May 18

“My Faith in Nonviolence” by Mohandas K. Ghandi

This short story is written by the famous Ghandi in 1930.  It talks about the struggles of nonviolence and the hardships taht come with or without it.  Ghandi uses the words “conquer him with love” when talking about an oppenent.  He uses this theory to fight his battles, he states that he is capable of anger, but he succeeds on almost all occasions to keep his feelings under control.  I think in a lot of way Ghandi can be compared to Martin Luther King Jr. becasue they had a very similar task that we built on going about the solution in a nonviolent way.  Ghandi says the law of love will work, whether we accept it or not.

 “Of Cruelty and Clemency” by Niccolo Machiavelli

This short story is based around the question “is it better to be loved more than feared, or feared more than loved?”  The story talks ab0ut the actions a prince must take in order to be a good leader.  It talks about the prince being loved, the prince being cruel, and the prince causing fear.  The author says it is safer to be feared than loved, if you had to pick one of the two.  The author says for a prince to make perople fearful is good, but not so much to envoke hatred.  The story basically talkes about the necessities a prince must have to keep order of his citizens and also his army, he must be mean and cruel but not to a level where his followers will hate him.

“Immigration: Newcomers by Numbers” by Anna Quindlen

The author is writing in support of illegal aliens, and talking about their positive impact on the economy.  She says immigrants make up 15% of the workforce and that a third of those are illegal.  She talks about the effects of not having any of these immigrants and what would happen to this country, from prices going up to hotel rooms not being cleaned.  She then goes on to talk about how immigration is not about today but always about tomorrow.  She talks about the immigrants working these jobs so their kids dont have to and these kids can actually have a real shot at the world.  The author makes some very good points in this short story, its a pretty one sided story but she makes some good points.