Supreme Court Injustice

In the U.S., our supreme court is not elected by the people. There are only 9 of them (usually), and they serve as long as they want, even until they die. Their influence on our lives is immense, and lasting, as their decisions also set precedence for future decisions. In addition, our judicial branch is set up in a way that encourages our judges to uphold earlier decisions rather than evenly consider both new and old opinions on an issue. The combination of these factors creates a potentially very corrupt and stagnant system, although the members are often extremely intelligent and respected, there's no guarantee that they will perform well.
Our nation has grown considerably since the number 9 was selected for the supreme court, so allowing a larger number of people to serve in this court would likely increase the diversity of opinions and encourage more effective deliberation. It's not rational to allow only 9 people to represent the supreme court of our nation of over 300 million people. The fact that they do not serve limited terms, means that a lot of them probably have very dated views. It would be absurd for U.S. citizens to expect a person, from a far away generation, to accurately and actively change their opinions with time, to reflect the progression in thinking that we acquire. This system is rooted in slowing down progress, likely out of fear. A result of this is that only recently is a thing like gay marriage being regarded as a right, as it should have been a long time ago. It's hard to imagine any true justification for having denied this right, yet when you look at the people in power in the supreme court over the previous years, it's hard to figure out what their incentive would have been for allowing it. This supports the idea that the court should have more people who represent more varied views.

Commentary on LSD and the brain Article

I've commented on the article, LSD and the brain, from the blog, America the "Great". My comment is as follows: "This is an interesting article, but could be geared more towards the government's involvement in deciding the schedule level of these drugs. It would be helpful to know what the guidelines are for those decisions, and how they are made. Also, it would be nice to have a specific source listed for the "recent scans". Otherwise, it's a great article, thanks."

Political Parties

The United States government is hindered greatly by the use of political parties. The whole country is divided in half in increasingly polarized groups, and this separation promotes hate among the citizens, as well as unproductive environments for government officials to accomplish anything of value.The idea that political parties are bad for the country is nothing new, George Washington, the first president, said himself that it would likely be the greatest downfall of the US. He was appalled to see them arise almost instantly and thrive after he left his office. It’s true that these political parties arose naturally and perhaps inevitably, but there is no reason that they should be so built into our system that it would seem impossible to have an election without them. Because current events and generations change constantly, it’s often out-dated to rely on a mostly static definition of what each party represents, and because of how rigid the expectations are for them, politicians loose their ability for creative and innovative approaches to government. It’s a brain-stifling system which emphasizes the fight between the parties as much as the fight between the candidates, and citizens are so deeply attached to their ideologies that they don’t bother to learn much about the opposing parties’ candidates (aside from sharing posts on Facebook of pictures and articles making fun of and harshly criticizing them, often without substantial sources), or even their own candidates. It’s easy for citizens to think, “as long as it’s a Democrat, I don’t care”, which represents how much we are distracted by the party system, and lose focus on the candidates running. This country would be very different, and much improved, if we got rid of the Democrat vs. Republican craze, and instead as a nation elected individuals based on their specific set of ideas and opinions. The public would be more united during elections and take more responsibility for getting to understand the candidates. There would be more intelligent discourse of politics rather than constant offensive and childish "shit-slinging". With all the great minds in America, there would surely be several attractive alternatives to this system we could think up, if only we'd lose our fear of change and realize that things can and should be better, and we are not innately tied to the current party system, as vital as it may appear.

Hold Colleges Accountable

The article "Hold Colleges Accountable to the Real World" written by Victor Hanson in the National Review political blog, details his opinions of changes that should occur relating to colleges in America. The intended audience is likely students, people of voting age or people involved in higher education. He's a historian with positions at multiple colleges and has written all kinds of articles for big name papers and magazines, like the New York Times. His credibility is very strong because of his involvement with academia and the large number of works he's had published. His message in the article is that colleges are not structured properly in regards to finances, being realistic about post-grad success, and admitting a student body of ideologically diverse students.
The article makes some very good points, but ultimately reads a bit like a rant. He claims that students aren't learning or accomplishing enough in their degrees, and proposes that there be some sort of standardized test to certify graduates in their degrees.  He throws out a potential solution of adding some type of standardized tests to each degree, in a sort of cheap way, as a quick and easy fix to a vague problem of "underprepared graduates". There's a lot of generalizations in his article that would be much more convincing if he included more statistical data or real life examples. He also claims that campuses are 95%-5% on the hot topic issues rather than 50%-50% like in the real world. This is a strange claim to make without any evidence, let alone describing how a university would measure such a thing ethically. As far as criticism of the financial problems of higher education, this is something that has become common knowledge as far as I can tell, and he doesn't bring up the subject with much original thought. He doesn't investigate the issue deeply enough, because the colleges can't get all the blame when citizens are also the ones agreeing to partake in the financial risks of investing in their education. I agree with a lot of the sentiments in this article, but there was no balance of research to all the general statements. It wasn't very organized, either, the topic seems to jump around a bit without fully covering any one thing.

Raising the Age for Trying as an Adult

The article written by Vincent Schiraldi, "How to Reduce Crime: Stop Charging Children as Adults" in the New York Times, expresses the opinion that the age for prosecuting young people as adults should be heightened. The author, Schiraldi is credible and well informed on the subject of criminal policy, as he is the director of the Criminal Justice Policy and Management at Harvard Kennedy School. His long history, and research within the subject make his opinion relevant and well thought out. 
His argument is that increasing the minimum age for being tried as an adult will reduce crime overall as well as recurrences after incarceration, and prevent the risks that accompany locking up young people with older criminals. Evidence used in the article includes statistics from different states comparing those with a minimum age of 16 (2 states), 17,and 18, indicating that crime rates go down when the age higher. The logic he uses is largely based on research findings, which support his point. 
I agree with the author, completely, although he could have been more persuasive in his article. The large amount of research info and statistics makes sense considering his profession, and they are persuasive tools to use, but not to the extent that he did. If he had paired them with more pathos oriented, true occurrences relating to the data, they would have been more effective for readers who have a hard time visualizing a multitude of statistics, one after the other. He mentioned a few thoughts that he should have gone more in depth with, like the fact that incarcerating 16-18 year olds with older criminal adults, is a hazard to their safety as they are targets for many forms of assault. He also mentioned briefly the difference of brain development in younger people that he could have elaborated on a bit more. The last critique I have for this article is the fact that he ends it with a slightly controversial example of a past occurrence, which I understand is used to highlight his point, that having the names of accused persons withheld from the public can be beneficial for protecting their image, in case of their innocence. In the case that he mentions, the boys accused of rape were released because "the prosecutor concluded that no assault had taken place", and so the boys who were tried as adults will have proof of their accusations online and available to potential employers, etc. The main issue I have with this example, is that even though the prosector concluded no assault had taken place, and even if that is the truth, people can remain skeptical of our justice system, which I think is notorious for not incarcerating rapists as often as it should. Because of this skepticism, I don't think this was a wise argument to end on, and I think that his other points regarding crime rates falling, etc., were much more convincing than the fear of tarnishing reputations. It's not as pressing of an issue, or as convincing as the previous information in the article.

Climate Change and Education

The article in the New York Times,"Science Teachers’ Grasp of Climate Change Is Found Lacking", written by John Schwartz, identifies an issue with the public education system regarding both competence of teachers/curriculum, as well as interference from politics. Educators are found to spend an average of only 2 hours covering climate change, per school year. Part of the reason is that evidence and knowledge about climate change has greatly developed since they learned about it, if they graduated in the 90's. Another issue that is prominent in the education system is interference from parents who don't believe in climate change. Teachers skim over the subject because of parents who, like many republicans, do not think it is real, despite scientific evidence, and sometimes become hostile over the subject. Regardless of what different people believe, it's important for children to learn what environmental issues the planet has that they will have to adapt with. There should be more regulation ensuring that educators are correctly and in appropriate depth, covering climate change and not skimming over it due to lack of knowledge or fear of "non-believers".

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