College Essays

The two articles cover a need to fix the electoral system which is supposedly broken. The first, by Richard Hanson titled ‘Nationalize Oversight and control’ sets out policy proposals while the second, Local Officials Must Remain in Control by R. Doug Lewis states that nothing should be changed. I agree with changing nothing, as on the whole, the voting system is in fact functional, and the supposed problems inherent in it are the effects of people exercising their political voice by walking away from a rigged system in which elections are in fact closer to empty social ritual of Confucius than to the functions of democracy in Athens, the intent of the constitution, or the operations of any government in which the people are mostly free.
The first article seemed to propose some sort of voting welfare system whereby the Federal government went out of its way to hire people to run the voting system and proactively tracked down voters and made sure they were enrolled. It also seemed to suggest enrolling high school dropouts in voter rolls, which is absurd. These will people will not even be able to support themselves let alone make an informed opinion. It also suggested vast issues in voting which in my personal experience do not happen at all. Your voter registration does not disappear if you relocate. If you do no have a photo ID you will not be able to get a job, so why go out of your way to make sure you can ID a voter with an alternate system. If I can’t take an SAT without a state-issued ID, then I should not be able to vote either.
There is a current ‘democratic mythos’ in the United States. This was not meant to be a democracy and a large state such as the United States can never be a functioning ‘democracy’ vis-à-vis the Swiss Cantons. There is much evidence suggesting that mob rule such as practiced in Athens is entirely corrupt and destructive. The first article seems to be ignoring this fact. Translations of Plato, Xenophon, Thuycidides, and Herodotus are readily available if one does not want to spend the time to learn Attic Greek. Therefore, he must be ignoring these facts, which makes him unqualified to give a national solution to a non-existent voting problem.
There are examples in history and current practice which differ from the current electoral approach. The American system is there to defend rights of the individual, voting is the most important aspect of this liberty. The approach he suggests would result in a top down electoral system, which would be over-laying across the current system, which presumably would still function for local elections. If so, there would be a ready federal agency to overtake these local election procedures and would inevitably expand its authority ad infinitum and mean all elections in the country would run under the aegis of DC.
Government only tends to expand: it is a superorganism that tends toward growth and parasitism. There are many examples of federal authority growing to an insane level and this would be yet another. Hanson makes an argument of fraud at the county level where the party in control, but this is baseless. Party adherence is only skin deep. There are no fights in the House or Senate over policy. There have never been any political murders where the registered party of the person slaughtered comes into play. Therefore, it is an assumption that Republicans would seek to disenfranchise democrats or vice versa. He article writer goes on with his solution to the voting problem:
‘A nonpartisan board, with a chief selected by a Congressional supermajority, could set standards and choose procedures’
Congressional oversight is a national joke. It has failed to stop every executive over-reach in this century. Why does this make any sense?
Corruption is inherent in any governmental system but is only compounded when the unlimited Federal Reserve blank check is used to fund a national corps of election officials. This would simply empower yet another group of over-paid zealous federal employees producing nothing. It is the equivalent of drinking the water in a Third World country to cure a case of intestinal worms.
The idea that there should be a national ID card is going to provide an already bloated national security surveillance state with yet another method of cataloging and tracking every citizen in the country. It is absurd, and is a direct attack on the few remaining 10th amendment powers that are being used by the states. State IDs work fine, and a proper understanding of ‘full-faith and credit’ ensures this. The first article seems to ensure voter apathy. It goes out of its way to pull people into a political process from which they are not barred from by anything at present. The electoral process isn’t pretty, it isn’t holy: Hitler was duly elected. Going on with the solutions, the author has another:
‘The board or czar should be nominated by the president, and subject to a 75 percent confirmation vote in the Senate, to assure bipartisan consensus. The board would have its own budget and autonomy, like the Federal Reserve.’
The Federal Reserve is a bad example in a country beset by national debt. Czar’s do not solve problems: see the original Czar for confirmation of this (or the linguistic root of that word being Ceasar). Have the proliferation of Czars solved anything? This is an absurd proposal. This would end up empowering an executive branch of government even further.
The second article made appeals to the founding of the country, which is the entire purpose and existence of this count, but is general and slightly weak. It appeals to the founders, which personally persuades me as it holds true to my historical perceptions regarding north America in the Enlightenment. It seems to respect the principle of states rights, the 10th amendment, and a sensibly deference to localism. Lewis claims with complete confidence:
‘The voters in Louisiana love their top two candidates system. Oregon’s voters love their vote by mail. Texas voters love early in-person voting. Some states love electronic voting, and other states love paper ballots. The point is that the voters of each state seem to prefer the method of voting that they are used to, which was designed by and for their citizens.’
This is unsupported, and I do not believe electronic voting is an example of good electoral practice, with wide reports of vote fraud in 2000 and 2004. Electronic voting is the most unsecure form of ballot, and perhaps in all of this, is the only thing that should be removed from the current electoral process. The assertion regarding the workings of democracy is an opinion. Perhaps the democracy works, perhaps it does not. America was established as a Republic, or a form of government that distrusts universal democracy and mitigates the natural tendency of oligarchy by elites and mob-rule by sheer number. Despite the name, political science is not a science and consists largely of a series of platitudes and myth with more in common with a religion than the scientific method.
In closing, the two articles make their case. Hanson seems to favor vast social engineering plans based on nothing. It aims to fix a system that in essence is not broken. Lewis, while weak in detail, generally defends the U.S. system against overtly statist assertions in the first article. This second article points out the diversity of voting options and approaches which form the bottom up approach to democratic elections, which while flawed, are not flawed enough for the legislative radiation therapy suggest by nationalization. My opinion would be for local control, as it is the only thing that makes sense . The article ‘Local Officals Must Remain in Control’ reinforces my original position, while ‘Nationalize Oversight and Control’ made no serious impact on my reasoning capacity.

Critical Thinking Essay 2                       Brandon Stanley

The first article, 'The Voting Rights Act:Our View' by the Editorial Board of USA Today, takes the position that the overturning of the voting rights act provisions is bad. The second 'This isn't 1965: The Opposing View' by Roger Clegg contents that pre-clearance needed to be overturned. I agree with the second, because it seems that the voting rights act is federal imposition which further eroded local rights, and its mechanisms make no sense if its spirit is anti-racist. The Voting Rights act is an outmoded response to modern issues
The first article makes the case that the voting rights act was gutted by getting rid of the pre-clearance system. This is an error. The federal cure is worse than the states' disease. In essence, the voting rights act was not struck down totally, but only a portion requiring justice department approval for any local election changes in states of the deep south. This gives undue federal power to an agency and seems to only replace racism by packing minorities into one district. Either racist gerrymandering or packing benefits politicians and not the people- either policy can be used by a campaign machine to achieve its ends.
'Since the law was renewed in 2006, the Justice Department has actively blocked 31 discriminatory restrictions, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice. The same report shows that just the prospect of having to seek pre-clearance is a strong deterrent: From 1999 to 2005, 153 proposed changes were withdrawn when the Justice Department asked questions about them.'
Qui Bono? Who benefits from these decisions? Calling the Department of Justice an arbiter of justice would be like referring to the department of defense as a purveyor of peace. The issues surrounding voting rights violations hinge on economics more than race, and the pre-clearance policy does nothing to bar this. The poll tax was a tax that existed regardless of race. So it can be argued that the Voting Rights Act did little to change this. Also, the article gives no indication of what these local changes were other than raw numbers.
'Before renewing the law in 2006, Congress held 21 hearings over 10 months and concluded that the "covered jurisdictions" still tried to discriminate against minority voters. A federal district court upheld the law, and so did the conservative federal circuit court of appeals for the District of Columbia, which wrote that the law continued "to single out the jurisdictions in which discrimination is concentrated."'
This is foxes guarding the hen-house.  The idea that it should decide what constitutes discrimination is insane. It once again does nothing to help the poor get to the polls....If the past is any guide, some will be egregiously discriminatory.'
Since when did the Helvetii run banking? Any why does no one man the wall of Hadrian? Because history changes, and in the opposite direction  of that author's assumption. That the time of voting rights violations based on race has passed. The law did nothing to prevent rampant abuse in the 2000 election where the mechanism used by locals was to confound the names of minority voters with convicted felons of the same name, and thereby deny that law-abiding citizen the right to vote.
The Court has ruled favorably by saying that states are being punished for things done decades ago. The election of a minority president puts the lie to the claims of rampant discrimination. Racism exists, but its under the surface. Its real culprits are in the open: in police uniforms and the criminal justice system. Why bother to discriminate at the voting booths when you can just hit them with a felony and forever prevent them from exercising their rights?
Clegg says that gerrymandered districts are created by federal authority under pre-clearance. I agree with this. The federal government was in effect packing districts in order to make sure minorities get represented. This inevitably leads to less representation as it lessens the minority voice across districts that have been re-arranged by race to include whites only and in effect destroys the principle of equal representation. As a minority, even in packed districts, there will be less packed districts than non-packed. In other words, it does not accomplish its goal. Has there been any significant civil rights legislation since the 60s? If racism is a problem, and this Voting Rights Act pre-clearance policy was supposed to fix it, surely there would have been.
The Editorial Board of USA Today assails the limited court decision as a destruction of the voting rights act which it is not. It ignores historical changes which have made certain portions involving federal overreach irrelevant. The second article by Clegg makes a convincing case that the law was due for such a change. The court has made a correct ruling.

Brandon Stanley
1102-294
6/4

The Image of Women As Projected in Music Videos

Wherever one turns in America one can see a negative image of women. Take a look at the average music video. Here we see decency, goodness and virtue callously sacrificed to Dionysus amid the feverish romp of debased debauchery to the tune of music. Here in this common music video is the worst image of America, that of a nation of toothless pimps and whorish succubae. Comely females clad in sexually suggestive garb who danced to music for entertainment were once considered prostitutes. Their behavior was known as whoredom. Now they have been tragically deemed worthy of imitation. The image of women as presented in music videos is the worst possible image of women.
If this characterization seems too harsh, consider the average rap video. The only aesthically pleasing person present will be a woman. The other people present in the video will be thuggish and barbarous men who speak in a rhymed verse, usually demeaning women. The objects in the video, separate from its people, are the diamonds and cars, nearly ubiquitous in all videos of this genre. Thus the woman is made into a something, like an item on a shelf, something to be sought after and desired- she is objectified. If, as in other cases, a woman is the rapper, or even in some other musical genres, she is typically parading her sexuality and gloating of her male conquests. Lyrics are no longer even suggestive. To be suggestive denotes a bit of modesty, or a desire to at least appear to be of good-repute. But today, whatever is the intent, it is simply stated. Sexuality itself is not the problem, nor its depiction, but instead the manner of its depiction.
In many videos the only power a female is shown to have stems from her sexuality or her desirability to the opposite sex. Musical lyrics of the current day positively revel in promiscuity. But with many genres of music, how could it be otherwise? Is a successful career woman compatible with rap? Is a loving wife any consequence for hard rock? None at all, as both genres represent a return to tribalism. A true civilization respects its women as the bringers-forth of life. It respects sex as something which does the same. Music videos do just the opposite.
Positive images of women in the venue of music videos do not exist. It is an utter disgrace that the popular image of women has come to the lowest level on the wings of a once beautiful art. The music industry will continue to pump out its poison and another generation, lost in its inebriation, will swallow it down. Only when the daze of its youth passes will this generation realize it has been poisoned, but it will then be too late.