Blog Post 5: Taxation without Representation?

Evan Vucci                

Here in this photo, a moment is forever memorialized in which the President of the United States signs into effect the ‘global gag rule’, which places a threat on the head of every medical facility in the world that receives funding from the USA, that if they so much as mention the word ‘abortion’, they will lose their funding. There is a heavy irony in the fact that our male president is signing into effect a document which solely will affect women’s rights to their own bodies, while sitting in a room of (smirking) men. Although, with only four women on his cabinet, it's easy to explain why he is so often photographed only with men.

This event is reminiscent of an issue that set America on its path to freedom and independence. Every American child has heard the phrase ‘taxation without representation’ in their history class. They’ve heard tales of heroic soldiers revolting, and tearing themselves from the control of the tyrannical Great Britain, because they weren’t being allowed proper representation within the government. Systemic sexism is real, and despite the fact that legally women are allowed to be elected as representative figures, there is a tangible barrier preventing the ascension of powerful women in our society. Just observe the treatment of Hillary Clinton in this past presidential election and compare it with the treatment of her male colleagues. If we were to pay closer attention to other American elections, maybe we would see similar patterns arise as an explanation for the fact that 80% of congress is male, while only 50% of the country is male.

The interests of humans that live in the same area should not differ greatly by gender and race, but it has become apparent that what benefits one group of citizens greatly harms another. In this particular situation, it's hard to find a rational benefit that these men receive by stripping women of their reproductive healthcare. When you consider who this executive order satisfies, there is only one main group; religious people. Which is amusing, because is there not a section of our constitution that states that there must be separation between our church and state? No matter the motivation behind this executive order, the issue with our government is clear. Our representative government is out of balance, and something needs to be done to fix that. 

A Commentary on Ann Coulter

On March 8^th, an article titled “Immigrant Privilege Drives Child Rape Epidemic” was posted on Ann Coulter’s blog. The blogpost discusses immigration crime rates in America, however approximately 50% of the articles is made up of a list of headline titles involving the rape of children by immigrants. The audience of this article is clearly geared towards steady conservatives with no intent to convince people with opposing views, for the following reasons.

  Starting at the top of the post, her first sentence states that we should be relieved that we do not have “Muslim rapists pouring into our country”, but infers that we can’t relax because “we have Mexican rapists pouring into our country.” This inflammatory statement is clearly offensive and not conducive to welcoming a variety of readers to enjoy this article. The very next sentence refers to Latin America as being a ‘peasant culture’, and then adds that Muslims are also ‘peasant culture’. It is important to note that these two things she equates under the umbrella term ‘peasant cultures’ include the followers of the second most popular religion in the world, and 21 separate countries that are commonly referred to as Latin America. Shortly after this, she states that her statistics don’t even include legal immigrants, adding that she believes that legal immigrants are even worse than illegal. If I were dissect every sentence of this article and their racist and ignorant connotations, this commentary would be longer than her article, so I will stick to these statements. What does she mean by the term ‘peasant cultures’? Despite the fact that she has been recorded saying this phrase as early as 2015, I could find no other source of any other person or reporter using it, and it seems to have no real definition.

  The only sources she cites within this post is one of her own articles, and a website called North Carolinians for Immigration Reform and Enforcement, which appears to be a citizen run advice forum on how to report illegal immigrants and their employers. One of the most important points of a solid argument is that you mention the opposing points of views, and discredit them, but she did not do this either because it wouldn’t matter to the audience she was writing for, or because she can’t deny the statistics that prove her statements false. This article from The New York Times discusses how “Contrary to Trump’s Claims,Immigrants Are Less Likely to Commit Crimes”, and cites many studies such as this, and this. These sources cited by the well reputed paper The New York Times cite real statistics that have been put together by qualified researchers from well known institutions, while Ann Coulter's sole source is as reliable as Wikipedia, since there is no information on who is running the domain, or any sources for it's information.