A long, long time ago, I asked Kyle King exactly what the civic issues blogs were supposed to be and be about. During his explanation, Kyle briefly mentioned that the civic issues blogs may tie in later to a persuasion and advocacy unit. At that time, I was still a bit in the dark and hazy about what to write about for my civic issues blogs. Since winter break had just recently come to an end and all three films that I had seen during that time (Frozen, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Fight Club) were controversial in one way or another, I had decided to focus on the portrayal of controversial content (especially violence) in the arts (usually films and video games). This past Wednesday though, when the persuasion and advocacy unit finally came around, I realized that it may be difficult to develop my initial ideas for this particular unit, since it focuses on policy. Fortunately, as Kyle has noticed many times, I have a knack for coming up with unusual connections between very unlike concepts, and this time, it was no different.

My persuasion and advocacy project is likely going to focus on the protection of our first amendment rights, in particular both literal and metaphorical free speech. As I noted in my civic issues blog this week, such violations against free expression are common in other parts of the world. However, I am going to focus on violations right here in America, where unfortunately they go more unnoticed. Some examples include the following:

In the aftermath of 9-11, Americans were very galvanized for some form of revenge, even if they were not entirely sure where to vent their frustrations. George W. Bush decided to use Iraq as a target for this frustration, claiming that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein had close ties and that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction even though the latter was not true, and Osama and Saddam hated each other. Journalists who tried to argue against possible action in Iraq were immediately fired, blackballed, and out of a job for prolonged periods of time. While I know that 9-11 can be touchy subject for many, I firmly denounce our actions in Iraq and believe that targeting those who argue against our unnecessary brutality in that country is simply wrong.

Voter ID laws that would require all voters to show photo identification is legislation strongly proposed by Republicans, who claim that they want to stop vote fraud. However, a lot of Democrats argue that this is a political move to limit Democrat power since minorities and the less wealthy tend to support Democrats but sometimes lack the resources for proper photo ID. Without photo ID, some of this nation’s poor and minorities will never have their voices heard.

As noted by Tupac Shakur, Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Quentin Tarantino, the modern drug laws in America, started by none other than Richard Nixon, focus more on putting African Americans behind bars rather than attempting to destroy the drug economy. In fact, more African American adults are currently behind bars than were enslaved in 1850 (The Civil War started in 1861. Source: http://rapgenius.com/Kanye-west-new-slaves-lyrics). When African Americans are behind bars, they lose not only their freedom but also their metaphorical voice.

Please let me know what you all think! Thanks! If anyone wants to work with me together on this (I will switch over to your topic if I can connect with it), please let me know.

With just a few days left before our “This I Believe” podcasts are due, it is perhaps time for me to reflect on how far I have come and how far I still have to go if I wish to make my podcast better.

An aspect of my TIB that I have been performing relatively well at is providing good examples in order to support the “argument” that I present through my beliefs. My way of thinking about life and death is rather different from most people’s and as such required a good bit of explanation in order to make it more tangible for readers and listeners. In particular, I provide examples that I have encountered in life (and one from history) where the nature of death becomes very clear and its implications for life, or at least the implications that I see, become very evident and show how and why I think about death the way I do. This helps me to build my ethos as someone who knows what he is talking about and is ready to back it up with good examples so that the audience can gain a better understanding of my perspective on life and death.

Some things that I still need to work on hinge on the fact that my views are rather unconventional and that most people may not be able to immediately fully comprehend what I am trying to explain. The very nature of my views distances myself from the reader, and so part of my challenge is to close this gap. My explanation regarding my challenge to my former teacher’s grasp at ethos through fatherhood and age is perhaps a bit fuzzy and could use some better explanation and clarification. Some people might find my views harmful, seeing them as facets of an unrestrained “carpe diem” lifestyle that disregards all care for the future. This is not at all what I truly believe in, and so some more elaboration on this front will be needed. Finally, my introduction could use a little bit more work as it starts off rather bland and may fail to capture a reader and/or listener’s attention.