American History Homework Eleven Answers - Student One

Addison DM (all d0ne!)(sorry so long...I threw in everything I would have said in debate!)

1.I can find more than one. The most important value in learning history is (and this sounds kind of obvious) to learn what happened in the past. As it is said, “He who does not learn from history is bound to repeat it.” (paraphrased.) Knowing the past will help us better influence our future. Also, learning history is a great way to analyze facts and learn to debate, by reading different points of view and finding which one you agree with.

Superb answer!

2.Since the Germans and Japanese were obviously committing unjust attacks against other countries, and since they would probably eventually plan to attack us, (and Japan did) I think WWII was justified. Pearl Harbor gave us a definite and specific reason to enter the war. However, it would have been a mistake to enter the war sooner, because we were not really ready for war before Pearl Harbor, either in our production/economy, or in the size of our military. This could have caused early defeats in battle and needlessly weakened us for the rest of the war.

Excellent.

3.I think the open borders/unrestricted policy before the 1850s, and William Penn’s advertisements, were beneficial, even necessary, to build us up when we were still quickly developing, and creating our place on the world stage. Part of what makes us strong is that we are made up of many cultures yet still consider ourselves Americans. Slowly restricting immigration after large influxes is a good idea too though, like we began to do in the 1850s, and we did in signing the Chinese Exclusion Act after 14 years of unrestricted Chinese immigration. Nowadays, since we don’t need, but can still benefit from immigration, I think a yearly quota system on legal immigration, or some similar variation, would be a good idea.

Good historical analysis.

4.I like the invention of Jazz because it’s a truly American invention in the spirit of America, combining elements of different cultures to create something new.

Excellent choice! I agree wholeheartedly.

5.The New Deal was not necessarily wrong, but it was probably too big. I think only a few of its programs were really good or useful, such as the Emergency Banking Act, Glass-Steagall Banking Act, National Housing Act, and the Trade Agreements Act. What I would have done differently was enact perhaps only these acts, forget the public works and Conservation Corps programs, and just not mess around with everything so much. I would also encourage local and private charity and try to make the best of the hardship and use it as a period of perhaps spiritual reflection, while of course encouraging the American people.

Superb insight about encouraging private charity.

6.I think we should have been easier with Japan and not been so adamant in calling for unconditional surrender. While we worked ourselves into a frenzy about Japanese nationalism, I think we displayed our own extreme nationalism by allowing racist hatred to motivate us so much. The fact that we would even consider sending 1,000,000 Americans to invade Japan strikes me as almost mentally ill, or emotionally blind. Then, when presented with a weapon that would instantly kill thousands of civilians, we said, that’ll do too! Wow. Anyway, my view is that an invasion is morally out of the question, the atomic bomb is possibly justifiable, and accepting less than unconditional surrender is ideal. With the last being firmly out of the question in our policy, the bomb is the lesser of two evils.

Many historians agree with you that it was unrealistic to demand and expect "unconditional surrender." Your argue your position well.

7.Teddy Roosevelt (or his “shade”) is looking at the White House as delivery men from the House and Senate deliver huge sticks of “dictatorial power,” inducing Teddy to exclaim how his own “big stick” is dwarfed in comparison. The cartoon represents the huge Democratic majorities won in the House and Senate, and the Democrat Roosevelt’s victory in becoming president. It therefore represents the outcome of the 1932 presidential election, and was probably written around the time President Roosevelt announced his New Deal. Whoever drew it was definitely not a Democrat, probably a Republican, and apparently thought that Roosevelt’s programs and expansion of power were “dictatorial.” As a side note, I think it’s interesting that former President Teddy Roosevelt is commenting on President Franklin Roosevelt- the two Roosevelts.

Terrific analysis. Note, however, that the cartoon is criticizing Congress more than it is criticizing FDR.

Honors

1.In general, I think the President has accumulated more power than he used to have, and this is becoming a leader. However, as the whole federal government becomes more powerful, sometimes the president is forced to follow fellow branches more than he would have used too: for example, Bill Clinton followed Congress in becoming more liberal, and maybe Barack Obama will do this too. Congress is probably more powerful than even the President nowadays. So, the president has become more of a leader to the American people, but in some cases, due to expansion of power, he is actually often following other federal branches. The solution is that federal government as a whole should be less powerful and more accountable to the states and people.

Superb. May use as a model answer.

3.Debate: Do you think the internment of Americans of Japanese descent was proper and constitutional? Neither. It is obviously unconstitutional, and a similar instance of what we could perhaps call “Executive activism,” another prime example being Abraham Lincoln’s suspension of Habeas Corpus. We would not say that abortion is constitutional because it was declared so; neither should we fall back on nine men who obviously gave in to Roosevelt, or to racism, to decide the constitutionality of internment. American citizens cannot suddenly have their rights revoked because of racial origin. Also, the spirit of America is that we are Americans first. Here, Roosevelt decided to judge Americans on their “secondary” nationality. The ironic aspect is that while Japan never landed spies on our shores, Germany did, and to guard against Germany we simply set up watch posts on our shores and hanged spies. Not so with Japan. My final complaint is that rather than rely on our military to protect our West Coast and try to calm the fears and racist leanings of the American people, we were glad enough to stir it up and keep it going for the purpose of upholding a war effort.

Terrific response. This is good enough to be a model answer also.

4.The United Nations is yet another example of something that looks great on paper and mostly fails in practice. There are two setbacks to large, international councils like this: one, they have a tendency to limit or damage national sovereignty, and two, nations can sometimes hardly agree on their own national policies, let alone agree with other nations. It’s like taking the thirteen (somewhat disunited) states under Articles of Confederation, and putting that on an international scale. Not to mention the fact that the UN needs a huge bureaucracy to run, and bureaucracies are often self-serving and prone to selfish scandals such as the Oil for Food scandal. Also, it was recently reported that a very expensive decoration project was undertaken for a refurbished UN human rights chamber in Spain. This money could have gone somewhere much better. Perhaps the UN should go somewhere I can’t say….

Excellent. I'll use this one as the model. Terrific.

Superb answers. One of the best papers in the entire class all year. 100/100. Congratulations!--Aschlafly 21:42, 5 December 2008 (EST)