Some stupid questions - GOVT 2306-04

Responses to come

1 - How is Texas so diverse but yet still a RED state?

2 - My main concern is the parties, how they work and what each party does. I’ve never been into politics, so I don’t know much about them, but what makes each party unique, and what is each political parties purpose?

3 - Is Texas still considered a republic?
4 - Why is a caucus and a convention classified as a temporary party convention?

5 - What all goes into making it so hard for incumbent representatives to lose their incumbency in Texas?

6 - Is it too far-fetched of an idea to abolish the party system, and have politicians' campaign independently?

7 - Why does the local and state government have to be so complicated and detailed as compared to the federal government?

Stupid Questions - GOVT 2305 GHD2

Responses to follow

They'll help review the material for the final

1 - My question kind of does and kind of doesn't relate to anything that we've learned so far. It mostly has to do with the current situation (COVID-19). It's 2020, meaning this is our general election year. This virus is going to get worse before it gets better. So, how do you think elections would work? Would we most likely transition to some heavily regulated online system? They can't cancel an election, can they, especially with his being the general election? Would that be unconstitutional?

2 - How much of an effect do us young people (Gen Y and Z) have on this upcoming election? Can we make a significant effect on the outcome?

3 - Actually, the most confusing thing for me right now is memorizing all the terminology, but that's just because I have a bad memory. Do you have any tips or tricks to help me with that? Also I am struggling with how the levels of local levels of government relates to or affects the national government because right now with Covid-19 going around the two seem very separated. For example, states like California are going into a state of emergency while others are just going by the specific county. While the national government just seems to be promoting social distancing and released the symptoms of Covid-19 to be weary of, and have yet to decide whether or not it will be necessary to go into a state of emergency or something else that might help the country.

4 - Question: What is your favorite sport?The Federalist papers and the Articles of Confederation are a bit hard to keep track of.

5 - What is the basic difference between Democrats and Republicans?

6 - Isn't it crazy we were just joking about China being infected with coronavirus a couple of weeks ago? Now the Earth is infected and the government is handling this situation fairly well. The most confusing stuff we covered is our bill of rights and how the federal power is seperated. For example in this coronavirus situation, I'm suspicious if the federal government steps in to quarantine contaminated areas. I know it would be to lower infection rates but i would prefer to not see the government controlling our liberty to go out and interact with one another.

Some Stupid Questions - GOVT 2306-GDH1

I'll add responses soon

1 - i feel like what confused me the most is know which branch does what.

2 - The parties, like how many are there? I have only ever heard of the democrates and republicans up until this year. Also, how do the lesser parties get into the polls again?

3 - The most confusing part to me so far has been the judicial system. For the most part, I understand how the executive and legislative branches work and who is within the branch. However, the judicial system is just unclear.

4 - The most confusing part to me so far has been the judicial system. For the most part, I understand how the executive and legislative branches work and who is within the branch. However, the judicial system is just unclear.

5 - I am still trying to grasp each lesson as best as i can but sometimes i don't know what it is exactly we are being taught. I don't have an actual question but i am worried about taking the final for the class the test and quizzes are okay though.

6 - How will the corona virus affect the election?

7 - How does the federal reserve plan on combating inflation if they give money away to everyone, what would stop our nation to turn into post ww1 Germany. Not sure if that qualifies as stupid question so I will ask another question, why is the world round.

8 - Aren’t politics and government powers a waste of time? The most confusing thing that we have covered in this course in my opinion has to do with the depth and intensity of both the US and Texas constitutions and why they are both fairly different. This confuses me because I do not understand why the Texas government leaders feel the need to create a country for Texas itself and why we cannot just use the national constitution.

9 - The thing that confuses me most is the separation of state and national level powers. I’m confused of what applies to what and when it applies

10 - What are the main differences between open and closed primaries? And what are the pros and cons of each? Also, is there any specific reason why Texas and specifically Houston lacks mass transit systems even though Houston is a large, urban city?

11 - How are people supposed to vote if we are supposed to stay inside, or is voting postponed?

12 - why is the texas constitution so large?

13 - Do you think Texas will ever ratify its constitution to resemble the beliefs and values of people of today? I personally think that Texas will not while still remaining a republican state.

14 - What’s confusing is why if everyone hates Donald trump so much why did he become president? Why did people vote for him?

15 - What is confusing me the most is why the constitution may be very specific in some areas, but doesn't go into details in other areas. Or is it already as detailed as can be?

16 - Why are there so many political debates pout there?

Some Stupid Question GOVT 2306 - 03

I'll start responding to these one by one.

1 - Is it possible for an election to be rigged? Could it be possible that elections aren't online in order to prevent the tech nerds from hacking the elections and rigging the election? For those states that do offer online voting, have they ever been hacked?

2 - the plural executive and bureaucracy in Texas. If you could explain and review again how it works?

3 - how does Texas court system work?

4 - There are more than five thousands local government in Texas. All of them are elected by the people and each member of these local governments have to seek for election and reelection every 2- 4 or six years. Why commissioners, judges etc have to be elected instead of appointed by the Texas governor. Wouldn't it be easy and cheaper for those member of the government to be appointed by the Texas governor?

5 - Why do a bunch of flawed people (politicians) get to to control a system (made by flawed people) that control a bunch of people (citizens) who are also flawed?

6 - Why is the patronage system not restricted or frowned upon since it is only about connections rather than qualifications? I am aware that Texas uses both the merit-based civil service system and patronage, but why do something that disregards other people's qualifications and focuses solely on who they voted for? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of working hard in a career that is involved in politics because at the end of the day the patronage system is still there?

7 - Why is the judicial branch the strongest and how?

8 - This isn’t really related just a personal question. So, I would like to be more politically involved and do my part as a citizen. So my question is, what’s a good website to learn which party i side with and how I would chose my vote?

9 - I read in the textbook that Texas prisons can have prisoners produce items, but only for government organizations. So, does that mean things like the desks at the college were also produced in prisons?

U.S. Quarantine Stations

From the CDC.

- Click here for the source.

The History of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention

From Wikipedia:

- click here for it.

The Communicable Disease Center was founded July 1, 1946, as the successor to the World War II Malaria Control in War Areas program  of the Office of National Defense Malaria Control Activities.

Preceding its founding, organizations with global influence in malaria control were the Malaria Commission of the League of Nations and the Rockefeller Foundation. The Rockefeller Foundation greatly supported malaria control sought to have the governments take over some of its efforts, and collaborated with the agency.

The new agency was a branch of the U.S. Public Health Service and Atlanta was chosen as the location because malaria was endemic in the Southern United States. The agency changed names before adopting the name Communicable Disease Center in 1946. Offices were located on the sixth floor of the Volunteer Building on Peachtree Street.

With a budget at the time of about $1 million, 59 percent of its personnel were engaged in mosquito abatement and habitat control with the objective of control and eradication of malaria in the United States (see National Malaria Eradication Program).

- Click here for a timeline of its activities.

CDC’s Quarantine Legacy

Some stupid questions

I'll address these later:

1 - I dont fully understand the difference between the state and national government. Also with the local governments. Who is in charge of what? I see signs on the road to vote for people that I don't even know what they would have the power to do. And how much power does the president really have when there's so many other people behind governmental decisions

I'd suggest rereading the chapters on federalism and separated powers. I'll post some online videos which can help as well, but here is just a bit on the topic:

Your first question asks about federalism - the split authority between the national, state, and local branches. This content also includes - to some degree - descriptions of the offices created on each level. Note that 2306 includes more content on state and local offices, since that is the subject matter of 2306. The basic difference between each level is their function, and who they are responsible to.

As far as what the president does, please review the chapter on the Constitution, as well as the chapter on the presidency. In brief, the president oversees the implementation of the law.

I'll post something related to the functions of the presidency as well.

2 - is a hotdog a sandwich? You told me to ask a stupid question that is indeed a stupid question; so I don’t know if you want me to ask a stupid question about the material this class or just a stupid question in general. So I’m going to stick with my question being: is hotdog a sandwich I feel it could spark an argument. This whole coronavirus thing this year has completely thrown me off but since most of your classe is online anyways besides, the in class lectures, I feel like I could still learn and benefit from this class even though we have a little hiccup in the year.

3 - Is cereal a soup? why or why not? The most confusing thing for me was the public opinion chapter just because there was a lot of information.

4 - What's the importance of government and what would our life be like without it?

5 - Why is the constitution up for so much interpretation and why do people have so many different ideas of what it means?

6 - Why do we have to necessarily learn about certain topics that have to do with economics if it's supposed to be based off of government? Whats confusing me the most about the topic is some of it contains information that you would learn about in economics and are based off of how the government controls the community as a whole. Then throughout the subject we start talking about different politics that sometimes are confusing, because it can either have something to do with whats going on in the world or it could be based off of something totally different.