Watergate does not bother me, does your conscious bother you? Tell the truth

Watergate doesn't bother me to the extent where I find myself wanting to analyze how it screwed up America's trust in the government. I think it was wrong and punishable, but I don't believe it should be conceived as one of America's most signficant political blunders. The fact that Nixon didn't instigate the break in is very crucial in my reasoning. If I were put in the same situation, I would have tried to cover it up as well. Nixon's biggest flaw in my eyes was his inablity to keep the story hidden. When the story broke, it diverted national attention away fromt the more important foreign policy issues. Watergate can be compared to an outfielder dropping a routine fly ball. It shouldn't happen, but when it does you learn from it and don't do it again.

Vietnam Commitment Response

Based on the article's content, I believe that entering the Vietnam War was a poor choice for the United States. One theory for U.S. involvement states that we entered to stop the expansion of communism, and the other theory states that the U.S. got involved to keep the economy booming. I feel that any war that people have to debate over the reason for involvement is most likely an avoidable situation. I would hope that the U.S. government wouldn't sacrifice the freedom and lives of individuals to spur the economy, and I also don't think that Vietnam was a power country that the U.S. had to worry about on an international level. I believe it is a plausible idea that Johnson got cornered into seeing a piece and not the entire picture of communist expansion. When the United States had already been established as a negotiator for the people of southern Vietnam, he could have felt that it was an obligation to back up his claims of support, but I feel it would have been a wiser decision for him to let the Vietnamese sort out their own issues, and have the US avoid the humiliation of losing lives as well as a war to unorganized guerilla warfare. The United States as well as any country with power tends to feel paranoia at the times when they need most to feel apathy, and this leads to decisions that are not completely processed on a long term scale. The United States tried to defuse communism by being active in international affairs, and this was not in the best interest of the people of the United States.

Decision to drop the Atomic Bomb Response

The debate over why the USA used nuclear warfare in WWII can be answered as a combination of the theories presented in the aricle. I believe that Truman wanted to end the war quickly and spare US casualties, but it is highly plausible that he intended to scare the Soviet Union from pursuing unfriendly behavior. I think the more important question that should be asked is if dropping the bomb was a good decision. I think the US was dumb to take such extreme action in its circumstances. They could have threatened the Japanese and worked out the situation diplomatically by being a bully and saying, "Give into our terms or we will kill your people," or if the US was feeling truly enlightened they could have said, " Let's end this pointless fighting and help each other prosper and agree to not forcefully expand our empires." But that is just the peculiar thing I find with world order. We are supposed to have wise leaders ruling the world, cause that makes sense philosophically, but still I find our past leaders to be stupid. There truly is no logical purpose to use warfare. I feel as if leaders in the past, excluding my personal favorite Genghis Khan, were more dividing in their goals than unifying. How is killing hundreds of thousands of people going to create trustworthy relations for countries in the future. I feel like if there were a bunch of wise leaders in the industrialized countries of the world, they would understand that by working together and using resources to the fullest potential, and completely banning warfare, the world would be better off. I understand that it is a lot more complicated than what the surface appears, but it can not be denied that humans act with their own desires and not collective desires. Overall, I think that unless dramatic procedures and ideas from pacifists are taken seriously, the world will experience more nuclear warfare because the Man does things the way he and is itty bitty circle of friends tell him to do, and completely ignore the ideas that come from people who they aren't willing to hear.

Causes of the Great Depression

According to this article, the author states that there was not any single dominant reason that brought forth the Great Depression, but rather multiple conflicting circumstances that gave consumers no confidence in the economy. The first claim is that corporations were the causation due to their lack of confidence in investing in infrastructure. I find this theory false because there was no reason for a society who had for the most part during its entire history experienced relative economic stability, to have the foresight to predict the decline of industries that were still creating an enormous amount of GDP. The second stance claims that the Federal Reserve Board was at fault for raising interest rates when they should have lowered them. I do believe that this contributed to the depression, however I do not find it to be the sole cause either. High interest rates only hurt unknowledgable people taking out loans they assumed they could invest with and pay off. When high interest rates compounded by deflating money brought them into poverty, they had no other option but to accept their position. I find the opinion of Temin to be most reasonable in his stance that the depression was caused by a drop in investment and consumer spending. I feel this way because the exaggerated investments for capital during WW1 created a supply of industries that were far outstripping demand. By this I mean that in order for industries to survive, they had to serve many more people. These industries were geared for producing mass amounts of everything, and during times when demand was great, they thrived, but when people were being paid increasingly smaller wages and had no money to spend on anything but necessities, a depression was inevitable. As the industries started to lose money, investments became increasingly insecure, and consumer confidence in the market shriveled up. This was the ultimate cause of the depression and futher more any depression. When there is a lack of consumer confidence, economies tend to destruct internally in a slippery slope of events. The most quick and effective way to reverse the pattern is by an extraneous event such as a war. Despite that, Roosevelt did a remarkable job at creating jobs without an enormous burden to taxpayers through intense reforms, which is very comendable.