The life story about Margaret Randall in our class book, "Outspoken" was very moving. I though it was interesting when the INS subpoenaed all that Margaret had published, but had great trouble translating it because a lot of her work was written in Spanish. It was awesome to read about the support that she raised around the country. "Creative people found creative ways to make her situation public and to raise money. Berkeley proclaimed a Margaret Randall Day, Seattle held a Bowl-a-Thon for Free Speech" (Levinson 83).

The website hrcr.org/ccr/randall portrays a few of the questions that Margret had to endure during her court case. "Without a doubt, the hearing was a First Amendment case. My writings were being used against me."


Also in searching information about her on the Internet I came across one of her writings titled, "Language As Weapon" where she writes "Language is important because it is through language that we exchange ideas, do battle with one another’s beliefs, identify ourselves and name what we are willing to do to defend our earth and justice for those who live upon it. Language gives birth to attitude, policy, and action. In order to understand one another, we must listen to the real meanings of one another’s words rather than to the intentionally misleading translation offered up by those who intentionally mislead."

So yesterday was my first time meeting with the whole group, and it was nice putting a face to the names that I saw on blackboard. At first, our group started off slow, but our discussion improved once when we related the readings to current issues in politics like the 2008 presidential race.

There were a couple interesting things that I noticed when we our group was talking about the readings and websites. We tried to understand what people thought during that time period by placing ourselves in their roles in society. Also I like how various perspectives took the discussion in a completely different direction.

I really like one of the topics that class ended on, which was the lecture and PowerPoint example of the hymns and songs that were sung at Abolitionist meetings.

Religion and Politics in colonial Virginia

Religious persecution was very extreme back in colonial Virginia, and with politics and religion being intertwined it gave the church great power. It was punishable by death if anyone spoke unkindly against Gods holy name three or more times, and if it occurred twice there would be a "bodkin thrust through his tongue." It is hard to imagine a time when religion and politics worked together to rule over communities, because in today's society there are completely separated. I also thought it was very disturbing that nobody was allowed to speak disgracefully against any person in the Colonie, or they would be publicly disgraced with their head and feet tied together, and their occupation would be compromised.

Ethical or Unethical

A Case Study:
There is a very old woman who called the vet to come over and clip her bird’s beak, because the bird was not acting its usual self. The old woman who was hard of hearing and hard of seeing adored the bird for many years. The vet came over and reached his hand into the bird’s cage when the bird fell limp in his hand. Startled, the vet told the woman that it would be better if he took the bird to his office and clipped the beak there. After leaving the woman’s house, the vet went to the pet store and bought and similar looking bird. The vet thought since she was hard of hearing and seeing, she would most likely not notice the different bird, and would be delighted to have her adored pet back to its usual self. So in groups we were to take this case study and decide if it was ethical to lie to the woman about her bird. The results were surprising. 20 people believed it was ethical for the vet to lie because of his good intentions, and 13 people believed it was unethical to lie to the woman, because he has a professional duty to tell the truth. My main argument in this case is it does not matter that there was a positive outcome through positive intention, because as a medical practitioner he has a professional duty to abide by a code of ethics, and by lying to the woman he is going against that code of ethics.