The Death Penalty

The death penalty is a frequently debated topic in modern day society. While the rate of capital punishment seems to go down every year, there are still people who are strong supporters of the death penalty. If our country would simply take a step back and consider the basic “rules” of humanity, then their support towards the death penalty in the United States criminal justice system would quickly dwindle.

Human life is a precious thing. No matter what crime a person commits, they are still a person, and their life is still a rare and precious thing. In society, it is completely unacceptable to take someone’s life, so why is it acceptable for the government to end someone’s life? The life of another human should be determined by no one other than God. Even if you do not practice religion, I still feel that many would agree that it is not acceptable for a human to end another human’s life. Consider what that person could become. Just because they made one mistake in their life, doesn’t mean that they deserve to die. Consider this quote concerning the drop in capital punishment during 2011, “The death penalty in 2011 is starting to reflect the unease that many people feel,”(NPR). This clearly shows a popular idea, that the drop in the death penalty is directly linked to the emotions and uneasiness that people feel towards the idea.

Even if you do believe that it is right and just to take another person’s life because of the crime they committed, it’s hard to argue with irrevocable rules and ideas. Consider the Bill of Rights, one of the most fundamental documents stating the rules and abilities of the United States and it’s people. The eight amendment to the bill reads, “...nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted,” (US Government Online Archives). The bill specifies that the government should not impose and cruel or unusual punishments, yet killing someone seems to be perfectly fine. There is no way that killing someone is not cruel and unusual, so how can the death penalty exist in our country in the first place?

Homeschooling

Homeschooling has become an increasingly popular phenomenon in the United States. With public and private education in a seemingly confused state, students desiring to move away from the traditional schooling environment and parents attempting to give their children a superior education, find a home based education an easy, customized, and safe alternative to contemporary education. While homeschooling may seem like the perfect alternative to public and private schooling, one should also consider some key issues with a homeschool type education including a student’s ability to succeed, the quality of education a student is receiving, and the student’s social behavior.

A student’s ability to succeed should be held in the highest regard when deciding which type of education is best for them, but how is anyone supposed to determine the “best” way for a student to succeed? Many people think that homeschooling will bring children a better chance for success, because it creates an education that’s tailored for the specific child. In a study of over 20,000 homeschoolers, Dr. Lawrence M. Rudner found that, “though homeschoolers tend not to use prepackaged curriculum programs, they nevertheless score ‘exceptionally high’ on standardized tests,” (Source C). While I agree that education tailored specifically for a child can result in better scores than relying on prepackaged curriculum, I do not feel that a full picture of a student’s success can be based off of a test score. I believe that a student who is motivated in a conventional school will have a high quality base education from their academics and will then have the ability to bring about their own success by furthering their education themselves. Students still have a great chance of success in a public school, but at least if they don’t end up succeeding in their goals, they will always have a very rock solid base education they can use to further themselves with.

The quality of a student’s education is also a key issue to consider when examining homeschooling. There is no way for one parent to know every field of study and be able to effectively teach those subjects to their child in an effective way. This is why in a normal school setting you have teachers who dedicate their lives to one specific subject and have training on how to teach said subject. This means that teachers are able to provide a more in depth educational experience based on the field they are devoted to teaching. Some people argue that because a student is taught at home, they will be able to pick up the information from books more quickly. While this may be true for more simple elementary subjects, when the more challenging information comes into play in high school level subjects, home school students have to rely on books to learn this difficult information. Consider this selection discussing the learning of higher level information with homeschooled children, “getting it down means really hitting the books. But the fact is, most homeschooled kids have no problem,” (Source F). This illustrates how the only really way for homeschooled children to learn higher level information is through books. It also shows they are good at it, but if the children are just learning this information from a textbook, the idea of homeschooling becomes kind of contradictory, the children just end up going right back to learning in an non-interactive way, strait from a book, when they could be learning in an interactive classroom.

The final, and arguably most important, piece of information to consider when examining homeschooling is a student’s social behavior. If a child cannot collaborate with their peers, then their education and morals are severely altered. Many people argue that homeschoolers do get socialization through various clubs and activities, but the problem is that homeschooled students don’t have socialization with their peers on a day to day basis. This means that they cannot share their ideas with their peers, they cannot learn how to work with their peers, and they cannot question information with their similarly minded peers. Some people argue that it is better for the students to learn socialization from their parents rather than their peers. Consider these sentences, “Parents give their kids the skills they need to interact with other people and have a chance to protect their children,” (Homeschool.com). This shows some people’s view that parents can socialize with their kids and keep them safe, but what it doesn’t show is how students don’t get a chance to actually collaborate with their peers in group projects, a vital skill. Also, children need to learn how to deal with any real life situations, not just those presented by their parents in a child proofed way. Even though homeschooled children may still go out and socialize with their friends, they cannot get a full picture of what the real world is like unless they actually have the opportunity to collaborate with their peers, whether it be with school work or just socialization.

Homeschooling often seems like the ultimate alternative to a standard education for students and parents. It allows students to get an individualized education, it helps a child understand how to learn things easier, and it provides flexibility to teaching and learning style. The problem is that if you look at the underlying ideas in homeschooling, including sub par success in the future, poor quality education, or a poor understanding of real life social behavior, you can see that this learning style is deeply flawed. However, maybe our society should have considered the problems with our conventional education system that are pushing so many people to seek a homeschooled education in the first place.

It's Not That Easy

It is our job as Americans, or even generally as humans, to help one another out, but how are we supposed to tell who truly needs help, and who is just trying to play us to get our help when they don’t truly need it? This has been a question that state sponsored welfare programs have been trying to answer for years. One method of determining who deserves to be a part of these welfare programs is through a drug test. Anyone who fails the drug test is not eligible to be a part of welfare. State legislators and their supporters feel that this will help prevent abuse to the system by stopping people from spending welfare money on drugs.

This is a terrible idea. It’s immoral, and has potential to ruin lives. Our country is not meant to judge it’s people, yet some states have no problem denying people money they require based on what substances they have in their system? A person on drugs is still a human, and just like every other human in this world, deserves our help. Just because someone is under the influence of drugs doesn’t mean they don’t need help. They could be a hard working parent who lost their job and (unfortunately) turned to drugs for relief. They have gone done drugs and now want to change to make themselves better. Many times the people doing drugs are the people that need the welfare money most, yet because of a small demographic that spends all their welfare money on drugs, we are preventing people who honestly need money from getting it. Also, consider that there are plenty of ways to easily and legally abuse your welfare money. The country instantly jumps to banning people who have drugs in their system, but doesn’t even think about how much the system gets abused illegally. Someone could just as easily go and spend all their welfare money buying a new TV. In fact, legal abuse of the welfare system is probably worse than drug abuse in the system. Consider this piece from an article about Massachusetts state welfare, “A Team 5 Investigation found more than $2.3 million in Massachusetts welfare money ... has been spent in locations outside the state in a three-month period, including pricey vacation destinations like Hawaii, Las Vegas, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands,” (WCVB Boston). The people that abuse the welfare system can do it easily without breaking the law, so why block a person from a welfare check based on something as superficial as a drug test. Also, consider that if people know they cannot get welfare if they don’t pass a drug test, they will probably just stop doing drugs temporarily to pass the test, then just continue after. People taking the test know this too. Consider how in Florida, out of everyone that was interested in welfare, “7,030 passed, 32 failed and 1,597 did not provide results,” (NY Times). This very clearly shows that not many people are taking the test if they are under the influence of drugs, or if they are under the influence of drugs, they probably are not providing the results.

Implementing a drug test for welfare candidates does not seem to fix the real issue here. What we should have is a more intense screening process. It shouldn’t be easy to obtain welfare. People should be screened in depth and their records should be examined. The state should get to know them and consider every factor possible when making such a life changing decision about someone. Basing welfare checks on any one superficial quality is wrong, and should be stopped. It’s not our job, as humans, to judge one another, and it should be no different for the government or our country.

Why Bother Drilling Deeper?

Offshore oil drilling is one of the most commonly debated endeavors that the US has partaken in. On one side, you have the environmentalists, who are concerned about the effects of this drilling on our environment. On the other side, you have the oil companies, who need to make money by providing increasing amounts of oil to support America’s demand for the resource and the energy it can produce. Many people feel that they need to take a side with one of these entities and fight for said group, but I do not feel that this is necessarily true. When evaluating the factors that should be most important when considering the expansion of offshore drilling, the most important factor that people should look at is the alternative methods of producing energy in America, rather than which side has the “best” ideas.

Whenever a new bill comes out proposing expansion of offshore oil drilling, you always have the environmentalists opposing the bill, and the oil companies agreeing with the bill. There is never a way to make both parties happy. Even if there is a compromise between the two and a smaller number of drilling plants are approved, then both parties are still unhappy, because the environmentalists don’t want any increase at all, while the oil companies want as much increase as possible. In reality there is no way to please both entities, because one wants no offshore drilling at all, and the other wants to fill the entire ocean with them to turn more profit. John Broder, a writer for the New York Times, illustrates this constant displeasure between the two groups in his article titled U.S. To Open New Areas to Offshore Drilling. In this article, Broder discusses a proposed plan for offshore drilling in America. This plan offers a compromise by only adding a few offshore drilling rigs compared to the many requested. Even with this relatively even plan, “Oil industry officials quickly criticized the plan,” and, “Environmental advocates responded vehemently to the new plan,” (Broder). Both entities can never be pleased, so it becomes rather pointless to argue or debate. What we should be focusing on is how we can create a viable source of energy that can make money for the oil companies and keep environmentalists happy. The US cannot depend on oil forever, so why not focus on finding alternative sources while we are relatively comfortable with the sources we have now? This would fix our issues when deciding whether or now to expand offshore drilling, because it would eventually become obsolete. This would not be a quick process, but if it were embraced by oil companies, then both in the long run, oil companies could make lots of money selling clean, renewable energy, and environmentalists would be happy about the new path the oil companies are taking.

Some companies are realizing this already and starting to research renewable energy, but they don’t put nearly as much resources into this alternative research compared to their main oil and gas production. A good example of this is demonstrated in an article by Jad Mouawad in the New York Times. Mouawad says that the oil company Shell, “Spent $1.7 billion since 2004 on alternative projects,” but that the amount was much smaller than the, “$87 billion it spent over the same period on its oil and gas projects,” (Mouawad). I firmly believe that if major companies truly put in the effort to find a renewable energy source, they could not only become very wealthy, but also solve the problem of depending on a nonrenewable resource, and keep environmentalists happy. This would all take dedication and a leap of faith by major oil companies, but it is going to have to happen eventually, so it’s better start now than later.

No, They Will Not.

Deciding where to take one’s education after high school is perhaps the most important decision a young adult has to make in his or her life. There seems to be a growing percentage of people who believe that college is not worth it or that it and that education above high school is pointless. Michael Ellsberg has a strong opinion towards college. In his article titled “Will Dropouts Save America?”, Ellsberg argues that not going to college gives students an advantage in the real world. I feel that this position makes no sense and that it could adversely effect success in the lives of students who read the article.

The argument Ellsberg starts out the article with is that some of the most successful people in the world are college drop outs. One of his main examples is Steve Jobs, who dropped out of college, to create Apple. He indirectly suggests that by not attending college Jobs was able to create his company Apple. What Ellsberg fails to mention in his article is that Steve Jobs did have some sort of education after high school. After he dropped out of college, Jobs continued to take separate college courses including a course on calligraphy. This course on calligraphy later inspired him to include different fonts in his computers, which ended up being one of the most unique and sought-after features of the first Apple computers when they came out. In his 2005 Commencement address to Stanford students, Jobs said, “If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces,” (Jobs). What college did for Jobs is important, it gave him inspiration. Which is what I believe College should do for everyone.

Another argument Ellsberg makes is that college breeds people to work for someone else when they should be creating their own businesses. This argument honestly makes me mad. Ellsberg acknowledges that school doesn’t really teach children how to run a business, so how is anyone supposed to create and properly manage a business if they don’t have any education on how to do so? Ellsberg is basically telling students that it’s perfectly fine to just jump in and make a business without having any knowledge on managing money or people. Doing this would set anyone up for failure. In fact, Ellsberg understands this and believes that "entrepreneurs must embrace failure," (Ellsberg). What he fails to explain is how anyone could turn that failure into success without having knowledge on how to run a business. Also consider that if a majority of people decided to create their own businesses, there would be a lack of workers and businesses would not have much to differentiate themselves from the giant mass of other similar small companies. If everyone followed Ellsberg's advice and dropped out of college to create their own businesses, the only thing America would have is a bunch of businesses that are not run properly and that are likely to fail.

The arguments Ellsberg makes are either totally illogical or misinterpreted. Through his writing, Ellsberg could lead students down a path of destruction, a dark path where learning is not important and success is just handed to people without college degrees. I guess if anything can be taken from Ellsberg's article, it's that students should always make their own decisions. No two people's situations are alike, so it's very important to look at the facts objectively and make a decision that's right for you. I firmly believe that if you do this and make all your decisions based on what you believe and what your goals are, then the only thing you can be is successful.

So Much To Do, So Little Time

Our world today seems to be so rushed and hurried with everything we do. We speed around to get everything done and pack our days with millions of tasks to the point where we get easily overwhelmed. Think about how many times you’ve heard a friend say something like, “I am so stressed, I have so much stuff to do today.” We force ourselves to speed through every little task to make others happy and meet our own set of quotas, but at what point do we simply have too much to do? At what point are we hurting ourselves to get tasks done rather than improving our lives through those tasks? I think that many Americans already suffer from this overload of work, and the issue really needs to be addressed and dealt with.

Everyone should try to limit their work to only the things that they truly have time for. If we just rush through every task we have to do, we are bound to either do a terrible job on said task or improve nothing about ourselves in the process of completing the task. You should take your time to do your best work and get the best experience from the task you are completing. After all, finding your difficulties in some projects will only make your next project better. Some may say that they simply have to complete a certain task and they need to rush through it so they can have it done for a specific day. When you come into situations like this, planning ahead can help improve your situation. You could try splitting up your project into different sections. There is always something you can do to decrease your stress in any situation.

It’s important for individuals to recognize how long it will take for him or her to complete a certain projects and plan ahead for it. Whether it be writing an English essay or simply doing your spring cleaning, it’s always important to prevent stress and do the best job you can. In the end, forcing yourself to rush through a project won’t get you anywhere and should be avoided at all costs.

Body Modification and Society

Whether it be simple body piercings or extreme modifications, there seems to be a natural draw to changing our bodies into something that better reflects how we view ourselves. The problem is that many people find these modifications unprofessional or even foolish. I do not understand this argument. Every day, almost every person in the world makes a decision about how they will look through the clothing they wear. It’s only logical to assume that they choose this clothing to show people their personality and style, so why is it so different when someone makes a modification to their body for the same exact reason? You could even think about it from the other side; what makes someone in a business suit without any piercings or modifications so professional? When we define professionalism based on someone’s looks, we are bound to be mislead. Someone with 12 piercings could be just as professional as someone with none.

Another popular argument is that you should be happy with your body and not want to change it just to make yourself look better. This is another thing I can’t wrap my head around. Everything I do is to improve myself emotionally, not physically. If I get a piercing, it’s not just to look cool, it’s to show myself and the world who I am on the inside, to truly connect my mind and body. If you’re going to criticize me for that, then go ahead, because honestly, I don’t care what you think.

Body modification is still a taboo subject, even in our seemingly accepting present day culture. If people really took the time to think about the topic at hand, instead of blindly spewing hate, we would probably have a much different view of professionalism and individuality in our culture. I hope that we can finally see the error in our ways and think of everyone equally, no matter how they look.