http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19751-2004Jul27.html

“A faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door; that we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe; that we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution; and that our votes will be counted -- or at least, most of the time.”

What Barack Obama mean by this passage is that we live in a nation that keeps us protected and where leaders think about our rights as citizens. A nation where we have our freedom and are supported from our government. A placed where anyone can write what they think and say what they are thinking with out any problems no matter who you are.

I picked Barack Obama because I was one of the people that voted for him to become president. I also picked this passage because I find it interesting how he see’s the faith in the American Dream. He talks about tucking our children in bed at night knowing that they are fed and well protected but when I think about it, I wonder who are these people. Looking into the societies around me, I see families that live in apartments with no space because they cannot afford a bigger apartment due to the rent being so high. I see workers getting paid minimum wages in a city where everything is expensive. Every thing from gas to groceries, to clothing prices are going up every month except the paid. I see children going missing everyday because they live in a country where they rather spend more money on unnecessary new stadiums, than paying the people that supposed to keep us protected they money they deserve. He also mentions that our votes are counted but then he states “most of the time” I believe our votes do not count or matter because who ever they want to be in office would get there either by hook or by crook.  For example, the Bush era.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/05/15/americas-most-gerrymandered-congressional-districts/

“Democrats won in nine of the 10 most-gerrymandered districts. But eight out of 10 of those districts were drawn by Republicans.

This speaks to the notion that the point of gerrymandering isn't to draw yourself a safe seat but to put your opponents in safe seats by cramming all of their supporters into a small number of districts. This lets you spread your own supporters over a larger number of districts. And the way to do this is to draw outlandishly-shaped districts that bring far-flung geographic areas together.”

This passage is defining that gerrymandering manipulate the boundaries of (an electoral constituency) so as to favor one party or class. It shows how congress works and how sneaky they are to win. They achieve their goals by manipulating people and most of the time they do it with out other people knowing. They divide the state, county and etc. into election districts to give that particular political party a major advantage in districts.

I chose this passage because I didn’t know much about elections and how they worked before I decided to go for a Political Science major. I still have a lot to learn about the whole political party. I knew that in the elections people lie their way into offices because I have witness people promises a lot of changes in our economy, lives, and government and never actually accomplish those things. When I read the article I wasn’t really shock that they did this because senators/government can be very sneaky. It is very interesting to learn how gerrymandering work. I will definitely keep looking into the Political world and learn all their tricks and treats. J

“Citizenship, even in its early forms, was a principle of equality and that during this period it was a developing institution. Starting at the point where all men were free and in theory, capable of enjoying rights, it grew by enriching the body of rights which they were capable of enjoying. But these rights did not conflict with the inequalities of capitalist society, they were on the contrary necessary to the maintenance of that particular form of inequality. “

What I believe Marshall is explaining in this passage is that since the beginning of the term citizenship, it was made to treat every one equal. When he sates, “during this period it was a developing institution” I feel like he is trying to justified the term citizenship if people did not get treated equal during that particular time. Every men were free with rights that they enjoyed.

I picked this passage because I used to think the word citizenship meant a lot more than what I do now. Before I became a citizen, I saw citizenship as a privilege, something that was an honor to be. It was a representation of my country and an honor to be a citizen of the best country in the world. Citizenship was supposed to treat every single citizen equal with education, jobs, health care and other social rights like marriages, etc. I do not agree that every single person is treated equal because we do not have the same education in every state or even in every borough. Some areas have better school system and better teachers.  Some jobs offer health care while most don’t and to qualified for free health insurance you have to meet certain requirements that most people cannot meet. Many states still have not legalized same same sex marriages. Back in the day, we had slavery where colored people did not have any rights; even after emancipation, they were still treated unequal. We can still see people treat color people different to this day even though they have “rights” now.