Commentary to "Government Education vs. Actual Participation"

It is indeed very sad to look at the data in reports about voter turnout in Texas. To re-iterate the question that Mr. Bainter proposes "Why do people register and then not vote?" one could come to a simple conclusion and state that: People, just don't care! It’s a sad truth, but people just don't have the time to go out and learn everything about their local or state or even national government. I have to say that I’m a prime example of one of those people whose registered to vote but don’t do so. We, as a society, are too brainwashed by all the advertisements surrounding us. We are constantly thinking about only bettering ourselves and not about bettering our society. I due digress that I'm making blanket statements ,but we have to be honest that this way of thinking can be seen in the general public.

This situation reminds me of something we discussed in class that our professor proposed. If only we had some simple program on our smart phones that would say "yay" or "nay" on legislation bills being pass, maybe voter turnout would go "through the roof." Another way to solve low voter turnout is to make voting a fad or something that’s consider "cool." The current generations of people of today are so into what’s trending in society. Why not trend voting? A silly thought, but maybe it could work. Or maybe there needs to be a law stating: you MUST vote or suffer a voting tax. Absurd, right?! Who knows the proper way of solving this? My point being is that we need to continue to look at different ways of increasing voter turnout.

I agree with Mr. Bainter’s comments about the “Someone else will do it” syndrome. Even if we are well versed in government its matter of convenience for most people. A person can say that we’re just to “dang lazy” to get off our couches and go to our local elementary school and vote. There just needs to be another incentive to vote, instead of “Well hey, I’m registered to vote…I’m going to vote!” or the feeling of patriotism like for example,“I’m a citizen of this great state of Texas, so I’m gonna vote!” Like I always say in my blogs, it’s up to the citizens to elect legislators who will to create laws that will benefit the society. Its up to people like students of government classes to band together and make a change. Speak about voting. Support voting. Do voting.

Decriminalize Marijuana?! (Commentary)

 On Wednesday, April 2, 2014, Mr. Travis Reed published an editorial titled "Editorial: Should Texas Decriminalize Marijuana." He believes that by legalizing marijuana in Texas would be beneficial act to the state by stimulating the economy and bringing more revenue through tourism. I would have to disagree with Mr. Reed's opinion about legalizing the substance on the fact that he bases his theory only on the pros of having it legalized. He clearly doesn't mention any of the effects the drug has on a person.

According to an article from yourhoustonnews.com titled "Should marijuana be legalized in Texas?" it states that studies have shown that using marijuana "produces injury to health, including psychotic disorders and dull apathy in users." The question that comes to my mind is if we legalize this drug... "Do I really want to be surrounded by mentally disoriented people?... By legalizing this substance, you can be sure that there will be an increase of people wanting to try the drug because it would be "okay" since its no longer a criminal offense to use or own it. I believe it would lead to people making dangerous choices in their lives. Mr. Reed tries to put tobacco and alcohol products into the equation of legalization of marijuana. He states that because marijuana has similar characteristics of being poisonous and addictive like cigarettes or beer, its would be okay for marijuana to be legal. I feel that his opinion on that aspect is wrong because the substances he is comparing are on totally different levels of how they affect the human body.

In conclusion, I think that the legalizing marijuana would be a bad decision on the state of Texas. Sure, maybe the economy might be stimulated... or ...sure, maybe tourism will bring more revenue, but isn't that already happening with the influx of businesses moving to Texas and people moving here because the economy from the state they were coming from was suffering? Let's keep people healthy in Texas. Let's keep people in a less "glazed over" stature. Keep Texas Clean. Don't Mess with Texas.

Abortions Laws in Texas

  Currently in Texas, politics and laws concerning Abortion clinics has come under much scrutiny and has cause a bit of a stir amongst women and liberal factions. The recent abortion regulations, that were passed last summer, state that Abortion clinics must meet certain requirements in order to operate. Some of these requirements include that the clinic's physicians "must have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital and to require that clinics meet the same standards as other surgical health-care facilities in the state", according to the "Texas Senate Bill 5" listed on wikipedia. It is a question of whether the abortion laws in Texas are considered constitutional or unconstitutional. I found a few internet news sources showing their opinions on the subject matter.

For example, Becca Aaronson, Texas Tribune, quotes Brigitte Amiri,a senior staff attorney at the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project in her statement that "the law is having a devastating impact on women in Texas." From Amiri's statement, I can see the point that she is trying to get across in that it severely limits the choices a woman can make about their own bodies. Amiri states in the article that "extremist politicians" are endangering women's "health and safety by preventing them from accessing safe and legal abortion." Another writer named David Salef Rauf, Mysanantonio.com, quotes Nancy Northup, CEO and President of the Center of Reproductive Rights, in her statement saying "there is no question that the politicians who passed this law intended this as the final blow in their assault on women's constitutional right and ability to safely and legally end a pregnancy in Texas." Northup clearly states that this a definite blow an individual woman's rights and somewhat infers that the politicians who passed the law did it on purpose. Abortion will always be a topic of much controversy because it has a certain personal level that touches society. Being in a state that is ruled by the Republican party can definitely affect ones own beliefs and ideals. The question that comes to mind is...Is it right for the State government to make laws on abortion, that take away freedom of choice for women in Texas?

In my opinion, I believe that one would have to question their own beliefs and ideals when they come to live in Texas, in which people have to understand is that this state is very much a conservative and traditional society that has strict adherence pro-life ideology. Speaking from a Republican view, if you don't like the new abortion regulation laws, then move to another state that isn't as strict and has the proper facilities that meet your needs. Of course we do not live in a society that only has one political party running the show so to be fair...When speaking from a Democratic view, the state government should not impede on a citizen's right given by the national government and over step its jurisdictions. My religious views on this subject matter can be biased in leaning towards pro-life choices. So essentially for me, these new regulations do not "really" affect me unless I decide to foolishly "knock up" a girl.... and ultimately because of me being a guy, I wouldn't have to make the choice of having an abortion done to me, but I do see that it is a question of women's rights being somewhat taken away, so in turn, I feel conflicted because I wouldn't want to be put in a government bind that the women in Texas are being forced to go through. The Texas government can only do so much and its really up to the citizens of the state to elect the proper legislators to get proper and necessary laws to be made.

The Battle of Two State Economies: California vs Texas

On Wednesday, March 19, 2014, burntorangereport.com published a blog titled "A Tale of Two States: California and Texas" written by Joe Deshotel. In his blog post, Mr. Deshotel gives his opinion about how the public compares the two states of California and Texas. He believes that there are some misconceptions about the two states' economies and expresses how many people somewhat put Texas on a pedestal of great economic prosperity. Mr. Deshotel brings an interesting topic to light that many or most of the general public is clueless about. One of the morals that I get from his article is that the Texas State Government is only interested in making Rich Texans richer and the middle and poor classes even poorer than they are now. I will have to agreed with Mr. Deshotel's opinion that we, citizens of Texas, need to wake up and realize the truth behind Texas' so-called "Economic Boom" and we need to create a better economic system that will insure better standards of living for future success in the state of Texas.

Mr. Deshotel backs his opinion from a recent post by motherjones.com who quotes from the Washington Monthly in an article titled "Texas Turns Out to be Not so Miraculous After All." Mr. Deshotel iterates how that even though California has a high unemployment rate, Texas' middle and poor classes are paying higher taxes. From the same article he also mentions that the tax rate for the middle and poor classes pay nearly 4 times more than the upper class citizens of Texas. Deshotel continues to state facts about how Texas Governor Rick Perry has been "poaching jobs" from California by creating state incentives, such as lower taxes, for big name companies to move to Texas. Two of these state incentives are called the "Texas Enterprise Fund and Emerging Technology Fund" which has gotten many companies from California to relocate to progressive major cities like Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. This is one of the reasons so many people believe that is experiencing an economic boom.

It's hard to say what the right steps are in making Texas’ economy fair across the board for all residents. Questions like "should we implement a state income tax?" or "should we raise the taxes of the upper class?" come into mind. Some might say "let just scrap the entire thing and start fresh... lets copy *insert a state's name* economic style." I think it's really a matter of informing the Texas citizens the issues of the economy and encouraging them to vote for leaders who will be proactive in the betterment of Texas. Who knows if Texans will ever "wake up" and realize how we live in a state that only provides high taxes and low services.

APD and the arrest of a Jogger

    On Sunday, Feb. 23, 2014, dailytexanonline.com, published an article titled "APD Police chief's comments on arrest of jogger are alarmingly aggressive" written by the Daily Texan Editorial Board, a group comprised of the Editor-in-chief and associated staff members. The Editorial Board gives their opinion on how they feel about APD's Police Chief non-complacent reaction to the incident and how he doesn't listen to the public opinion. They go into how the Police Chief would rather have the public angry at him and his officers than to have a "young person lose their life needlessly." From this statement the Editorial Board goes to back their statement of how aggressive the Police Chief statements are.

     The Daily Texan Editorial Board goes to say that the APD Police Chief has hurt the public's trust of the police by restating his comment of him saying "in other cities there’s cops who are actually committing sexual assaults on duty, so I thank God that this is what passes for a controversy in Austin, Texas." From this the Editorial board dissects the statement and tells their readers that it shows how the Police Chief had considered this incident something rather minor compared to other cities around the nation. Another quote that they use from the Police Chief, Art Acevedo, is him saying "quite frankly, she wasn’t charged with resisting, and she was lucky I wasn’t the arresting officer because I wouldn’t have been quite as generous." This further helps in their opinion that the Police Chief comments were so called alarmingly aggressive. The Daily Texan would rather have a police department that would foster public awareness of safety issues through a mechanism than "instilling fear in the people they’re supposed to assist."

In my opinion, I would have to disagree with the Daily Texan's claims that the public has lost trust in the Austin Police Department and that the Police Chief's comments were aggressive. I think that the Police Chief had responded in a logical way. Compared to many other cities in the nation, Austin, TX ranks second in the nation as one of the safest cities to live in according to one of our own local news channels. From that statistic, I think its safe to say that we, as Austinites, put a lot of trust in the Austin Police Department to keep Austin one of the best places to live in the United States.Though Police Chief Art Acevedo's comments could be considered a little harsh, the Daily Texas took it a little too negatively. If the Police Chief were to respond in a nice and comfortable way, he would only be lying to himself and to the public about the realities. I want to say that the targeted audience for this article was probably for people who hate the police or people who feel that the police abuse their authority. All I can say about this incident is that it made something minor into something big because of social media sites like facebook and youtube blow things out of proportions and cause people to greatly react. My last thought that leaves me before the end of this post is...Will I ever be in a situation like this that will make me agree with the Daily Texan? Only time will tell.

Obamacare Troubles for Central Texas Refugees

On Saturday, Feb. 8, 2014, KUT.org published an article titled Refugees in Texas Face Hurdles Signing Up for Obamacare Plans. The article explains how Central Texas Refugees are having trouble signing up for the Obamacare Plans. According to the article, many of the refugees do not speak English and are having difficulties going through the many English text web pages on the healthcare.gov website. The article continues to stress that all people, who are in the United States legally, must have health insurance by the end of March 2014 or otherwise pay a tax penalty by next year, 2015.

I believe that this article is worth a read because it affects not only refugees in Central Texas, but also all people in the United States. It shows that the system is somewhat flawed and forgot to consider other factors like refugees coming from countries like Nepal. I think that these refugees should be given more time to be able to understand what they are signing up for, since the English language was not their first language. It’s unfair for them to be penalized with a tax penalty so soon when they just arrived in the United States. One whole month, starting from February and ending in March, is not a lot of time for people to adjust to a whole new culture of life. Hopefully our country's lawmakers will realized this mistake and come up with a suitable solution that will not be too overbearing on these newly relocated people. So the question now is... What will the Texas Government do, to help alleviate these difficulties? Only time will tell...