Perspectives on the Death Penalty

The death penalty is a highly controversial topic in our society. I believe that using Jesus' teachings he would be highly against the death penalty. Jesus was never a believer in causing any violance. He would try to get his point across peacefully even when people did not believe he was the savior. The death penalty is causing harm to others. Concluding that Jesus would have not approved in the death penalty. I also do not approve in the death penalty. I believe that two wrongs do not make a right. Just because another person did the wrong thing by killing someone else it does not give us the right be as equally wrong and kill him. I rather have the individual stay in jail for the rest of their lives, so they can thinking about the choices they have made. I think that that would be a more Christian way of acting towards someone doing an act that warrants the death penalty. 

Same sex marriage

I believe that Obama's belief of same sex marriage is very inconsistent, but I can understand where he is coming from since he is in a very hard position. Obama states that constitutionally, marriage should only be between a man and a woman. However, he also supports civil rights movements for same sex marriage. I think that it is smart for President Obama to say that he supports same sex marriage, but does not want to legalize it. He is taking both sides of the fence, so he does not take too much heat from any side. If he was to legalize a law on same sex marriages he would lose a lot of voters that do not support same sex marriage, and the other way around if he was to say he was against same sex marriage. If I was in his situation I would do the same. This solution is not ideal for any side, but it will cause less tension. I believe that individuals should be able to choose whether or not they should get married even if it is the same sex. The world is changing drastically and time goes on, and it is time for that to change. The United States has gone a long way from where it once was; women can now vote, and we not have the first black present. It is time to make this change and take a huge towards equality for all.

Type of Group Roles

There are two kinds of types of ways a member can contribute: task and personal roles. Task roles are task set for individuals that have to do with content. An example of a task roles is an information giver. An information giver offers facts about the subject the group is working on. an administrator is also a task role. A administrator makes sure that everyone stays on track, and makes sure the group accomplished the task on time. These people make sure that the work gets done on time, and all of the information is important and precise. Personal roles are task set for individuals to help the relationship between group members. These people make try to get everyone to get a long, so the group project will be completed on time. An example of a personal role is a harmonizer. A harmonizer is someone that tries to clear the tension between group members from the tension that they might have. A gatekeeper also is a personal task. A gatekeeper tries to keep everyone involved in group decisions. For the most part everyone in the group has both a person and a task role. Usually an individuals role changes in every group, because everyone is different. When I am in a group I usually try to take on both task and personal roles. I usually try to be the information giver and the gatekeeper.

Critical Thinking Situation

I believe that everyone has their own right to be able to make their own choices and have their own opinions. Often times peer pressure seems to change ones act in one way or another. Their have been plenty of times when I was put into these kinds of situations. While I was a senior in high school everyone in my group of friends started to do cocaine. Every party that we went to their were people doing it in the rooms. Up until winter break I was not really pressured into doing it because for the most part my friends knew my morals, and they knew that I would not do it. However, it all changed when we decided to go to a party in downtown Campbell. We were all in a room pre gaming, and all of a sudden one of my friends pulled out a bag of coke. Everyone in the room was down to do it, but I did not want to do it, so I just sat their silently. They started to take turns doing lines on the table. After everyone took a hit, it was finally my turn. Everyone was telling me to do it. In my head I was thinking how I didn't want to do it, but if I didn't do it I might lose all of my friends. I hesitated for a second. Then one guy says, "Hey Eric do a line, you wont." Then I thought to myself if they don't want to be my friends just because I don't want to do coke then they rant really my friends anyways, so I told them that I didn't want to do it. They just continued to take turns doing lines. It turns out that I made it a bigger deal than it really was. 

Introductory Post

Hello Everyone,

My name is Eric Vuong. I am currently a sophomore. I am born and raised in San Jose. I enjoy to talk to everyone, and I am a really friendly person. I am part of social fraternity called Pike which is over 100 men strong, so I am able to communicate with all sorts of different people. This is the second communication class that I have taken. The first class I took was Comm 20. My major is currently undeclared, but I want to major into accounting. I enjoy to play and watch a lot of sports such as basketball and volleyball. I also like to read poetry. I am looking forward to this class.

Regards,
Eric Vuong