"Failures are finger posts on the road of achievement."-C.S. Lewis

Overall, America has had many "failures." We've made several mistakes. For instance, Vietnam War, Pentagon Papers, Watergates, building up nations that only betray us... many mistakes. However, I think that as a country we grew together through all these mistakes. Whether it be that we all united to fight against those nations, or we all united during 9/11... There are many good things that came from it. The Pentagon papers allowed us to learn how we can't put all our faith in our Army... Now, some may think that it's bad that we had to learn this, but I think that it's never good to put so much faith in one thing, because it's only gonna let you down. Through all the mistakes we've learned that there will be mess ups. There will be times when you fall. But falling isn't failure... It's staying down that's failure.
That's a famous quote but it's so true. The US has fallen countless times, but one thing remains true, we haven't stayed down. We get back up and fight for what's ours.

Ka-Ching!

Yesterday I learned about treasury bonds. I learned how China continues to buy tresaury bonds while we arent paying them back. It makes me wonder why China keeps on buying them. Essentially they are loaning their money to the United States and I can't understand why they do this... If I were to loan out money to someone, I wouldn't give them more money until the last debt was paid. I don't think it's so realistic for someone to pay a debt of millions of dollars. I don't know that much about the country and their money but from what I can see, it's not an ideal approach.

This morning I was thinking...

As I sit up this morning, cramming for these blogs, I look back on the knowledge I had at the beginning of this course vesus the knowledge I have now. It really surprises me how much I have learned. To be honest, I thought that I was just going to get through the class and not really learn anything. The opposite occured. I learned about the ending of WWII, with the baby boomers, the jump in the stock market, and the pride that eveyone  had about their country. Then I learned about the Crisis of Confidence. The time when somehow everyone lost their faith in the government... People shifted more towards conservatism. The Watergate, the time when Nixon completely betrayed the trust that people had in the president and the government itself. I find it interesting that our country has had so many ups and downs. I would say that we've made it, but time has not stopped. History is still to be made. We can't see the future and what is going to happen. We can only avoid repeating history.

Irony.

I find it interesting that somehow our country doesn't seem to learn from our mistakes. Honestly, I think we need to focus on the debt were in before forking out more money. Also, I find it kinda funny that what once was our allie is now our enemy. "The enemy of our enemy is our friend." What if the enemy of your enemy is your enemy? That seems to be how everything is happening. What happens if all the nations we build up join together to defeat the US... Just a thought. I just find it hard to believe that in a world like that, we can all be happy little friends. I don't know how it's achieveable. So I don't think that we should be giving our millions of dollars to other countries when we need it.

I find it interesting that so many presidents, in a way, change what they believe. For instance, Clinton shifts more conservative, and Bush shifts to being more liberal. I find it ironic. However, I can understand why Bush did shift. Under that much pressure, I can't see how one wouldn't want to take control and protect. It's hard to not have regulations and a large government when something tragic happens. It's almost like if you didn't have regulations it'd be hard to take control in situations like 9/11.

The War on Terror

I've always wondered what brought our country into Iraq in the first place. I always thought it was right after 9/11. I thought that Iraq was the reason for 9/11. Now, after learning everything, I find it hard to belive that our invading Iraq was justified. We say that everybody is innocent until proven guilty. Yes, one may be suspected, but it does not make them guilty. It's weird to think that Bush was so convinced that Iraq had WMD's that he was willing to begin a war. This war has lasted over 8 years. The war that was started because of the suspision of WMD's has stayed to build Iraq as a nation. I disagree with the fact that we stayed after we figured out that they don't have WMD's. I mean, I'm all for helping other people, God calls us to do so. However, our economy is in the gutter right now, and were still spending millions on a war that isn't even really a war. Were bulding a nation, and helping their economy when were in extreme debt. I don't understand how we managed to do this. You'd think we'd get tired of borrowing money from China and other nations. I don't even want to know how much money we owe China. Probably over a billion. I don't even know how we will repay that.

9/11

So often I seem to forget about this event. September 11, 2001. It started out a normal day. The sun was out, men and women were headed off to work, children getting on the bus to head to school. Just an average day in New York City. The day that started out normal, ended in tragedy for our nation. On this day, over 2,600 were taken from us. Mothers were taken from little children and men and women lost the love of their life. It's hard to imagine the loss that so many people faced. The fact that just 19 people could shake the very foundation that so many people stood on. 19 people could take thousands of lives. 19 people could change one's life forever. Those 19 people gave up their own lives to fulfill this evil deed. It makes me wonder what their justification was. Were they thinking that it was for their better? Was it that God was calling them to deminish our government? What was God's plan for all this? I find it rather ironic that this one event that was meant to damage our nation ultimately united our nation in a way never before. I think it helped everyone realize that we needed eachother and we needed to support one another. I was only in first grade when this event occured, yet I remember coming home and watching it on the television. My whole family sat in front of the tv that day. Just staring, in shock of what had just happened. It made me think, if we, elementary school kids, were feeling this much remorse, imagine how many lives are being torn apart. Imagine how many families were watching their loved ones burn, or jumping off the top of a 1300 foot building. How many people had to watch the building, which their mother, father, husband, wife was in, collapse, All the while they could do nothing about it. I can't even get a glimpse of the pain that so many experienced on that day. What started out as a completely normal September morning, ended as a day nobody could have ever foresaw.