To Steal A Title: Thesis in Progress

Sorry Cory. At this point of my research, I'm feeling very comfortable. I have finished almost all of my readings, and I have figured out what my main goals are. First off, a return to the analytical analysis of Hume and away from the opinionated attack of Sarantakes. Second, to use the 1980 Olympic boycott as a case study of the inconsistency of Carter foreign policy. Normally when scholars speak of Carter's foreign inconsistency, they mean in his "flip flopping" nature on human rights. Indeed the lexicon of his speeches is draped in human rights, equality, and personal liberties, while his policy is something of another nature. In the case of the Olympic movement, Carters inconsistency stems from his methodology. In a symbol of protest for stolen freedom of the people's of Afghanistan, Carter stole the freedom of Olympic athletes and private corporations. Finally, and most importantly since this is the most argumentative, is that the efficacy of the boycott was ruined in the early days by two reasons. To begin, the ideology that motivated the boycott was outside of the scope of the Olympic movement. And second the Carter administration lacked understanding of the Olympic system and underestimated the fight in the Olympic officials. Now that I have my goals, it is time to set a thesis. I think the first two goals can be highlighted within various sections of the paper, the third goal however will make up the bulk of my writing. It seems to me that my thesis will come from within the third goal, but needs some fine-tuning to be worthy of a semester of research. To conclude, thanks again for the title Cory.