peer review and insecurity

This week we had a different style of teaching given to us. We had our own classmates teach us some IR theory. It was an interesting way to teach the same sort of ideas that we have been learning this entire time with a different method attached to it. Overall, I thought that it was interesting to see IR theory taught in the way of commercials. Oddly enough, it worked very well. The commercials were able to play on peoples sense of insecurity and that the product they were selling, diet mountain dew for instance, would make that insecurity fall away. These commercials, just as the U.S. government, plays upon our fears and so when they give a solution, no matter how stupid, we give in and take it. The U.S. government exploited our fear and passed acts such as the Patriot Act. This overburdened fear led to our freedoms being taken away. These commercials that were played for us were able to give a representation of how that could happen. One of them played on our fear and then showed the army as one big happy, working, fearless group of people. Plus, in order for that to work the President needs all the authority the President can get. How can we have a nation that is safe if we do not have a well equipped, oiled army to protect us? The insecurity the government wants to instill on us is so that the President can gather all power around him and slowly move towards a dictatorship. The vast powers the President has gained is to protect the people of America, and allow him to do whatever he wants whether or not it violates US law or international law. The administration promotes fear so that they can use it to promote the laws and ideals that they want.