Your Fun Day assignment (due by 8am Friday) is as follows:
- Take the World’s Smallest Political Quiz. Write down your “label” and your percentage scores for personal issues and economic issues. (You’ll need these for the next part.) Note that there are no right or wrong answers here as far as Fun Day is concerned.
- Take this class survey. Answers are anonymous, and again there are no right or wrong answers.
- Pick one of the issues discussed in one of these two surveys and spend 20+ minutes doing some follow-up web research. (Some optional readings are below.) I encourage you to look for arguments that run counter to your own opinion, and in any case you should come prepared to argue for a position that you think will be a minority position in the class. (Even if you don’t agree with that minority position, come prepared to argue for it!)
- Come to class prepared to discuss respectfully. (Passion is fine, but I’m sure you can be respectful and passionate at the same time.)
PS. The questions in these surveys might all (well, maybe with one exception) be worth more thought than just a snap judgment. Some thought-provoking reads (all optional) include this long article about the black market in human kidneys, the Amethyst Initiative (college presidents advocating a “rethink of the drinking age”), the website of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, the Wikipedia entry for Bowers v Hardwick (a 1986 Supreme Court case about gay sex) and this article on I-1000, the “death with dignity” initiative that passed last year. There’s also an opinion piece about prostitution that I think makes for unusual reading, but it’s full of language that is explicit and perhaps shocking and so I am not going to link directly to it and am reminding you that this reading is optional and that this article contains language that is explicit and perhaps shocking. If you’re still interested, google [savage love “gasoline and the match”] and then scroll down to the letter starting “A couple months ago”. As with all these articles, my intent is not to try to push your thinking one way or the other but simply to get you to think more.
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