LAST BLOG!!

In this blog, my classmate Carol argued her thoughts and beliefs regarding the Electoral College. Carol starts off by providing important and helpful background information about the Electoral College and its contributions to our government and election process. I think this was a great way to start off her argument and keep her audience interested in what else she had to say. After providing her audience with factual information, she clearly expresses where she stands on the process and how she feels about it. One aspect that made her argumentative statement so much stronger than the average was how bold she was about doing it, she did not sugarcoat a single thought and was very direct about how she feels on the topic.

Following the introduction, Carol begins to shift her main idea towards her feelings toward President Trump. At this point, I am unsure as to what her argument is over since it is completely different from her introduction. However, it is evident that she is very unhappy with the Electoral College’s decision to place President Trump in office and she does not miss a beat to emphasize that. Carol formulates valid points to back up her reasons as to why she feels the way she does about Trump, which was a great way to persuade her audience. 

Throughout the rest of her blog she continues to strongly express her opinions on President Trump, but when it came to the end of her blog, I began to develop confusion as to what she was concluding. In the conclusion, Carol concludes any thoughts she has on Trump, but suddenly jumps into the Electoral College one more time before strongly emphasizing who she will be voting for in 2020.

Overall, I can observe that Carol is a talented and strong writer who obtains the skills and writing techniques needed to formulate successful arguments. But I believe that this blog did not highlight her true talents due to her lack of formulating a clear argument.  

Climate Change Commentary

     Over the past month, numerous areas all over California are being destroyed by the massive wildfires that continue to burn and wipe everything in its path. I believe this has a direct correlation to global climate change and has become a major issue in our country that we should be focusing on. Unfortunately, climate change has not been taken seriously since President Trump’s position in office, since he claims climate change is a myth.

     Most recently, President Trump took a trip to California to observe the damage caused by the fires and used his social media platform to publicly mock the science of global warming, tweeting, “Whatever happened to Global Warming?” and blamed forest management for the deadly fires. However, NASA provided statistical evidence regarding climate change on their website, mentioning that the atmospheric carbon dioxide level has not been this high in centuries. This causes Earth’s temperatures to be significantly higher than the usual, which can play a significant role when it comes to the cause of wildfires. 

     Not only has climate change had a drastic impact on our environment, it also has a huge impact on our economy, which gives us more of a reason to draw our attention to the honest reality of the subject. A recent CNN study shows this by explaining how our economy could lose billions of dollars, but more specifically, 10% of its GDP by the end of the century due to the impacts of climate change. This will have a serious impact on the production of food; the quality and quantity of crops will decrease because of high temperatures and drought, while also decreasing the production of dairy due to heat stress.

     In conclusion, I believe that climate change in our country is a serious issue we should not be ignoring. It is crucial for American citizens to realize the devastating economic and environmental impacts climate change has on our country today and will have in the future. If we do not come together to fight for this issue, millions of people and the beautiful planet we live on will be at stake.

Critique - Blog 6

In this blog, my classmate wrote about why We Should Not Build A Wall Between The United States and Mexico. First, she strongly provides her opinion on the topic which was a perfect way to begin her argument and an even better way to let her audience know how she feels on the subject. My classmate also does an amazing job of using the pathos appeal in her introduction by providing the effects this will have on numerous people to back up her argument. 

In the first body paragraph she gives factual statistics regarding the economic effects this would have on our country, providing things such as costs and other governmental examples to persuade her audience to believe her side of the argument. 

In the second body paragraph, she talks about the people who will be drastically affected by this, including all U.S. citizens. This is a great tactic to use in an argument because it allows the reader to put these effects into perspective and will also give them a better understanding of the issue in general. In the concluding paragraph she re-states her thesis and backs up her claim by summing up all of her main points. 

Overall, I think this was a very sufficient, strong, and informative argument brought on by one of my classmates and I completely agree with her opinion. She did a great job of answering the question, giving background information, and providing statistics to support her argument. I did not find anything to fix or critique, but was able to observe how a strong persuasive argument should be structured.

We Should Not Build A Wall

     Since President Trump won the election in 2016, immigration has been the animating issue of his presidency thus far. More specifically, building a wall to keep those immigrants out of the United States has been a constant raging topic with many opinions. I do not think the wall should be built. If the U.S. follows through with this idea, billions of dollars will be added to our debt and our country could be in deep trouble regarding our economy, foreign affairs, and the environment.

     

      First, our country cannot afford to build this wall. The nationwide debt is still on a constant increase and the wall would only add more damage to that number, which could potentially bite us in the butt very soon. If President Trump is strongly advocating for lower taxes and the money for the wall is not coming from our taxes, I am not sure where it is coming from. I think that instead of wasting billions of dollars to build a completely ineffective wall, we should consider using the money for better border control security, which would be so much more effective and a lot cheaper. 

     Secondly, our relationship with other countries could go down south. No matter the height, length, or materials used to build this wall, people are always going to find a way to outsmart it. However, just because the wall is ineffective does not mean it symbolizes something hateful and racist. I also believe that even if the wall is just put up, people will think of America differently than they have before, which could lead to an increase in war, violence, and hatred between our country and another.

     Finally, the U.S-Mexico border is the most biodiverse area in North America and building the wall would devastate wildlife habitats and could run a few of its species to endangerment, while also potentially cutting off access to the river. Despite the horrible endangerment of species, Congress would still allow the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to ignore all compliances regarding the Endangered Species Act even though over 100 species would be impacted by the construction once the process for the wall begins.

   Although my three arguments are not equally important, I still believe that each of them holds something different that could prevent our country from following through with this plan. If I had to list my arguments importance from least relevant to the most, this is what I would say; foreign conflict, wildlife habitats, and economic issues. I am sure that opposers of my opinion would say there is no other way to keep illegal immigrants out of the United States territory, but there are multiple other ways, like if we made border security significantly stricter. I can assure the opposers that if we follow through with building the wall, we will still have the same illegal immigrant issue than we did before.

     In conclusion, I do not think we should build the wall because it would not only be a waste of time, but a waste of money, and could easily backfire on the United States due to the destruction of wildlife, economic bankruptcy, and violence. I formed my opinion by realizing how determined the immigrants are and that if there is a will, there is a way, and just because a wall is built in place of a fence does not mean they are going to re-think their decision and turn around. I believe that we should consider an alternative motive for keeping illegal immigrants out and throw away the idea of building this wall as it comes with multiple aspects that could backfire on our Nation.

Blog Critique

In this blog published by Ann Althouse it confronts the recent uproar regarding the Democratic Senator, Elizabeth Warren, and her ethnic background linked to the Native Americans. Over the past couple of weeks, Elizabeth Warren has been waiting for her DNA test results to come back to prove to President Trump that she is in fact partly Native American. In this blog, Althouse does not make it clear as to who her audience is, instead it seems as if she is thinking out loud to herself, starting most of her sentences off with “I”. Personally, I believe the credibility in this blog is non-existent due to the bias opinions given like when Althouse says, “I don't think you should be checking the box and allowing Harvard to claim to have a Native American professor based on 1/32 or 1/512, but I like that Warren has removed the basis for inferring that she won't get the test because she knows she's been lying.” and this is one of many opinions that the author states that I believe is extremely uncredible. The argument is unclear because her first statement is completely different from her third or fourth, but what I am getting out of this is that she believes that Warren has been lying about her heritage and is as Native American as most Europeans are, and the only evidence she gives to her “audience” are her own bias opinions and a few statistics from Stanford University. With every great argument, I believe that when it comes to persuading people to be on your side, strong statistics and statements need to be used in order for that to happen, which is something this blog lacked a lot in. Concluding my evaluation, I saw absolutely no logic in this blog. As I said, the author continues to use bias opinions and gives terrible examples, which lead me to the conclusion that there was not logic put into this, just a bunch of opinionated thoughts the author is trying to express. Overall, the author of this blog did not do a great job of creating and explaining her argument, while also lacking an accurate and credible source to backup her evidence.

Argument Against Kavanaugh: Revised In The Eyes of A Student

On Monday, October 1st, 2018, CNN published an article titled For the good of us all, Brett Kavanaugh should step aside. This topic is something that I have educated myself on, kept up with, and am very passionate about and I believe that the author, Ana Navarro, who argues Kavanaugh’s deserving of a spot on the Supreme Court did a great job on her published argument on the matter. The article is started off with Navarro clearly stating her argument by saying “I did not oppose Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court at first, but I do oppose it now.” she then goes on to back up her argument by giving her audience an explanation as to why, which is, the character issues raised about him. With every great argument you must back up your reasoning with statistics, known facts, or personal opinions and beliefs, which Navarro did a great job of. Another example of this was when she writes about the process of selecting a supreme court justice, including facts like once the nominee is officially set in place, there is no way to remove of that person by any circumstance, except death. Since these circumstances are so permanent, Navarro claims, “A Supreme Court Justice should have intellectual heft, judicial temperament and lifelong fitness of character.” in which Navarro claims Kavanaugh lacks in except intellectual heft, which she believes should not be the only reason for being appointed as a Supreme Court Justice. I believe that all of the opinions and facts the author stated in this article to back up her argument were great, but could have been more in depth, like possibly going into more background as to why her opinions on Kavanaugh changed. In one of the last paragraphs, Navarro digs deep into the trial against Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh, giving her honest opinion by telling the audience she most definitely believes Ford, along with the reasoning as to how Kavanaugh’s actions during the trial have led her to become opposed to his upcoming position. She then concludes her argument when she states “I now believe Kavanaugh lacks the judicial temperament and character to serve on the Supreme Court.” which I believe was the strongest part of her argument by far because a great conclusion is straightforward, gets to the point, and concludes the initial argument stated. All in all, I think this argument was a seven out of ten solely because she did miss out on some opportunities to support her argument and at some points in the article, I felt a little bit lost, but overall she stated her argument, backed it up, and concluded it very professionally and maturely.

Step Outside Your Political Knowledge Comfort Zone

On Wednesday, September 5th, 2018, CNN  published an article titled DACA alive, barely, a year after Trump ended it. I think that by reading this headliner, citizens will be able to expand their own political knowledge due to the articles emphasis on shared powers throughout the government and the long process it takes for the President to make any executive changes. One of the main factors that contributes to the increase in the public’s political knowledge is the author’s emphasis on the President’s incapability to have supreme power over the entire government. For example, the author mentions that “Federal judges blocked the administration from ending DACA, ordering the administration to continue renewing any existing two-year permits.” This quote allows the audience to grasp a better understanding of how complex and tedious the process is to pass laws or for the President to make any executive changes. I strongly believe that the importance of other people reading this article will result in our generation’s first step into becoming more politically informed, even if it is just by a small percentage, which could later influence younger generations to follow in our footsteps.