Comment On Fellow Classmate's Blog

  In Jessie Ellis’ blog, ¡Effects and Affects of TheAmerican Government!, the article, Body Cameras, discusses the issue of required recording of actions and interactions by police officers with civilians and with each other. While Ellis argues for the use of body cameras, and while I agree with the argument made, both sides of the issue aren’t covered.  For instance, it would require a large amount of tax-payer money to equip officers across the nation with high definition cameras that record constantly. There would need to be large buildings of servers to record the data, federal departments to sort through all the footage, and federal programs to legislate the storage, use and misuse of such sensitive information. As mentioned by Ellis, there are also moments when recording would be inappropriate, such as the informing of family of the death of a family member, or during the testimony of a rape victim, which, by recording, might discourage them from speaking out. On the other hand, knowing that what they say will be heard by others might encourage people to use their voice to speak up against injustice and be a solution to civil and criminal problems.

  

  I’m for the required use of body cameras by police officers, for many of the reasons stated, such as reestablishing trust between police officers and civilians, and reminding both police officers and civilians that, badge or no badge, people are people, and should be treated kindly, fairly, and as oneself would want to be treated. We should be working with each other, not against each other. Police officers are supposed to keep the peace and protect civilians, not treat them violently and as inferior. Civilians should remember that police officers are meant to help, and instead of jumping on the bandwagon of distrust for public officials, citizens should work together to establish a healthy coexistence between groups, despite any and all differences, and all the while focusing on the similarities shared. Besides, nowadays, kids across America are making YouTube videos, teenagers are taking selfies, and twenty-something year olds are adventuring around with GoPros. If citizens are recording videos for personal enjoyment and recreation. I think police officers can do it for the sake of professionalism and taking a step towards keeping the peace.

Eat Healthy, America!

  If food was free, what would you eat? Would you choose organic or GMO? With pesticides and herbicides, or without? If you eat meat, grassfed beef, or hormone grown cattle? When it comes to food, we live in a country of many options, but when most are different brands of similar toxins, how easy is it really to make the right choice? It's as easy as one makes it, and there is good food out there, but one has to search for it. I think it's important to make that search as easy as it can possibly be.
  Most eat McDonald's, not because of the quality, but because of the affordability, and how it tastes. But when the affordability is due to mass production and lack of quality, and the taste comes from an added blend of chemical concoctions, its hurting your body more than its helping your wallet.  On a related note, a recent study conducted by the Connecticut College showed that Oreos are as addictive as cocaine and morphine. While cocaine and morphine are strictly regulated narcotics, Oreos are in children's lunchboxes nationwide. Low quality food is viewed as the standard, and organic, non-GMO food, which should be the standard, is considered of the top class of culinary consumables. Millions of families across America eat genetically modified foods, with little to no information about the negative effects, but they are still affected by them. This is wrong, it is peddling poison to the people, and it has to stop.
  I call for a reform of food policies, as well as the promotion of education when it comes to foods and the companies that supply them. Organic foods should be the go to, fruits and vegetables should be plentiful, and people should know what they're getting in the food they're provided with. Processed foods should kept to a minimum, genetically-modified crops should be avoided, and local farms should be favored over large-scale, corporate-controlled agriculture. With money of purchases going to local farmers rather than corporations, more money would be put back into the economy rather than be collected by a large company. With an increased availability of organically produced food, prices will go down, and it will become more economically affordable for the people of America, and the world, to eat healthily. Instead of looking to science funded by corporations to develop and provide us with food, we should look to the food that is present on our planet, the food that has been here for thousands of years, the food that has been provided to us and for us.

Are Legislators Making A Maze To Walk Ten Feet?

  In fellow classmate Helene Laurice Ohouo's blog, A Journey..., post The H.B 1125 Bill covers the topic of same-sex marriage and how it's regulation in Oklahoma is affected by the previously mentioned legislative suggestion. The beginning is an analysis of differing sides of the argument, the middle is a commentary of how legislative solutions can be more problematic than the problems they are trying to solve, and the end is a criticism of bill H.b 1125. She argues that it violates the first amendment, deeming it unconstitutional, and even say's that anti-LGBT officials disapprove of the bill. I agree with her disagreement in the way that, with differing sides opposing each other and each side trying to win, they negate benefits possibly created through working as a team. This goes for many issues in our society today. Things shouldn't be a matter of you versus I, it should be a matter of you and I. We exist together, let us work together, let us grow together.

Wars and Drugs Don't Mix

  As a kid, I was told by my parents, and every adult figure who had any input on the subject, things like, "Drugs are bad!" and "Say no to drugs!" As a teenager, I was told by my peers, and every adolescent who had anything to say about the matter, things like, "Drugs are good," "Research (drug)," and "Come hit this." So I tried drugs, and I'm still conflicted on the morality of substance use. The way I see it, drugs can be both good and bad; many chemical substances have their pros and cons, appropriate times and situations for proper use, and long term benefits and risks. The way I see it, drugs are meant to be used, not abused. Regardless of my personal opinion on the drugs themselves, I stand firmly against the current United States drugs laws. 

  The war on drugs has not decreased drugs use, despite spending more money, (Serena Dai, A Chart That Says the War on Drugs Isn't Working, thewire.com) and the illegal status of drugs means that criminals control drug distribution. I opt that we fully legalize almost all drugs, place age restrictions on use, even though teenagers will still use them, and turn to a policy of education rather than criminalization. In many urban areas, the only things you need in order to purchase drugs are money and knowing the right person. That person doesn't need to be qualified, he doesn't need to be informed, and he doesn't need to sell you quality drugs; as long as he's making enough money to get more, he'll sell you what he's got. If licensed, educated, and informed professionals were in charge of dispensing drugs, people could acquire drugs in more responsible, adult way. In order to be eligible to purchase a certain drug, citizens should be required to take a specific class informing them of Everything they need to know about using the drugs, with different courses required for different drugs. More educated users means more educated use. Drug purity would be pharmaceutical grade, decreasing the likelihood of overdosing due to underestimating/overestimating the potency of a chemical substance. By increasing the availability of access to the vast majority of people, it would decrease dependability on the supply of gangs, cartels, and organized criminal syndicates. 

  The current illegal status of drugs means that drugs users are labelled as criminals by the law of the United States government. This criminal status can lead to violence, organized crime, and overflowing prisons, costing the tax-payers money and putting their safety at risk. The futuristic possibility of drugs being legal might lead to peace and understanding between users and non-users, as drug use can create a societal stigma of shame, (such as when drunks look down on pot smokers, or pot smokers look down upon drunks, both of which happen), the development of a more open minded and consciously connected culture, spiritual growth, the creation of new industries which will bring about an increase in job opportunities, scientific exploration of medically and psychologically applicable drug uses, reduced risks of drug use, increased benefits of drug use, and an unforeseeable amount of other possible goodness to come. These payoffs can stimulate the economy, putting more money in the tax-payers pockets to do a surge in government income. More importantly, it will benefit the well being of the American people, and hopefully, one day, the world.

Work Together To Achieve Success For The Good Of The Whole

     John Fund's article for The National Review Online, Liberals Are the New McCarthyites-and They're Proud of It, is a critical analysis of mud-slinging tactics implemented in the strategies of those who are supposed to be political leaders. Specifically, Fund criticized democratic party leader Harry Reid for his accusation that Mitt Romney skipped out on paying taxes for the past ten years, an accusation unsupported by any evidence and upon researching, can be found as false. Such actions are comparable to the anti-communist, fear-based tactics of 1947-1957 U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy, who used his publicity and authority to ruin the careers of many politicians and political opponents he accused of being communist sympathizers. 

     John Fund has more than twenty years of experience writing for the Wall Street Journal, and has published articles in magazines such as Esquire, Reader's Digest, Reason, The New Republic, and The National Review. He has co-written several books, collaborated with Rush Limbaugh on another, and published a book of his own, Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy. Presently, he writes for the National-Affairs column of National Review Online. With this extensive history in the American political system, he has knowledge on the subject, but being in such a system can also influence political bias. As a conservative, he generalizes liberals into an entire group and accuses the group of such tactics, when it was the actions of the party leader, not every liberal. I, for one, side with liberals in many aspects regarding political policy, but I think the two party system is dividing America and efforts should be focused on working together to achieve success. When distracted by what is wrong with another, one loses sight of what is right with both.

Yes to Net Neutrality

     After a heated debate between the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and two unofficially cooperative half-monopolies Comcast and Time Warner, the FCC passed net neutrality with a vote of 3-2 on Thursday, February 26th, 2015, establishing internet service as a regulated utility much like that of electricity or water. Cristina Maza, a staff writer for The Christian Science Moniter, in her article, FCC passes net neutrality: what this means for America, discusses the issues addressed in this ruling. Net neutrality is a term referring to the concept that internet service providers (ISPs) cannot speed up or slow service based on the content of data and that all data is to be treated indiscriminately. This is important to the internet and those that use it because the world wide web is an important tool and knowledge database that provides common people with a tool for achieving things that would otherwise be ordinarily difficult to accomplish. For example, the online company Kickstarter allows people with creative ideas and a limited budget to acquire funding by receiving pledges from people who would like to see that idea come to life. So far, its reported that over 200,000 (thousands of) creative projects have been funded by more than 7,800,000 (millions of) people, with upwards of  $1,500,000,000 (billion!) being pledged. That's a lot of little people making big differences!

     The internet should be an equal opportunity utility, unbiased in use and ease of accessibility. With increasing numbers of companies offering job applications only online, and many of those jobs requiring internet usage, it has become a necessity for much of America's workforce. While the big names in internet service provision argue that this ruling infringes on their right as a free enterprise, it is apparent after examination that the legal action they want would infringe on the freedom of the people to voice and listen to the ideas openly discussed and easily accessed through the use of the internet. This is important to the people of not only our generation, but of our time, here and now, and to the future people of the United States of America. The internet is meant to allow the free exchange of ideas over distances both vast and adjacent. The internet is meant to bridge the gap between people of every socioeconomic class, level of education, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, and combination of possible differences, highlighting the similarities that exist within and between each and every one of us. The internet is a web of connections. It would not be the internet if we, the people, let big business separate it, separating us from each other in the process. 

College IS Expensive: What Are We To Do?

     It seems in this day and age that the increasingly elevated monetary payment required for attending even the least costly university in pursuit of higher education is out of most peoples capable spending spending zone, preventing many from such an informational investment. And while the most prestigious of universities have long since been reserved for the financial elite of society, what you might call the common people's colleges are becoming more and more exclusive as the average cost of tuition continues to rise. One solution is suggested in the New York Times' opinionated editorial How To Make College Cheaper, written by Steve Cohen. Cohen, being a lawyer and co-author of the book "Getting In: The Zinch Guide to College Admissions and Financial Aid in the Digital Age", seems to have both legal expertise and part of a book's knowledge relating to financing personal education. Speaking to America, as students, as families with students, and as tax paying citizens who help fund certain institutions dedicated to public education, he does well at prompting people to voice that the rising cost of tuition in a country drastically needing educated persons is an important issue that need to be addressed. As a student attending community college and working to go back to a university, this article resonates with me.
    Among the things Cohen discusses, he emphasizes that an important aspect of the dilemma is who it affects. While those living in poverty cannot afford either tuition or the repayment of borrowed student loans and the wealthy elite can afford to pay for college enrollment out of pocket, those in-between-ers of America's middle class are stuck in a problematic situation. Many families simply to not make enough net annual income to pay for their children's tuition in full, yet they make slightly more than enough to be above the federally calculated poverty line, disqualifying them from receiving significant financial aid. The financial aid that they do qualify for is far from enough to allow such families to be able to send their kids to college. Currently, the only other option, it seems, is for the young student to take out student loans, putting them in a large accrual of debt to begin being paid the moment they finish with their schooling, a crucial time when they are just starting to earn a salary capable of enabling such a task; those without a good job by that point happen to be on the tracks to financial disaster. 
     Cohen's proposed solution is one he refers to as tuition deferment, a college-offered alternative to student loans in which colleges would borrow money and then loan it to students rather than the students taking out loans personally from either the federal government or a third party. According to Cohen, this would reduce the interest rates on loan repayment because it college institutions would be taking out a large sum in bulk rather than what would be thousands of individual loans. Colleges also have collateral to offer in case of default and default is unlikely due to increases in national population increasing student attendance, therefore ensuring both the bringing in of future cash flow and of loan repayment. Student repayment rate would be base on earnings once out of college, meaning that lower salary graduates would have longer to pay back the loans. It would spread out payments to a period of up to twenty years, allowing new additions to America's workforce to build a life while at the same time paying of their student loans. By making it easier and less financially straining to attend college, college attendance would see a surge in both applicants and graduates. More college graduates means more skilled workers earning more money, fueling our economy and better this country, one college education at a time. 
     I very much like the proposed student of tuition deferment. I attended a university for a year, but due to too much partying and not enough homework being done, my GPA dropped and I lost eligibility for financial aid, without which I cannot afford to attend and my parents don't have the excess income to send me. If tuition deferment were an option, I would likely attend at my own expense with the goal of working to pay it back with urgency.