Blast off to Mars!!

Ok, I know that the title of this blog may sound strange (yes, I would also agree), but let me explain.  This week, we are going to pretend that all of us have volunteered to be the first people to colonize the planet Mars.  Water has been found and scientist have been cultivating the planet so that it can sustain life.  The reality is that you're a long way from home....a really long way....(it would make the separation from say the historical "Old World" and "New World" look like a simple walk across the street!!).

So, as you prepare for your trip to the Red Planet, we have to decide on a few things....

This Week's Blog Questions:

You can carry only three things with you (due to strict weight limitations)... what would you take?
Think about the make up of your class.  Someone has to be in charge...who?  What type of government are you going to put into place?  What are some of the rules that you would establish that would be non-negotiable?  What do you do with those that refuse to obey the rules?

PS> Even though this is somewhat of a "fun" blog topic this week, the answers to the above questions aren't as easy to answer as one may think.  The decisions that you make will have MAJOR implications and may determine if you survive or not!  Give your responses some thought.

Feared or Loved?

Let's say that you suddenly found out that you were a relative of a king or queen of a powerful country and the ruler is childless.  The king or queen suddenly dies and the people of that country begin scrambling to find how is the closest heir to the throne... and they discover that it is YOU!

Now you are faced with the key question of which Machiavelli wrote about in his book The Prince.  Machiavelli asked the question: whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse.  Machiavelli's response was "The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared.  But since the two rarely come together,l anyone compelled to chose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved."


This week's Blog Topic:
As a ruler, it is better to be loved or feared?  Be sure to defend your answer and provide clear examples for support.

Is It Possible??

A young man I went to college with once told me that he had an awesome dream that one day, not too far into the future, a group of people were going to sit down and come up with a way to bring about world peace.  He said that in his dream that intellectual people from all over the world met at some big conference and were sitting around a large circular table and for days debated on how to bring about true world peace.  As with most dreams that we have, he couldn't recall what the solution was nor any of the various arguments that had been made - only that he remembered that in the last part of his dream news media from all over the world were spreading the news of their success.  I'll never forget how about 10 of my friends sat for hours discussing rather or not that could ever be possible.... or if it is nothing more than a pipe dream.

So, this week, you're going to dive into the conversation and see what you, the future of this planet believe and think about the possibility of "true world peace."  Before you develop your answer, you do have to consider a few key things.  One, you'd have to be able to identify what are the main things that divide the people around the earth (i.e., politics, religion, economics, etc.) and secondly, what issues, if any, could we develop effective compromises on that would allow us to come together.  Trust me, it's not an easy topic nor would it be an easy task - but if history has taught us anything, it has taught us that doing nothing, ALWAYS results in nothing and if people want to do something bad enough, humankind normally finds a way (both for good and bad).


THIS WEEK'S BLOG TOPIC IS:
Is world peace truly obtainable?  Why or why not?  What issues will keep us from obtaining a workable compromise?  What issues could possibly bring us together?  Or is obtaining true world peace, simply a dream?