Civil war & reconstruction

 

In 1914 WW1 began. At this time the U.S. was not involved, it was just Europe. No one in the U.S. wanted to be in this war and even President Wilson spoke up explaining, "I'll keep the boys out of the war." However, obviously this was on of many president lies and Wilson was getting torn a part for joining in with the war. Jumping into the 1920's, the 19th amendment was established. This amendment gave women the right to vote. It was a huge turning point as women never had any rights. They weren't even allowed to have a job! Fredrick Douglas, was the only one to speak up on behalf of women voting. He saw it in a way that was parallel to anti-slavery and did not agree with the way the government was treating their people. Everyone deserved to be equal and so, a change was finally made. Another moment in the 1920's was the invention of the radio. This came out when the roaring 20's became such a huge part of history. People began to change the norm. Wearing shorter skirts, having short and long hair, as well as listening to jazz music. The speakeasies encouraged black and whites to join together. Playing the same music in the same band, it was a major turning point. The Harlem Renaissance also came about during this time. Then, in 1925, Pierce vs Society of Sisters and Gitlow vs NY "in corporation" speech came about. The Judiciary act introduced the concept of certiorari. The power of the court to pick and choose what decision it takes. This is all explained by a three-level foundation. A case is brought to the district who establish the facts of a case. Once the facts are set straight, the case is raised to the "triers of law." Known as "due process," the lawyers will also check to make sure that the persons case received due process from the court. From their this appellate court decides whether it deserves to be appealed. If they are positive that the case has due process, it gets sent to the Supreme Court. When the Pierce vs Society of Sisters went through all of the levels arriving at the Supreme Court, the public was shocked about them taking an abortion case, but they did this because they were going to make a change. Ending with 1931 is Near vs Minnesota. This was a milestone moment. Minnesota had a law that banned no sensational journal. The court then gave him an injunction, which is in fact prior restraint. Prior restraints are almost always unconstitutional. The three exceptions are, obscenity, incitement and threats to national security in war. War is a trigger that allows the government to do different things they can't do during peace time. Meaning, it gives them the power to create conflict with our rights.

8 values of free expression

 

One of the eight values of free expression that resonates with me the most is number 2, “Participation in Self-Government.” I think that this topic is extremely important because it affects our right to our first amendment. By not having the ability to speak a certain way without getting in trouble is called prior restraint. When the Government forbids you from saying something before you’ve written or spoken it. If we aren’t able to speak out about the government doing something that we aren’t fond of or talk about how wrong they are handling something, it can affect our election abilities. We need to be able to have our rights and if we can’t, big mistakes can be made without knowledge. 

 We see value number 7, “promoting innovation” in our daily lives now. Although many people to this day don’t speak up about our governments choices and what we do or don’t agree with, day by day our country is beginning to speak up more. For example, the protesting that has gone on about women’s rights to abortion. People heard what the government was trying to do and decided to stand up against it. Although I may not agree with all of this, the peoples opinions were heard and taken into account. They didn’t get in trouble or put in jail for voicing their opinions and speaking out against the government. Due to this our society is able to diversify more and more and new ideas and creativity are brought up to challenge the government and make our country the best it can be. 

  This theory helps our society tremendously. Another thing that has happened was the BLM movement. George Floyd was the main turning point in everyone's view. He got killed by police men who may have been a little too harsh. When the people heard about this news they got fired up. They decided to take it up to the White House and protest. Now again, I may not think that this is right, but it created a step in the right direction of using our rights and speaking up for what we believe in and want to change. The cops ended up being dealt with in the right way and even though it still left many unhappy, their voices helped the officials come up with a solution and put themselves in others shoes.

  We are so lucky to have the right to speak up and say what we do and don’t agree with. Many countries such as North Korea, are not given this freedom of speech and are harmed or even potentially killed for speaking up about the government in a negative way. So, regarding to promoting innovation, we need to take advantage of what is going on in the news, on social media, do our research and announce our calculated opinions. By doing this, it opens others' minds to new ways of thinking and when we all gather to approach the government, our voices will be heard.

History and impact of the Printing Press

  The Printing Press was invented by Johannes Gutenberg around 1436. His goal was to create this machine so that people could have easier access to novels and documents that would be nearly impossible to come across before hand. He also wanted to create this machine to impress God as well. His first order of duty was to print the Bible. He strived to get as many copies out into the world to share the true word of God. Gutenberg faced many challenges when creating the printing press. He had borrowed money from Fust for his invention and soon enough he found himself in debt. Unable to pay his debt, Gutenberg paced around anxiously wondering if he had done all this hard work for nothing. He knew it would've paid off in the end, but it may be too late. He waited for the verdict from the judge and thankfully the judge had faith in his work and stood in his favor. Gutenberg happily got back to work and later, his invention came to life.   

  This German goldsmith succeeded with this machinery by copying 200 books of the Bible in Latin which ended up taking 3 years. However, it was a rough start. Not many could read in latin and some couldn't even read at all. Later after Gutenbergs passing, the Printing press was beginning to get Europe out of the Middle Ages. A Global News Network was created and people began to pay others to read them the information. The Printing Press began to become a bigger deal once Martin Luther made printings of his books. Martin Luther was a First Generation Reformer known as a "Heretic" When he created copies of his books, he became the worlds first, best selling author. Now, thanks to the Printing Press, everyone could get the chance to hear truth and gather the same knowledge as one another and writers are now able to be heard by the people. It was a reformative moment as well as a motivating moment for all. The Printing Press continued to be made out of wood and one screw and sometimes stone beds would be enclosed with coffin material. Around 1620, The printing press was actually finally upgraded. The machine had two plates that could carry 24 pages. It then was able to shrink the words down to fit onto 16 so that the publicist could have options of a journal to be 16, 20 or 24 pages. It also had the ability to form a cover in a separate colored paper and managed to fully print 24,000 copies per hour with the book binder together with the cover page and regular text.

  On the other hand, the Printing Press had some negative impacts as well. By having this new machine, it stole jobs from the people who were basically the "original" Printing Press! This may have hinted at the people the idea of machinery stealing jobs from people since this was before the Industrial Revolution. Although it docked a lot of peoples jobs, it also sparked creativity in those to write and sell their novels or documents to others, creating a new form of job. It also created the start to our printers we have now and after various improvements, little by little the printing press has formed into an exceptional high tech machine that can make a copy in just a few seconds with just a click of a button.

   All in all, This printing press completely changed their way of life in more good ways than bad. It opened up many opportunities for everyone to understand the truth behind topics, gain better reading, writing and speaking skills, become more knowledgable over all, spark creativity, get a job, and so much more.

https://www.history.com/news/printing-press-renaissance

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8kmsUImcv50C&oi=fnd&pg=PA9&dq=why+was+the+printing+press+invented&ots=ZwjFCpYFWe&sig=9bUvqf0y0r2r6kX2xKiaFATW4zc#v=onepage&q=why%20was%20the%20printing%20press%20invented&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=1LtTEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT48&dq=printing+press+history&ots=_NUdADyr8P&sig=QbW_jtlV5_J8tCTLPFRmokRN07c#v=onepage&q=printing%20press%20history&f=false

The history and workings of the U.S. Supreme Court

 

 I learned that the Alien and Sedition act removed the people's first amendment. This obviously violated the constitution so the Supreme Court had to come up with a solution. They decided to tell Kentucky and Virginia to just ignore this act as if it never happened. I also learned that congress gets to decide how many courts there will be. The most important take away about the supreme court is that they do not actually have as much power as people may think. There was a system made so that no one was overpowered being put in a "monarchy light." The states didn’t want to have one person or group of people to call all of the shots. This is why we have the Bill of Rights, to give the individuals some power, and take some power away from the government. The most surprising thing that I learned was that The government used to not have enough power to lead the people from the Articles of Confederation. So, they started fresh. They wanted to put anti-slavery into what is now the constitution, but obviously the south was not pleased by this. This is where the ⅗ compromise comes in. When the constitution was written it wasn’t able to get ratified by anyone because there was no Bill of Rights. Madison then got to writing on the Bill of Rights so that the Constitution could officially be ratified. These videos changed my perspective on the supreme court a bit. Although they do hold a lot of power and kind of rob us from our own power sometimes, us individuals actually do have quite a bit of power if we use it. Meaning if they do something that we don’t agree with or like, it is our duty to stand up for our rights and tell the government what they're doing wrong. We do have power, we just need to start using it to our advantage.

  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piN6uMrXzMM&t=194s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfl2NBfvff4&t=32s

Privacy, Online & off

 In the first TED talk from Juan Enriquez speaking about the issue of "Your online life, permanent as a tattoo." Enriquez talks about how the online services that you use can tell more about your life than a tattoo on your body ever could. When you accept the terms and conditions and privacy policy on an app you normally don't actually read the pages and pages of their policy. Sometimes though, they have written that they can change their policy without informing you. You click agree without noticing that they now own you posts and can sell them to anyone. The cookies on your computer, phone, etc. also track your every click. Now, online services know more about you than anyone else. These tracking services in our phones can control us and have complete power to do whatever they want with it. Therefore. you don't actually have as much privacy as you think. 

  Another TED talk given by Darieth Chisolm was about how her ex husband posted photos of her nude as she was sleeping as a form of revenge. She calls this digital domestic violence. He also called her dirty names and sent dirty messages. She then explains that 1 in 25 women are suffering from these horrific acts and legislation won't do ANYTHING! The government really needs to step up for the people and instead of just using them to get Information, maybe they should start protecting us from harm. 

  In order to protect ourselves from invasion of privacy we need to stand up for our rights, letting the government know that they need to change. We should also always sign out of our browsers after use, continue to watch for what we put out on social media, and use something such as a VPN so that they cannot get all of our information. 

Five top sources of news sources

 My first news source is Twitter. Not proud to say it as it is not even close to the most reliable source, but it is convenient. Twitter gives updates of the most trending tweets. Therefore it is bound to show me the "juiciest" drama and news going on in the world. Although it may not be an accurate source of information, multiple people do look at other sources and it feels more truthful if everyone is agreeing that the latest news is true. 

Tik tok is also a big news cite I use to get my information. The videos are under 3 minutes and it's a quick way to get information. There is a page called the "for you" page and although it is tailored to what you seem to be interested in, you can also quickly search in the search bar a topic and thousands of short videos pop up that you can scroll through. I believe it to be most convenient to sift through as searching online and reading through articles seems to be too much effort as our attention spans are constantly getting shortened. 

My family iMessage group gives me basic information of what is going on in the world. They will ask if we have heard about a certain news topic and give a little insight on the topic. Then if I am interested, I will expand my knowledge on the topic by searching it in Tik Tok, twitter, safari, etc.

Vogue is another place I tend to gravitate towards for information. I am able to be up to date with all of the celebrities. Personally I enjoy it a lot more than TMZ as I know how much they twist the stories for more attraction. Vogue seems to be a bit more classy and gives news about celebrities as well as fashion news that isn't too over the top.

YouTube is a great place for getting my news as well. Every night I sift through the discover page filled with intriguing titles that interests me. If there is something specific I am looking for, I will quickly search it up on YouTube if I prefer to watch more about this topic than in a short 3 minute Tik Tok video. It has turned into a wind down routine for me and most YouTubers I watch have credible sources for their information.