My topic for project two is going to be on the film “V for Vendetta”. I chose this topic because I am very much interested in the fictional (but relative) stories of dystopias. The dystopia is specifically a political dystopia. It is the story of a democracy slowly and progressively warping into a totalitarian state. Many viewers claim it is supposed to parallel the recent actions of the United States government. I take a big interest in politics and history, so this topic will be an enjoyable one. The two different perspectives I will be examining for the essay will be the perspective of the character “V” (and eventually the people of the totalitarian state) and the perspective of the government bureaucrats. The character “V” faces some ethical obstacles himself. Throughout the film, he takes many rebellious actions such as killing the corrupt officials of the government. I will answer that question of whether it is ethical or not to kill people who are taking the inalienable human rights from a mass amount of people of a state. I will also answer the question on the side of the government’s perspective on whether it is ethical or not to take the rights from people by spreading propaganda to increase the safety of the state. I will have to bring in the idea of whether the end justifies the means. The idea will play a big part in the discussion f this film and will lead me to my conclusion of the essay.
My topic of choice will be about the current United States involvement in Iraq. Personally, I find that the United States involvement in Iraq is not justifiable and I find it wrong. We never declared war on Iraq, making the action a preemptive strike, which is illegal under international law. So the United States is already violating the international law. Also, President Bush initiated this attack because there were links between Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. However, the 911 commission report said that there were NO links between the two. Still to this day people argue that there were links between them, so I guess they choose to ignore the factual statement o f the people that investigated the attacks. I agree that Saddam Hussein was an evil dictator who needed to be taken down, but a better idea would be the helping involvement of the U.N. and NATO. Our countries debt is in the trillions right now and we can’t afford to go off and help others when we ourselves have wounds that need mending. We are not only making the people of Iraq angry, but we are making the neighboring countries nervous. I mean how would we feel if Russia was occupying Mexico? Our nation would feel very nervous. All the money spent on this war could have gone to scholarships for students, higher pay for teachers, or used toward the homeless. I hope the next president whoever it might be, will exit Iraq and focus on strengthen our country’s economy and education rather than pleasing the big oil companies.