Voter ID Commentary

The Political Cynic's article, Now You See Me, brings up concerns of discrimination against minorities who do not have valid forms of ID when attempting to vote. The problem is that if they have a valid ID then there is no discrimination, and the forms of valid ID are easily found with any attempt at researching it, which should relieve any semblance of fear for getting in trouble for violation of improper, inadequate identification. Not included in the article is the crux of the issue and that is why "minorities" cannot obtain valid identification. It should not be encouraged to go without valid identification at all, even further it should be discouraged. I will continue to research why it is these people cannot find a form of valid ID and appreciate the focus of protecting our democracy from malaise.

Comments on Josh's Blog

Josh's commentary on the prospects of politicians jumping off social media especially once in office might be a pipe dream in today's evolving society, but it is one that is though provoking and also raises the question of the ways to counteract the surface level connectivity we feel is real on social media. With Americans clamoring for connectivity to their representatives in as many ways as they can get it, social media has turned into the place where judgments are made about people, whoever it may be. The positives  of an active social media presence is building a political "fan base" that has come to resemble sports more than any semblance of informative substance. In respect to the American people, though,  this hurts especially, as Josh points out it many times embarrasses the American people as nobody voted for a constant feed of tweets, they voted for real progress in the country. This is another issue with these political feeds, they can mask, or give an impression of  progress being made with nobody fact checking. In reality this could be a huge issue with the large majority of the American public taking their political and social news from sources within social media, all biased in one way or another.

Iran Nuclear Deal

Recently the United States has withdrawn from the Iran Nuclear Deal spurring numerous consequences, both good and bad, as a result. The withdrawal from this agreement comes as a fantastic showing of the US waking up to the blatant extortion without any significant progress toward the ultimate goal of pacifying Iran and containing/shutting down their nuclear projects it has been agreeing to. The only consequence of the Deal has been sending 1.7 billion dollars to a country in Iran that has a track record of supporting terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Taliban and is even still listed as a sponsored terrorist state.  This money, even more remarkably was a direct link to the release of American hostages they had taken. Even more unbelievable still is that we weren't even permitted to inspect the nuclear testing sites whenever we wanted to, instead allowing Iran twenty four days notice, which, while not enough time to get rid of any trace of nuclear activity, still shouldn't even be a privilege granted to begin with. This is the first step, however, in deconstructing the deal as many other nations must be persuaded to pull out of the deal. Without this, the Iranians will still be extracting ill gotten wealth for its misguided regime. None of this is to say the deal isn't working as it was designed to, however, the amount of improvement needed to make it advantageous for the US and its allies is great. The expansion of Iran's forces and in turn the disruption in Syria and Yemen right on the border of Israel is a clear example of the intentions of the Iranian regime.

Gun Control Solution

The solution to gun violence in the United States is the solution to lowering violent crime in general and that does not include what is today being called tighter gun laws. The evidence of strict gun laws working is not nearly convincing enough to justify infringing upon our Constitutional right to bear arms. The evidence backs this up. Looking state by state at how stricter and looser gun laws, as well as gun ownership correlate to gun violence and murder rate, there is no direct correlation that can be found. There are states with strict gun laws, low gun ownership and high murder rates as well as some with relatively low gun violence and murder rates. Same goes for states with more loose gun laws and higher gun ownership, there are those with good and states with bad murder and gun violence rates. A recent example of gun laws being ratcheted up as well as a buyback is Australia. They cut down on private ownership of guns by 20% and in turn cut down on homicides by a minimal amount overall, but have cut down on mass shootings completely when calling a mass shooting more than five people which is good. The idea of rifles slaying the American population is just not true when identifying the culprit for most murders. Handguns far and away outnumber any other form of murder weapon. The interesting thing is no one mentions knives to control or ban when they kill four times as many people as rifles in the United States. More people get beaten to death than get killed by rifles, so the notion of rifles being the main culprit of violent crime is completely untrue. If both these things are true; there is no correlation between stricter gun laws and lower ownership and a decrease in gun violence, and that you would have to tighten not just laws on rifles, but on handguns, all the while knowing people get stabbed four times as often as they get killed with a rifle. This leads me to a true solution to what people are trying to accomplish with gun control and banning. To protect schools security is put in place, such as veterans or cops who are ready to respond at an instant, this eliminates schools from becoming a target, as potential threats know they are going to be met with an someone ready to take them down, not a building full of people unable to defend themselves. To solve the long term issue of violence in general, we must solve the public education system and stop it from failing so many of those who turn to crime and desperation and eventually poverty, which I perceive to be the biggest issue . When we eliminate poverty, we eliminate the vast majority of violent crime. While it is not a simple problem, we must find the true root issues, not the ones being thrown at us on headlines and instead find real statistics and how they relate to one another.

Gun Control/Ban Critique

Today more than ever gun control is at the forefront of the national spotlight with many clamoring for what they perceive is gun control. This article by m2c4 aims to show the path toward progress in relation to gun control. The writer brings many examples of how legislators are beginning to enact stricter gun laws at the state level such as Florida raising the age to buy a gun to twenty-one. Also mentioned is, in South Carolina, a seven percent tax on firearms has been proposed which would go toward funding security for schools.What fails to resonate with me is the lack of evidence that any of these actions create any kind of change in gun violence, especially when talking about even stricter gun laws. The idea that the gun debate has turned a corner and is headed toward the absolute resolution is ludicrous and a sad political stunt in anticipation for elections. The evidence for any of these laws working toward a safer community is flat out not there, as it always is when people talk about gun control/bans. most ideas work perfectly in theory, but the real world is not theory. People have to look at actual statistics and see the root of the problem has not been exposed by the national public and that is poverty and mental health. Not solving these issues is going to lead to no progress in way of violence, by gun or by whatever else, such as knives which are close to four times as deadly when compared to rifles/ar15s/semi auto rifles/ whatever else uninformed public call them. So, instead of banning knives we should instead support our communities and solve the real culprits, above mentioned. Putting security guards in schools is the perfect solution for me, which the author does not make clear they support or not. Giving these jobs to veterans, cops, or other upstanding, willing members of the community would take the target off of schools, as the shooters to be would understand that there is someone waiting for them with a gun, not people with no way to defend themselves.

Trust of American Government

This article outlines the distrust the American people have for the United States government. While the article suggests these statistics are facts, which represent the entire American population, they seem from a very small sample size, which could be remedied from pulling from a much larger, diverse sample size. There is evidence, however, for improvement that is needed from the government to regain trust from the national public, which has become quite disconnected from the national government. This evidence has been outlined abstractly throughout the article, as well as putting further research on the shoulders of the readers, as there is so much, as there is not enough space to include all the issues within the article. As the article suggests, there is ample evidence for distrust of the government as there has been corruption and mis-allocation of tax payer dollars over a long period of time. As the article suggests there must be more accountability for the actions of the government, as there is not near enough for at the present. The logic behind this argument is one the majority of the United States shares with the writer, as just about any poll shows distrust for the government. I agree with the writer as I agree there is an inherent distrust from within the government, as a result there should be no reason to trust, besides the fact that it should be respected and mended as a whole. For these reasons, there is no reason this cannot change with more a more informed citizenry and a more accountable leadership in the country.

2018 Is a Great Time to Be Alive

A very telling article on National Review by Ben Shapiro speaks on the issue of whether society and all that comes with it is actually getting worse or if it is just an easy selling point for politicians, as many politicians like to force feed to the American public. This is something that becomes fact in our subconscious leading to pessimism which begins to make people forget how different, how much better the world is today than even fifty years ago as a whole. Most of these things we take for granted, but when you put it into the context of human history, and how the system in place has helped exponentially in advances in every aspect of life including health, connectivity, technology, and many others. Many statistics are brought up and it is difficult to put into perspective how extraordinary the last twenty years have been, not just for the United States, but for the rest of the world, showing the effects of the free market economy, its competition, and the creativity of the human mind, as Shapiro outlines in the article, not just for the citizens of the US, but for the rest of the world as well. So while it is easy to look at the United States in a pessimistic, negative light, looking at what is achieved through it is even more important and having an understanding for why it has worked better than anything else to date in human history should guide policy and all future endeavors.