The Art of the Essay

In 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously desired that people, “not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Although in 1947 society as a whole was still fighting for equality, the sporting world had applied Dr. Martin Luther King’s advice nearly sixteen years before this speech was made.  While the sporting world lives within society, it is also a unique sphere within its own that enables change in the greater society.  Despite the expressed disproval of many, the American sporting world became integrated in 1947 when the Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson. The sporting world often serves as a facilitator for racial integration due to the competitive nature of sports leagues where talent can be judged by statistics rather than by color.  However, there still remains underlying discrimination in the sports community that is representative of the larger society.

A major reason that integration in the sporting world often precedes integration in society is because running a sports team is a business.  Because of this, societal views of discrimination often come secondary to the necessity of winning.  In order to win, teams need the best possible players regardless of race.  In the MLB, there was never a rule banning players of color, rather there was a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ among the managers in the league to not sign African American players.  When the owner of the Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson he did so because he believed that Jackie Robinson possessed enough talent and character to help the Dodgers win.  Not because of color.  Once signed, Jackie Robinson appeared in 6 All-Star games, won the MVP award, and was eventually elected into the Hall of Fame in 1962.  Because of Jackie Robinson’s success, many owners around the league decided that they would rather win more games than continue to discriminate.  Thus, by the time of Robinson’s retirement in 1956, all but 3 teams in the league had signed African American players.

Seeing black athletes compete alongside white athletes ultimately had a profound impact on the civil rights movement.  In sports, fans often have a deep connection to the team they root for.  When a black player plays for a team fans have spent their whole life supporting, suddenly the white fans find themselves rooting for black players because they are helping their team win.  Not only are these fans supporting someone of another race, they are paying money to see them play (and also helping pay their salary).  This is how sports are able to defy racial boundaries as fans and players alike can unite under one cause: winning.  Despite the fact that sports have united many and struck down racial boundaries, there still exist inequalities within the sporting world that are a result of deeper societal issues.

This disguised discrimination can be referred to as covert discrimination, and is much harder to fix.  This discrimination results from different supply curves for the labor.  In the NFL, black players represent 67% of the league, however only 16% of coaches are black.  Furthermore, in the NCAA men’s basketball 65% of players are black, yet only 19% of coaches are black.  The cause of this discrimination is harder to identify than simply societal values.  One theory as to why this disparity exists is because white players seem to dominate the more skilled positions that lead to coaching jobs.  For example, in 2012 78% of NFL quarterbacks were white, and 82% of centers were white.  These are often considered the most skilled positions in the NFL, and as a result coaches often come from players of these positions that are dominated by white players.  Therefore a majority of coaches are white.

While the dispersion of coaches and players in critical positions may seem trivial, its causes have very real representations in society.  For example, the median income for blacks ($33,321) is significantly lower than that for whites, ($57,009).  This does not result from discrimination where jobs pay whites more than blacks for the same labor.  Rather, the results found in this data can be traced to educational levels.  According to the 2013 census, 5,217,000 whites obtained a professional or doctorate degree, compared to a mere 369,000 blacks.  Thus, the underlying problem in income distribution is not due to race discrimination; rather it is caused by educational discrepancies.  Furthermore, this problem is not a self-correcting one as people with lower incomes are less likely to invest in education.  It is very difficult to fix a situation such as this where discrimination does not result from societal views, rather from societal circumstances.

Our society has made tremendous strides in terms of social equality since Jackie Robinson first entered Major League Baseball.  Despite the freedom and equality that exists on paper, our society has still not become entirely equal.  Many blacks remain discriminated due to preexisting social conditions.  However, it is almost impossible to correct this system.  Many universities enacted affirmative action plans to facilitate fixing this problem, however in some cases this can lead to reverse discrimination.  Eventually, through time and individual efforts, our society will hopefully become totally equal without any discrimination.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/history/mlb_negro_leagues_profile.jsp?player=robinson_jackie

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/robinja02.shtml

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-median-income-in-the-us-by-race-2013-9

http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/2013/tables.html

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/econ/faculty/Vrooman/Racial%20Distribution%20of%20Players%20and%20Head%20Coaches%202012.pdf

“If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.”

Winston Churchill

As citizens of the United States, we place our faith and a fair share of our fortunes in the hands of the government in the interest of our own protection and for the common good of our people. With our consent and monetary contribution, our government at the federal, state, and local levels provides us with certain necessary services, among which are national security, infrastructure such as roads and municipalities, as well as the creation and enforcement of the laws by which our society is to abide. The latter is my concern for this essay, as myself and my classmates have called into question the nature and effectiveness of our set of laws and the legal system in place to carry it out. It is in my interest to question this system and its growing influence in our everyday lives. Laws which were intended to protect and serve us have evolved into methods of dictating our behavior and have taken on far too large a role in our personal affairs.

First, it is necessary to address the origin of laws and how it has affected the rules we follow. Our founding fathers penned the first laws of our nation in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights not as means of controlling the people but rather with a mind to protect individual freedom and prevent the type of overreaching government which they had recently fought to emancipate themselves and their fellow Americans from. It is here that my curiosity is first sparked as to how, over the first two and a half centuries of our nation’s existence, some of the laws which govern us now were incorporated into the protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Surely our legislative and legal systems have evolved over that time, however perhaps in this instance not for the best.

Today, we see laws enacted and enforced, or not, for reasons of political gain and as results of expensive lobbies in Washington and financial pressures from Wall Street. One would be hard pressed to look back to the founding documents of our Nation and find any basis for laws restricting the size of our fountain drinks. Yet even less trivial examples apply. Perhaps laws regarding more serious societal issues such as drugs and alcohol, immigration, and others, too, could be called into question when evaluated from a more conservative, constitutional point of view. Do we, today, abide by laws because they are just, or out of fear of the repercussions, and what does this distinction mean to us as individuals?

People derive their morals and values from a variety of sources. Be it from religious teachings, ancient philosophy, family tradition, or even from our Bill of Rights, the majority of people have a sense of right and wrong and a reasoning behind such beliefs. Somewhere along the line, though, the laws and their respective consequences set forth by the government took precedence over morality, decency, and respect for thy neighbor. Too many people today live not to uphold their own moral standard, but rather to abide by laws out of fear of the consequences. Is there no more guilt without punishment?

This is certainly not to say that all laws are unjust. It should be held true without even being said that one should not murder or steal, yet with or without government enforcement, homicides and thefts still occur. Surely one would like to believe that our fellow citizens would drive safely even without speed limits, traffic laws, and the threat of DUI charges, but who is to say if it would truly be so? My argument lies not in an attack against our government or our legal system, but rather against those who have forgotten the values of accountability and respect for one another. Handicapped parking spaces should be left vacant not out of fear of a parking ticket, but rather out of respect and compassion for those for whom the spaces are marked. Laws will be passed and struck down; important and significant laws, as well as trivial and ineffective ones. Nonetheless, it is our responsibility to live in a manner that protects the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of all people and furthers the common good, not out of fear of the consequences but instead because we owe it to ourselves and to one another as a society and as Americans.

Dan Petrovitch

February 1st, 2014

Susan Schorn’s article “Sorry, Thank You, Please.” is exactly the type of piece her column’s name promises its readers: “Bitchslap: A Column About Women and Fighting.” It starts off promising, as she immediately establishes an irrefutable pathos through her blunt portrayal of David Albert Mitchell’s monstrosity. As I was reading the piece, I became more and more uncomfortable as she continued to expound upon the “violent offender’s” various assaults, rapes, and killings. I could sense her gaining more and more influence over my opinions, especially as she described him, “[haunting] the margins of a community, terrifying everyone and picking off the most vulnerable.” She efficiently and eloquently cleared the first rung of writing an effective persuasive essay through her depiction of Mitchell: I was transformed from a cynical, apprehensive first time reader into a thirsty apostle, ready to slurp up any valid conclusion or solution that she might present throughout the rest of the essay. But despite her clear intentions to lead the charge in a bold new fight for the well-being and safety of women, she simply doesn’t follow through. She never puts her carefully constructed pathos to the proper use, and instead chooses to lead her captivated readers to nothing more than inappropriate conclusions and weak pleas for action.

Don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t question her motivations for writing the piece, as I believe that her heart was in the right place, and that her true goals for the essay were to offer her sincere condolences to broken assault victims, to thank them for arbitrarily and unwittingly bearing the primary burden in the vicious battle to reduce such assaults, and to beg for the arrival of a savior who can fix the inadequate police protection and court systems. But her execution is definitely flawed, as she ends up presenting these civil protection infrastructures as more of a problem than a solution. Although she does an applaudable job of conveying the full extent of Mitchell’s evil, she never quite manages to analyze his crimes as results of his natural depravity. She treats Mitchell as a phenomenon who should be understood, accepted for what he is, and taken as a given, while she defames the police and the court systems of West Virginia, Florida, Oklahoma, North Carolina, South Carolina, and New York as failed “public safety apparatus[es].” To insightful readers, her attempts to construct an alternate reality in which the cops and lawyers are more to blame than the actual killer should seem ridiculous. It is dangerous to vilify the people whose job it is to protect the weak; and it is paramount to maintain the proper perspective, to recognize the severe difference between the deranged and criminal cause of the misery and the merely inefficient and insufficient, yet undoubtedly positive and indispensable, response to that misery.

It would have been more appropriate for Schorn to condemn these institutions in the manner that she did had she offered any feasible solutions that might solve this crisis. But she did not, and therefore her article comes off as more whiney than well-meaning, more modern media white noise than effective journalistic problem solving. She challenges West Virginia’s “crappy” police protection and court systems, which can’t even enable, “a community to protect its little old ladies from a serial rapist and murderer.” Yet her ultimate call to action is no more than a meek, “You know better than we do what needs to happen. We want to help. Just ask us. Please.” This meager excuse of a solution is a reiteration of her earlier plea: “Could we please try to do better next time? Police officers, detectives, DAs, prosecutors, social workers–please: Tell us how we prevent this.”

Even if she had presented some appropriately developed solutions that could really fix this widespread problem of inept public safety systems, her voice would struggle to be heard. The incredible breadth of controversial issues our society faces, combined with the incredible depth of all types of news and editorial coverage of such issues, would all but seal her article’s fate as another faltering trumpet of progress in an unbearably loud orchestra of misfortune; but her complete inability to present tangible answers in response to her tragically tangible questions completely ensures this fate. Her article loses its kick by the end, and her once pathos-driving, artistic portrait of Mitchell’s evil is rendered ineffective, aesthetic fluff. Schorn begins writing something that has the potential to shake the reader’s reality, and, in the process, rally legions upon legions of dedicated troops to help her fight her good fight. But she finishes with something that lacks the necessary conviction or substance to suppress even one ripple in the terrifying and tumultuous sea of violence and evil that surrounds our little island.

“[N]or shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” This is the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Throughout history, this clause has been widely considered a fundamental right, security for those who have already been accused and tried for their alleged wrongdoings. However, many recent court proceedings and not-guilty verdicts have enraged many members of the national community, making this little-understood clause the recipient of a lot of public attention. Is it possible that such a safeguard could, in fact, be hurting our legal system more than it is helping it?

First, we must understand exactly what the double jeopardy clause declares. It prohibits the government from prosecuting a person a second time for the same transgression after he or she has already been tried, acquitted, or convicted or if a judge prematurely terminated his or her first trial. Further, it protects a person from multiple punishments in successive proceedings for the same offence. It has been historically embedded within numerous societies: the Greeks, the Romans, the English. The basic concept of double jeopardy has almost always been widely understood and employed. And rightfully so. It inherently does rightfully protect those who have paid their dues to the legal system. However, it is possible for cases to slip through the cracks, allowing the double jeopardy clause to protect those who are inadvertently cheating the system.

Let’s consider the OJ Simpson trial of 1995, perhaps the most recognizable trial tied to double jeopardy. The former professional football star and actor was tried in the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, his ex-wife and her friend. Despite a large body of evidence, at the end of this year-long trial, Simpson was acquitted, enraging the general public. Eleven years later, it was discovered Simpson was offered a one million dollar publishing advance for a book titled “If I Did It.” This book was meant to be a first-person account of how he could have killed Brown Simpson and Goldman. However, this collection of “hypothetical” descriptions of the killings included graphic and detailed scenes that seemed more like a confession than a fictitious story.

Or we can consider the Isaac Turnbaugh cause of 2004. This American Flatbread employee was accused of the first-degree murder of his coworker, Declan Lyons. He was tried and acquitted when his lawyer was able to raise reasonable doubt. In 2011, Turnbaugh allegedly called police in Montpelier, VT and confessed to the murder of Lyons, including details and speculations of the crime that had not been released to the public or discussed during the trial.

In both of these cases, and several more, the double jeopardy clause is attached, therefore forbidding the legal system from trying any of the accused again for conviction with new evidence. While many times this seems unfair—how can we continue to employ double jeopardy if it allows murderers to walk free?—there is a simple answer: It works many more times than it fails. For the small number of people who get to walk away scot-free, there are much larger numbers of people who are rightfully punished and rightfully acquitted.

Additionally, it promotes the right to a fair trial, the Sixth Amendment. By giving the legal system one opportunity to convict, it encourages law enforcers and prosecutors to make their best case the first time. It allows the defendant a thorough investigation and sound indictment with substantial evidence and justifiable cause to prosecute. It forces the legal system to do right by the defendant, giving him or her a fair trial and its best efforts.

But perhaps most importantly, the double jeopardy rule provides closure for the defendant. As Tom Melsheimer, an attorney at Fish and Richardson in Dallas states: “It’s about fairness to the defendant. The law says we’re not going to give the government multiple times to prosecute you. We are going to value finality more than we value the truth.” This isn’t to say that the law does not care about letting the guilty go, but rather to say at a certain point, we cannot allow the legal system to pursue cases limitlessly. A defendant should not live to expect a lifetime of investigations and trials. He or she should not be afraid to have a biased jury (finding unbiased jurors for successive trials becomes increasingly difficult as more people become informed about the trial). He or she should not be victim to compounding punishments. He or she should not be uncertain about life down the road because of successive trials.

With that being said, despite emotional cases and “unfair” verdicts, in regards to the double jeopardy rule, we should always keep in mind: It isn’t about focusing on the few that slip through the cracks, but rather the majority that are justly punished or justly acquitted.

Sources:

http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1209&context=wmborj

http://abcnews.go.com/US/double-jeopardy-murder/story?id=14230469&singlePage=true

http://www.jstor.org/stable/844041

http://abcnews.go.com/US/casey-anthony-profit-case/story?id=14090596

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/03/isaac-turnbaugh_n_917477.html

Throughout 2013, President Barack Obama and the Congress failed repeatedly to reach a compromise on gun control laws.  Even after the Washington Navy Yard massacre in September 16, with Obama’s revised call for congressional action to address federal gun laws, the Republicans in Congress still refused to comply.  If we examine the list of twenty-five deadliest mass shootings in U.S. from 1965, the top two happened within six years – Virginia Tech massacre in 2007 and Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, both in schools, with 32 deaths and 27 deaths.  Every tragedy raised nationwide debates about gun laws, but no response in form of new gun legislation from Congress has been received.  The last significant gun law was 1994’s Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which expired on 2004.  After that, the only federal laws about guns was Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act in 2005, which clearly had nothing to do with gun control.  Aside from political reasons the Congress may have for blocking gun laws, the Americans themselves remain wavering.  Almost half of Americans believe the government should strengthen laws on firearm sale and the other half believe the laws should stay the same or less strict.  Such division makes Congress more difficult to make a move.

The gun control debate is an important issue all over the world, but rarely as contentious as it is in the United States.  The major reason is that any law with the intention to place restriction to gun procession can be easily defined as unconstitutional in U.S.  Under the Second Amendment, an individual has the right to own and carry a firearm even when under a restraining order.  This amendment about Constitution attempted to protect U.S. citizens from tyranny and other people’s violence.  It’s justifiable that Congress takes a cautious attitude toward bills which seem to oppose what our Founding Fathers have said.  However, although we should still undoubtedly hold Constitution as our supreme and unshakable law, it’s time for the Congress to keep up with changes in our society and make some adjunction to the Second Amendment.

According to John Marshall Gest, “the law, like everything we do and like everything we say, is a heritage from the past.”  Indeed, the Founding Fathers build our laws based on experiences and proverbs the earlier philosophers and politicians have left us, but laws are made to rule future circumstances.  No man, even as wise as Founding Fathers, can foresee what our future is like.  Therefore, the government keeps adding, canceling, and changing some of the federal laws to keep laws effective throughout the time, just like what they did on alcohols laws.  Since national prohibition of alcohol was ended by the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933, the Congress took numerous steps to prevent criminal problems brought by alcohol, especially driving under influence.  As of 1988, all fifty states and the District of Columbia had a minimum alcohol purchase age of 21 under the order of federal law.  The government has passed bills with strict blood alcohol limit, set severe penalty for drunk driving, launched nationwide public campaign about alcohol, and finally brought the drinking driving rate down by two third.  It’s time for the government to apply the same actions to gun control.  At the time the Second Amendment was mandated, there were no gun sale stores all across the country; not many people could afford to purchase a gun; automatic assault weapons which can fire hundreds of bullets per second were not invented.  As the technology has developed so rapidly nowadays, the Congress should progress to supplement our gun laws.

In the case of Sandy Hook Elementary School mass murder we mentioned before, the shooter used Bushmaster M4 Type Carbine, a semi-automatic machine gun which should absolutely not be accessed to by a twenty-year-old.  The government must respect Americans’ right to bear firearms given by the Constitution, but also put more restrain to it, such as strengthening banning of automatic assault weapons and suppressed machine guns, limiting magazines to smaller round capacity, or applying strict background check on gun registration and sale.  At state level, the government has achieve revolutionary success in Connecticut.  After the deadly 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Connecticut passed laws to ban the sale of more than 100 types of military-style rifles, penalize gun owners who do not register with state police and limit large-capacity magazines to 10 bullets.  These laws were ruled as constitutional by Supreme Court.  It’s now federal government’s responsibility to spread such efforts over the country.  Making supplement to the Second Amendment is not against Constitution, it’s a compromise we have to make under contemporary situation.

What is freedom? Isn’t freedom the capacity to act in whatever way I please? If my freedom is regulated by all these rules, then am I really free? Why am I sacrificing my freedom for all these inhibitory laws? Are laws really necessary?

The simple answer is yes—laws are necessary in our society. The necessity of laws is rarely debated outside of semiserious conversations concerning the politics of the world and that is not the purpose of this essay. This essay seeks to discern the good laws from the bad. The sole purpose of this essay is to expand the space for discourse of law’s ultimate objectives. My proposition is that laws should solely exist to increase or prevent the decrease of happiness within a community. The specific focus examined in this essay will be about discrimination.  Therefore, when a law infringes upon the happiness and the rights of a community, it should be labeled as an imposition rather than a law.

The discrimination of certain communities is evident throughout this country’s history. People usually look no further than the civil rights movement of the 1960’s when citing examples of discrimination, but history is littered with laws that took away rights. For example, xenophobia was a major issue in the start of our country. The Irish and the Chinese were heavily discriminated for a very long time. The internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II was another clear violation of a community’s rights. On the gender front, women’s rights remain a huge reminder of discrimination manifested in the legal system. Society was only able to move forward after laws were established that prohibited the discrimination of these communities. These laws were able to increase the amount of happiness in these communities by granting them the benefits of society that they so badly desired. While these accomplishments can be looked back upon and admired, it is simply not enough. As long as laws exist that prevent the happiness of a community, society must never stop questioning the current system. This past week, I read an article about how a committee in the Idaho legislature passed a bill that allowed business owners to refuse service to individuals based on “sincerely held religious belief”.[1] This specific legislation was meant to target same-sex couples, but is able to be applied with any stereotype that the business owner has. The term business owner is very broad and could also be used for medical services. Since the term is religious belief—of which business owners are predominantly Christian—the discrimination could also be applied to other ethnic groups. For example, a man wearing a turban could be easily denied service because he doesn’t follow the same religion as the business owner. Laws that permit such behavior encourage discrimination and don’t set the nation forward—they push the nation backwards. These types of laws should never be allowed to pass as they take away from a community’s happiness and promote discrimination.

Another important consideration is that certain laws enable people to discriminate freely and without limitations. This has a considerable impact to the discriminated communities. The psychological impact of laws is monumental in our society. For example, in the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education case that turned the tide in the civil rights movement, a psychological experiment was cited that showed the psychological impact of segregation on children. The children were set to distinguish between certain white and black skinned dolls and answer which dolls exhibited the positive characteristics. The study concluded that segregation had “caused black children to develop a sense of inferiority and self-hatred”.[2] This specific case shows the significant impact that laws can carry into society. It is critical to examine exactly what laws do and to prevent any sort of negative consequences that accompany certain laws. When laws that inhibit a community’s happiness are passed, they carry with them a message of overall disdain and rejection. This psychological consequence is the reason why laws must be critically examined to prevent discrimination and maximize happiness.

My only goal in this essay was to discuss the roles of law and to explain my position. This can hopefully create room for a discussion about this system society has in place to protect people from the negative aspects of humanity. All throughout history, progress is made whenever a community is freed from the shackles of societal discrimination. However, the most important step seems to stem from the legal victory of making this sort of discrimination illegal. This mindset clearly indicates that the law is crucial for social and political movements. Not only can the law free entire groups of people, but it can also serve as a crippling reminder of disparity. When legislation is introduced to subjugate the rights of others, society is not moving forward. Rather, society should be going the other way and attempting to rid certain communities of the massive discrimination they face. These are the types of laws that are necessary in society.

Although our government claims the law is meant to protect us, it is often used to violate our rights.  Even worse, the state fails to protect us by not adequately punishing violent crimes.  The government turns non-violent citizens who are not inflicting harm on anyone else into criminals and often throws them into prisons where they are at risk of being raped and killed.  We waste resources tremendous resources on the War on drugs, which hinders are ability to prevent and punish actual crime.  The solution is simple yet obvious: Those who harm others should be punished swiftly while those who do not should be left alone.

The War on Drugs is the greatest civil rights violation of our time.  Individual users of drugs (save for some hard drugs) are unlikely to get prison terms for simple possession.  However, they are still humiliated, arrested, and left with a criminal record that follows them for the rest of their life.  This criminal record often prevents otherwise qualified candidates from getting jobs.  Sometimes, a stable job is the one thing that can help drug-dependent individuals overcome their addiction.  The War on Drugs also provides a perverse incentive for police officers.  Under current laws they are allowed to seize any property that they believe was acquired through drug money.  In every state but North Carolina, police can seize property before the victim is convicted, and in many cases even if the victim is never charged with a drug offense.  A tool used to cripple drug cartels is now being used to deprive citizens of their private property rights.  There are cases of police taking cars just because they found a joint in there.

The War on Drugs is even more draconian when it comes to its effect on suppliers of drugs.  For providing a product that other people want, producers and suppliers are often rewarded with lengthy, sometimes even lifelong, prison sentences.  Studies have shown that alcohol causes much more damage to society than any other drug.[1] Yet producers and suppliers are celebrated as contributors to our economy.  Imagine the immorality of the state kidnapping the CEO of Anheuser Busch, or your local bartender, and throwing them in prison.  That is exactly what we do to suppliers of a product that brings pleasure that people choose to partake in.  It is not morally reconcilable to celebrate producers and suppliers of alcohol as contributors to our economy yet treat drug producers and suppliers as criminals.

Besides being morally wrong the drug war is impractical because it is so inefficient.  The War on Drugs cost hardworking taxpayers like you over 51 billion dollars last year.[2] This diverts resources away from stopping actual crimes such as robbery, rape and murder.  Next time your police department complains about being underfunded, think about all the money they waste on drug enforcement before you vote to raise taxes on yourself.

What could all these resources be used for? Perhaps stopping actual crimes, crimes where one person unjustly harms another person.  About 39% of murders go unsolved.[3] Only about 25% of rape reports result in an arrest.[4] When the number of rapes that go unreported is taken into account, this number is truly dismal.  Those people walk the streets among us.  I understand police cannot solve every crime committed but they could solve a greater percentage if they didn’t spend so much money waging war against people because they disagree with their personal choices even though they harm no one but themselves.   I do not want to minimize the harms caused by drugs in anyway. I don’t believe drugs should be legalized because they are harmless.  I just lost a friend last Thursday due to a heroin overdose.  Drugs do cause users harm, but as long as they are not hurting others, we should realize they are making bad choices, not committing crimes.

We have thousands of laws on the books.  It should not be that complicated.  Don’t steal, rape rob or murder.  In general don’t hurt anyone else.  If adult citizens want to make choices we need to let them.  It is not our business telling other people how to live their lives.  The war on drugs is worse than the harms created by drugs themselves. Let’s demand our government punish those who harm us, and allow those who don’t to live their lives freely.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union…” are the first words of the U.S. Constitution, the supreme law of the land. This document, ratified in 1787, was created to outline the general laws of the land and establish a system by which the people can live by. It originally was made up of seven articles, and was later modified with the addition of amendments. And while this 227-year-old Constitution is great in how it has helped shape our nation for today, it also needs work and updating.

In 1789, Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison and said, “No society can make a perpetual constitution. The Earth belongs always to the living generation and not to the dead…Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years.” Thomas Jefferson meant that the very Constitution he helped write would one day be inapplicable to the society that it was meant for. The 227-year-old U.S. Constitution that still survives today must need to be changed.

One might argue that even though the Constitution seems to have holes in it, it does not, because amendments fill up those holes. However, they do not enough. What it comes down to is that the basic rulings behind the Constitution were meant for 17th century United States, and do not apply to 21st century United States. Major events have changed our country, and the Constitution needs to account for a different set of circumstances that the country is in today which it was not before. It needs a major update.

When Egypt was creating a new government in 2012, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg advised them that she would “not look to the U.S. Constitution, if [she] were drafting a Constitution in the year 2012.” The problem with the U.S. Constitution is, at the same time, one of its biggest strengths: stability. The U.S. Constitution was drafted in 1787 and has guided us for 227 years. However, this stability means that the constitution is outdated and not entirely applicable to modern day society. If the Constitution were to be changed, it would better address the problems in the United States.

One big issue with the Constitution is representation. The United States government tries to get equal representation for all citizens. Through voting, people elect who gets into office. Voting laws have changed, and over time more citizens were given the power to vote (US male citizens, females, minorities, etc). And while these amendments were put into place to edit the Constitution, there are still problems with the voting laws that are inherent to the Constitution. One example is the Senate. Each state has two Senators, no matter the population size from that state. Thus Wyoming, the state with the smallest population of almost 600,000 citizens, has the same amount of Senators as California, the state with the largest population of about 37 million citizens. Thus, there is the same amount of representation for 0.18% of the population as there is for 12% of the population, which shows that representation in the Senate is not equal.

Another issue is the election of the United States President. Citizens vote for “Electors” pledged to one of the tickets, and these ors” will vote for that candidate. Each state has a certain amount of Electors, which is the number of Senators and Representatives added together. For most of the states, when more than 50% of its population votes for a specific candidate’s Electors, that candidate will receive all of the Electoral votes, a “winner-take-all” system. The candidate with the majority of the Electoral votes then becomes President. While the system has been mostly successful, it does not ensure that each citizen is represented equally. For example, North Dakota and South Dakota are both States with just three Electoral votes. However, according to the 2000-2010 U.S. Census, there are approximately 200,000 more people in South Dakota than there are in North Dakota, which means that 800,000 South Dakotans have the same representation in Presidential elections as 600,000 North Dakotans.

Now, those who still believe that the Constitution does not need to be updated may insist that there are ways for equal representation to exist in voting. The House of Representatives was created to mirror the amount of people in each state so that each state has a proportional amount of representation within government. Also, the system of checks and balances allows the Senate and the House of Representatives to theoretically remain equal in power. However, the Senate has powers the House does not, such as the ability to ratify treaties, the potential to appoint federal judges and other execute officials, and the trial of federal officials impeached by the House. Senators also serve a term of six years, while Representatives only serve for two, meaning Senators stay in office for longer and can hold more power per Senator.

In conclusion, “We the People” need to change our own Constitution. We need to update it and adjust it to better fit the needs of the United States and its citizens. This Constitution must be better drawn to account for a different society. No number of amendments could do what changing the Constitution would do to better our nation. “We the People” need a new Constitution “in Order to form a more perfect Union.”

Works Cited

Constitution of the United States. United States Government, n.d. Web. 2 Feb.
2014. <http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/
constitution_transcript.html>.

Seitz-Wald, Alex. “The U.S. Needs a New Constitution — Here’s How to Write it.”
The Atlantic 2 Nov. 2013: n. pag. Print.

United States Census 2010. U.S. Census Bureau, n.d. Web. 2 Feb. 2014.
<http://www.census.gov/2010census/data/>.

Picture a city plagued with urban blight: a phenomenon where the population of a city drastically drops because of people moving to the suburbs. The streets are deserted. Unnecessary skyscrapers loom over decrepit buildings. Apartments remain unoccupied. This situation accurately describes my hometown of Saint Louis, Missouri. Since 1950, Saint Louis has lost 59% of its population. Urban blight is an overlooked phenomenon plaguing many cities like Saint Louis. Ultimately, so many people have left the city that the government cannot afford to fix it.

If you do not know anything about Saint Louis, it is not a place that exudes exciting energy where you can sit outside and enjoy the hubbub that usually accompanies a big city. In fact, it has been named by US World Reports as the most dangerous city, and it has been named by CNN as the second most dangerous city in the nation countless times.  I cannot walk the streets of downtown by myself, much less even be there at night. The problem lies within urban blight.

My mother has spent all of her life since her teenage years in Saint Louis. When I talk to her, she remembers Saint Louis as a lively city from her younger years. People flocked to the streets, took buses, and lived downtown. Today walking through the streets of downtown, it is not unnatural to be the only one. There are not enough people to fund a mass transit system. And it is unheard of to actually live downtown. Urban blight can be seen in every aspect of the city.

The biggest problem as a result of this is the lack of tax dollars the government has to invest in Saint Louis. With people moving out at increasing rates, the revenue from tax dollars also drops. Public works, updated city systems, buildings—all are decreased or abandoned due to the lack of resources the Saint Louis government has. But the main thing the Government does not have the money for is police protection. My mother was also a police officer in downtown Saint Louis for twenty years and knows first hand how dangerous it can be. With a lessening tax base every year, there is less money to spend on protection. Less money to compensate police officers for their work, less money to provide them with the right materials, and less money to have enough to protect the streets. Growing up in Saint Louis jaded me to the sadness and realness of shootings and murder. Listening to the news every morning, I would hear of multiple shootings, and more times than not they involved a police officer. It was not until I was much older that I learned that all cities are not like that. While it is sad to see the buildings being abandoned and the city’s future looking bleak, the saddest part is to see Saint Louis Police Officers risk their lives every day for a dangerous, dying city.

The next biggest problem is the racial divide. This is also a result of urban blight. Typically, white people flock to the suburbs and African-Americans have stayed in the city. Saint Louis has been dubbed one of the most racist and segregated cities in America. There is a street called Delmar and it serves as the divide for racial segregation. When you look at a demographics map, you’ll see that minorities live to the north of Delmar, while the White population lives to the south. In the map below, blue dots represent a minority while red dots represent a caucasian.

This too has had a major effect on the police force. The governments of the suburbs have been able to support police protection for the people, and proper protection for the police officers. The government of the city is left with a population unable to financially support proper protection for it’s police officers, let alone a big enough force of police officers at all.

In a nation with so many pressing problems, it is easy to overlook the problem of urban blight. However, it is not okay to overlook how it is affecting the police forces of the city. Men and women risk so much every day to protect the population and in return are inadequately protected and compensated. This easily overlooked problem needs to be addressed by the Saint Louis government.

Works Cited:

http://money.cnn.com/gallery/real_estate/2013/01/23/dangerous-cities/2.html

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political-bookworm/2011/02/the_making_of_americas_most_da.html

To Be Abandoned? 8 Cities That Might Not Make a Comeback

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Race_and_ethnicity_2010_St._Louis.png

The law. The lawyers. The outcome. Which one intrigues us the most? Our court system is a complex one, and one that is constantly evolving, constantly under criticism and always a source of public interest.

Why are we so interested in the law? The process is complex and tedious. The wait is long and hard. The real life and blood of law is everything we don’t see on T.V. An overwhelming majority of cases don’t reach the Supreme Court and much of what goes on (in local and state courts for example) is shielded from the public. But the law does, in fact matter. It matters because it was created “by the people and for the people.” No matter
how little of its complexity we understand, the law has created our society. The legislature can make laws, the president can approve them, but the court has the power to interpret them. These laws have set our standards, and by doing so, defined who we are.

In 1834, a slave named Dred Scott was taken by his master, from the slave state of Missouri to the free state, Illinois. His master moved on to Wisconsin territory and eventually returned to Missouri. Following the death of his master, Dred Scott sued for freedom, arguing that he had been liberated upon entering free territory. But America wasn’t on the road to abolition yet. Scott lost the case and like any other landmark case, the ruling had a profound effect on thousands of people. Beyond any reasoning, the
court’s decision spoke for itself: the United States would continue to accept slavery, and freedom wouldn’t be won easily.

Fast forward to 1978, the year in which Justice Lewis Powell declared that affirmative action was constitutional and that race, as a result, could be used as a factor in admissions decisions. This decision impacts us in a palpable way today. It defines the way we think about admissions. It’s one of the reasons why we worry that we may not be good enough, and one of the reasons why thousands of high school students burst into tears each year – of happiness and sadness.

The bottom line is that our lives have been inadvertently and uncontrollably shaped by decisions made in the courts. Our lives have been shaped by the lawyers who walk up and down the streets of New York in tailored, black suits, and who sit behind desks at night, shuffling through old documents and examining past cases. It’s worth trying to understand these people because of how influential they are. Their lives are complex, and the work they do lives very much behind the scenes. We can begin to understand the convoluted
nature of law, by sympathizing with the lawyers. Some sanity, despite the insanity bred from the “wrong” decisions made by the courts and the murderers who have gone on the loose for years, can come from realizing that we are only human, and that is not perfect. We try our best – because the law has such a large impact on us, but sometimes we mess up, sometimes the economy, the busy schedules, or the need to care for a family, messes things up for us.

The article, “The last Days of Big Law” is like many others. It unveils the inner workings of big law firms. It’s one of those articles that reminds us that “real life” is rough and competitive in nature. Apparently, not even a lawyer gets free lunch (a metaphorical phrase considering that some actually did get free food for lunch). We seem to know the story already. I’ve watched PBS videos about the not-so-glamorous life of Harvard medical school graduates. I’ve read Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs, a revealing book about inner workings of Apple. Nevertheless, this article is an insightful and informed one which gives the assuming reader a sense that law involves more than making the right decisions. Being a partner isn’t like it used to be, it says. There is a lot less security and protection. Law
firms can no longer afford to pick and choose between clients – they need clients. Everything is changing because conditions are changing. That includes the economy, our greed, and the demand for high-charging lawyers. According to the author, there just aren’t enough companies or wealthy individuals that have billions of dollars on the line and who are willing to pay the most to get the best. Nowadays, an increasing number of clients pay to get a good bargain, an approach that doesn’t fit the old business model. The article also illuminates the hard life of the typical law school graduate, $100,000 in debt and jobless. Under pressure to earn money, lawyers often make pitches to the detriment of
their colleagues.

Of course, it isn’t fair to claim that lawyers are the reason why the law in general receives so much criticism. As a matter of fact, lawyers work for both parties – the guilty and not guilty. They are a part of the law system, however, which includes the Justices who make the final rulings, the president and Congress who themselves can influence law practice
by opinion, and the jury, composed of regular people such as you and me. Their lives can’t be so different from the life of a lawyer. After all, life isn’t easy and almost nothing is as perfect as it seems on the surface. In the end, it all helps to explain why we don’t always make the right decisions, even when they can change the world. It’s a profession, after all, and other influences are inevitably present.

So which is the most intriguing? The law, the lawyers, or the outcome that these elements have on us? All three are difficult to fully understand, and at times appear to be mysterious and largely imperfect. To the average citizen, it’s difficult to explain the rationale behind the right of some courts to reverse decisions by other courts on the same case. For anyone who isn’t a lawyer, the life and work of one is often misunderstood. And finally, the outcomes often end in outrage and blame. Fingers are pointed and questions are raised as to how the law can allow for such atrocity. But despite it all, they are all interesting and all of them help us to reflect upon ourselves, human nature, and the complexity and difficulty – the impossibility of creating a system that will always guide us towards the right decision.

Sources:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0101289.html

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113941/big-law-firms-trouble-when-money-dries?src=longreads