Month: September 2019

After reading the articles I have mixed emotions towards the execution of King Charles I. One of the reasons why I feel that his execution is justifiable is because it is the 17th century rather than modern day and their viewpoints are completely different than today. After losing the first Civil War he was extremely embarrassed and made a secret pact with Scottish forces to place him back on the throne by force. Rather than working out a deal with Parliament he decided to backstab Parliament with the pact between him and the Scotts. Thousands of British soldiers had perished after this first Civil War and he purposely started a second one to regain the throne. As the article The Trial and Execution of Charles I says “He was a man of blood who sacrificed innocents and went against God’s providence. For those reasons stated above that is why I believe his execution was justifiable.  

 The reason why I am against his execution is because “No monarch ever left the world with more sorrow: women miscarried, men fell into melancholy(uk.tv.co).” The fact that a king was executed brought so much sorrow and despair upon the country. In addition, as stated in The Trial and Execution of Charles I “Many Parliamentarians did not want to execute Charles.” Also after he was beheaded the crowd released a sad moan, the executioner went against against tradition and did not raise the kings head and say the famous coined phrase. Soon after his head was sewn back upon his body and his execution was listed as martyr status.   

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Charles I was known as a very stubborn leader. He made bad decisions in difficult situations and also got into disagreements with other powerful men. He seemed to be gracious and loyal only when he wanted to which caused problems. Charles showed time after time that he could not be trusted.

Although Charles I had tyranny behaviors, I do not believe he was a tyrant leader. He was not a good leader and could not be trusted but in the end he didn’t deserve to die, in my opinion. Yes, he was an awful leader but there have been bad leaders in the past and will continue in the future. I also found interesting that he died in what he believed in. He did not want to take the plea deal and I think that showed the public a positive side to him. I think by killing Charles he became more famous and known by the public.

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Although I think that King Charles was very stubborn and let his personal decisions get in the way of his thought process, I believe that Charles did not deserve to die, but argue that his death actually helped his legacy. I think that while Charles backstabbed the Parliament and other members of the government, he was not a tyrant. Yes, he had tyrannical behaviors, but was not thinking of himself at every given second. I think that this is seen during his trial, as it is heavily debated and if he were truly that horrible, there would’ve been no problem killing him immediately. In addition, he was not the first ruler during this time to have selfish motivations, and not the worst the world could’ve had. I also think that they ruled to kill him in a political effort to “win” against King Charles as he publicly put up such a fight. 

While I believe that Charles did not need to be killed, I actually believe it helped the public to see him in a more positive light, as it looked like he was dying for a cause he believed in. King Charles did not need to be executed, and could’ve easily argued his way out of it in the years between the war ending and his actual death. But, I think that part of his appeal is that he died, and the words that he gave before his death. Therefore, in this situation, I not only think that choosing to kill him was the wrong decision, but I think that it helped give Charles fame.

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I would say that King Charles did not deserve to be executed. It is important, however, to note that a large part of my answer is because I could not live with another person’s blood on my hands. Morally, I cannot accept sentencing another person to death. This might not be exactly what the question is looking for as a response, but it is a significant part of my reasoning. 

I found the arguments on both sides of the issue to be compelling. I can see how the country would not be able to operate at all if they are constantly in fear of their leader undermining them and acting in his own best interest intead of the interests of his people. It is impossible to have a monarchy last very long if your ruler cannot be trusted. Furthermore, the harm he did to the country and his people was significant and cannot be overlooked. I can understand why it would be difficult to remain loyal to a king that devastates your country and potentially, more personally, your family. That is someone I would want gone immediately. I still do not, however, believe that he needs to be beheaded, but I can see that in those times that would be the realistic way of getting rid of a monarch.

To me, it was very telling that the process of his trial was hardly democratic and that few of the men nominated to the High Court of Justice actually attended the proceedings. It was difficult to get enough men to attend the proceedings and actually vote for him to be executed. Furthermore, the reaction of the crowd when he was beheaded was not that of people who viewed him as a traitor and the fact that people committed suicide because they felt so guily about sentencing him to execution speaks volumes. Though I think King Charles had proven a danger to his country, I do not believe the solution was a beheading

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I agree with the decision to kill Charles I. It wasn’t quite tyrannicide because there was a real government involved and it wasn’t one person randomly doing it. Therefore, I think Parliament would have a better chance of putting someone into power next who wasn’t as bad as Charles I.

The facts show that Charles I was an evil leader and a tyrant. After reading about the “Engagement” I was fully convinced that he deserved to be beheaded. He put his own country under military pressure just to ensure that he could be back as King. This is a great example of doing something for personal benefit, but it harms the public.

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After reading these different texts, I didn’t have an answer to whether or not Charles should have been executed. What I took away from this was not the right or wrong or even why but the historical context that he was executed. King Charles should have been executed from the side of the parliament because in their eyes he was a tyrant and challenged their power. Had King Charles cooperated with them, his death could have been avoided. However, I believe that in the Position of Charles, he did the correct thing by continuing to preserve the monarchy as well as he could. He was a martyr and royalists rallied behind his cause.

The entire concept is interesting when it comes to the divine right vs the law of the land. When the people of the land demand one thing and the king who claims to be the chosen of God has another idea in mind there is bound to be conflict. It’s especially interesting when one the monarch truly believes he is doing the work of god because morally there is no correct side.

I believe that the king must do anything and everything he can to maintain the monarchy and the inheritance of god and I believe that the people must dispose of a tyrant in order to enact the law of the land. A king cannot be allowed to be above the law or else the effectiveness and legitimacy of the parliament are void.

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After reading the articles about the execution of Charles I and the circumstances leading up to it, I think that he did deserve to be executed. I was very surprised that I felt this way because I am against the death penalty, and in my blog post last week I wrote that I didn’t believe tyrannicide was the best solution for getting rid of a tyrant leader. However, in this particular situation, I don’t think that there were many alternative solutions that would not have caused more instability in England, which had already gone through a massive civil war due to Charles’ conflicts with Parliament.

The article outlining the arguments for and against the execution of Charles I points out that Charles surrendered to the Scots in 1646, which ended the civil war, but he was not executed until 1649. During these three years, he was given the opportunity to negotiate a lasting agreement with Parliament and return to his position as king. However, he was not willing to do this because he was extremely stubborn and believed that “his conscience was the voice of God.” This difficult personality was what caused him to have so many problems with Parliament in the first place. Rather than try to make compromises, he convinced a Scottish faction to invade England and help him restore the throne. This would have caused a second civil war when thousands of people had died in the first war a few years earlier. To me, this shows that he was not ever going to change if he was given the chance to rule again, and England needed to get rid of him definitively.

 

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When asked if King Charles I deserved to be executed… my answer is yes. According to the text, although he had a “sense of humor,” and was said to be loyal, he was still a tyrant. And taking into consideration that it takes a lot of boxes to check when it comes to labeling someone a tyrant, it makes the question easier to be answered. Interestingly, what made me question the question is the fact that King Charles I was not the first king to be executed, so why was it such a big deal. But, moving forward, however, I realized this execution was very public and blunt. At this point, it was inevitable for me to compare the execution of King Carles I to the crucifixion Jesus. 

I am not saying that Jesus too was a tyrant, but the amount of publicity and controversy that is put upon the death of King Charles I parallels those seen as Jesus is called to death. Unlike Jesus, King Charles I was as described int he text, selfish as he called for war for his personal gain, killed, and was himself an enemy to the public.

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Last night I attended Dr. Kaplan’s discussion on the electoral college. Dr. Kaplan was not interested in changing our opinions of the current system, or persuading us to adopt a new one, but he rather explained the effects that new proposed presidential election systems would have on our political institutions. He made a great point, where he mentioned that shortly after losing the popular vote but winning the electoral college, President Trump was asked if he would still have been elected POTUS if the Electoral college was done away with and the president was selected by a purely popular, direct vote of the people. Trump answered “I still would have won, and I would have won by a whole lot more.” This quote, regardless of whether Trump still would have won or not in a purely popular vote, is very important because it demonstrates that the electoral college has a huge effect on the way politicians campaign. Kaplan notes that we can’t just scrap the system, and expect the same results: such as believing that Clinton still would have won the 2016 election. Without the College, Trump would have campaigned in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and Clinton would have campaigned in Texas! The Electoral College shapes much of what we understand about American partisanship, regional political identities, campaign strategies and the locations candidates visit. While a simple concept in itself, it has very complicated effects into all branches of American government. This was not something I had previously thought of as I was under the impression that if not for the electoral college, surely Gore would have won in 2000, and Clinton in 2016.
The electoral college is intricately tied with the leadership qualities, and strategies of our candidates. In different types of potential electoral systems, such as a direct popular vote of the people, Kaplan examines the issues that arise, such as the even greater vulnerability of American people to toxic charismatics, like Donald Trump. In a system where the delegates are selected on a proportional basis rather than the winner takes all system, this cultivates coalition building between party lines, which is something that is currently having immensely detrimental effects on European countries, specifically the UK. These different types of systems would force candidates to campaign extensively in mass media markets, empowering the role of the media and promoting the already dangerous relationship between politics and social media. If there is a change that needs to be made to our election process, Dr. Kaplan did a great job of showing how this would affect, and radically change the way political and social institutions operate in the US, a potential change that could cause even greater divides than physical boundaries of congressional districts.

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In every sense of the word, Richard III is a tyrant. In class, we discussed how a leader had to either illegally seize power or abuse their power for personal benefit to be considered a tyrant, and Richard does both. We also determined that a tyrant knows that they are a tyrant. In the movie, there is a scene where Richard wakes up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, and proclaims that he is a villain. In her paper, Bezio compares Richard to United States President Donald Trump. While Trump is often called a tyrant in the media, I believe that giving him this title is a bit of a reach based on these three criteria. Although there is some controversy as to whether Trump was involved in collusion to win the office, I think it is fair to say that Trump did not illegally usurp power. In his interviews from the 80s and 90s, his tone makes it seem like he genuinely believed he would make a good president, not for pride or to boost his ego, but because he thought he saw ways to make America profitable. Finally, we will never know for sure whether or not he sees himself as a tyrant; I have a feeling that even he did, he would not be very forthcoming about it, especially ahead of another election.

 

While I do not believe Trump is a tyrant, I do believe that he has some tyrannical tendencies. One could make the argument that it is a politicians job to influence the public, but I think that Trump’s mudslinging strategies against his challengers reaches into the manipulation category. During his campaign, Trump exemplified the idea that “all press is good press.” To his credit, his strategy worked. His outlandish accusations against his opposition, sexually and racially charged comments, and his celebrity status were enough to get the attention of voters, and his idealistic promises were enough to get many of those voters to support him. One behavior is not enough to earn a label like tyrant, but it is hard to deny that Trump possess traits that one might describe as tyrannical.

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Richard III is someone that we can relate to in class because he is an example of a tyrant. He used ways to win over the people that were morally wrong. The perfect word to describe the ways that he used to get people to follow him is toxic charisma. Charisma is used by almost all leaders and is very useful when campaigning and getting people to vote for you or follow your beliefs. Richard III used toxic charisma when he was crowned, he let all of his people down and went behind their back. Richard III is viewed as being a tyrant to many people because of this trait of toxic charisma.

Someone that can be portrayed as having toxic charisma today is Donald Trump. Many people believe him to have  toxic charisma and use it to portray his willingness to change the country positively. Although many people believe that he is narcissistic and selfish. On the other hand some people like him a lot and the stuff he has done for this country. Going back to what makes someone a tyrant, I don’t believe that someone like Donald trump is a tyrant because he hasn’t committed murder or done something dictator-like to be called a tyrant unlike someone like Richard III.

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In my opinion, there are good leaders that stand for good causes and do everything in their power to have a movement that involves the greater good. Good leaders are the ones who ask the public for their opinions and does their absolute best to satisfy their needs/wants. A bad leader is someone who does things for their own satisfactory needs. They are usually people who, during the election, would lie to the public and tell them what they want to hear and what would get them into office. There are a lot of good and bad of things that all presidents obtain but the best leader are the ones who the overall good feels good about getting behind their movement. 

In the article, the idea that leaders who are intimidating and have a scary appearance are not extremely liked. This is the case because, as we discussed in the last class, a charismatic leader who is attractive are liked more and have a higher chance of people getting behind their movement. Most likely, if a leader is a charismatic caring individual, more likely than not, the leader will do more for the greater good. 

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Richard III is a perfect person to tie together what we have been talking about in class which is leadership and tyranny. He made his way to the throne by using toxic charisma and this shows the bad type of charisma. Bezio compares Donald Trump to Richard III. Trump is a modern day Richard III. He is in the way of how he used toxic charisma to get the the “throne”, or presidency, minus the murders of course. Richard III was an actual tyrant while Trump only shows characteristics of one and can’t be truly named one.

Personally I could always see how Trump used Toxic charisma to gain supporters even before he was elected. However, it was interesting to see how Richard III could gain supporters while being such an evil tyrant. As humans in the past and in the present day you would think we would see the signs of a sort of tyrannic leader and wouldn’t let the gain power, but as we can see one case from the past (Richard III), and one case from the present (Trump), we continue to let these people who use toxic charisma to gain power.

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I think that what we have been discussing recently in class involving tyrannicide and toxic charismatic leadership correlates well with Richard III. In the film, we can see how an individual can go to extremes to arrive at power. In this case, Richard goes to the extent of many murders in order to gain the power he desires. Throughout the movie, we see a display of toxic charisma by Richard as he manipulates those around him in order to justify the killings of his own family members, members of Queen Elizabeth’s family, and Queen Margaret’s family. With these unethical actions, I can conclude that Richard could be considered a tyrant due to the fact that he is doing all of this for his own personal gain.

Something that was really interesting to me were the parallels drawn in Dr. Bezio’s “Crooked Politics” between Richard and President Trump. In each scene, Dr.Bezio is able to connect a part of the film with an involvement with Trump. For example, a community of women band together to try to prevent Richard from reaching the thrown. Similarly, women began to come forward and blame Trump of sexual assault. Furthermore, it is also astonishing how the events in the movie line up with the events in Trump’s path to presidency chronologically. Overall, the connections between “Crooked Politics” and Richard III were very fascinating and they furthered my understanding of what a tyrant can be considered.

 

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Throughout the entirety of Bezio’s piece she demonstrates the historical value within “cultural media artifacts” as she makes parallels to both the political and socio economic behaviors in Shakespeare’s play and present day America. One of the most interesting parallels made in the article is about the presence of feminism as a political factor, usually being combated by a toxic charismatic male leader. In the piece she compares the 2016 election of Trump v Clinton and the relationship between Elizabeth and Richard III, which I thought was a very interesting connection considering the differences in time periods and settings. The best way to understand the comparison, for me at least, was with the analyzation of the quote she included by Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt. He described Richard as someone who thinks he can

“…grab from any woman anything he wants, however much she might resist… ‘Relenting fool. And shallow changing woman!’”

Instantly my mind was taken back to the extremely problematic interview of Trump where he says the infamous quote “Grab her by the pussy”. With the inclusion of the quote by Greenblatt the comparison between the two men become even more clear–two toxic charismatic male leaders that encourage the disavowment of female agency. Later in the article Bezio draws comparisons between Elizabeth and Hillary Clinton as both women that compete with the men despite their vicious attacks, Richard claiming Elizabeth a witch and Trump claiming Clinton a liar/fraud. The demonstration of both women as powerful and fearless leaders in a system renowned for patriarchal behavior, especially in the midst of such behavior, is a significant parallel made and allows me to question what it suggests for women politicians in the future.

 

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I thought that the interaction between Richard III and what we have been learning in class was really interesting. It’s fascinating that what Shakespeare wrote about so long is still valid. The idea of charismatic leadership and toxic charisma is something that impacted life to the extent that there were plays about it and it is still relevant today. Throughout the different class periods, we have learned about the impacts of toxic charisma and tyranny. I would classify Richard III as having toxic charisma and being a tyrant. He was able to fool people into following him with promises of a better life and land. Basically he was manipulating his right-hand man by telling him that he was gonna get land if he helped Richard. His right hand man never ended up getting the land he was promised.

I believe that he is a tyrant because he used his toxic charisma to gain a place of power. He is also willing to do anything in his power to get that crown. He killed so many people both directly and by influencing other people to do it. He only has regard for himself and his goals which is one of the clear requirements for being a tyrant. He is a clear narcissist who only cares about reaching his goals and doesnt care who he hurts to get there.

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