Option One. In the context of the essays in Chapter 5 , support, refute, or complicate the argument that the death penalty is a moral abomination that must be abolished.
Option Two. In the context of the essays in Chapter 6, support, refute, or complicate the argument that the best approach to the drug crisis in America is to legalize drugs.
Option Three. In the context of the essays in Chapter 7, support, refute, or complicate the argument that the psychological problems that ensue from Facebook use are so virulent that one should be persuaded to delete his or her Facebook account. (Since writing this assignment many months ago, the subject has been complicated by recent news developments, many of which are contained in the essay by Matt Taibbi, "Can We be Saved from Facebook?" This essay touches on our trading of privacy for false comfort of "friendship")
Option Four. In the context of the essays in Chapter 8, support, refute, or complicate the argument that we lack the adequate moral adaptation to accommodate the crises born from rapid bio-technological advances.
Option Five. In the context of the essays in Chapter 9, develop an argumentative thesis for a safe, moral, and just immigration policy.
Thesis statements or claims go under five different categories:
One. Claims about solutions or policies: The claim argues for a certain solution or policy change:
America's War on Drugs should be abolished and replaced with drug rehab.
America's War on Drugs is an ineffective and morally bankrupt policy evidenced by _____________, ____________, ________________, and _____________________.
Genetic editing needs regulation to keep the ascent of designer babies in the realm of health while not allowing genetic editing to become solely a consumer product.
As long as Americans refuse to do America's dirty work and as long as America relies on immigrant labor for billions of dollars in revenue, America must adopt a sane, moral, humanitarian immigration policy that gives rights, decency, and dignity to the immigrant labor it uses on a daily basis.
A critical thinking professor seen gorging shamelessly at one of those notorious all-you-can-eat buffets should be stripped of his accreditation and license to teach since such a display of gluttony evidences someone whose lifestyle contradicts the very critical thinking skills he is supposed to embody, such hypocrisy has no place in higher education, and educators in such high-profile positions must be sterling role models for their students and the public at large.
Two. Claims that critique the success, failure, or mixed results of a thing that is in the marketplace of art, ideas, and politics: a policy, dietary program, book, movie, work of art, philosophy, to name several.
Book Review
In her book iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us, author Jean Twenge attempts to analyze the causes of a dysfunctional generation, but her analysis lacks rigorous support, is larded with over simplifications, and ignores economic factors that are afflicting our youngest generation.
Jason Fung's The Obesity Code is an invaluable book for learning to incorporate a ketogenic (low-carb, high-fat diet) to regulate one's insulin, stave off diabetes 2, and live a more healthy, vibrant life.
Essay Critique
James Q. Wilson's polemic in favor of more access to guns is a catastrophe waiting to happen. If Wilson's gun laws are enacted, legal gun owners will kill innocent people in the line of fire, more and more legal guns will get into the hands of criminals, and the police will get so beefed up with guns and search and seizure policies that our country will turn into a military state.
Three. Claims of cause and effect: These claims argue that a person, thing, policy or event caused another event or thing to occur.
The desire for the death penalty resides in the child's fantasy that revenge can turn the tables, the delusion that sociopathic murderers will be deterred by the threat of capital punishment, and the primitive believe that society needs public spectacles of death in order to maintain the social order.
Notice in the above analysis of the causes behind some people's support of the death penalty there is an implicit argument against the death penalty.
Another Thesis Example
In spite of being proven grossly ineffective and even harmful to education, standardized testing remains the darling of administrators and politicians because it makes billions of dollars for the test makers, it provides a false bandage hiding deeper, systemic problems of structural inequality in education, and it makes know-nothing administrators and politicians feel like they doing something valuable when in fact the contrary is true.
Four. Claims of value: These claims argue how important something is on the Importance Scale and determine its proportion to other things.
Global warming poses a far greater threat to our safety than does terrorism.
Passive use of social media is having a more self-destructive effect on teenagers than alcohol and drugs.
Five. Claims of definition. These claims argue that we must re-define a common and inaccurate assumption.
In America the notion of "self-esteem," so commonly taught in schools, is, in reality, a cult of narcissism. While real self-esteem teaches self-confidence, discipline, and accountability, the fake American brand of self-esteem is about celebrating the low expectations of mediocrity, and this results in narcissism, vanity, and immaturity.
"Connecting" and "sharing" on social media does not create meaningful relationships because "connecting" and "sharing" are not the accurate words to describe what's going on. What is really happening is that people are curating and editing a false image while suffering greater and greater disconnection.
Giving first graders homework violates the spirit of education when the homework is simply busy work designed to make the teacher and parents feel less guilty, when the homework has no logical connection to what the children are learning in school, and when the amount of homework given puts undue pressure on overworked parents and sleep-deprived children.
General Thesis
Standardized testing is horrible.
Specific Thesis
Standardized testing must be abolished because it does not give an accurate measure of student learning outcomes, the tests are biased based on race and class, and because the profit motive continues to be more important than high standards and accountability.
General Thesis
The death penalty is a bad policy.
Specific Thesis
Even reasonable people can agree that the death penalty creates more problems than it allegedly solves because of racial discrimination in sentencing, the failure of deterrence in violent criminals, and cost of the costlier court costs.
Designer Baby Debate
Option Four. In the context of the essays in Chapter 8, support, refute, or complicate the argument that we lack the adequate moral adaptation to accommodate the crises born from rapid bio-technological advances.
One. What will happen to unconditional love when we have expectations of a Super Baby?
Two. Will we be individuals or the products of our parents' catalog wish-list?
Three. Will economic and social divisions widen between Haves (can afford to be super) and Have-Nots (can't afford to be so super, just bargain babies)?
Four. Have we committed the sin of pride by playing God?
But Babies by Design Are Our Inevitable Future
One. We don't want to deny our babies advantages if they're affordable.
Two. We don't want our children to be outcasts.
Three. We don't want our children to be sick or have dyslexia or some other affliction if we can help it.
Four. We may be denied insurance of various kinds if we don't upgrade our baby.
Richard Hayes points out the dilemma of genetically modified humans: On one hand, they will have superior health; on the other hand, a free market of super babies will "undermine the foundations of civil and human rights." There will be a small group of rich Desirables who can afford genetic enhancement and large group of serfs serving at the whims of these Desirables.
Hayes points out the slippery slope: Once we improve one aspect of the human body, where do we stop? A child is no longer a child but a consumer product, an "artifact," a toy.
Hayes observes in the future there could be a "high-tech eugenics arms race" with countries amassing armies of super fighters.
Write a 3-paragraph essay that addresses the ethical crisis resulting from genetic modification as presented in Chapter 8, pages 177-183.
for Essay #4 Options Due May 8
Option One. In the context of the essays in Chapter 5 , support, refute, or complicate the argument that the death penalty is a moral abomination that must be abolished.
Option Two. In the context of the essays in Chapter 6, support, refute, or complicate the argument that the best approach to the drug crisis in America is to legalize drugs.
Option Three. In the context of the essays in Chapter 7, support, refute, or complicate the argument that the psychological problems that ensue from Facebook use are so virulent that one should be persuaded to delete his or her Facebook account. (Since writing this assignment many months ago, the subject has been complicated by recent news developments, many of which are contained in the essay by Matt Taibbi, "Can We be Saved from Facebook?" This essay touches on our trading of privacy for false comfort of "friendship")
Option Four. In the context of the essays in Chapter 8, support, refute, or complicate the argument that we lack the adequate moral adaptation to accommodate the crises born from rapid bio-technological advances.
Option Five. In the context of the essays in Chapter 9, develop an argumentative thesis for a safe, moral, and just immigration policy.
Facebook Followup:
Option Three. In the context of the essays in Chapter 7, support, refute, or complicate the argument that the psychological problems that ensue from Facebook use are so virulent that one should be persuaded to delete his or her Facebook account. (Since writing this assignment many months ago, the subject has been complicated by recent news developments, many of which are contained in the essay by Matt Taibbi, "Can We be Saved from Facebook?" This essay touches on our trading of privacy for false comfort of "friendship")
Three Approaches:
One. Facebook hijacks normal people's brains.
Two. Facebook cannot ruin a healthy-minded person.
Three. Facebook can compromise a healthy-minded person somewhat, but it's worth the sacrifice to be plugged-in to the digital age.
Writing a Refutation of Anti-Immigration Sentiment
Write a three-paragraph essay that explains the immigration myths from David Cole's "Five Myths of Immigration."
Essay #4 Options Due May 8
Option One. In the context of the essays in Chapter 5 , support, refute, or complicate the argument that the death penalty is a moral abomination that must be abolished.
Option Two. In the context of the essays in Chapter 6, support, refute, or complicate the argument that the best approach to the drug crisis in America is to legalize drugs.
Option Three. In the context of the essays in Chapter 7, support, refute, or complicate the argument that the psychological problems that ensue from Facebook use are so virulent that one should be persuaded to delete his or her Facebook account. (Since writing this assignment many months ago, the subject has been complicated by recent news developments, many of which are contained in the essay by Matt Taibbi, "Can We be Saved from Facebook?" This essay touches on our trading of privacy for false comfort of "friendship")
Option Four. In the context of the essays in Chapter 8, support, refute, or complicate the argument that we lack the adequate moral adaptation to accommodate the crises born from rapid bio-technological advances.
Option Five. In the context of the essays in Chapter 9, develop an argumentative thesis for a safe, moral, and just immigration policy.
April 19 Legalizing Drugs Debate from Chapter 6; homework #13; write a 350-word, 3-paragraph essay that examines the validity of the Milton Friedman’s claim (“There’s No Justice in the War on Drugs 151) that “the war on drugs has been worse than the drug usage that it was designed to reduce.”
April 24 Facebook Debate from Chapter 7 (“Nosedive”?); homework #14: write a 3-paragraph, 350-word essay that examines the validity of Josh Rose’s claim that social media has a positive impact on culture (173). Use at least 3 signal phrases citing Rose’s essay. See Tristan Harris essays about how social media hijacks the brain.
Option Three. In the context of the essays in Chapter 7, support, refute, or complicate the argument that the psychological problems that ensue from Facebook use are so virulent that one should be persuaded to delete his or her Facebook account. (Since writing this assignment many months ago, the subject has been complicated by recent news developments, many of which are contained in the essay by Matt Taibbi, "Can We be Saved from Facebook?" This essay touches on our trading of privacy for false comfort of "friendship")
Rose praises the family closeness of Facebooking his son who lives in two homes. He enjoys "calming satisfaction" from the communication.
The trivia of his son's life, what he eats for breakfast for example, is not TMI.
Rose appears to rely on Facebook to overcome his guilt and separation anxiety.
Rose acknowledges that the Facebook connection replaces deeper forms of human connection, and he makes reference to Adam Gopnik's essay "How the Internet Gets Inside Us."
Rose makes the claim that "The Internet doesn't steal our humanity, it reflects it." (fragment for college instructors who are grading essays).
If you're a whole, mature person, according to Rose's logic, your Facebook use won't steal your maturity. But there is evidence that suggests otherwise. There is evidence that social media can implant pathologies that never existed before.
Or is there?
This is the crux of the argument if you should decide to write this essay.
Of course, depressed, lonely,anxious people are going to go down a rabbit hole on Facebook. But what about "well adjusted" people? Can they get sucked down the rabbit hole?
This must be the focus of our exploration and research.
Rose goes on to write: "The Internet doesn't get inside us, it shows what's inside us."
I'm inclined to judge Rose's thinking and writing as a bit lame for sinking into an either/or fallacy. Is it not reasonable to be open to the possibility that the Internet and social media can do both? Get inside us and show what's inside us?
I'm contemptuous of writers who make an either/or proposition. In most cases, binary worldviews are a sign of over simplistic thinking.
In fact, a good thesis might be something like this:
In spite of Josh Rose's rhapsodic defense of Facebook, there is compelling evidence that shows that social media is both a reflection of who we are and an invasive machine that gets inside our brain and arouses dysfunction, depression, and neuroses that are unique to our relationship with electronic connections.
Why can “normal” people succumb to addiction?
Because addiction is about immersion into environment and circumstance. This principle applies to normal people as much as anyone else.
Steve Jobs and other successful technocrats know the secrets of addiction, and the addiction model is what fuels their designs. Steve Jobs and others couldn't scale their business if their venues only attracted depressives.
Making irresistible tools to ensnare us is the formula for success in the crowded tech space.
Therefore, technocrats are in the addiction business. They can't be successful unless they can make EVERYONE an addict.
“Design ethicist” Tristan Harris says even normal people with strong levels of willpower will succumb to addiction when “there are a thousand people on the other side of the screen whose job it is to break down the self-regulation you have.”
New York Times journalist Nick Bolton, who doesn’t allow himself or his children to use an iPad, observes that the environment and circumstances for addiction in the digital age have no precedent in human history.
We can be snared by many digital hooks:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Porn
Email
Online shopping
The list goes one until we’ve lost the very core of our being.
In the early 2000s, tech was slow and “clunky,” but now it’s fast. It has to be fast if it’s to have sufficient addictive powers.
Tech engineers do thousands of experiments to make the visual experience appealing and addictive. They’ve created a sort of digital Las Vegas to seduce us.
Newer and newer versions of these digital Las Vegas seductive machines keep coming out until they’re “weaponized.”
Social media expert Adam Alter writes: “In 2004, Facebook was fun. In 2016, it’s addictive.”
Behavioral psychologists say everyone has an addiction, even successful, educated people, and they learn to compartmentalize, which means be functional addicts, like the teacher who has $80,000 debt from online shopping.
What 6 Ingredients does technology contain to create behavioral addictions?
One, it creates compelling goals just beyond our reach. We can never have enough likes or followers, for example.
Two, it gives us irresistible and unpredictable feedback.
Three, it creates a sense of incremental progress and improvement.
Four, it creates tasks that slowly become more difficult over time.
Five, it creates unresolved tensions that demand resolution.
Six, it provides a sense (delusion?) of strong social connection.
Smartphones Make Social Media Addiction Even More Potent
What is the smartphone screen time average for people who use the app Moment because they are concerned about how much time they’re using their smartphones every day?
About 3 hours. We can infer that people who don’t use Moment are on a lot more. Not knowing how much we use something, and not wanting to know, contributes to behavioral addiction.
In the same way, food obsessives are asked to keep a food journal in which they write down everything they eat. This cuts down on eating.
Most smartphone users are addicts. They spend over a quarter of their life on the smartphone. And they don’t even know it.
What’s the difference between addiction and passion?
Addiction is a deep attachment to an experience that is harmful and difficult to do without.
Addictions arise when a person can’t resist a behavior (compulsion), which, despite addressing a deep psychological need in the short-term, produces significant harm in the long-term.
Addictions bring the promise of an immediate award or positive reinforcement.
Original use of the word addiction was in ancient Rome, and it meant a strong bond to something like slavery. So the first sense of the word addiction was to be enslaved to something.
Passion is different than addiction.
Passion is a strong drive for an activity that is important and valued as bringing meaning to one’s life. Because this passion is valued, it is worth the time and energy devoted to pursuing it.
Whereas we feel free to choose our passion, we are slaves to addiction, which is a form of compulsion.
How common are Internet-based behavioral addictions?
Internet Addiction Test (IAT)
The Internet Addiction Test (IAT) is the first Validated measure of Internet Addiction described in theIAT Manual to measure Internet use in terms of mild, moderate, to several levels of addiction.
For more information on using the IAT and building an Internet Addiction treatment program in your practice, visit RestoreRecovery.netfor our comprehensive workbook and training programs.
Based upon the following five-point Likert scale, select the response that best represents the frequency of the behavior described in the following 20-item questionnaire.
0 = Not Applicable 1 = Rarely 2 = Occasionally 3 = Frequently 4 = Often 5 = Always
___How often do you find that you stay online longer than you intended?
___How often do you neglect household chores to spend more time online?
___How often do you prefer the excitement of the Internet to intimacy with your partner?
___How often do you form new relationships with fellow online users?
___How often do others in your life complain to you about the amount of time you spend online?
___How often do your grades or school work suffer because of the amount of time you spend online?
___How often do you check your e-mail before something else that you need to do?
___How often does your job performance or productivity suffer because of the Internet?
___How often do you become defensive or secretive when anyone asks you what you do online?
___How often do you block out disturbing thoughts about your life with soothing thoughts of the Internet?
___How often do you find yourself anticipating when you will go online again?
___How often do you fear that life without the Internet would be boring, empty, and joyless?
___How often do you snap, yell, or act annoyed if someone bothers you while you are online?
___How often do you lose sleep due to late-night log-ins?
___How often do you feel preoccupied with the Internet when off-line, or fantasize about being online?
___How often do you find yourself saying “just a few more minutes” when online?
___How often do you try to cut down the amount of time you spend online and fail?
___How often do you try to hide how long you’ve been online?
___How often do you choose to spend more time online over going out with others?
___How often do you feel depressed, moody, or nervous when you are off-line, which goes away once you are back online?
After all the questions have been answered, add the numbers for each response to obtain a final score. The higher the score, the greater the level of addiction and creation of problems resultant from such Internet usage. The severity impairment index is as follows:
NONE 0 – 30 points
MILD 31- 49 points: You are an average online user. You may surf the Web a bit too long at times, but you have control over your usage.
MODERATE 50 -79 points: You are experiencing occasional or frequent problems because of the Internet. You should consider their full impact on your life.
SEVERE 80 – 100 points: Your Internet usage is causing significant problems in your life. You should evaluate the impact of the Internet on your life and address the problems directly caused by your Internet usage.
Personal Score
I took the test and scored a 57, which is a low moderate addiction.
University Students
We see that 48% of university students suffer Internet addiction.
Worldwide, Internet addiction is about 40%.
What can we learn from Freud’s research into cocaine?
Freud and others believed cocaine as safe. Coca-Cola sold cocaine to its consumers because cocaine was considered a safe and natural ingredient. We look back at this as foolishness because now we have a body of research that exposes the dangerous addictive forming nature of the drug.
In the same way, Alter wants us to see social media as early cocaine, something seen as safe or benign in the absence of massive research.
Alter’s book is one of the first comprehensive books about the internet and social media addiction.
But we see evidence that tech gadgets are like cocaine. Psychologist Catherine Steiner-Adair observes that many children see their parents as “Missing in Action” as these parents are lost zombies, their noses deep in the screens of their iPads even while they sit with their children at the dinner table.
Parents claim they love their children, but they are mentally absent and are back-seating their children in favor of their gadget addiction.
“Wait, honey, I have to check my phone.”
“Not yet, honey, I have to check this text.”
These common words evidence twisted priorities of a nation of addicts.
And what’s worse is this behavior seems normal because everyone does it.
What game-changing study radically altered our view of addiction?
In 1954, Olds and Milner discovered that stimulating the pleasure centers of rats’ brains made them addicts.
Before this experiment, it was believed that certain people had a predisposition to addiction.
But juxtaposing the Olds and Milner Study with Vietnam Vets (20% developed heroin addiction), we saw that addiction was based on environment and circumstance.
You could have a healthy “non-addict” disposition, but still be a victim of addiction if your brain’s pleasure centers were stimulated effectively.
Facebook and social media encourage the Snark Factor: Wanting attention, people want to be snarky, rude, condescending, hypocritical, in order to gain attention for themselves.
Snark Culture grows on us and becomes the new normal.
In Snark Culture, we continue to push the envelope, finding ways to make our comments more and more outrageous and extreme.
In Snark Culture, attention rules, not morality, not consideration for others, not respect for others. Snark Culture is about gaining attention for oneself by finding ways to create the Wow Factor.
By obsessing over the Wow Factor, a lot of people begin to violate boundaries of decency without even knowing it.
Sugary Sentimentality and Excessive "Take Cares"
If not veering into the extreme of the Snark Factor, some are drawn to Facebook to comment on "cute things," to enter the sugary realm of sentimentality. Everything is "cute" and "nice." Or people are fishing for sympathy by posting photos of themselves and their family having operations for broken collar bones in which hundreds of people post "wishing you the best."
Or you post a photo of your spouse and write some encomium (lavish, sanctimonious praise) beginning with "Eleven years ago I met So and So and my life, once a train wreck from hell, transformed into a long, warm bath of bubbles, giggles, and laughs. Thanks, So and So, for being the Light of My Life. I just wanted to give you a shout-out for the Facebook community."
Relying on Facebook for Constant Validation
"After four years of college and two years of grad school, I've finally achieved my dream and have been promoted to regional manager at PetCo. I just wanted to thank everyone for supporting me on my journey."
Social Justice Warriors and Do-Gooder Trolls Become Your Joy Killers
I was having fun the other day on Facebook and enjoyed lots of like and comments addressing the following post:
"Eating in Manhattan Beach, I saw a throng of homeless men with stylish black capes, meticulously manicured goatees, perfectly chiseled cheekbones, and bejeweled scepters strutting grandly along the street like powerful Old Testament prophets from central casting."
One SJW wrote, "That's so insensitive. Give those people a break."
I'm not allowed to joke on Facebook with self-righteous trolls breathing down my neck.
Sample Thesis Statements
Delete
Even a mindful person should delete her Facebook account in order to avoid FOMO, trolls, the inevitable "time suck," and the inevitable popularity dramas that infest this ubiquitous social media brand.
Delete
The evidence shows that even well adjusted people are now saturated in a digital environment that makes them fall prey to the social media addiction traps that are designed to ensnare them.
Don't Delete
In spite of the obvious pitfalls, Facebook remains a viable albeit limited social media center for conveniently sharing family photographs, making easy contacts, and staying in touch with people I'm too lazy to contact otherwise.
Don't Delete
I don't care if I suffer social media addiction. When you consider my long commute, my long work hours, and my overwhelming parenting obligations, Facebook and social media are invaluable ways for me to connect with friends. I'd rather suffer the inevitable social media connections than be completely cut off. Sorry, McMahon, I know you want to judge me as a needy and horrible person. But I need whatever superficial digital connections I can get. Without them, life just wouldn't be worth it.
Option One. In the context of the essays in Chapter 5 , support, refute, or complicate the argument that the death penalty is a moral abomination that must be abolished.
Option Two. In the context of the essays in Chapter 6, support, refute, or complicate the argument that the best approach to the drug crisis in America is to legalize drugs.
Option Three. In the context of the essays in Chapter 7, support, refute, or complicate the argument that the psychological problems that ensue from Facebook use are so virulent that one should be persuaded to delete his or her Facebook account. (Since writing this assignment many months ago, the subject has been complicated by recent news developments, many of which are contained in the essay by Matt Taibbi, "Can We be Saved from Facebook?" This essay touches on our trading of privacy for false comfort of "friendship")
Option Four. In the context of the essays in Chapter 8, support, refute, or complicate the argument that we lack the adequate moral adaptation to accommodate the crises born from rapid bio-technological advances.
Option Five. In the context of the essays in Chapter 9, develop an argumentative thesis for a safe, moral, and just immigration policy.
April 19 Legalizing Drugs Debate from Chapter 6; homework #13; write a 350-word, 3-paragraph essay that examines the validity of the Milton Friedman’s claim (“There’s No Justice in the War on Drugs 151) that “the war on drugs has been worse than the drug usage that it was designed to reduce.”
April 24 Facebook Debate from Chapter 7 (“Nosedive”?); homework #14: write a 3-paragraph, 350-word essay that examines the validity of Josh Rose’s claim that social media has a positive impact on culture (173). Use at least 3 signal phrases citing Rose’s essay. See Tristan Harris essays about how social media hijacks the brain.
Why the Drug War and Criminalizing Drugs Is a Failure
One. We create a demand for informants, which is rife with corruption.
Two. We create a sick economy based on mass incarceration.
Three. Prison sentences are blatant in their racism, imprisoning people of color ten times more than white people in spite of equal drug use.
Four. Drug economies in inner cities create bloodshed.
Five. American demand for illegal drugs creates drug economies in nearby countries, which results in mass violence in those countries.
Six. Drug users can't get help for their addiction.
Seven. Drug war doesn't work. People are going to take drugs regardless of drugs' legal or illegal status.
Eight. Legalizing drugs will create lucrative tax revenues.
Nine. Legalizing drugs keeps government out of people's private lives.
Ten. Alcohol is legal, yet it is more dangerous than pot.
Eleven. Legalized pot can be a good treatment for pain, autism, and other medical uses. Why interfere with that?
Twelve. Enormous resources are being spent to combat marijuana even as prescribed opioids are killing Americans in record numbers. These opioids kill more people than guns and traffic accidents combined. So there's no rhyme or reason to the so-called drug war other than it creates a lot of jobs.
Thirteen. The drug war "was never designed to win," writes Nick Schou, author of "America's War on Drugs Was Designed to Fail." The war was a political gimmick designed to win points with voters and leverage money for law enforcement while overcrowding prisons.
Fourteen. The drug war opens the door to government meddling with our personal lives, and the government has no track record of sufficient morality or competence to justify such invasive practices.
Fifteen. The drug war is a war, but it is not a war against drugs; it is a war against people of color. In spite of whites and nonwhites taking and selling drugs in equal amounts, the so-called drug war targets people of color. The statistics are devastating, as we can see in Drug Policy.
Some Counterarguments About Legalizing Drugs
One. Even if we legalize drugs, there will be an illegal black market offering more potent and less costly versions. And these underground markets will be rife with violence, the same kind we are faced with today. In other words, it is impossible to decriminalize drugs. But her'es a rebuttal: According to The Guardian, society suffers less violence when we decriminalize drugs.
Two. We can't have a one-size-fits-all legal policy toward drugs because of the diversity of drugs and the diversity of the drugs' effects on people. Perhaps one can make it legal for personal use of small amount of marijuana, but this cannot be compared to LSD or heroin.
Three. Legalized pot in Colorado has created a youth market, has proven difficult to control potency,resulting in paranoid trips.
Four. Young people getting attracted to marijuana are more vulnerable to brain damage. But as a rebuttal, we read declining use of marijuana in teens. See LA Times and see The Cannabist. Of the two articles, which one gives your essay more ethos or credibility?
Five. Legal marijuana results in huge theft trade has created a huge demand for security.
Six. No one wants to live in a neighborhood with drug dispensaries. What does that tell you? People know that such environments invite mayhem and criminality.
Seven. Now big companies will have incentive to sell us all kinds of drugs we don't need, and they'll have the power of giant marketing machine behind them. Is this what we want?
No Perfect Choice, No Good Choice, Just a Better Choice
Sometimes in life there are no good choices. There are just the better choices or the less lame choices.
Most of my students tell me they don't look at going to college as a "good choice." Rather, they see attending college as "less lame" than not going to college.
Similarly, McMahon is not jumping for joy that he no longer eats sugar and gluten, not a decision that he sees as a "good choice," but he finds the self-denial "less lame" than weighing 40 pounds heavier and having all the metabolic and pancreatic nightmares associated with being his bigger, bloated self.
Perhaps this same line of thinking applies to drug policy.
Sample Thesis Statements
While decriminalizing drugs is no panacea and while it does have its own set of problems, the alternative, keeping the status quo of criminalizing drugs, wreaks far more destruction on society.
There's no way of knowing what kind of society we'll have if we decriminalize drugs. All we know is that we can't continue the way we are going now. We need to try legalizing drugs to see if we can follow the success of Portugal and other enlightened countries.
Legalizing drugs sends the wrong message to children: that drugs are normal, acceptable, and even desirable. Such a notion is morally repugnant and will wreak a havoc on society unlike anything we've ever seen.
The above thesis is so poorly constructed I don't know where to begin. First, there is no generic way to approach drugs. The types of drugs people take, the reasons for taking them, and the manner in which drugs are consumed are so diverse as to defy any simple analysis. To resort to hyperbole such as "will wreak havoc on society" is to rely on cheap emotional tricks that distract us from the job of taking a granular, refined evaluation of drug use.
Drugs are already legal in the context of pharmaceuticals, white middle-class users, and the alcohol industry. Our society stigmatizes and criminalizes drugs that are associated with oppressed races because the drug war is in reality a race war and as such the drug war is a morally bankrupt, racist enterprise that has no consistency, no moral bearing, and no use to society except to maintain the current racist status quo.
Here are some key features of the New Jim Crow, AKA, The War on Drugs:
The War on Drugs started in 1982 and picked up momentum in 1985 when the black community was demonized as a Crack Den. These demonized images saturated TV news and gave a very thin slice of African Americans, not the whole picture.
The Drug War started when crime and drug use was on decline and the author suggests that it started as a form of social control.
In thirty years, the number of US prisoners increased from 300,000 to over 2 million.This number has gone unquestioned
The US has the highest incarceration rate of any industrialized country. Such a fact speaks volumes about our freedom and our democracy and our morality.
In Germany, 93 out of 100,000 adults are incarcerated; in the US, the number is 8 times that amount or 750 out of 100,000.
Between 1960 and 1990 crime rates in Finland, Germany, and US were the same but during that time the US incarceration rate quadrupled, the Finnish rate decreased 60 percent, and the German rate remained unchanged. The author seems to suggest we have unsavory motives for our high incarceration rate.
Indeed, a New Yorker essay "The Caging of America" traces the moral bankruptcy that informs the US prison system.
The majority of US prisoners are black and brown men. Black men outnumber white men 7 to 1 yet are only 13 percent of the population. We call this disparity the "racial caste system."
Black and brown men are, in spite of similar rates of drug activity to whites, imprisoned 20-50 times greater than whites.
In Washington D.C. 3 out of 4 black men will be in prison.
In major cities throughout the US, 80% of black men have criminal records.
But illegal drug activity is not greater among blacks. Illegal drug activity happens in similar numbers among the different races.
The growth of US prisons is the largest form of race-based social control in world history.
Experts agree that prisons make more crime; they don’t reduce crime, yet there is an incentive to grow the prison industry: It makes billions of dollars (and employs about 2.5 million people) and as long as this money is made on the backs of black and brown men, the media and the public remain indifferent.
Why is this racial caste system so hard to fight?
Because it is largely invisible and insidious with code words but evidence for its existence is overwhelming as we can see from the statistics above.
And because we throw people in prison under "due process," from the Bill of Rights, which we worship like some kind of God. We get so caught up with "due process," that we become blind to the results of this "due process."
Slavery, Jim Crow, and Jim Crow 2.0, AKA The War on Drugs, is “a stigmatized racial group locked into an inferior position by law and custom.” The new laws and customs put black and brown men into mass incarceration at disproportionate rates when their drug activity is not higher than other people’s.
This incarceration makes black and brown men members of the undercaste or second-class citizens based on prison label or criminal label, not prison time. Once labeled, they are denied citizen rights to vote, to serve jury duty, to work, etc.
We no longer use racist language; we call people of color criminals or felons. Prison is the new form of control.
In American history, we see control over people of color has been largely to appease lower-class whites, who feel trapped at the bottom of society. The privileged whites throw the poor whites a dog bone: “Even though you’re poor, we’ll make people of color even more poor and even less privileged than you.”
What were the effects of the War on Drugs and Criminals?
"overnight the budgets of federal law enforcement agencies soared. Between 1980 and 1984, FBI antidrug funding increased from $8 million to $95 million.”
Department of Defense antidrug allocations increased from $33 million in 1981 to $1,042 million in 1991.
Antidrug spending grew from $38 to $181 million.
Agencies for drug treatment, prevention, and education were dramatically reduced.
The budget for National Institute on Drug Abuse was reduced from $274 to $57 million from 1981 to 1984.
Department of Education suffered cuts from $14 million to $3 million.
All of these cuts and the demonization of the black inner cities as crack dens happened during huge economic collapse, a time when poor blacks were most vulnerable. We read, for example, that in the big cities black employment for blue-collar jobs went from 70% of all blacks working, in the late 1970s, to 28% by 1987.
During this time manufacturing jobs moved to the white suburbs and only 28% of black fathers had access to an automobile so they could drive from the cities to the suburbs.
These job losses were accompanied by increased incentives to sell drugs. “Crack hit the streets in 1985” (51).
Crack did indeed eviscerate the black community. But the government response was wrong. The correct response can be seen in Portugal. During a period of high drug use, Portugal decriminalized drugs and invested in treatment, prevention, and education and in ten years addiction and drug-related crime plummeted (51). But conservatives decided to wage a war against the “enemy.” And the media got into the act with images of “crack whores,” “crack babies,” and “gangbangers.” See page 52.
The Portugal study speaks to America's motives. Do we choose a solution, prison, that makes more criminals or do we choose a solution, decriminalization, which reduces drug use? Why would we choose the wrong path? If a parent learns that education disciplines a child more than spanking, why would the parent stick to spanking?
In 1988, Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act with a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for possession of cocaine base with no evidence of intent to sell. And this law applied to first-time offenders.
The American people, 64%, supported this new drug war and they imprisoned huge numbers of black men but could feel colorblind and non-racist, because in their minds this was not about race; it was about criminality and drug use. But white drug users weren’t going to prison in the same numbers. A new racial caste system through mass incarceration was born (55).
Democrats didn’t want to appear soft on crime, so Clinton more than any other president did more to create the racial undercaste with a variety of bills (57).
Under Clinton, felons could not get public housing and other benefits. They lost all rights as human beings and lived under the shadow of oppression, just like in the days of Jim Crow (57).
By 1996, the penal budget doubled while food stamps and other benefits were slashed.
Ninety percent of those admitted in prison for drugs were black or Latino and yet the War on Drugs used race-neutral language. Jim Crow 2.0 was born.
What is the single leading cause of rising incarceration?
Drug offenses, which account for two thirds of the rise and more than half of the rise in state prisoners between 1985 and 2000 (60). There are more people in prisons and jails today for just drug offenses than were incarcerated for all reasons in 1980.
We read on page 60 that most prisoners are first offenders arrested for possession, not selling. In 2005, four out of five were arrested for possession only, not selling.
Another glaring fact: In the 1990s, marijuana was the leading cause for arrest. Marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol. By 2007 one in every 31 adults were behind bars, on probation, or on parole.
What rules, if any, dictate the War on Drugs?
First, the Fourth Amendment, the law against search and seizures, has been eradicated since a cop can say he had “reasonable cause” to do a drug search. This results in police harassment and intimidation in poor communities as the police can do warrantless searches (63).
Second, law enforcement can now use invasive means to do drug surveillance and forced drug tests and use of informants and allow the forfeiture of cash, property, and other belongings (62). So we see a huge economic motive to make these arrests.
Third, consent searches are now police policy and studies show that most people, intimidated by the police, will consent (66). As a result, human rights are being violated under the huge umbrella of "reasonable cause."
Fourth, the police can now rely on a pretext traffic stop (failing to make a turn signal or going 1 MPH over speed limit, to cite 2 examples) and use that stop as an excuse to do a drug search (67). Many people are forced to spread eagle on the ground during these searches. Ninety-nine percent of these people being investigated are innocent but left humiliated. The majority of these people are of color.
Michelle Alexander asks why would the police choose to arrest such an astonishing percentage of the American public for minor drug crimes (between 1980 and 2005 drug arrests more than tripled)?
Especially since drug use was in decline when the War on Drugs began in the early 1980s.
Here we get to the crux of the matter: The system’s design was control with tangible and intangible benefits. And these benefits were a “massive bribe” offered to state and local law enforcement. Millions of dollars are given to local law enforcement. The military gives weapons, including bazookas, helicopters, night-vision goggles (74).
Why is a SWAT raid inappropriate for the War on Drugs? Trauma, disproportion, and financial incentives. Each drug arrest brought $153 in funding, so the more arrests, the more money. See page 78.
What other dramatic change took place under the Reagan Administration during the War on Drugs? On page 78, we see that the police now had the right to seize and keep everything for themselves, including cash and other assets. State and local police could keep up to 80 percent of assets’ value. This in turn increased police budgets. So not only was the prison industry expanding into a multi-billion-dollar business, police departments were getting richer with the incentive to make more arrests. Between 1988 and 1992 alone, this forfeiture law amassed over a billion dollars in assets.
And the targets of these arrests were poor because they lack the means to hire an attorney and defend themselves. And since the poor represent easy cash, the police are encouraged to engage in illegal shakedowns, searches, and threats in search of forfeitable cash (80).
The big drug kingpins, the ones presumably targeted by the Drug War, go free because they can afford attorneys. It’s the little man who gets put in jail, so the War on Drugs fails on that level as well (79). For example, an investigation showed that when a person arrested can pay 50,000 dollars from drug profits seized would earn 6.3 year sentence reduction and agreements of $10,000 reduced trafficking charges by three-fourths (80).
Why is it that after a poor person is arrested his chances of being free from the legal system are forever thin? On page 84 we see that thousands of defendants are escorted through the courts with no legal counsel at all. Eighty percent of the defendants cannot hire a lawyer. In Lake Charles, Louisiana, we read that the defender office had only two investigators for the 2,500 new felony cases and 4,000 misdemeanor cases each year (85). We further read that defendants often plead guilty, even when innocent, without understanding their legal rights or what is occurring (86).
In most cases there is not trial because there is a plea bargain which results in a reduced sentence but carries with it a lifetime of stripped human rights: he can’t get government benefits or get a job. He’ll be under constant surveillance. The condition is called by Loic Wacquant a “closed circuit of perpetual marginality” (95).
We currently have 2.3 million in the prisons and another 5.1 million on probation or parole (94).
According to Human Rights Watch, 80-90% of all drug offenders sent to prison are African American (98).
Violent crimes are at historically low levels yet mass incarceration is on the rise (101).
Of the 7.3 million under correctional control, only 1.6 million are in prison (101).
The prison system encourages criminality so that 68% of those released from prisons are back in 3 years (94). And only a small minority for violent crimes.
The poor were targeted by the media at the onset of the Drug War as pathological and created an “us vs. them” mentality (105).
“Drug criminals” became a code word for black and this makes sense when we consider that about 90% of those arrested are poor black males (105).
How does white drug use differ from black drug use?
We read on page 99, that white students use cocaine at seven times the rate of black students, and use heroin at seven times the rate of black students. Equal percentages use marijuana.
White drug dealers do their dealing, not on street corners like the poor, but in more discreet settings (100).
Crack cocaine, the major drug in black offenses, creates sentences that bring punishment with one hundred times more severity than offenses involving powder cocaine (the white drug) as we see on page 112. Crack law is unfair since plain cocaine results in far fewer sentences, a ratio of 100:1. Fair sentencing act may change this.
In Jim Crow 2.0, racial language is not used; there is a code that includes the type of drugs that will result in strong convictions. These strong convictions will be exacted on poor people of color, not white people with economic resources.
Why would there be huge resistance to reforming the New Jim Crow and Mass Incarceration?
We read on page 230 that if we got back to the incarceration rates of the 1970s, before the War on Drugs, we’d have release 4 out of 5 prisoners. This would reduce prison jobs and would be met with all-out war from the 700,000 prison guards, administrators, service workers and other prison personnel.
In a report by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Statistics in 2006, the U.S. spent $185 billion for police protection, detention, judicial, and legal activities in 2003. This is a tripling of expenses since 1982.
The justice system employed almost 2.4 million people in 2003. If 4 out of 5 prisoners were released, far more than a million prison employees would lose their jobs.
Private sector also has an investment in prison growth and the mass incarceration of helpless and vulnerable people of color. For example, former vice president Dick Cheney has invested millions in private prisons. His bank account depends on the incarceration of more and more black men (230).
On page 231, the author gives a sample of “prison profiteers” who look for new ways to increase the prison business, with the targets always being the same: poor black men, the people this country has abandoned.
Consider this: On page 237 we read that 75% of all incarceration has no impact on crime, that if between 7 and 8 prisoners out of 10 were released, there’d be no change in crime; however, this 75% generates $200 billion annually. It’s a money-making device.
The moral bankruptcy of the New Jim Crow is that this multi-billion-dollar economy has been built on the backs of poor black men whom America doesn’t give a damn about. There’s an “it ain’t me” mentality that is morally loathsome and detestable.
Adam Gopnik from “The Caging of America”
We give longer sentences for the same crime than all other countries in the world.
Over 400 teen-agers in Texas have life sentences.
6 million Americans are under “correctional supervision.” There are 2.4 Americans in prison.
In 1980, there were 220 Americans in prison for every 100,000 people. In 2010 that number has jumped to 731. No developed country in the world comes close to this.
Here’s some evidence or data for our immoral prison system being part of The New Jim Crow: In two decades prison spending is up 600%. Here’s the warrant, the logic that connects the data to the claim that the modern prison system is part of The New Jim Crow: The money incentive, not smart and moral public policy, is the driving force.
Gopnik: The US prison system is the “moral scandal of American life.” It’s a scandal most Americans are indifferent to because they’re sedated by the blue pill in The Matrix. Reading Gopnik’s essay and Alexander’s book is the equivalent of taking the red pill.
Today’s prison policy is influenced by 19th Century America when prison was seen as a slave plantation.
There is a landmark book that analyzes the corruption of our prison system. It’s Collapse of American Criminal Justice by William J. Stuntz. It reinforces many of the points made in The New Jim Crow.
We see an evil marriage of public policy and private interests: Corrections Corporation of America, a private prison company, enjoys financial growth that is dependent on America’s growing arrest rate (which is 90% people of color). The company’s stockholders want more arrests (not caring about the racial disparities and draconian nature of those arrests for all people) because they want to see their stock grow and grow. To make sure their stockholders are happy, CCA “spends millions lobbying legislators” to serve the purpose of the stockholders. Human rights can be damned as far as they’re concerned. They want their money.
The above example evidences that America is less of a democracy and more of an oligarchy. The word oligarchy is Greek which means the state is ruled by a only a few. In fact the Greek root oligos means “few.” We can conclude—and this would be in my conclusion of my paper when I restated my thesis—that to perpetuate The New Jim Crow is not only about the perpetuation of racism, slavery, and Jim Crow; it’s about a country being degraded into a corrupt oligarchy. I emphasize this because a conclusion should show the wider ramifications of your claim’s message.
Write a 350-word essay that examines the validity of Milton Friedman's claim that "the war on drugs has been worse than the drug usage that it was designed to reduce." See "There's No Justice in the War on Drugs."
Option One. In the context of the essays in Chapter 5 , support, refute, or complicate the argument that the death penalty is a moral abomination that must be abolished.
Option Two. In the context of the essays in Chapter 6, support, refute, or complicate the argument that the best approach to the drug crisis in America is to legalize drugs.
Option Three. In the context of the essays in Chapter 7, support, refute, or complicate the argument that the psychological problems that ensue from Facebook use are so virulent that one should be persuaded to delete his or her Facebook account. (Since writing this assignment many months ago, the subject has been complicated by recent news developments, many of which are contained in the essay by Matt Taibbi, "Can We be Saved from Facebook?" This essay touches on our trading of privacy for false comfort of "friendship")
Option Four. In the context of the essays in Chapter 8, support, refute, or complicate the argument that we lack the adequate moral adaptation to accommodate the crises born from rapid bio-technological advances.
Option Five. In the context of the essays in Chapter 9, develop an argumentative thesis for a safe, moral, and just immigration policy.
It chafes Koch’s hide that killers, after they killed and are about to be executed, suddenly become sanctimonious and lecture us on the need to have reverence for life--their life!
Sociopaths say whatever they have to say to survive. Their whole existence is based on “playing” people. Should they get to live?
While we must be concerned about false convictions, what about bona fide sociopaths, people whose entire lives have been defined by sociopathy? Should they not be executed.
But even if we concede that these evil killers are playing us, our emotional revulsion for these killers should not be the basis for deciding on death penalty policy.
Critical thinkers try to be dispassionate, base their decisions on the intellectual merits of a case and not let their emotions get in the way.
Should we kill murderers to get revenge on them? Because we hate them? Because we want to see them writhe and suffer?
Clearly, Koch is using pathos--emotional appeal--to good effect in his argument.
Two. What common arguments does Koch refute?
“The death penalty is barbaric.”
Koch argues that the death penalty is an unpleasant necessity like “radical surgery” or chemotherapy.
We are killing a cancerous tumor from our society, he seems to imply.
Let’s for the sake of argument accept the premise that serial killers won’t be deterred by the death penalty. Their cancer would continue to grow, a counter against Koch’s argument.
But Koch could say this cancer can’t kill again. Indeed, criminologists report that killers often kill again--while serving prison sentences.
Their cancer would be stopped, in defense of Koch. Fellow prisoners, civilians, and police would be spared from these repeat murderers.
“No other major democracy uses the death penalty.”
But no other country has our murder rate, Koch argues. Murder rate is indeed high for blacks and Latinos, according to a major study. Black Americans are killed at a rate of 12 times higher than in other countries.
But homicides down a third since 1990.
“An innocent person might be executed by mistake.”
Wrongful murder convictions are 4.1 percent, according to major study, so 5 out of a 100 are wrongfully convicted. That’s a lot.Cited also in The Guardian.
Koch, who wrote his essay many years earlier, does not have these current statistics.
This is probably Koch’s weakest argument.
“Capital punishment cheapens the value of human life.”
Punishment is a measure of our respect for the victims. For example, Koch observes that lowering punishment for sexual assault lowers our respect for the victims of these crimes.
The same is true of murder.
“The death penalty is applied in a discriminatory manner.”
Koch says this is no longer a problem, decades ago when he wrote this.
One. What faulty comparison in Koch’s does Bruck point out?
Koch would have us believe that shunning the death penalty is comparable to letting a murderer kill his victim. But the death penalty is after the fact, and the death penalty does not deter crimes of passion or crimes of sociopathy.
Koch is perhaps using cheap pathos.
Two. Does a mob cheering an executioner affirm life?
Bruck makes a compelling point that a mob cheering an execution is a depressing sight. A society that hungers for the revenge of violence and displays bloodlust is a spectacle that many would argue is not an affirmation of life, but an affirmation of our worst instincts and impulses.
Making public policy should address our intellect and moral sense, not our collective animal or mob mentality.
First Counterargument:
What about those who with informed opinion support the death penalty, want executions televised, and watch them without the kind of animalistic glee described above?
Can we thirst for justice without being revenge-seeking animals?
Second Counterargument
Not all murders are equal.
There are crimes of passion.
There are premeditated murders.
There are sadistic murders.
Is there an egregious degree of cruelty that justifies the death penalty?
Three. Is Bruck’s eye for an eye critique in second to last paragraph convincing? Explain.
Bruck make an interesting point, but his reductio ad absurdum argument is compelling or not. Explain.
“Executions Are Too Costly--Morally” by Sister Helen Prejean
One. What will compel Americans to abolish the death penalty?
If they know the truth about a practice that the government keeps secret, they will abolish it. Make the executions public, and people will stop them.
Is this true? What if Americans find entertainment value in them?
Two. What biblical argument does Sister Prejean make?
People take revenge out of context by not knowing the larger lesson of the passage. There are “entrapment” lessons in which adversaries are trying to argue and Jesus uses entrapment responses that are not to be taken literally.
Sample Thesis Responses
Clearly, death-penalty opponents make good points about how the death penalty is corrupted by racism, wrongful guilt, and the barbaric throng delighting in their appalling revenge fantasies. However, if mechanisms could be implemented to insure fair assignment of guilt and if society doesn't go down the rabbit hole of looking at capital punishment as a panacea for violent criminals, then the death penalty can be an important moral lever for exacting justice. For one, the bleeding-heart fantasy that all human life is sacred does not hold up to the unpleasant truth that evil sociopaths are not worthy of living. For two, a dead sociopath cannot kill again. For three, society must brandish a moral demarcation line that explicitly says to the citizenry that certain types of vile behavior will not be tolerated.
Sample Counterargument
While even I, a die-hard liberal, have fantasies of inflicting death upon cruel and heartless murderers, I know that my primal impulse for revenge cannot fuel public policy. Whatever benefits gained from the above proposal, surely the death penalty would wreak more harm than benefit. The death penalty will prevent us from looking at preventative measures to impede violence. Executions will exacerbate our penchant for spite and revenge. The innocent will go to their deaths only to be found to be exonerated long after they have rotted in their graves. And our beloved criminal justice bureaucrats, however well-intentioned, will too often botch the execution with the wrong cocktail of lethal drugs, malfunctioning death machines, and other forms of imbecilic hackery, turning the death ritual into a grotesque farcical spectacle making a mockery of our quest to implement justice.
Second Counterargument
As long as the death penalty is corrupted by racism and wrong convictions, the only moral thing to do is replace capital punishment with a life of solitary confinement, a punishment, it could be argued, that is far worse than death. Such a punishment isolates the killer so he can't kill again and it makes the charged available for release in the unlikely event that he is proven innocent.
