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.