Major revisions

I decided to use my paradigm shift essay to make major revisions on. I focused on my argument and the narrative of the essay.

For my argument,

1. I moved the paragraph starting with "Although our society has never been as advanced as it is now" from after the paragraph starting with "While the 1950s" to before.
2. I went into further specifics regarding the "numerous epidemics" I talked about.
3. I removed a piece of information that didn't substantiate my claim. There was a statistic that showed an increase in government spending on researching integrative medicine which is a combination of drug treatments along with other forms of alternative treatments like acupuncture. This was located at the end of the paragraph beginning with, "according to the University of Maryland" Government spending has almost nothing to do with public attitudes toward homeopathics.

For the narrative,

1. I added a hook. I added a hook that focused on the absurdity of the homeopathic ideology. The doctor tells you what your symptoms are and prescribes nothing - homeopathic medicines are usually so dilute that there is nothing except sugar in them.
2. I added a transition between paragraphs 5 and now 7. This link serves to move from the popular sphere to the scientific sphere of the understanding of the mechanisms of disease. The transition begins: "It would have been difficult to predict"
3. I added a transition between the second to last paragraph and the last paragraph. This now summarizes the shift between science and homeopathy more concisely and allows a smoother move into the conclusion.
4. To improve the flow I fixed up weird sounding sentences and corrected grammar.

Advocacy #2

The purpose of my advocacy project is to evoke more public concern regarding American foreign policy in Syria. I would also encourage the American people, my audience, to be more critical of hawkish politicians on both sides of the aisle.

 My partner would be the Gatestone Institute. I chose the Gatestone Institute because they support a strong public knowledge of foreign affairs. From the Gatestone Institute website:

Gatestone Institute, a non-partisan, not-for-profit international policy council and think tank is dedicated to educating the public.

I think these ideas would gain the most traction as a video. A video is most useful because it's accessible and easily shareable. Other modes may be more intimate, but a video would reach more people and it would perhaps get a more widespread conversation started.

I will primarily be using the rhetorical strategies of pathos and logos. I will use pathos to get the audience to wonder why Trump took the action he did. I'm thinking of using footage of helpless victims in Syrian government gas attacks. And perhaps more footage of President Trump choking on words justifying the missile strike.

Issue Brief Beginnings

Draft of Exordium (The hook)
In early April, President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, was confirmed to the US Supreme Court. However, this was done by the forceful nuclear option. Supreme Court nominees were once subject to the filibuster, prior to the recent Senate rule-change. Our country depends on the system of checks and balances that provide stability in an increasingly divided nation. If President Trump has the ability to nominate more originalist judges to the Supreme Court, like Gorsuch, these balances would begin to strain. Such nominations would drastically change the path of our democracy long after the Trump administration.

Partition of Issue Brief

• Introduction/brief history
• Overview of idea of the filibuster
• Important vocabulary: Majority, simple majority, minority, cloture...
• Most recent Senate rule change
• History of Senate rule changes regarding filibuster
• Filibuster used in the House of Representatives until 1824
• History of filibuster in the Roman Senate
• Defining the problem
• Filibuster is on the rise: graphics, explanation
• Significance
• Popular Senate tactics used in the past
• How were those dealt with
• Dealing with the filibuster in other countries
• Solution proposition

Narrative (The story)
The rules have changed. Thesis. The Senate used to be like this... If you go back 2000 years we will see how this tactic lead to the demise of the Roman civilization. The problem with the current system is this: ... Looking to history for possible solutions: how were similar senate tactics dealt with. Looking to other countries for inspiration. What can be learned from these solutions. The solution.

Thesis: Unchecked, the filibuster is a senate tool that is potentially dangerous to our democracy. The power of the filibuster must be limited to improve the productivity of our judicial and legislative bodies.

Advocacy Project #1

For my advocacy project, I'm thinking of creating a short video to simplify the Syrian civil war and all the conflicts of interest it creates. The exigence for my advocacy piece would be the recent United States missile strike of a Syrian air base.

My audience would be the American public. I would be advocating for the American public to be more knowledgeable regarding the Syrian civil war. The current American public knowledge of the crisis is that Assad is bad and the Syrian rebels are good. And that Russia is bad for supporting Assad. That's about it. The conflict is way more complicated than that. One of Trump's campaign promises was to defeat ISIS. If President Trump is to defeat ISIS American troops would need to be deployed in Syria - further complicating things. The American people need to know how this would shake up the current conflict and what exactly the American interests are in Syria. The goal of my project would be to show the complexity of the issue concisely - hopefully in less than 2 minutes.

I'm thinking I can use the Gatestone Institute: International Policy Council for the home of this piece. According to the website, The Gatestone Institute promotes:

• Institutions of Democracy and the Rule of Law;
• Human Rights
• A free and strong economy
• A military capable of ensuring peace at home and in the free world
• Energy independence
• Ensuring the public stay informed of threats to our individual liberty, sovereignty and free speech.

One constraint for my PSA will be making sure to address one or more of these tenets. Other important constraints are time, and simplistic word choice - that's not demeaning.

Review of Deliberation

Deliberation: Electoral College

The deliberation event I attended was at Webster's Bookstore and the topic was the Electoral College. The exigence for this topic was the election of Donald Trump through the electoral college rather than Hillary Clinton by the popular vote. The question we were to deliberate was:
Should we change the Electoral College system? If so, how?

I thought this topic would have lead to a polarizing uncomfortable debate fueled by party politics and name-calling. That would have been exciting - but unfortunately that didn't happen, to the benefit of the group.

The venue for the deliberation was not ideal. Webster's Bookstore is a cramped location, especially on a Sunday afternoon. The deliberation began with the moderators standing on a stage 10 feet in front of those participating. It was hard to hear the presenters, although they were standing on a stage. Because it was hard to hear, the group improvised and sent a team member to each of the 4 tables to help moderate the discussion.

The first "option" the deliberators discussed was to keep the Electoral College as it is. The second "option" the deliberators discussed was to get rid of the electoral college and create a new system. Those were the only two "options." For this deliberation we weren't discussing specific ways the electoral system could be improved in each approach and which the audience liked most. Instead, through these options the moderators asked: is it good or bad and what would you propose? This lead to little to no direction to the deliberation-which was bad. It seemed as if there was no room for consensus, in the cramped dungeon of Webster's Bookstore.

For the first "option" my group quickly agreed that we should keep the points given out to each state and remove the electors. The group agreed that the electors just add another layer of complexity that isn't needed. We thought this was the best solution because it gives smaller states some power over more populous ones. There was one person who disagreed with that proposal and thought that after winning some percentage of the popular vote the electoral college should be ignored. But he also thought that electoral college should be used below a popular vote percentage threshold.

For the second "option" my group, with some direction from the moderator realized that the viability of the electoral college depends on the proportionality of the electoral votes. So we asked the question of how electoral votes are proportioned to the moderator. The moderator told us that they are given out by population with an additional two electors given to each state for senators. So the group agreed that if the two electoral votes, given to states for senators, were removed the electoral system would be more fair, i.e. more proportional.

To wrap up the deliberation and try to bring the groups back together, a representative from each team explained what was discussed in each small group. Every group believed that the electoral college was the best way to determine the president, with small tweaks, except one. That group thought enough representation was given to the small states in congress. No overall consensus was reached, but most people thought the current system was good enough.

Recommendations:

• Webster's Bookstore should no longer be used as a venue for deliberations. However, if there are no other places avaliable, give the moderators microphones or even more dramatic: MEGAPHONES.
• For deliberation events groups need to be more specific in their approaches to give direction to the deliberation.

This I Believe Speech

I believe in picking out my own Christmas presents. The semester has just begun. And the Christmas season is now another year away. I greatly enjoyed the time with family and close friends I was able to have. But, I'm happy it's over. Waste. That's what Christmas is. It's one incredible, unbelievable, exhorbitant waste.

Now, don't be scared. I'm not a baby-eating grinch-terminator. Although, some may call me a heartless cyborg. I'm just a picky person. And if you're a human you too are picky. We want what we want when we want it, it's in our nature. You can deny it all you want, but it's a fact. And this is how Christmas is wasteful. We spend all this time trying to find the perfect gift for someone but to no avail:

Either it's not what they wanted or they already have it or they value their gift as much as you paid for it. From my experience, it's usually the first case. Would removing this gift deliberation ruin the spirit of Christmas? No it absolutely wouldn't. The spirit of Christmas is about spending time with people you love.

I believe in limiting the time needed to wait. To wait for anything. Waiting at the doctor's office. Waiting for the CATABUS. Waiting at a green light. Seriously people? While we wait we limit our productivity - somethings you just can't do on a 4 inch phone screen and gloves. We limit our growth, our lives.

This philosophy of efficiency has been instilled in my since I was a little kid. By the time of my 4th birthday I had been diagnosed with a progressive disease known as Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. This disease wastes my muscles away with overuse. The diagnosis has taught me to save as much usage of my muscles as I can. I have learned when to expend energy and when to ask for help. I have learned to be efficient with my own energy and strength. The hope of a cure also has its inherent inefficiencies. The science involved is not close to efficient. It involves making progress, realizing a certain path doesn't have merit, going back and revising the experiment. This process continues until a breakthrough is made. Then long periods of testing on mice are needed before human testing can begin. Then for drugs to be produced there is a long process to getting a treatment approved.

I believe in a world without struggle, without pain. I believe in a world that runs like clockwork. Never missing a second, never skipping a beat. If I lived in a world with 100% efficiency this would be reality. There would be no war. There would be equal wealth distribution. There would be enough calories for every living human. There would be limited diseases. It would be an almost perfect world.

But in reality. Maybe all we really need are busses that stick to their schedules. The universe is and always will be full of chaos. 100% efficiency is impossible. Although unattainable it is what I believe we should strive to reach. I believe in efficiency and its power.

This I Believe & Civic Issues

Civic Issues:

Affirmative Action

• I did a project on this in 12th grade. I have a reasonable knowledge of the issues regarding affirmative action. I would do a blog on the history that led to the adoption of several affirmative action laws. A blog on the legal issues regarding affirmative action, the idea that this policy could be considered racist. A blog on the problems that affirmative action can bring about in education. A blog on the current cases against and for affirmative action. And a final blog on fixing the current affirmative action system.

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This I Believe:

Efficiency

• I like things to flow like clockwork - I believe in order
• I believe in heartless capitalism
• We should limit public goods
• No minimum wage
• Limiting waste
• Efficient energy use/creation
• Nuclear power plants

A no-party government system

• Introduce the history of our government system
• Why I feel its important
• This would lead to a more cooperative government.
• People would know where they stand on issues rather than just siding with "their" party.
• Perhaps this falls into efficiency?