Out with Trump

President Donald Trump should be impeached. Reflecting on how the United States has grown socially and as a nation in general, Trump is completely setting us back and undermining our accomplishments. Besides the many administrative mistakes he’s made, he generally does not have the right personality or people skills. First of all, he is misogynistic and sexist. Not only does he not respect women, he is intentionally condescending and insulting. His tweets are one of his worst qualities while also being one of the best ways to highlight this downfall of his (one of many). In one of his tweets, speaking on the topic of women in the media, Trump said "You know, it doesn't really matter what [they] write as long as you've got a young and beautiful piece of ass." Furthermore, “Fat. Pig. Dog. Slob. [and] Disgusting animal” are a few more, but not all, of the names President Trump has called women, according to journalist Claire Cohen of The Telegraph. Another one of Trump’s defining, opposite of president-like characteristics is that he is racist. David Leonhardt of The New York Times writes that , “In June 2017, Trump said 15,000 recent immigrants from Haiti ‘all have AIDS’ and that 40,000 Nigerians, once seeing the United States, would never ‘go back to their huts’ in Africa.” Trump also spent several years trying to suggest and even prove that Barack Obama was actually born in Kenya. In one tweet, he even said himself that he had been informed by “an extremely credible source” as he put it, that Obama’s birth certificate was a fraud. Finally, on top of these two already awful traits of anyone, but especially a president, is that he is constantly lying. Journalists Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo, and Meg Kelly of The Washington Post did an analysis on everything he’d said in a period of time and found that he had made 4229 false claims in 558 days. I could’ve stopped at the first characteristic and that would’ve been enough for someone to not be qualified as president, but all three are far too much.

My Comment on "We Should Not Build a Wall Between the United States and Mexico"

Our classmate Kiana wrote a commentary on President Trump's idea to build a wall on the border separating the US and Mexico, and my comment is below:

In this commentary on president Trump's idea to build a wall on the border of the US and Mexico, Kiana first and foremost lays out her belief, which is very strong formatting because it lets readers know exactly what the author is about and what they will be reading about. Still in her introductory paragraph, she employs emotions, which I also think is a strong way to persuade because it gets people feeling and connecting with what she is saying. In the subsequent paragraphs, the author goes on to give evidence and examples supporting her claim. Since she is on the opposing side of Trump's idea, she lists many cons. In listing the negatives, she talks about not only the families that will be affected directly by the wall , but also gives reasons to why all of America will be affected. This is useful and smart because again, people will be able to relate more and are more willing to agree with an argument if they can understand how they are involved themselves. Finally, she writes about what else will have to be done that comes with building this wall and then ends by summarizing her argument. Over all, Kiana does an excellent job of constructing her argument and making it clear and concise, while still incorporating the necessary details to make her claim strong.

Regarding the argument itself, I completely agree with her claim that we should not build the wall. Besides the simple cruelty of separating families and loved ones, a wall between countries is just asking for everyone to hate America. Besides Mexico, countries all over the world will see this as a sign that we think we're too good for everyone else and couldn't possibly interact with people who aren't in America. It just generally isn't a good idea, and Kiana does a great job of explaining this.

Euthanasia for All

As cliche as it may sound, tragedy of all sort strikes every day and is unfortunately unavoidable in some cases. Specifically, more often than we’d think or ever hope for, people are being diagnosed with terminating illnesses and become paralyzed in ways that can even require a second human being’s assistance to even stay alive. Sometimes, in such awful cases, even the greatest measures are not able to reverse the damage or do anything at all to aid the situation. Such lifestyles can be severely depressing and unbearable to the point of simply not wanting to continue living.

Imagine waking up one day and not being able to move your body from the neck down and being told that this is your new life, that nothing can be done. You probably cannot even begin to imagine that. I know I can’t. Unless you have experienced that feeling first hand, or something similar, very few situations would allow you to understand exactly how that would feel or affect you. More importantly, only someone in this situation would know what they want moving forward. Only they would have endured whatever pain and suffering would come with this situation, if any. I say “if any” because I personally have never experienced anything like this, so I can only speak to what I’ve heard and what I can assume, as far as feelings. Furthermore, I can only try to imagine what I would want to do with my life moving forward. Not only I, but also anyone else who isn’t the person in the situation, has no right to decide their wants or go as far as to hinder their decision making. With already such little control over the happenings in their life, they do not need any more boundaries on their control, especially when these are decisions that could easily be carried out. 

Just because euthanasia is illegal does not mean people in these situations or mindsets will not find a way to do what they feel necessary, if they are able. If someone wants to end their life, they will. So, why not allow a peaceful and humane means to do so? If this is truly their wish, given their circumstance, they should have the right to do so in a way that also allows the family and/or friends to be supportive and understanding. Euthanasia should especially be legal because of the people with a desire to end their life, but no means to. Who are we to say someone paralyzed from the neck down must go on living against their own will? Euthanasia should be a personal choice, not a concept debated over by people who are completely uninvolved in the first place.