not care to invest themselves. Maybe if our education system wasn't such a one size fits all system, and if our communities would fit schools to what would make their kids successful we would be able to make many more productive citzens for the world as it is today.

exactly. Much of what is taught in schools (especially history) is definitely tailored towards a white males. By adjusting the curriculum, you would definitely see more response from other groups.

I think that it is amazing that they decided amongst themselves that they were going to overhaul a school, and bring it up to par with its practices and teachings to match the name that they gave it. It is extraordinary when a group of people can selflessly come together and achieve such a feat.

I feel like it was the ambition of the people in the community that caused such a big change. This just shows that they didn't need to live in a rich neighborhood to feel safe. The citizens themselves do have an input on the change of their situation. The power of people coming together is amazing.

I completely agree with Justina. School systems often pressure schools to just produce high test scores, when in fact the thing that will help more people (especially in the inner city) is taking into account the curriculum that will best prepare the kids for a good future. This is where these decisions should be made, by local communities, as opposed to central planning by a federal government that has never lived in a place even similar to this.

I have seen a study which said that judges are even more likely to give a soft sentence after lunch.

I actually am in the middle of preparing for a persuasive essay for my public speaking class, so I found everything in this article interesting. While all the listed methods prove to be effective, I have to disagree with the 'When to Say It' section. It almost seems like a cheap way to persuade, kind of like cheating. Since they brought up Greek philosophers in the end, I'll call on Plato to back me up on my opinion. He believed that the Sophists, who first taught persuasion and speaking, told their students ways to abuse rhetoric and such to convince their audience. Plato found this as a fallacy, since he believed that you should be able to convince people with truth, and not tiny tricks. 

It is interesting how severely it seems that fatigue can effect your willingness and ability to resist persuasion.  It makes me wonder in what state are you best qualified to make decisions.  I feel as though when you have tons fo energy maybe more than usual you may make rash decisions and resist too much because you have the energy to do so, conversely if you have too little you are too feeble and will believe too much to the point of being naive and ignorant.

I also think it is interesting how being fatigued can effect your ability to be persuaded. There are many sneaky ways for salesmen, lawyers, and other people trying to persuade to do so effectively. Simply by timing their attack at the right moment in the day can make them more likely to succeed as well as mimicking. I thought that idea was interesting as well and definitely makes sense as we are ego driven and like people that remind us of us. These two tactics are completely dependent on the nature of humans and can be manipulated to people's advantages.

This is genius! It applies to more than just the courtroom, and is not only applicable in our own lives, but also in analyzing public policy. When politicians are running for office, they always try to mold the way they act to their desired audience... aka mimicry. Just one example drawn from a sea of possible illustrations.

This article is really interesting. I love learning about emotions or things that affect our decision making without us realizing it. and it totally applies public policy. Like Sean said politicians acts they way they think we want them too. Certain words or "triggers" can sway our thoughts and decisions. I didnt really know that factors such as fatigue can actually weaken your ability towards certain things.

This would bq quite significant I believe as the acadmies stress the importance of combining policy and academics would be brought across in a greater way if all the students can relate. Everyone can relate to the real world and I think more interest would be provided and the combination would be significant as you are not just theorizing anymore to connect with a few, but you are connecting with the whole for the real importance.

I completely agree with the highlighted statement here. Even just as undergraduate students, we learn all about the theory, but not much about the real world applications. We all know how to read, write and study, but are we really learning the skills necessary to acquire a fulfilling and meaningful job once we graduate?

Scary but true statement. Interesting that not many scholars are going into government as they fear what it can do to their career. But the academic life of young people is going downhill and doesn't seem to be going in any direction we want it. 

I agree. School isn't teaching us what we need to be successful in this world. It is teaching us how to be a good employee and work for other people. I thought the topic of talking more and more about less and less was also interesting and contradictory to how we are suppose to be "well rouded" and have to take so many general classes.

I see and agree with what you are saying about trying to be well rounded but not succeeding very well. Even with the Core 21 that we are supposed to be taking they all can be very similar. I know that with my own classes I sometimes get confused which class I was talking about what. I bring up topics that we never discussed in one cause we discussed it in one of my other classes. So I guess my whole point is that we are trying to be well rounded but everything is so similar nowadays. It's not very well separated.

This is so true. A lot of what a person will believe or follow later in life starts with what they learn when they are young. Why would you hold back on something that could easily help a person become more informed in the future?

I agree^. I knew many people, including myself, that were influenced by both great and terrible teachers alike. A teacher can make the difference between you being better educated in a subject, and whether you get turned off to certain subjects or not. Some can spark interest, others fail to pass on any real knowledge at all, and others still can influence students with their integration of personal opinion.

i find this ironic with the title of the video. "forcing" someone to be free is making them to do something out of their will; you are making them do it whether they want to or not. this is ironic because it says that people will be free/ think free, yet the title paradoxically states that you MUST do something, in this case, be free. 

I believe that is the point though, as the title shows how we have lost our 'true' freedom in place of the established form of freedom which we experience today.  Berlin's ideas of positive liberty and negative liberty for example. "The masses who did not realize what true freedom was, had to be coerced" 6:10 

This is why people say "we are never free." The idea between positive liberty and negative liberty is an important one because on one hand, liberty is linked between individual and social freedom and on the other hand we have the absence of coercion by other human beings. Essentially, we are free even with the established form of freedom, as Mike stated because it protects the society as a whole. For instance, some people would rather not wear a seatbelt, but to bring the best protection, it would be best to wear our seatbelts. Does that mean we are not free? Because if we do not follow that law, we could be hit with a fine. We are free!

I agree with Felicia, freedom is not free and there have been thousands of American soldiers that have paid the price so we can live free in the U.S ,but there are so many things that are not free and that is the reason people feel they have to rebel. People still think freely ,but the way we are raised in this society has changed the meaning of "true freedom".

I find this notion of forcing you to free. like in terms of forcing someone to consider taking a view of yours you essentially do not agree with at all. Thus is the brim in certain senses of advocacy and community outreaches. They would *like* for people to exercise the right to consider the following circumstances of something that comes about as a result of their own actions or start to care for something they had over looked in the scope of society. in some instances its true that people come to learn something new, but if anything some people learn they flat out don't care because other people do not and are as self serving as they can be to the notion of freedom. Then the arguments and law breaking come into effect where people want the establishment of one view of an argument to overpower the notion of others. Freedom is gained by forcing another side to lose. Essentially its never free in that someone has to have their circumstances of preference go unfulfilled.

I think this video discusses a deeper meaning trying to get us to really understand what freedom is. It is amazing how we as Americans take for granted our ability to make choices on our own, but at the same time, those choices are typically coerced into what society, social norms and the government are trying to get us to do. Smoking, drinking are obvious answers as we have been raised at a young age and classes discussing how smoking is bad for us and can/will eventually kill us. I do not smoke but this instance of society and the government trying to tell me what i should not do, is not how freedom is about. I understand the best interests of the polis and so forth requires restrictions for security, but the government needs to let us make our own choices and deal with the resulting consequences of those choices.

I definitely agree with Lauren and Matt in that society and its norms have shaped our view of freedom and it sometimes brings to question what freedom actually is. The idea and concept of freedom is something that not everyone understands. Freedom is not being able to kill each other without persecution. I think that its something that can not be defined by mere words. It is a state of being that is intrinsic in this nation.

This part of this article reminds me of the past article about the con artist. Basically candidates are getting people to believe in their cause. The candidates have to be "emotionally compelling" to draw people in. It was the same way with the con artist because he played to the victims' emotions in order to get his reward. So in order to appeal to people candidates have to be a bit sneaky.

i agree with the previous statement. i also thought of the previous article and how they must play mindgames with society. it is basically stating that they need to live a life that isnt them for people to "like" them or vote for them. this makes you think twice about everything anyone does, from politics to just daily life conversations.

I must agree that this paragraph is very reminiscent of the Framing articles. It suggest in-group cohesion, using emotion to convince of value, and implies irrationality. 

Although I thought the exert was good, I didn't find it to be eye opening or thought provoking. I didn't think that anything in it was truly groundbreaking. Wasn't this all common knowledge? I think that everyone is aware (concisely or not) that how we vote is majorly based on emotions. But I also think that this article gives too much credit to many voters. So many people get so stuck on party lines that it almost seems irrelevant who the candidates are and how people feel about them. Many voters that I have talked to could not be convinced out of voting for their parties candidate even if he or she was completely unqualified.

I agree with Justina, The article gives too much credit to many voters. I feel like I learned a lot of this when I was in high school government. We know why people vote one way or the other. And the thing about playing the victim was not suprising people are more likely to vote based on their emotions even if it is not the better canidate.

That seems to be what most politicians are these days, con artists. They play on these 4 attack points and people will vote for them even if they're inept and not properly representing the American people. That's a reason I didn't like the last paragraph, because it tells voters those are the four things they should look at, as opposed to the issues.

Everyone hates the political system, and yes its totally flawed and bias but candidates do what they need to put across points and portray emotions. But yes too much credit is given to voters. their lack of political knowledge is their fault. People are so passionate about politics yet they don't teach themselves enough to actually know about issues. anyways yes most of the article was common sense, for most of us anyways.

We are emotional creatures. It makes sense that political figures define principles based upon emotion. Both parties are selling a story to the voter. Within the content, emotional issues, such as religion, are used to persuade voters to commit to there political cause. I want to be a person who is factually persuaded, but I'm human. I dictate a political policy based upon my own moral compass. The book mentions that we are emotionally bound to political issues. Additionally, this topic can also mesh with a future article. Is there a need for political scientist if the majority( not all but most) of people vote on issue based upon moral judgment. I find this interesting, because when I here about politic issues from the public I almost laugh on how factually incorrect they are. Is there even a need for statistics if we chose to dismiss the facts. My view is that we need facts, fact are important but politicians on both parties need to stop appealing to voters emotionally and express statistical content of there political ideologies. Example, The first presidential debate between Obama and Romney was a good debate in my opinion because there appeared to steer away from religion (Despite civil religion)and focused on issues.

I partly agree with Justina Cooney. To much credit is given to the voters. I do think that a lot of people is aware of that how we vote is based on emotions, I do also think on the other hand that a lot of people is not aware of that. They do not think that it is emotions that lead them to vote for a specific candidate, even though it is.

The four things voters need to decide are not concrete by any stretch of the imagination. All of these ideas change once the representative takes office. If you expected the president to measure up to these for ideas, than every president would fail. Voting for any president is taking a huge risk. It's like gamboling in Vegas. I believe the better way to decide who to vote for is to look at former president's terms. A far right republican has a great chance of becoming moderate once in office.

During class, when the Rick Perry campaign video was mentioned, I got curious. So I watched it, and this is the definition of what Perry is trying to do. He is trying to encourage negative feelings towards Obama, through his campaign.

Good point Xochitl, I think that is what most (if not all) political compaign ads try to do.

I believe that almost every Politician incorporates this mechanism into their campaign. For them to be successful and have supporters they have to state what makes them better than the next Politician and the best way to do that is to express the positive qualities they have and at the same time point out the negative qualities in their opponents.

In addition to what Valencia says every Politician needs to do, (going back to last classes discussion) they also manipulate and con people into thinking that they are better than the other candidates. They make promises they can't keep and say things they don't mean in an attempt to get us to vote one way or the other. 

i think this is a key concept because all candidates want to sway their voters to their side. They need to make themselves look better and the other candidate look not as qualified for the job. This is how a candidate will win peoples votes and an election.

This goes back to the idea that citizens take shortcuts, and are not ignorant.

Xochitl, I agree that heuristics play a role in our actions  but I must say the majority of people are ignorant and rely on those shortcuts for all political decision making.