Immigration based on merit

I disagree with Long Kieu about having a merit based immigration process. I think there should be some base line knowledge requirement of the language of the country you are wanting to immigrate to and have some sort of useful skill that can contribute to that society.

Immigration is an undeniable problem that has yet to be completely solved. Too many people from other foreign nations are coming into America putting stress on the economy and taking jobs. It’s quite a common saying that is now the topic of debate between many politician and political news outlet and besides of the debate have well developed points of arguments. Sure, most unskilled jobs are unappealing to Americans but if our immigration is held in check the demand of unskilled labor will increase which will result in a surge of wage making them more desirable. Furthermore, facing a choice between an unappealing occupation versus unemployment and facing poverty, most Americans will probably choose the first. We need to focus on raising the poverty line and building a more solid economy rather than let lightly screened immigrant in who tend to send money American dollars back to their own country to their family.

Everything in this country has been based on merit. For example, the civil rights movement was a campaign to end discrimination on sex and race, instead it advocated for equality and to base people on their merit. Everything that the government has implemented such as financial aid, a free education, and tax breaks for the less fortunate has serve the purpose to help level out the playing field so that less fortunate citizens may achieve their full potential bettering their situation and contribution to society. The flaw in Trump’s immigration plan is the basis towards age which should not be a factor if merit is the main decider of immigration. A system that allows for floods of unqualified people into the country can only contribute to poverty and worsen the burden of the government’s task to improving the economy. 

Liberals are to blame for Trump!

On Thursday, August 3, 2017, the Townhall published an article titled Left-Wing Silencers Are Addicted to Unhinged Outrage, Which OnlyHelps Trump

Guy Benson, the author of the article and the book End of Discussion, examines how a large part of Trump’s election is thanks to extreme liberals. Throughout the article he makes many references to his book as the source of evidence to his argument and mainly backs up his reasoning with personal presumptions and over generalizations based on singular cases.

Benson claims one of the largest factors of Trump’s presidency is that conservatives were sick of getting bullied by leftist’s political correctness allegations. Liberals were ending the discussion before they can even take place by putting conservatives in the wrong and taking their voice away. People voted for Trump for his refreshing demeanor on the media, saying whatever he wanted and getting away with it. People were tired of tiptoeing around sensitive topics and like the guy for his straight forward and blunt attitude.

I think Benson is right in a sense that political correctness has gone out of control. Although it is important to respect everyone it is equally important to have a discussion of why such derogatory terms are still being use and address the issue rather than crucify people for their slip ups and making it taboo to go near sensitive subjects. Censoring certain topics does the opposite effect of alleviating the situation as unspoken words are buried and bottled up instead of putting them in the open where we can evaluate and address the issue together.

However, Benson seems to be playing the blame game of pushing the responsibility of voting in Trump’s horrid administration on to liberals. It’s childish and unreasonable for Benson to blame liberals for his own political party’s actions as it is counterintuitive and only creates a bigger rift in the bipartisan divide. There is no doubt that President Trump was the nominated candidate of the Republicans by their own choosing and although it’s easy to try to push the blame on to other people and point fingers for their own actions, they need to take responsibility and realize the damage he’s done and the promises he’s broken. Instead of looking for someone to accuse we should be taking the first steps of closing the divide and coming up with ways of fixing the problem together. Perhaps Trump will make America great again and unite the nation as it’ll take both parties working together to correct the many mistakes he’s made.

Re: Normalcy Not Nostrums, Fifth Blog

Although I agree with the author of the blog Normalcy Not Nostrums in their fifth blog post about how the current funds reward system to schools are based on standardize test scores is a bad system that ultimately widens the gap between “good” and “bad” schools, I do not share the same opinion of standardize testing themselves as I think they serve as a good benchmark for gauging the readiness of students. For example, most of these standardize tests include a reading comprehension, essay, and math problem section, which are used to estimate a student’s preparedness in them pursue in higher academia.

No matter what career or occupation people decide to choose to pursue, any job requires a base line capability of being able to take in data and information and understand those appropriate subjects. This is what the reading comprehension part of the section in indirectly tests. This capability is a necessity especially if a student is planning to attend college where courses require you to be able to absorb large amounts of boring long texts to be able to relate to more complex ideas.

Math problems happen to be a very sufficient may of testing problem solving skills as you are given a limited amount of information and must try to work out a solution with pertain prior knowledge. This skill is essential in almost everything we do, problems occur not only in the professional and academic life but can arise anywhere and anytime and being able to deal with such problems with a limited amount of resource is a prerequisite to being an adult.

The essay portion allows colleges and the state to know how articulate their students are as they need to show they can get across an idea or argument under stressful and timed conditions. This is quite useful in real world such as writing emails, presenting to an audience, or just general writing communication.

I think these tests are needed so schools know what to work on with students to better prepare them for, however it should not be a determinate to how the federal funds their school as they will give the least money to the schools that need the most help. 

Ryan same as Boehner

On Thursday, July 27, 2017The Washington Monthly posted an article titled: Soon Paul Ryan will Boehner Himself 

The author of the article, Martin Longman, makes a very compelling argument that Paul Ryan will end up the same as John Boehner very soon. The article gives a great set of reasons why Longman believes Ryan’s downfall is inevitable. Longman is quite well versed in the political schematics and is very capable of explaining the inner workings of the political system to the everyday citizens, helping the reader understand his perception of the mistakes Ryan is making and the same pattern of Boehner he is repeating. The evidence he uses are very credible and flows with his argument and he presents them in a way that his audience begins to identify the same line of reasoning as his line of argument.

Just as Boehner lost his job as the speaker of the house, Ryan looks to be heading down the same path as he did. Although the two men are in different situations, they both are unable to govern the legislative branch. Boehner refused to strike any sort of deals with the democrats and failed to govern with the majority he had which led to his downfall. Ryan is now caught in the same situation but with a far more organized and defiant centrists group. These centrists are now fed up and have been disrupting the political process as much as they can such as sinking bills and decimating legislature plans as they are done with jeopardizing their reelection chances where they are mandated to take votes that are against what they believe. In addition, another difference in Ryan and Boehner is there corresponding president. Where Obama focused on trying to unite the two parties, Trump only drove them apart, putting more pressure on the centrists who in turn are becoming more organized in order to stall the system. Trump leans further and further to the right as he tries to secure the super religious conservatives to prevent his polls to fall so low where impeachment may actually become a reality. Without the democrats, the centralists, and with trump alienating more and more republicans, Ryan is incapable of accomplishing anything resulting in his following of Boehner’s footsteps which we can all easily predict where that will lead him.

Tweet results in angry article

On Thursday, January 20, 2017, the Daily Kos published an article titled Dear Senate Republicans: Your leadership has no respect for you

This article is based on a tweet from twitter about a quote by Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn who allegedly said “That’s a luxury we don’t have when asked “don’t some people want to know the plan before they vote”. This puts the senator in a pretty bad spotlight but to be fair, the quote was taken out of context as only snippets of the conversation is presented.

The author of the tweet Kelsey Snell is a reporter from The Washington Post, a left leaning media outlet which gives reason that she may be partial to democrats and hold prejudice towards Republican senators.

The article is quite short and full of the author’s own presumptions and opinion of the matter. The lack of reliable sources and facts, coupled with the heavy usage of derogatory vocabulary makes the article quite cringe worthy and seemingly not very credible. Although you can surely tell the author is very passionate, the article appeared more like an outlet for their frustration rather than professional journalism. There was definitely a better way to report the issue and the senator’s comments instead of having the stand-alone source from a tweet that was taken out of context. Instead of dissecting the issue and searching for a more reliable source such as tracing back to when that comment in what conversation, the author jumped the gun and started making allegations. The author’s intended audience are definitely liberals and conservatives frustrated with how the GOP plans on healthcare are going right now.