IHSS Blog 2020-2021

  Alex Gross Mr. Roddy IHSS 5 February 2021 Wall Street, Gamestop, and Classism In the past few weeks there was one of the most peculiar phenomena in the stock market that I’ve seen in my lifetime. The price of Gamestop stock had a range of 10 dollars to 350 dollars per share in January alone. The article that I read from the New York Times discussed why this happened and what effect it had on the investors. Many Wall Street investors and companies had the Gamestop Stock shorted which means they were betting that it would go down. Millions of small investors, many of which had never invested in the stock market before, were encouraged to drive up the price of the Gamestop Stock on Reddit. I believe that on both sides of this phenomena (Wall Street investors shorting the stock and Independent Investors from Reddit buying the stock) that what is going on right now is foolish. On the side of the Independent Investors, there are people trying to take advantage of a mere anomaly; an...

  Ariela Kluk Mr. Roddy IHSS 02/23/21 Some people live in neighborhoods, and towns where there are not grocery stores nearby, they cant walk to the store or even take a five-minute drive, because there are no stores nearby, this is called a food desert. A food desert is when at least a third of the population lives more than a mile away from a grocery store. More than 500 thousand people in Houston live in food deserts and this situation has worsened due to COVID-19 and this recent cold front that hit Texas. Most people who do not live in food deserts go to the grocery stores at least once a week to get groceries, and if they forget an item they go back to the store with no issue. People who are not as lucky and live in food deserts, do not have this easy access to food and even less access to fresh food. Living in a food desert has so many consequences and inconveniences, it also limits the number of nutritious meals people can eat. There are two perspectives to this situation, pe...

  One of the biggest supporters of liberty in the world was Baron de Montesquieu. His belief of liberty was when a government would not restrain its people's lives and opinions. He also supported the idea that in order for there to be liberty, there needed to be three branches of government. Here in America we have three branches of government known as the Legislative branch, the Judicial branch, and the Executive branch. The Legislative branch makes laws and would be Congress and the senate. The Judicial branch is somewhat similar to the Legislative branch because it evaluates laws and it consists of the Supreme Court and the Federal Judicial Center. And finally, the Executive branch is responsible for carrying out laws/finalizing things before they can be passed. This branch contains the president, the vice president, their advisors, the cabinet, and most federal agencies. The reason Montesquieu believed in such a thing is that in his opinion, in order for liberty to exist the la...

 Montesquieu says that true freedom is not good or practical and laws are required and liberty is freedom with guidelines it is similar to how some monarchies run themselves the monarch has total power with a few restrictions/limitations. He also has a dim view of tyrants and he doesn't seem to be in love with the idea of purity in political matters such as he doesn't like pure power to the heads of government nor does he want pure freedom to the people because it seems that he acknowledges humans imperfections and sees that people will take advantage when given the chance. He sees anything done not through necessity as tyrannical and he does not think highly of that. Our own goverment seems to be modeled after this way of thinking almost exactly the constitution seems to give everyone exactly what Montesquieu says he wants a system where there is no absolute power and every citizen can pursue an interest they like as long as it brings no intentional physical harm to other peop...

  Nabeel Meghani IHSS Mr. Roddy 2-8-21       Liberty Although liberty is translated as freedom in society, that freedom should be controlled so that people can be ensured with safety from a higher authority. To provide this safety governments must be structured in a complex fashion that will be able to limit power to just one person. For example, the three different branches of the United States government each have their own responsibilities and can hold each other accountable so that one branch does not have more power than the other. Some parts of the government are allowed to make laws so that people are not able to commit crimes against other civilians. Montesquieu says that there should be no law protecting God because he is almighty and cannot be harmed. For example, in the American government laws of God are upheld although God cannot be offended. Real liberty is a liberty of justice-- to ensure that people are given justice whe...

 Sofi Savarese  Mr. Roddy  IHSS  2/8/20  Liberty  Montesquieu argued that liberty is composed of order and not freedom. Liberty is not the freedom to do anything that you want. If this were the case many inhumane things would be justified such as murder and theft. Liberty is built off of two things, one being ordered. An example of this is how laws are set in place to keep everyone safe. The second thing that Liberty is built on is trust. We as a society must trust that others follow these rules so that everyone is kept safe and there is little conflict. He argues that laws should only be based on keeping citizens safe, otherwise the regulations would be too restrictive and wouldn't be considered liberty. In order to provide the best liberty, Montesquieu believed that the government must have certain traits. Separating the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government help prevent abuse of power. Montesquieu had many different opinions such as...

 Ethan Zweig Mr. Roddy IHSS February 8, 2021 Liberty          Montesquieu has a very interesting view on Liberty. He made some very good points. For example I agreed with his point when he was talking about how Liberty isn't the freedom to do whatever you want, it's the freedom of letting people do as much as they want under laws that protect people from harm. He also made the point saying that since the laws will protect us from harm, that will leave people to do as many things as possible. Another one of his arguments that I agree with was when Montesquieu said that there should be laws that make it where citizens can protect themselves from punishment without committing crimes.           

  Nora Mayal Boyle  Dr. Roddy IHSS 8 February Liberty Blog: Nora Although Montesquieu is often seen as a  very important figure in liberalism, his liberalism has often been described as “a liberalism of fear.” In his views, political liberty meant “a tranquillity of mind arising from the opinion each person has of his safety.” Montesquieu believed that the best way to ensure that members of any state had political liberty was through checks and balances. He believed that in order for this to happen, governments must be divided into three branches: executive, legislative and judicial. With the government split up in this  manner, each branch’s power could check and balance the others. In order for this system to work, the branches must be led and composed of different people than those that compose the other branches. In one person or a group of people held power in multiple branches, the government  could too easily become tyrannical. In addition, the balanced g...

  Micah Weinstock IHSS Mr. Roddy 2/8/2021 Liberty There is an interesting view on what really constitutes liberty within this passage. He is arguing that while true liberty is dangerous as everyone has liberty to harm each other, a better system for liberty would be one in which there are rules to protect physical safety. The pretty inclusive quote of what they believe to be ideal liberty is, “Thus, for instance, the laws should not concern offenses against God, since He does not require their protection. They should not prohibit what they do not need to prohibit: "all punishment which is not derived from necessity is tyrannical. The law is not a mere act of power; things in their own nature indifferent are not within its province" (SL 19.14). The laws should be constructed to make it as easy as possible for citizens to protect themselves from punishment by not committing crimes. They should not be vague, since if they were, we might never be sure whether or not some partic...

  Emilio San Vicente Mr. Roddy HISS 8/2/21 Liberty          What I personally think about the vision that has Montesquieu, is pretty interesting and even some facts were pretty impressive about his way of seeing liberty. He basically thought that laws need to refer to and concern only in threats to public order and security which would protect people from harm and therefore will make people free to make whatever things can be possible do, which in my opinion I think that the main idea that this person is trying to express is that because if we have more liberty, people will feel better and safer which will get to like a democratic government rather than authoritarianism government. I personally think that it is great because if you travel to countries like for example China, they actually control the people by saying for example: "If you don't follow my ideas, I will put you in prison.", which is a weird example but is the definition for this horrific ...

Montesquieu has an interesting take on liberty, a take with many different implications. For example he writes “Liberty also requires that the laws concern only threats to public order and security, since such laws will protect us from harm while leaving us free to do as many other things as possible.” This belief is very easily contested because there are a number of things that we have charged the government with handling that do not pertain to public order. There are numerous examples of this pretty much any large scale infrastructure, roads, bridges and the like were funded by the government. Now of course it is perfectly possible that when he says this he is referring exclusively to criminal law which if that is the case then it is very poorly written. Also there is the interesting idea which is simply to contest the idea that with more liberty people's sense of security is better and that the sweet spot is closer to liberalism than it is to authoritarianism. An example of how...

  Alex Gross Mr. Roddy IHSS 8 February 2021 Liberty Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu or simply, Montesquieu was one of the world's biggest supporters of political liberty. To be in a state of liberty is to be free of constraints or oppressive constrictions on your political and social views, as well as on your overall way of life. A definition of liberty that better fits Montequieu’s beliefs would be “the state of having as much freedom as possible without enough to authorize/promote violence and hindrance of basic human rights.” This definition would apply to the people and the different branches of government. Montesquieu believed that it is essential to have three different branches of government that are separated in specific ways as a means of checks and balances. The Legislative Branch which should be divided into two parts (in the U.S. the House and Senate) should have the ability to create laws, and also perform checks and balances on each ...

 Oliver Erdmann Mr. Roddy IHSS 8 February 2021 Liberty       What I have gathered from the reading on liberty is that it is basically a more restrictive version of freedom that protects us from harm. It is quite interesting when he says that if you obey the laws then the power of the state will not be directed against you. To me it seems like he's saying that, no matter what, if you follow the laws then nothing bad will happen to you. Seems like a false state of security and safety that is being projected onto the citizens living in a liberty. The fact that "power is a check to power" is also quite confusing to me because one person is bound to have more power than another which kind of makes it impossible for somebody to "check" a superior's power. It also says that if one person holds all the power then they will start to rule tyrannically but if one person has more power then they could already do that. This creates a lie that the citizens believe, that b...

      Montesquieu provides a very intriguing outlook on Liberty. He proposes some very interesting points, most of which seem as if they are objectively good. I am especially interested in how he described the perfect Liberty. A world where we are free to do everything that doesn't hurt others sounds like the ideal society. In the most Liberal world, the only thing that should not be tolerated is intolerance.  Another important point was that Liberty prioritizes public good over private interests. It's a good concept, but I think it is nearly impossible to pull off. However, the world should work towards achieving this ideal liberty.

  Leon Hoang Mr. Roddy IHSS February 7, 2021 Liberty Blog "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. (Pledge of Allegiance)  The definition of liberty is; the quality or state of being free/ the power to do as one pleases. Montesquieu states that liberty is "A  tranquillity of mind arising from the opinion each person has of his safety." It is quite apparent that freedom and liberty are one of the United State's core beliefs. Free speech, the right to bear arms, privacy, etc. We can speak out, have our religions and opinions without the fear of being penalized. This freedom is partly because of how the power in the United States is divided. In the article, it mentions that splitting up power will keep each other in check. This process is different from monarchies and dictatorships that focus on one primary leader, and since there are...

 Ariana Luk  Mr. Roddy  IHSS 7 February 2021 4.2 Liberty       4.2 does not mean my IHSS grade average but is instead marking the second section of the 4th point   The Spirit of the Laws from the Encyclopedia of Political Philosophy and Montesquieu. I've never paid too much attention to the government aspect of our country, so it's nice having the school teach me about it. It was pretty helpful reading about the forms of government beforehand, it gave me a better understanding of their logic. Liberty, when I first think of liberty I think of liberty mutual, and next I think of the statue. Honestly, I'm not entirely sure about what either of them mean but Montesquieu's definition I can totally agree with. I don't remember the exact words but I remember it being along the lines of keeping the people from digging their own graves, while simultaneously letting them do whatever they want. I'm also not too sure about this man's background and I don...

I found that in this part of the article Montesquieu's voice was exceptionally intelligible. His view that people are self-serving was evident in both the meaning of freedom and the treatment of the opportunity to do so. I had never truly considered the limitations that the laws put on an obvious opportunity. Montesquieu's meaning of Liberty originates from the confidence in wellbeing & health. He trusts Liberty remembers living for a general public where laws shield us from hurt just as leaving us allowed to do however much as could be expected. As they talk about in the perusing, a portion of these allegations could be somewhat a lot. They were thinking about putting a law about looking over a sculpture of a notable individual, and if that coincidentally happened you could be placed in prison. I think this discipline is a great representation of an excessively far gone assault on individuals, it's certainly excessively unstable as it relates just to the damaging of a ...

 Wyatt Quillin Mr. Roddy IHSS 7 February 2021 Liberty     In our world today, people take liberty for granted. We are free to practice our own religions, name our kids what we want, listen to the music we like, and so on, while also staying safe every day. We are able to do this because of the way our government is structured. As it said in the article, separation of power is the best way to achieve this. Three different branches of government, each in charge of their own jobs. They also have the power to check the other branches and make sure they're doing everything right. This is an effective way to keep the government and the people in power from becoming corrupt. People also need to be held accountable for when they commit a crime. The main problem with this is being overbearing with laws, rules, curfews, and more things that restrict the people. Without a doubt, laws are very necessary, but too many can cause an unjust system. If people are seen as guilty until prov...

Liberty is being free without restrictions, but laws should be fair and protect everyone. But, is that always the case? Many people don't care about their actions and how they affect others, yet when the same goes to them they cannot handle it. Laws are in place to protect the innocent, and the guilty should pay for their actions. Sometimes they just get away with breaking laws and consequences dont catch up to them, and there is no liberty in this. For example, a psychopath can murder a family and never be exposed to be the killer because they ran off and hid in the shadows of society. Is liberty real, is liberty a thing? In a world of truth, “ the laws should make it as easy as possible for an innocent person to prove his or her innocence.” The world we live in is full of lies and unfairness. Too many innocent people are put in jail for life, and after many years they are found innocent. They are released from jail with their lives ruined, the government doesn't even try to ...

 Alex Karni Mr. Roddy February 7, 2020 IHSS Liberty Montesquieus definition of Liberty stems from the belief of safety. He believes Liberty includes living in a society where laws protect us from harm as well as leaving us free to do as much as possible. But, if someone disobeys those laws, the power of the state will be directed towards you. He defines liberty as  "a tranquillity of mind arising from the opinion each person has of his safety". A government, though, must have equally spread power, where not one person has all the power and can abuse it. This problem has a very easy solution which is a check to power, where the government is spread into branches. In that case, each branch must have different tasks, (ex. Legislative has the power to tax) so that each branch can keep each other in check. Montesquieu has spread his ideas and inspired legal reformers such as Cesare Beccaria. 

  Sabrina Gubbels-Wingo Mr. Roddy IHSS 7 February 2021 Liberty Blog I found that in this section of the article Montesquieu’s voice was very clear. His view that humans are inherently self-serving was apparent in both the definition of liberty and the treatment of freedom. I had never really thought about the restrictions that the laws put on true freedom. This ‘true freedom’ being where someone can do anything whether it is defined as good or bad. Instead, the kind of freedom we have is filtered by laws that prevent us from harming each other purposefully. I thought it important that the section pointed out that the laws prevent purposeful harm. If we had laws that punished/prohibited accidents then we would be crossing the line of freedom into something that’s restrictions are harmful in themselves. In this way, it defines freedom as the ability to make mistakes and learn from them.  Montesquieu’s ideal law was based around the properties that the offense it prohibited wer...

  Alice Korkin Mr. Roddy IHSS  February 7, 2020 “Liberty”    My definition of Liberty is being free but under the control of the government. Montesquieu’s definition includes the safety of the people. "Tranquillity of mind arising from the opinion each person has of his safety." I agree with this because I also think keeping people safe is important and without rules or laws in a country it will be total chaos. In some countries, laws are way too strict on people. If you are over protectant on people the country won't be a happy place at all. If you just do one small mistake it can wind you down for years of trouble. Liberty is the balance of governmental control. Laws have to be equal for everyone and can not target a single group of people. Laws are supposed to make you feel safe without being confined. An unreasonable law can be one that if you break it, won’t hurt others or yourself. Not only are they for the safety of yourself, but for the safety of others as w...

  Isa Pedersen Mr. Roddy IHSS 2 February 2021 Liberty Blog This passage was interesting to read because it seemed like a proposal law. The writing showed signs of this law being considered but it has not yet been published. I know this law does in fact exist, and many things would be chaos without this law, I just think the way it is stated could be more of an order than a suggestion. This law is all about security and crimes. A majority of laws focus on this, and are purely there to keep the American people safe. As they talk about in the reading, some of these accusations could be a little much. They were considering putting a law about brushing up apon a statue of  an important person, and if that accidentally happened you could be put in jail. I find this rather extreme, since it is a statue, even if it was a real person, it would be considered disrespectful, but not illegal. This example was not published and is not a law today, but there are plenty of other laws that s...

  Nikolas Cantu IHSS Mr.Roddy 7 February 2021 Liberty For starters, I would like to say that I do agree with nearly everything that Montesquieu thought although part of it was difficult to understand. When I think of the word liberty I first think of freedom to do what we want. Although, when we have a society especially one that is advanced as this one there need to be rules in place so that people do not abuse the freedom that they already have. The laws that we have allow our society to run effectively and be balanced. Even though it does seem that we have a balanced society with liberty for everyone.  The laws we have are supposed to be always enforced although that is not always the case. To be honest, the society that we have made today does not have what we should for a balanced society. There are hundreds of places across our nation where people do not feel safe as the laws that we have are not enforced meaning people do not feel the safety that they should in societ...

  Jayla Balderas  Mr. Roddy IHSS 6 February 2021                                                                 “Liberty” A few ideas stood out the most about Montesquieu ideas in the Liberty section. The central one being how he believes the foundation of Liberty is safety. The reading section offered a new perspective I never really took into consideration just how largely safety plays in Liberty. The mention of how the laws put in place each of have the defining definition of not harming others. These can obviously be seen with a few laws in our own state and country smaller laws such as stealing or drunk driving being illegal. These threaten the safety of oth...

Montesquieu first describes liberty by comparing it to freedom. However, the very first thing he does is distinguished the difference between freedom with law and freedom without law. One of the first points he makes is " Liberty involves living under laws that protect us from harm while leaving us free to do as much as possible, and that enable us to feel the greatest possible confidence that if we obey those laws, the power of the state will not be directed against us." Liberty is freedom with  the   presence  of order. No country can be  truly  free  because   people  will always abuse  each other  and always be selfish to themselves. However, liberty is possible in all  countries  in the world today. In order to provide your citizens with liberty, the  government  must first become a  government  of and a  government  for the people. This can happen by installing an  elector...

  Talulah May  Mr. Roddy   IHSS 9 February 2021 Liberty       Montesquieu defines liberty as, “ a tranquillity of mind arising from the opinion each person has of his safety”. He believes only liberty arises when people feel protected by the government, and the only way to preserve this is with checks and balances. By separating the government into branches, it keeps one person from taking complete control and jeopardizing the safety of the nation. He also presents the idea of freedom to the people. As we know complete freedom would lead to chaos, because it’s in man’s nature to take advantage of and challenge the extent of their freedom (ie., murder, heinous crimes, dictatorship, etc.), so he said to avoid abuse of power freedom should be given to a certain extent. He is among the greatest philosophers of liberalism, so individual and equality for all become before laws.  Like everything in the world, this comes with flaws, but do they outwe...

Everest Leo Mr. Roddy IHSS 6 February 2021 "Liberty"     Liberty and freedom are very often used interchangeably in context for free will of the people within a state. As many of us know, liberty and freedom are not interchangeable and within an external political background, this stays the same. I think the way that Montesquieu presents political liberty is very elegant, but like most things in this world is flawed. I agree that there needs to be checks and balances and that total freedom allowing the people to do whatever could result in lots of violence. I agree that laws should not be extensive or ambiguous for the sake of difficult judging and inconsistent legislation. In general, Montesquieu's definition is rather short and efficient, but a place where I do not agree with him is how he would ideally deal with criminals. He says that "the laws should make it as easy as possible for an innocent person to prove his or her innocence." I find this rather unset...

  Andres  Yengle Mr. Roddy IHSS 5 February 2021 Liberty Blog One of my favorite things to learn about is how society works and this reading talks explicitly about how society needs liberty or else simple day to day life will not function. Without liberty, citizens would be horrified by the government and there would be no trust between the people and the government. I realized today that my definition of liberty has always been skewed.  The article speaks about how liberty isn't the freedom to do whatever you want but rather allows us to live under a collection of laws that protect not only our safety but as well our rights and our freedom. I have always thought that liberty means freedom, but I learned today that it does not. Liberty allows people to live day to day life and not have the constant worry that the government will turn on them and use their power against them. Montesquieu talks about what a country needs to have liberty, and the United States mirrors exact...

Sara Avalos Mr. Roddy IHSS Section A 3/5/2021 Liberty Blog In this article, Montesquieu talks about his definition of true liberty. I had never thought about this definition before, needing to have set laws so that people don’t just go off hurting others and being at risk of people just instates a constant state of fear in the society while having these laws their is a safe a secure society. Montesquieu says that the government needed in order to have true liberty is to have legislative, judicial, and executive branches. I had a slight idea that these branches of government kept each other in check but not as much as Montesquieu said they did. It is interesting to learn that in order to have implement taxes the legislative branch has to receive funding from the executive branch and the judicial branch has the power to veto the funding. This is very interesting since if one branch of government is against something while the other two beings in favor there is nothing that can allow the ...

Kilali Latter Mr. Roddy IHSS 5 February 2021 Liberty Blog Montesquieu said that liberty is "a tranquillity of mind arising from the opinion each person has of his safety." I never thought of liberty in this way but it does make sense. This definition of Liberty means that we are able to live under laws that allow us to do as much as possible while being safe. This does not mean that we can do whatever we want, as there does need to be some order in society, but it allows us to do as much as possible. I think this is a more accurate description of liberty because it ensures that everyone is safe while being free. Something I found interesting about Montesquieu’s view on Liberty is what the government needs in order to have it. Those features are pretty much the ones that we have in the United States Government today which are the executive, legislative (one composed of two houses), and judicial branches. I found this interesting because we have the features of government need...

The most recent form being talked about would send $1,400 installments checks to people procuring under $50,000, and $2,800 to married couples with an income of under $100,000 per year. President Biden vowed to get more alleviation to Americans to rapidly to assist individuals while enduring the pandemic so the economy and general income is leveled out. One of the focal points of Biden's proposition as well as his campaign is to send another round of monetary installments straightforwardly to U.S. families. President Biden intends to raise the number of stimulus checks and has the aim to make them more frequently dished out as well. Biden and Democratic powers in Congress state not only would a third round of stimulus checks be important to guarantee individuals who have lost their positions or accepted a decrease in salary actually have sufficient cash to purchase food, pay lease and get the clinical consideration they need during a pandemic, but they also stated it was vital to l...

  Emilio San Vicente Mr. Roddy HISS 5/2/21 Why is the Global Economy Recovering Faster?  We have been living since 2020 with a virus known as Covid-19, which changed our lives in many ways that we didn't even expect. There were a lot of aspects which our lives changed in social aspects and even economic aspects. The recovery from this virus might be tough and difficult to overcome but economics thankfully has been recovering stronger and faster than people expected, which is something completely amazing. The question now is; But will it keep like that? Looking for example the United States, we can take three main things that affect the pandemic, finance and housing, durable goods, and hospitality (among others).  With this article, I understood the importance of many factors that contribute to having a healthy economy for any country in the world. I personally think that this event that happened to the US economy and also to other countries which have a strong recover...