Just War Theory Essay

The Just War theory consists of 6 rules, which have to be obeyed when fighting at war against another country. The six rules are that war must be a last resort, those who are attacked deserve it, promote good over evil, the right amount of force must be applied, civilian death have to be avoided and the war must be started and controlled by the government. Wars such as the one in Afghanistan, do not in many ways follow this theory. The war does not in any ways promote good over evil and civilian death are never avoided, as many innocent civilians are killed when getting caught in the middle of cross-fires etc. I will conduct a case study on the Iraq war, further on in this essay. If I was able to add one extra agreement to the Just War theory, I would add that violence should always be kept to a minimum. I think this because violence causes the world’s most deaths in society today. This, in my opinion, is completely wrong and unacceptable as people should be able to live in a safe and free society, but this is never possible as you always have to be watching around you, as with some cases, you don’t know actually who to trust. To conduct a case study on the Iraq war, you would need to study the background history leading up to the start of the war in 2002-2003. Tony Blair (ex-prime minister) believed that Iraq were making nuclear weapons to lock themselves in a nuclear arms race, which could have potentially caused devastating consequences for the region and the wider world in general. This accusation caused the British and US forces to move in and declare a war with Iraq. British government believed that Iraq should not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, and this is why Blair confronted Saddam Hussain (Iraq leader) to try to find out facts, and this ended in Blair declaring war with Iraq. Several years on now, in 2010, we now have a clear understanding that there was never any nuclear weapons out in Iraq, and in my opinion, we are fighting a war which was never ours and we are losing people in our country and society which lives should have never been lost in the first place. Shouldn’t we be only at war to help benefit our country? This is why some people send accusations and believe that Tony Blair is the one to blame for our British soldiers losing their lives out in Iraq. When you come down to think about it, the Just War theory comes into effect at only one point in the Iraq war. ‘War is started and controlled by the government’ comes into effect as the British government started the war and are still controlling it, 8 years after war was declared. The point that was never followed was ‘those who are attacked deserve it’. I believe this because in my opinion, we are in Iraq and we are attacking for no reason, as there is nothing which could benefit our country in any way. The Iraq war also does not promote good over evil, as in my opinion, how can going to war, ever promote good? Wouldn’t going to war be a bad thing and God would be against it? But on the other hand, the good of society would never go to war in the first place; you would only see evil at war. War should be avoided, using whatever ways possible. Â  

Human Resources Management Contribution

â€Å"How can Human Resource Management contribute to the success of an engineering business? † Although there is no widely acknowledged definition for the term Human Resource Management, as far as I can understand it Human Resource Management is an approach to personnel management that sees people as the key resource of a company. In short it is a system that believes it is important to communicate well with employees and include them in what is going on with the organization, to increase the commitment and help them to identify with the organization. HRM specifically is a body of functions and policies that shape the work environment and control the relationship with employees. Some functions contain alternative methods or practices from which managers can choose. The key functions in HRM are; Planning the HR needs of the organization, particularly for the future. Integrating HRM with the organizations strategic management process and co-ordinating clusters of HR practices to achieve the desired goals. Staffing correctly; obtaining the correct people with regards to their skill set, abilities, knowledge and experience. Some practices involved within this are HR planning, Job analysis, Recruitment and selection. Developing skills, to ensure that workforce can perform satisfactorily in their jobs and can advance within the organization. To identify employee’s key skills and where they are competent the ‘Performance appraisal’ practice can be employed. Motivating employees through reward system, this can be done through performance appraisal, job evaluation. Designing and maintaining work systems that are safe and promote workplace wellness and employee health so as to fulfil health and safety legislations and retain a capable workforce. Managing relationships between employees, it covers a wide range of practices that can be used to create a better co-operation between employees and also a better feeling of involvement/participation. It also extends to co-operation with unions if they are involved. Managing change for the future by helping others be able to envision and understand the change, along with setting expectations for performance and helping develop the capability to reorganize and reallocate resources (including people). Evaluating the value of the entire HR system y designing procedures and processes that measure it. All of these functions and practices are underpinned by legislation. In a practical application typically a company would set out organizational objectives and then decide on a strategy in order to achieve those objectives. In the context of an Engineering company/business the strategic focus could, for example, be on the following: †¢ Ensure effective training and development of all st aff in order to ensure flexibility and competence within roles. Develop effective communication between employees and between departments/functions. †¢ Develop mechanisms to cope with future environmental change including social, political and technological. In this example strategic focus is on developing a flexible organization that can adapt to change in the environment and has a good communication structure in order to achieve this. Intel is a good example of a company in the Engineering business world whose business competitive advantage is its speed and flexibility in meeting the changing needs of various market niches. Given the extremely short product life cycle in this industry, there is a pressing need, according to Andy Grove, CEO of Intel, to channel resources swiftly from declining areas into emerging/growing areas. In these scenarios technological and financial resource transfer can be done quickly, but people are the hardest part of the system to redeploy. In order to develop and encourage continuing success the business must develop a HRM strategy that focuses on the correct HR areas in order to maximise competitiveness. To develop a successful HRM strategy, the business strategy must first be understood (Key driving forces of the business [technology, competition etc. ], Implications of these driving forces and the fundamental contribution of people in the business). From here a mission statement can be developed that relates to the people side of the business, establishing what they contribute. Analysing the organization (Culture, Organization, People, HR systems) and the external business and market environment will determine potential performance, skill issues etc. and highlight opportunities/threats. For each critical issue options can be generated considering the consequences of possible actions. From this a set of broad objectives can be created that can be split into specific HR areas, for example, Management, training/development, communication etc. The choice of strategy will have a big effect on the company’s success. Smaller companies will have to choose different objectives, for example, it is more expensive for a smaller company to offer effective training to their workforce, so a better option would be to select and recruit the correct staff. This is illustrated by Small to medium sized companies in China, which were found to have focused their HR efforts on selection and recruitment, performance-based remuneration and employee involvement in decision-making. This may be working well for these SME’s but for future success it would be a good idea to develop effective training/development programmes in order to further develop their employee’s skills. The problem here is that in order to compete with other companies there has to be compromise in certain areas. SME’s can’t always provide effective/quality training because of the cost, but over a longer period of time the cost-benefit ratio can be swung in a positive way as effective training can mean future development for the organization. In terms of Engineering industry this can provide greater benefit as development in certain skill areas, and skilled workers in general are essential for business growth. Problems can arise here though as if employee’s leave for other, better paid jobs once they have had training and developed skills in certain areas, the companies lose out on work time and incur costs. Another focus of HRM is to develop the central role of managers and also to prevent the view from workers as ‘us and them’ with regards to managers and help create an ‘us and us’ view. Cost can be controlled to a degree within a larger business by developing the roll of line managers as people managers, this cuts down the need for HR persons and helps to create a more ‘personal’ environment for employees. This is shown by Hewlett-Packard (HP) who relatively recently have been moving back towards developing the central role of managers. Primarily the role of the HR department now is to facilitate, measure, and improve the quality of management and teamwork, not to provide an avenue for managers to abdicate their responsibilities for people. HRM also helps to develop workers ability to manage themselves, many companies now are emphasizing flexibility and cohesion through team based activities and self managed work teams. One of the largest and most successful companies in the electronic engineering world, Apple, are a good example of focusing on self managed work teams and creating very strong employee-company bonds. By facilitating the development of self-managed work teams, HR departments can remove themselves from the intermediary role and allow employees to be self-determining. The HRM system can provide great success for an engineering business. It provides a method to narrow down the problems within an organization relating to the people within it, and create specific areas to focus on headed by generalised terms to provide an easy to follow and implement strategic plan. It has many advantages, such as the ability to create a flexible work environment, focusing on specific areas of the business to maximise competitiveness. However it also has some disadvantages, for example if quality training for workers is provided at great cost to the business, without proper precautions in place it is possible for trained employees then to leave and obtain better paid jobs with their provided training. In many of the examples illustrated here it is possible to see that there is strong links between the success of an engineering company and the use of HRM. Without effective management of people the business can fail to achieve its goals or sufficiently succeed in its market. The many different aspects of HRM allow enough flexibility and variation to allow a business to select and develop specific areas to meet its needs, for example Intel has a built a flexible structure for its employees to allow the business to move in and out of growing/declining markets. Resources An empirical study of high performance HRM practices in Chinese SMEs Connie Zheng, Mark Morrison & Grant O'Neill The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol 17 No 10, October 2006 Allbusiness. com – Lower cost, higher value: human resource function in transformation. By Brockbank, Wayne -THE IMPACT OF HUMAN RESOURCE AND OPERATIONAL MANAGEMENT PRACTICES ON COMPANY PRODUCTIVITY Human Resources Management (Theory and Practice 4th Edition) [Bratton and Gold] The essence of Human Resource Management [McKenna and Beech] Introduction to HRM [Maund] Managementtoday. com – Working Human Resoruces into the system

The United States Supreme Court and Public Opinion

The United States Supreme Court is a unique American institution. It is unique because, unlike the individuals serving in the executive and the legislative branches of government, the nine justices serving at the highest level of the United States Supreme Court are insulated in significant ways from the public they are sworn to serve. Most significantly, the justices are provided lifetime terms following nomination and confirmation. Unlike presidents or members of Congress, for example, the justices do not have to endure initial public elections or prepare for reelection campaigns.In effect, in many ways, the members of the United States Supreme Court are insulated from the public that they serve in extraordinary and unique ways. This very insulation, in turn, has generated fierce debates among legal scholars, political scholars, and historians regarding the proper characterization of the relationship between the United States Supreme Court and public opinion and the consequences of different characterizations.This essay will argue that the justices of the United States Supreme Court are not nearly as isolated as conventional wisdom and scholarship too frequently assume, that public opinion affects the justices in a myriad of deeply significant ways, and that adopting a majoritarian model better explains the United States Supreme Court as well as better serving important public policy objectives.In order to support the argument that majoritarian framework is the preferable model, this essay will explain why analytical frameworks are especially important in this context, the consequences of the different approaches, and why a majoritarian approach is the better framework for analyzing and discussing the relationship between the United States Supreme Court and public opinion. B. Why Analytical Frameworks MatterThis debate is particularly important because these justices, serving for life terms, are elevated to the United States Supreme Court as a result of politi cal decisions rather than intellectual merit or the possession of a neutrally objective judicial philosophy. Indeed, it is commonly agreed by scholars that Judges and scholars perpetuate the myth of merit. The reality, however, is that every appointment is political.Merit competes with other political considerations, like personal and ideological compatibility, with the forces of support or opposition in Congress and the White House, and with demands for representative appointments on the bases of geography, religion, race, gender, and ethnicity. (O'Brien 33) It is this political connection that makes the relationship between the United States Supreme Court and the American citizenry such an important issue.This is because certain assumptions may encourage special interests to pursue political appointments to the Supreme Court in an effort to circumvent public opinion. For those whom subscribe to the countermajoritarian school of thought, which holds that the Supreme Court is largel y immune to public opinion and hardly influenced by public opinion, the belief is that once a nominated justice is confirmed that he or she will be able to issue rulings unhindered by the pressures of public opinion (Davis 4).As a result, this approach encourages deeply political appointments because there is a belief that minority interests can be advanced or otherwise protected by a public institution shielded from public opinion; this, in turn, encourages potential justices to refrain from expressing their intellect or their opinions honestly in order to minimize political problems.One scholar has described this dumbing down of a candidate’s merits thusly: â€Å"A fictive discourse of appointments has thus emerged: a nominee's advocates make his case in the ideologically neutral language of merit, as if the candidate's views had no bearing on his selection,† (Greenberg, n. p. ) That prospective justices of the United States Supreme Court are compelled to engage in a â€Å"fictive discourse† is both disturbing and contrary to the American ideal of open and free discourse.The confirmation battle involving Robert Bork was illustrative of this type of political battle; indeed, rather than focusing on Bork’s intellectual abilities or merits the confirmation hearings devolved into perhaps the most contentious confirmation battle in modern history. Indeed, as one leading scholar of the Bork proceedings has noted, highlighting the aforementioned dangers associated with the countermajoritarian framework,Because few knowledgeable observers questioned Judge Bork's professional qualifications, opposition to Bork quickly focused on his judicial philosophy. The focus on ideology raised a crucial issue as to whether it was proper for the Senate to reject for ideological reasons an otherwise qualified nominee. (Vieira, and Gross vii)On the other hand, for those whom subscribe to the majoritarian school of thought, an increasingly influential app roach to the relationship between the United States Supreme Court and public opinion, the belief is that the justices are not only not insulated from public opinion but that public opinion affects the justices intimately in terms of the types of cases they choose to decide each year (O'Brien 165), what legal justifications that justices choose to rely on when deciding particularly contentious cases (Waltenburg, and Swinford 242), and whether to uphold or overturn longstanding legal precedents (Norrander, and Wilcox 707).Such assumptions, that public opinion does matter and that it matters significantly, have several significant implications if they are true. First, selecting politics over merit when deciding whom to nominate to the United States Supreme Court may be overrated; more specifically, justices will ultimately be more sensitive to public opinion than the political alliances that earned them the nomination in the first place.They will, after all, be freed of the need to sus tain the political alliances after confirmation as a result of their lifetime tenure whereas they will always be judged by public opinion. A case in point was the Republican nomination of Warren Burger. He was known to have been a conservative with a strict construction approach to the interpretation of the United States Constitution. In short, from a countermajoritarian point of view, Burger had seemed an extraordinarily safe political choice for the United States Supreme Court.The reality, however, was that as the 15th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Burger began to rule in ways that shocked his initial supporters. Rather than shunning public opinion, as his supporters wanted on issues such as race, he has since become known as one of the more activist Chief Judges in the history of the United States Supreme Court. The countermajoritarian school of thought cannot account for such a shift in judicial behavior, and this is a major flaw in this particular analytical framework.Burger is much better understood, as is the United States Supreme Court more generally, by employing a majoritarian framework that accounts for public opinion in addition to underlying political alliances or political philosophies. Second, if these assumptions are true, then public opinion matters. That means that studying the United States Supreme Court in isolation, rather than in conjunction with other related social factors such as public opinion, is a flawed approach.The better analytical framework is the majoritarian approach which, though a minority approach, accomplishes two important objectives. Initially, by accounting for and analyzing more carefully the relationship between public opinion and the United States Supreme Court, courts like Burger’s can be better understood and better explained; in addition, the majoritarian approach legitimizes public opinion as a part of the national debate with respect to legal issues of public interest rather than confi ning these issues to nine distant justices in a mysterious ivory tower.If one of the main functions of the justices is to safeguard the legitimacy of the American constitution, a document conceived of and designed to protect the public generally, then sound policy demands public participation and influence. There are two main questions to be resolved. First, does the countermajoritarian or the majoritarian framework better explain how the United States Supreme Court functions? Second, and related to the first issue, which model better contributes to the legitimacy of the United States Supreme Court and its legal decisions.C. Main Questions 1. Countermajoritarian or Majoritarian: A Threshold Issue Although the United States Supreme Court is one of the most heavily studied American institutions, there remain significant differences of opinion regarding the nature of the relationship between the Supreme Court and public opinion. One of the more fundamental debates among legal scholars, political scientists, and historians centers on whether the United States Supreme Court is in essence a countermajoritarian institution or a majoritarian institution.This debate has important implications. Those that believe that the countermajoritarian model best characterizes the actual function and operation of the United States Supreme Court also tend to view the Supreme Court as being largely insulated from public opinion; on the other hand those that believe that the majoritarian framework best characterizes the Supreme Court tend to believe that public opinion, to some extant, affects the function, operations, and the ultimate legal decisions of the Supreme Court.How one resolves this debate, therefore, pervasively affects American jurisprudence; indeed, â€Å"Much constitutional discourse is predicated on the assumption that the United States Supreme Court is a counter-majoritarian institution, and normative theories supporting the exercise of judicial review are seen, by some, as having to accommodate that fact.† (Solimine, and Walker n. p). Should this fundamental assumption be proven to be incorrect, and there is a growing body of research that suggests that it may be incorrect, then the constitutional discourse and the normative theories that have flowed from the traditional countermajoritarian characterization of the Supreme Court may be similarly flawed and incorrect.In short, a threshold determination needs to be made. This threshold question, as is relevant to the relationship between the United States Supreme Court and public opinion, is whether the Supreme Court is in fact a countermajoritarian institution as scholars have traditionally assumed or a majoritarian institution as some modern scholars argue. 2. Supreme Court as Arbiter of LegitimacyIn addition and intimately related to the aforementioned characterization debate, scholars have also examined the relationship of the United States Supreme Court and public opinion in terms of legitimacy; more specifically, scholars have debated whether and to what extant Supreme Court decisions resolve contentious legal issues legitimately so far as public opinion is concerned and whether and to what extant legitimacy instead results from public opinion affecting the Supreme Court either directly or indirectly.In short, is the ultimate source of legitimacy regarding contentious legal issues the Supreme Court, public opinion, or the interplay between the two? This source of legitimacy debate is made more difficult by the fact that public opinion tends to be more responsive to a narrow range of legal issues or what has otherwise been referred to in the literature as landmark cases such as Brown v. Board of Education, Roe V. Wade, and, more recently, Bush v.Gore. If this assumption is correct, that public opinion is only concerned with landmark cases, then the scope of academic inquiry must be significantly narrowed; to this end, one scholar has noted that â€Å"if we assu me that only the huge national landmark cases affect public opinion, in essence, we are saying that the remainder of the Court's work is inconsequential, at least in terms of public opinion. † (Hoekstra 3).An additional set of threshold questions, therefore, needs to address the more precise relationship between different types of Supreme Court cases and public opinion. Is the relationship relevant only with respect to national landmark cases? Does the relationship differ between landmark and non-landmark cases? This, in turn, demands an analysis which examines both the national and local effects of Supreme Court decisions. Indeed, acknowledging that â€Å"Using national data, it may be possible to connect cases such as Bush v.Gore to changes in public opinion and support for the Court† (Hoekstra 3) one scholar has argued for engaging in a more nuanced analysis that examines localized effects as well by suggesting that beneath the noise may actually be systematic effect s–ones not easily detectable or the same for all citizens–but systematic nonetheless. If citizens learn about different Court decisions based on information available and salient to them, then looking for uniform national level effects is misguided. This does not mean that Court decisions are without national effect.If the Court's effect is more localized–either in terms of geography or some other process–we might still see the effect of Court decisions on public opinion and that Court decisions might affect support for the Court on a national level. The process is just more subtle and possibly more gradual. Another reason to look at local public opinion is that Court decisions frequently require active implementation, oftentimes by local officials. If the Court can change public opinion on the issues, or at least cast legitimacy on the policy under review, the probability of successful implementation is greatly enhanced (Hoekstra 3)Thus, in short, a seco nd threshold set of questions addresses the extant to which scholars assume that relationships between the Supreme Court and public opinion are limited to national landmark cases or whether the relationship can be extended according to local effects and conditions. C. Benefits of a Majoritarian Approach The first benefit of a majoritarian approach is rather intuitive; more specifically, because legal issues affect the public then the public’s opinion ought to be considered.Although this essay also argues that public opinion is relevant in disputes that may not be considered landmark cases, the evidence strongly supports the proposition that public opinion particularly affects national landmark cases and that landmark cases decided by the United States Supreme Court tend to affect public opinion. What complicates a proper characterization of the court derives from different historical relationships between the court and the United States Supreme Court. Traditionally, the Ameri can public did view the justices as enlightened individuals whom didn’t require public input.This sort of public trust justified, in the past, the countermajoritarian approach; indeed, with respect to general public opinion, the justices were significantly insulated. One leading scholar, writing in 1957, stated that Until recently, the attitude of Americans toward the Supreme Court recalled with singular fidelity that with which, according to Burke, Englishmen of a century and a half ago should have looked upon the institutions of their country: â€Å"We ought to understand it according to our measure; and to venerate where we are not able to understand.† (Schwartz iii). This veneration, this assumption that the public can no longer understand the legal issues presented to the United States Supreme Court, is no longer an accurate description of the American public; quite the contrary, the public regularly criticizes Supreme Court decisions, it more carefully follows po tential and actual nominations to the highest court in the land, and through a variety of groups and organization it attempts to influence the court by presenting friend of the court legal briefs on virtually every type of imaginable case.What has emerged more recently is a United States Supreme Court that is besieged by rather than isolated from public opinion; one scholar has noted that even presidents attempt to influence the justices, stating that â€Å"presidents can influence the Supreme Court beyond the appointments process. † (Martinek, n. p. ). From the unemployed mother interested in an abortion issue to competing presidential candidates seeking a favorable ruling the United States Supreme Court has become, for better or worse, America’s arbiter of last resort.This change in the way the public perceives and interacts with the United States Supreme Court is the first reason why the countermajoritarian framework is no longer the best approach for analyzing the justices or the relationship between the Supreme Court and public opinion. The detached veneration of the public is a relic of the past and has been replaced by a greater public awareness. This greater public awareness, however, cannot be overstated; to be sure, though â€Å"Shifting majorities of the public do disagree with many decisions, to the extent they perceive them, or are simply ignorant of the great mass of the Court's jurisprudence.† (Solimine, and Walker, n. p. ) There are, therefore, gaps in the public’s knowledge about the nature of the Supreme Court’s power and the underlying issues. This imperfect knowledge, however, does not render public opinion marginal or irrelevant. It simply suggests that public opinion may at times be somewhat irrational; both a rational and an irrational public opinion can affect the Supreme Court and the majoritarian approach can be adapted to account for an idealized public which possesses an advanced understanding of c omplex legal issues and an imperfect public which sometimes reacts in less than informed ways.In short, the majoritarian approach is better able to incorporate the complex interactions between the United States Supreme Court than the rigidly outdated countermajoritarian model. In addition to the fact that public perceptions and demands have changed over time, it is also evident that legal precedents have been modified or overturned in response to public opinion. Some of the more well-known cases illustrating this fact have involved controversial issues dealing with racial segregation, abortion, and civil rights more generally.A countermajoritarian framework would assume that the justices would be significantly isolated from the public in cases such as Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade. Had these justices been insulated, it is entirely plausible that these cases would never have reached the United States Supreme Court, and if they had, that they would have been decided diff erently. The majoritarian model, on the other, admits that these issues were, to some extant, forced upon the United States Supreme Court and that the justices accommodated public opinion by resolving important national issues.This framework further contributes to an ultimate type of legitimacy with respect to the judicial decisions, even if the legitimacy remains challenged by some members of the public, because it treats the decision as a sort of cooperative effort between the United States Supreme Court and the American public. These decisions, in turn affected public opinion. More people accepted racial integration, more people accepted abortion, and more people came to believe that George W. Bush was entitled to the highest office in the land. In Brown v. Board of Education, for instance, the public was badly divided regarding issues of racial segregation.While it is true that the modern trend was toward integration the sad fact was that many members of the public, including st ates, resisted attempts to integrate the races more completely; as a result, pressure was brought to bear on the United States Supreme Court. On the one hand, there was a notion that the federal government shouldn’t interfere too much in state affairs; on the other hand, there was also a growing public recognition that only a decision by the United States Supreme Court, and not any actions by the executive or legislative branches alone, would settle the issues legitimately across the country (Klarman 348).A countermajoritarian framework would instead assume, and incorrectly so, that the justices themselves suddenly decided that racial segregation was unconstitutional rather than attributing a great deal of credit to the American public. The majoritarian model can both predict and explain cases such as Brown v. Board of Education. D. Conclusion In the final analysis, the United States Supreme Court is best analyzed when accounting for the influence of public opinion on its ope rational and decision-making process.This necessitates shifting toward a more majoritarian approach that also analyzes why and how legitimacy is often a function of the interaction of the Supreme Court and public opinion rather than the outdated view of the justices as isolated wise-men immune to public scrutiny or understanding. Works Cited Davis, Richard. Electing Justice: Fixing the Supreme Court Nomination Process. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Questia. 16 July 2009 . Greenberg, David. â€Å"The New Politics of Supreme Court Appointments. † Daedalus 134.3 (2005): 5+. Questia. 16 July 2009 . Hoekstra, Valerie J. Public Reaction to Supreme Court Decisions. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Questia. 16 July 2009 . Klarman, Michael J. From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Questia. 16 July 2009 . Lasser, William. The Limits of Judicial Power: The Supreme Cou rt in American Politics.Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1988. Questia. 16 July 2009 . Martinek, Wendy L. â€Å"Popular Justice: Presidential Prestige and Executive Success in the Supreme Court. † Presidential Studies Quarterly 33. 3 (2003): 692+. Questia. 16 July 2009 . Norrander, Barbara, and Clyde Wilcox. â€Å"Public Opinion and Policymaking in the States: The Case of Post-Roe Abortion Policy. † Policy Studies Journal 27. 4 (1999): 707. Questia. 16 July 2009 . O'Brien, David M. The Supreme Court in American Politics The Supreme Court in American Politics. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000. Questia. 16 July 2009 . Perry, Barbara A. â€Å"†The Cult of the Robe†: The U. S. Supreme Court in the American Mind. † Social Education 66. 1 (2002): 30+. Questia. 16 July 2009 . Schwartz, Bernard. The Supreme Court, Constitutional Revolution in Retrospect. New York: Ronald Press, 1957. Questia. 16 July 2009 . Solimine, Michael E. , and James L. Walker. â€Å"The Supreme Court, Judicial Review, and the Public: Leadership versus Dialogue. † Constitutional Commentary 11. 1 (1994): 1-6. Questia. 16 July 2009 . Spurlock, Clark. Education and the Supreme Court. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1955. Questia. 16 July 2009 . Stephenson, Donald Grier. Campaigns and the Court: The U. S. Supreme Court in Presidential Elections. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.Questia. 16 July 2009 . Vieira, Norman, and Leonard Gross. Supreme Court Appointments: Judge Bork and the Politicization of Senate Confirmations. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1998. Questia. 16 July 2009 . Waltenburg, Eric N. , and Bill Swinford. â€Å"The Supreme Court as a Policy Arena: The Strategies and Tactics of State Attorneys General. † Policy Studies Journal 27. 2 (1999): 242. Questia. 16 July 2009 .

Obesity evolved from a private matter to a political issue Essay

Obesity evolved from a private matter to a political issue - Essay Example Also, obesity has been associated with low self-esteem levels, and higher levels of anxiety, depression, and measures associated with impaired quality of life. The debate as to whether the obesity problem is personal or environmental or both will continue as long as the public attention lasts, and the prospect of public policy depends on continuation of publicity of the problem. The complex nature of attribution of responsibility has made it difficult for policy makers to assign blame or develop remedial policies. Even though pressure for action has been growing, the interaction of such factors has made it difficult to predict the future course of policy related to obesity. Policies to address issues surrounding obesity have all failed to pass Congress. Definition of the problem, response from Congress, administrative agencies, courts, and cultural consequences of policy debate is a familiar route for obesity as observed in tobacco and patient’s rights measure. Among all industrial countries, the United States has the highest occurrence of overweight condition, and obesity has become a pandemic problem with over half the population being obese. Diets, eating behaviour and lack of activity have been attributed for the rise of obesity. There has been little examination of the contribution of public policies in agriculture and economics resulting in the current agricultural and food environment. Obesity has been accelerating in the recent decades, suggesting that environmental conditions could be contributing factors in addition to individual eating behaviours and evolving lifestyles (Tillotson, 2004). A study has been conducted to review and understand the relevant history of the issue surrounding the emergence of obesity from a private matter to a political issue. The study has been conducted by review of relevant literature on the matter. The study serves to identify the direction of the issue based on the prevailing debate. Industrialization

Michael Phelps Bong Incident Personal Statement

Michael Phelps Bong Incident - Personal Statement Example This is what I enjoyed the most about David Harsanyi's article - that it offers a broad view on both the Michael Phelps scandal and the contemporary repression of Cannabis. In my reply to the article, I aimed to express my opinion concerning the real issues that oftentimes get concealed behind the shiny, hyped up issues the mass media seem to consistently adopt. I very much agree with the author's overall opinion on the subject matter, so essentially this letter was written as an elaboration of the theme of stupidity: that expressed by Phelps himself, and that which sometimes looks inextricable in our modern society. After reading on "Michael Phelps' public stoning", I was compelled to express how I wholeheartedly agree with your central point: Phelps is an idiot; but then again, so is the war on cannabis. It's discomforting to realize how in full on XXI century, our society is still so easily deceived into supporting the enforcement of such blatant and outrageous witch hunts. In this day and age we're living, one might have supposed that the news a 14-times gold medalist is also a pot smoker could help people realize how the rumors concerning the dangers of marijuana might have been grossly exaggerated; but no, as it turns out all that conservative people focused on was how Michael Phelps no longer had a place among the pantheon of positive role models their children should strive towards. Just goes to show how our opinions are so heavily influenced, and our perspectives so easily shifted. I think you said it best when you stated how "In reality, the most startling aspect of the Michael Phelps incident is that we produced an Olympic superstar dumb enough to place his gargantuan paws around a bong in full view of dozens of partygoers equipped with cell phone cameras." Granted, most pot smokers understand the aggressive prejudice they're still subject to in our society, and some of them choose to keep their smoking habits in private. But not many of them have such high stakes as Phelps, and still he went ahead and exposed himself like that. He should have known better, and he should have thought before grabbing a bong in a college party (where someone was bound to snap a picture), but then - well, then he got high... and the rest is history. In my opinion, Phelps committed two coarse errors: the first one was getting caught in public with a bong, and the second (possibly worse) was making a public statement telling how much he was sorry for his reckless, juvenile behavior. As you've written in the final portion of your article, most Americans who have smoked marijuana are unlikely to feel regrets about doing so - and Phelps himself, there's a good chance he's actually sorry only of getting caught. His judgment failed, all right: not necessarily by smoking pot, but absolutely by doing so in a scenario that would be likely to bring about repercussions that might compromise his career. All in all, it goes without saying: Michael Phelps is an idiot. But all the while, he's also a prodigious swimmer who has consistently displayed off-the-charts skill and capacity. So what if he smokes pot If nothing else, that just goes to show that pot smokers can become something other than slackers and parasites, as maintained by our dearly uptight cultural stereotypes. Regardless (and as far as I'm aware)- marijuana isn't

Critical analysis of the process of deconstructing an organisation in Essay

Critical analysis of the process of deconstructing an organisation in such a way as to be able to identify the organisations strategy and policy - Essay Example In the first one, the literature published by the organization in the form of reports and analysis is deconstructed to find out the emphasis and to interpret what it excludes. In addition to the texts of the organization, the symbols can also be deconstructed to find the inner meaning. The second approach is that the deconstruction enables us to write the organizational analysis. The main motive is to understand the theme of the context and how these are employed to understand the inner meanings of the texts. The texts interpret what the organizations do not want to talk about. The deconstruction process helps in the evaluation of the motives of the company. The process of deconstruction has not assumed popularity because it puts in question the integrity of the management and its publications. (Thorpe & Holt, 2008; Pp 71-72) However, the efficiency of the process cannot be questioned in the analysis of the company. The paper will discuss the process of deconstruction in the understa nding of the strategy and policy of the organization. As stated earlier, deconstruction as a process or an analytical tool has not assumed the popularity like the other analytical tools. This is because the deconstruction process emphasizes on the analysis of the inner meanings. Deconstruction as a process is based on the texts and the symbols of the organization. The texts and the symbols are analyzed to reveal the inner meaning. The deconstruction analysis is based on the observation of the organizations as bodies of texts. The organizations are not viewed as static entities and they are viewed as some structure, which have some inherent meaning. True to the deconstruction theory of philosophy, the texts of the organizations have inner meaning that reveals some important information about the organizations. The base of the deconstruction process is based on the observation of the texts of the

Enviromental Ethics of Cleaning up the Oceans Term Paper

Enviromental Ethics of Cleaning up the Oceans - Term Paper Example There are many reasons to affirm that all citizens of this world have ethical and moral responsibility to maintain the oceanic health, starting with the cleaning of its waters. Since, ages oceans have provided around half of the required oxygen to all living bodies on earth. Nevertheless, the detection of Dead Zones in several seas and oceans reveal that the marine life within such zones is starving for oxygen. This is mainly due to large scale dumping of agricultural and industrial waste into the oceanic waters. The exploitation of oceans has resulted in extinction of many races of sharks and other predatory fishes along with other species like turtles. Hence, it is the moral responsibility of all global citizens to gear up the efforts towards aggressive ocean cleaning. Various moral theories come up when discussing about the moral responsibility of human kind in saving the environment of this planet. However, main aspects of moral theory include the issues related to sustainability, compassion and participation. It is the duty of every citizen of world to ensure that all creatures and human beings are treated equally. The sustainability is the extension of this moral obligation, which defines the purpose of meeting the requirements of present generation, while ensuring that future generations are able to meet their needs sufficiently. It is in this context that human kind needs to understand its moral duty towards the preservation for oceanic marine life, which is one of the important supporters of human life system. If the ocean waters are not clean, the formation of dead zones will be frequent. This will deprive these waters of the vibrant marine life. We need to preserve marine life for the sake of our present and future generations. The action, which ensures that every one gets sufficient quantity of goods required to live in a