Monday Matters #14

http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2008/may08/08-05-28.html
  In her column, Mrs. Schlafly presents a very open ended argument on the issuesof government spending revolving around legal and illegal immigrants. She notes how "today's low-wage immigrants and lower-wage illegals" simply don't earn enough because of their lack of American education to support themselves, and that "nearly half of immigrant households, 45 percent, are in or near poverty". This causes programs that support immigrants, who don't pay as great a sum in taxes, with taxpayer money from the rest of the coutry to arise. Such large-scale government spending is in part hurting the economy, but instead of taking solely one position, Schlafly argues that "walling immigrants off from government benefits once we've let them in is a fantasy" and that another solution must be found. Even though people "survived the Great Depression of the 1930s without a welfare state" and without social security and healthcare, such programs, she implies, are still essential and shouldn't be simply taken away, no matter how much they are damaging the economy. She leaves her argument open ended, offering each member of the audience to consider their own alternatives. Such a topic could be used for research that could be a continuation or a response to the argument, addressing such assumptions as that all immigrants earn low wages that she makes, or could focus on potential solutions, be it stricter immigration control, lower benefits for illegals, or educational reform that will allow immigrant children to earn higher wages in the future and not rest on the money of taxpayers.

Monday Matters #13

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2011-12-02/alabama-immigration-HB-56-religion-christians/51588034/1

In her column, Mallory McDuff, a professor at Warren Wilson College, notes that the recent HB 56 legislation in Alabama, an extremely strict anti-illegal immigration law that requires school to report possible illegal students and forbids the employment of, college education of, or property ownership or rent by illegal immigrants, only enlarges the state's record of shame. Even people raised in that state, she claims, "have a moral obligation to resist this legislation" as it is morally wrong and often results in racial profiling that would have been illegal otherwise. Her stance puts morality and faith in front of the problem of constant illegal immigration, and she implies that anti-illegal immigration, such as this one, can cross the line between national welfare and inhumanity. This is why the public has to resist and seek a more spiritual and moral path, so that such terrible things, such as "more than half the detainees [being] separated from family and children", with or without proper evidence and reason, at certain checkpoints, can be avoided, and the illegal immigration can be approached a different way. This kind of an issue is becoming more and more relevant today since in the past years, the country has actually not had enough effective anti-illegal immigration laws, and can be expanded into further research by monitoring issues with legal immigrants as well, an issue with personal meaning to me.

Monday Matters #12

From the three columns Steve Chapman has written lately on Obama's chances at re-election it is easy to discern that Chapman is not the type of person to pick sides. He presents the information on Obama objectively citing different resources such as members of congress, his Republican opposition, and political critics and gives it to the audience in a balanced manner, giving as much good information as bad. From the core, however, Chapman seems to support Obama because no matter which issues he addresses that seem to be prime reasons to mar his reputation, he still pulls out postivive elements from them, such as several economic reforms Obama pushed through as well as scrapping the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy in the army. However, being the realist that he is, Chapman notes that no matter how good of a person or a leader Obama really is, it is always hard to get reelected when the economy is at as bad a state as it is now, and with Obama's middle name changing slowly from 'Hussein' to 'Hoover', there is no better time to pull out of the presidential race than now. Chapman sees how overly critical society is of public figures in general and does his best to offer a moderate view by objectively analyzing the situation and offering a realistic way out.