Opinion Articles: Not Best For Decision Making

I recently read an opinion article, that was in the Daily Cardinal, a student newspaper on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, about Gov. Sarah Palin. I found the article to be very intriguing. My gut reaction to the article was “Right on!”. I thought the writer established very good kairos with his choices in the purpose of the article, timing, and having it published in the place he did. The UW campus seems to be somewhat apathetic to the current political debates and candidates. Those who are not apathetic have most likely chosen who they are going to vote for in November. The timing of the article was very well thought out because of recent speeches and accusations coming from both parties.

I think that after reading this article, any person who has not made a decision about who they are going to vote for will make a decision. I don’t think this is the way to go for these people. To me it seems like this article is geared more toward the people who have already made their decision. I don’t think someone should base their vote off this article where it only addresses freedom of speech and the 6th and 14th Amendments. Although these topics are pressing and important, a voter needs to look at more of what the candidate has to offer and make a well-informed decision. The article seems to have a bit of dogmatism to it.

An example of this, was the attempted banning of “Harry Potter” books, which comes out to be a freedom of speech issue. Palin should not be making the decision to ban the books, but the article does not detail any reasons for Palin’s actions. Her actions are also not detailed for the 20 percent funding cut to The Covenant House. Maybe the program wasn’t using all the money it had access to, and there were other places that needed the money that wasn’t being used. These issues could have been very complex, but they are presented in the article at face value with no supporting evidence.

These are valid statements for the author to make, and his justification to question Palin’s ability to be our VP is sound. But again, I want to reiterate that any person still trying to make a decision about who to vote for in the coming elections should research more facts before making their final choice.

The Minimum Legal Drinking Age

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/opinion/17wed3.html

This editorial discusses the current movement among college presidents to lower the legal drinking age, which has been an issue of great interest for a very long time. The writer argues that a 21-year-old floor for drinking is not what leads to binge drinking on campus, and instead blames the problematic drinking culture in college for being wholly responsible for excessive drinking among college students. The writer uses very little pathos in delivering his/her claim, but focuses on logos. However, this claim, although true to some extent, is not completely valid. And throughout this post I will explain to you why.

Although the legal age of drinking is set to 21, in reality the effect of the law is negligible on the accessibility of alcohol among adolescents. In fact, in an experiment 97% of underage attempts succeeded in buying packaged beer in Washington, D.C. (Preusser & Williams, as cited in Wagenaar & Wolfson, 1994). Moreover, underage drinkers could easily find alcohol in parties or they could even simply ask their older friends to purchase alcohol for them. A bigger problem lies in the fact that very little action is taken against these violations of law-- only 0.2% of underage drinkers and only 0.005% of liquor outlets that sell alcohol to underages are subject to regulative action (Wagenaar & Wolfson, 1994).

While the legal drinking age has so little impact on college students' access to alcohol, it subjects the students to drink in an environment that is either more dangerous or more likely to binge drink, or both. A large number of people are learning to drink from their peers in college, where binge drinking is prevalent, instead of learning moderate and appropriate manners from their parents or other elderly members of the society. And since the majority of underage drinking occur in secluded places such as dorm rooms or house parties, the underaged are prone to drinking excessively because there exists very little restraint in such circumstances.

I agree with the writer that the legal age of drinking is not what's causing the prevalence of binge drinking in college throughout the United States. I value the ethicality in the rhetoric also, and I believe that simply lowering the minimun drinking age would not result in a dramatic improvement in the drinking reality on college campuses. But it's not only the drinking culture on campuses that's to blame. Rather, reformations on various levels should be carried out to resolve this issue.

The Newly Improved, Incredulous National Audience

In the days and, in many cases, the months following September 11, 2001, the citizens of the United States united together under the common cause of patriotism. Their country reflected in the aftermath of one of the worst attacks the world had come to know. What astounded people the most was how random and unprecedented the action was. As far as the vast majority was concerned, they were not in a war and had not taken hostile actions in the recent past against another country to cause any sort of retaliation. Because this foreground of innocence engulfed the messages sent out by the media, people willingly agreed with all of the ideas of retaliation and breaches of common liberties in order to execute this retaliation. However, with time, this would change.

 

Several years have passed, and although the hearts of all continue to go out to the losses of fellow Americans, the mood and tone of how and why things happened the way they did has dramatically changed. Feeling mislead and taken advantage of, Americans now heed decisions to support the federal government without concrete evidence. Many believe that those in leadership roles, including the president, toyed with their minds. Although not a commonly held view, some even believe that the government allowed the attacks on American soil to occur in order to have precedence to attack certain geographic regions and political groups.

 

Granted there is evidence that information communicated to the public was at the very least misleading if not fallacy, everyone should consider all the information they have not received. Although inaccuracy may have been communicated in the past, there are innumerable documents, conversations, and other communication that the general public did not and will not ever have access to. The idea of blindly following one person or a small group of people is never suggested; however, the idea that an average uninformed citizen could make all the decisions necessary to keep this country secure is totally irrational.

 

Although the post-9/11 citizen receives much more information about world proceedings than a citizen of the early, mid, or even late twentieth century, the media has all the power to determine whether this new-found intelligence is better, more accurate, and more conclusive than that which the early-twentieth century citizen received. In this time when people choose to judge, question, and proclaim actions unnecessary and careless, everyone must realize that they are not receiving the full story. Until all of the intelligence agencies release all of the data they have ever collected or ever collect in the future, no citizen can accurately judge the actions taken by the government. Therefore, while the atrocity of September 11, 2001, has made people rethink about America’s proceedings in foreign policy and caused innumerable people to criticize the country’s authority figures, one should always remember that although caution should not be thrown to the wind, perhaps, one is not the most qualified person to make all of these decisions. Future leaders must consider that their audience has changed and become much more cynical and far less likely to blindly follow lead in order to successfully execute future policy in any area. People want the truth wrapped up concisely and accurately, and future leaders must beware of the newly improved, incredulous national audience.

The day America spoke

September 11th. A day that so many remember vividly as debris filled the air, people ran through New York City's streets in a state of shock and fear, and lives were taken in a destructive act of terrorism. The story of what happened aboard Flight 93 has not only grabbed the attention of filmmakers and journalists, but researchers as well. Seven years later, images from that terrifying day are still discussed and remembered. As a New Yorker, I did not know how to handle the news. A 14 year old girl sits in her math class, learning how to plot her y's and x's on a graph when an announcement comes on to say that the twin towers have been hit by two hijacked planes. The only thing I could remember was silence. Faces blank and eyes opened wide. What was I supposed to make of this? Every catastrophe produces its own linguistic fallout. Words and phrases are forged by the awful novelty of 9/11 into everyday speech. When that day is discussed amongst my peers, or on any public forum for that matter, there are words that are commonly used now that I never thought I would so often utter: terrorism, bombs, ground zero, and debris surge. These words have infiltrated the language of public discourse and private conversation universally. When we discuss that fateful day, many are emotional, whether it be anger or grief, and tend to use this discourse to portray what had occurred. 911 and 9/11 are used to signify not just the date, but everything that happened on it and afterward. It may be a phone number for an emergency, or people can just remember it for the day that we were attacked. But most importantly, we came together as a nation with common efforts to protect and serve.