The State of the Union

    I just read an entry on A Citizen's Web Log, and he brought up the topic that debates, and politics in general, are very one-sided. I couldn't agree more. The Presidential debates were infuriating as one could not trust one side over another. What they were saying didn't even matter. All that mattered, in the end, was who "dominated" the discussion, not the truth of the material presented. But you can't blame them. It's not like they're given a chance to prove themselves during the debates, other than through childhood methods of calling the other a liar. But as for parties in general, there is no more cooperation, as one party is constantly trying to look for a reason to dislike the other party. They want to unite under that disapproval. And even if one individual believes in a policy of another party, they'll subdue their own belief for the strength of their party, just because everyone else that is mostly like-minded as they are disbelieves that sort of material. It's ridiculous.

    However, just because we are against one another does not mean we are in a bad state of union. In World War II, we were unified beyond anything we could hope to cooperate through in modern times. This is because we had to and because there was a unified "evil" for us to go against. What I'm really saying is, the fact that we are against each other in politics (and not civil war) is a good indicator that the world isn't about to collapse. There is no common evil to unite against except ourselves. And I don't believe we will ever unite once more as patriotically as before without some sort of mega-disaster that everyone across all ages, race, gender, and income can entirely relate to. Considering how the world now relies on all first world countries for business to proliferate, I can't see another conventional war happening again. So, perhaps we're screwed, and our mentality will forever be polarized. At least we're not taught to kill the other team like in the Middle East.

Less Politics, More Government

    The role of government today requires millions of dollars to influence. This is an inherently flawed requirement as the government is supposed to be democratic and reflect the views of everyone, even those without millions or thousands of dollars. Dollars, I say, because that is the initiative - the backbone behind it all, influencing it all, keeping everyone going, trying to endlessly win against each other for the green paper. My main point here is that politics is running over what our government should be. Politics is the avenue to influence government, by broad categories labeled Democratic and Republican. Truth is, I don't see any way we can bring down the cost of becoming President, or running for any major office. Perhaps by eliminating the electoral college, we can allow for some other parties to have a chance in the race. Or maybe by instituting a law where news organizations must allow for equal coverage of all running candidates. Government should be more about the actual thoughts of Americans rather than the pockets of rich white men. True, there are interest groups such as labor unions with average-income members that might be inclined to influence the local or state government, but the ones with enough power to change national government fall in the hands of the rich. This gives them an unequal amount of power over the national government, so something must be done to fix it.

Moral Standing on Abortion

    Recently, a classmate blogged about the topic of abortion. They said, in essence, that abortion is morally wrong. This is perhaps correct in regards in which women don't want to have a baby because of the hassle. However, I can't see myself agreeing with abortion being illegal for rape victims. And so could abortion be allowed for some and not for others? I don't know. Legislators would have to define "rape". It might not even help to define it if women who don't want the baby for other reasons simply say they got raped and have the abortion anyway. In which case, legislators may need to define the treacherous act further, to a point where actual rape victims may not be able to have abortions to due a ridiculous amount of conditions to be met to consider a rape as legitimate as written law. So, classifying rape to give abortions to some and withhold abortions from others might be worse than simply allowing abortions for everyone. Therefore, I think abortion should be legal.

The Failing Government

    First off, our government is broken. Yeah, it's been around for awhile, which implies it isn't broken, and it'll probably be around for awhile longer, but it should be improved just as it has been for the past 200 years. The system of government follows an archaic piece of paper (yes, the Constitution) that was written in a time when women were second class citizens and African-Americans were slaves - and these "intelligent" individuals that wrote it were just fine with that. That's the writing we've got. The 21st century needs modernization. It's the flow of this decade, and it will continue to be the flow for decades to come. The advancement of technology is overriding incredibly old rules. It is true that some of these rules in the Constitution - fine, laws - are okay to keep, like expressed powers for the President and Congress. But why the random dates and numbers? Why 14? I guess those problems don't matter enough to amend. But something that does really matter is Congress's failing role in government.
    The House of Representatives has a system that is becoming more outdated by each generation, literally. The more people there are, the less effective the House is. The senate is good, but the House is becoming useless, with party affiliation getting in the way of what people actually want. These representatives know their constituency wants a republican or democratic vote, but that's too general. What if some of what people want is republic and some of it democratic? Why not parts of both? Why not another party's idea? Because, in the current system, only democrats and republicans even stand a chance at legislation, because the party affiliation is the main focus of the representatives. They want to be re-elected, so they will vote on whatever fills their party. I guess my main concern is that there's simply too few House members. We need to retain the original 1 : 30,000 ratio, and in the 21st century, we can do that. Before, we were restrained by physical limitation - you can't have 10,000 representatives in one building voting. That's just too unorganized, and truthfully, dangerous. But you can have them all vote from, say, a machine? What if some voted on Mondays and Wednesdays and others voted on Tuesdays and Thursdays? I know nothing of their voting process, but I do know that we could fit a lot more people into the voting process, which would create a much more diverse map of what the people want. That's what they're for anyways, right? To represent the people.

Hewitt's Argument

    I was reading the Hewitt Blog and came across this insane post. Of course, it bashed Obama as conservative blogs do, but I don't think I've seen one as bad as this. He started the blog by telling about how the magazine Newsweek is going out of popularity and demand. Then he paralleled this magazine to Obama, by saying, "It failed. It will go away." First off, what does the President have to do with a magazine? Secondly, he can't say Obama failed. He obviously did succeed in many endeavors as President.
    He goes on to explain that Obama is making jokes about binders when he should be worrying about Libya and gas prices. Really? Of course he's worrying about Libya and gas prices, you twat. Since he apparently needs a lesson on campaign tactics from a left-leaning independent college sophomore like myself, I would say the binder jokes are a jab at Romney's recent fault in the second presidential debate. But that's just right, I guess, because the Romney campaign has been trying to turn the whole "binder" business around on Obama, somehow, which is sort of ridiculous. Truth is, though, the "binder" thing itself is ridiculous, not whether or not which candidate said it, but the fact that they're using it for votes. But then again, what else can they use? Republicans, like Hewitt, can't say who's telling the truth or not. No one knows, because the candidates call each other liars. So bloggers, like Hewitt, look to the things that the people know and have seen and heard with their own senses, like mistakes such as the "binder" fiasco.
    It would then be good argument on Hewitt's part, if he took what Americans actually saw and tried that against Obama, but he didn't. He just picked up on what other Republicans are doing. Hewitt's overall argument was faulty everywhere. But you can't expect much from a conservative blogger, or a liberal one, in regards to fair argument.

Reference: Hugh Hewitt Blog, Hugh Hewitt, "Newsweek, like the President, is Finished at the End of the Year", Written 10/18/12

The Victim or the Problem?

Reference: Washington Post, Michael Gerson, "Romney Forced to Play Defense", Written 10/1/12

Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-gerson-romney-forced-to-play-defense/2012/10/01/4b7cbbba-0bf0-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_story.html

    I read this editorial, written by Michael Gerson, and while reading I noticed some interesting argumentative tactics. The entire first paragraph is built on Obama's failures. The fallacy seen here is one of character assassination, a character argument used to degrade Obama's integrity and authoritativeness, so that the reader will continue to the rest of the article thinking that Romney is more trustworthy and in charge.

    The arguments about Obama's actions themselves are perhaps accurate, at least logical and not directed personally at him. But there's no opposing argument. Where's one of Obama's many accomplishments? There are none, or so it is implied. "Obama has not done anything good for this country in four years of being  President," is what Mr. Gerson is saying. After which, he describes not how Romney will do well, but how the media is destroying who Romney really is. This puts Romney on a defensive stance, where Obama is obviously on the offensive, as it is aggressively implied by the first paragraph. So now, what the author has done is he has dismissed any accusation against Romney. He has completely destroyed the integrity of the media, saying that "Republicans diagnose a severe case of media bias, and the symptoms are not imaginary." Well, that sure blows the media's opinion out of the water, doesn't it? Which conveniently gives dismisses any previous argument against Romney. The format of this editorial is not by mistake. The author has done two things: 1. Made Obama look like the reason for all our problems, and 2. Made Romney look like a victim.

Romney and The 47%

    So there's some news going around the web about Romney and the 47% of Americans that he doesn't even want to try winning over. As the top story on ABC today, it reveals - or at least finalizes - an unattractive aspect of Romney. Apparently, Romney wishes to become President of half the United States. In the video they posted, he explains that he shouldn't even try to convince those people to vote for him, but instead go after the 5% to 10% of independents. Truthfully, this is probably a more effective route to election. However, it is cold, and represents a verbal dismissal of most Americans. It is not his plan that's wrong, it's his execution.
    But that wasn't enough. Unfortunately, he went on to tarnish his role in politics even more, by commenting that if his father had been born of Mexican descent, he says he would have a better chance at winning the election. ABC claims that this was intended to be a joke, but one can't doubt that this "joke" was used towards a fundraiser for Romney's election within the closed doors where this erroneous speech was first heard. In my view, politicians running for the Presidency ought to not use jokes that fall in racial categories, especially considering his adversary.
    Let's consider that this joke was okay, though. Let's consider that he's going for a tactical advantage in the election by trying to influence the independents. Fine, that's fine. But he couldn't stop there. In the video, he went on to explain his wife's role in the campaign: "We use Ann sparingly right now so that people don't get tired of her." These words shouldn't be spoken from the candidates for presidency. But, once again, his methods are just as any president's would be: Use the wife to get the women's vote, go for the independents, and try to find some common ground in racial engagements. It's not the method that's wrong, but the verbal admittance to the unforgiving approach to win the election that is wrong.

Article: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/mitt-romneys-47-percent-pay-income-taxes/story?id=17263629#.UFjzOo1lRjs