I chose Hillary Clinton’s ad ‘Measure’ because it brings up a really important issue that might be overlooked in the election. When I first saw it, it pulled a bit at the heart strings.

Parents might be the primary intended audience. But the ad is meant to affect anyone who knows a kid, whether that be their sibling or their neighbor’s child. The ad uses ethos to make people want to do the right thing. This is clear when she says that greatness in America is measured by the values we put onto children.  It wants people to create a country where children are able to live happy. In a nice way, it’s trying to show that pushing our burdens onto the next generation is wrong. It also uses pathos by visually showing snippets of things parents can relate to.

The beginning of the video is meant to highlight the wrong values that Donald Trump holds. She says the greatness is not measured by the height of skyscrapers or the money in our bank accounts to show that Donald Trump is just a business man. He may put a lot of attention to America’s economic problems, put he pays no attention to children and families. This video turns from an anti-Trump ad to a pro-Hillary ad where she says that she had been working with families her whole life. She speaks about making college more affordable and creating jobs. Along with the visuals of the parents and children smiling happily side by side, an emotional response is evoked. The final shot where Hillary is taking a picture with a little boy shows that she shares in the same values as the parents.

I think this ad is very effective because, to a parent,  a child is a lot more important than immigration or terrorism. So much emotion is brought with these moral convictions that it can ultimately decide the vote for someone.

In this TED Talk, Michael Sandel says that we are making it harder to get anything productive out of the democratic process when we leave our  moral convictions at the door. He starts the talk by asking a question. If everyone in the crowd is given a flute, who should get the best flutes? Someone in the audience had said the best flutes should be given to the best flute players because it would be better for everyone as a whole. Aristotle would’ve argued that the best flutes should be given to the best flute players because flutes were made to recognize those who have the best flute playing ability.

To make his point even clearer, he brings up a supreme court case between the PGA (Professional Golf Association) and a disabled man named Casey Martin. The man who can walk properly had requested to use a cart so that he may be able to get around. The PGA

said no because they felt that it would give him an unfair advantage. Under state law, accommodations need to be made as long as the accommodation does not change the essential nature of the activity. When asked by Michael, one audience member said that walking was part of the game. Another member, who coincidentally played golf, said that walking isn’t part of it. The Supreme Court had taken the Martin’s side. Scalia had written the dissenting opinion to say that the point of the game is simply amusement. Equality is not part of it. If it had been, everyone should’ve just been given a cart.

Michael says we need to know where people are coming from when they decide on issues. We need to know what values of something a person is willing to uphold. He brings in the contemporary issue of same-sex marriage where some people value marriage’s use of procreation and others value its meaning of commitment. By knowing what people uphold morally, we can have respect for our opponents’ opinions and have a better discussion towards the improvement of the country.

I’m going to make the case for non-voting. Before all else, you shouldn’t be voting if you don’t have a grasp on the issues. It can be dangerous for the nation when you blindly cast your ballot. When you don’t know what it is you’re really voting for, bad outcomes can come forward. It’s wrong when people pressure others into voting hoping that they will vote for the same candidate as them.  It’s immoral for people to garner votes by making others feel like they’ve done something wrong. These people feel that those blind votes will do some good as they cancel out the blind votes from the other candidates. And there really are only two candidates who have a shot, so when a new voter comes around, her vote counts for two since she’s deprived the other candidate of her vote.  It’s better for the country to have well-informed citizens than to have those who are uninformed and/or easily manipulated.

Informed non-voters who don’t support any of the candidates are told that they are letting other people choose for them. They’re told that if they don’t vote, they don’t have the right to complain when the results are in. But the basis of that argument is that we all agreed to our system of democracy. We’ve agreed to a system where everyone’s voices will be carried by one candidate or another (which can never be the case) and where the majority gets to decide the future of our country.  And if that’s the case, no one really has the right to “complain”. Non-voters can’t speak about issues because they never took the actions to let their thoughts be heard. Supporters of the losing candidate have to keep their mouths shut because they agreed to uphold the majority vote. And supporters of the winning candidate have to sit in silence as they take the heat for all the dreadful actions coming ahead because of their binding contract, regardless if they felt that they fought for the lesser of two evils. Non-voters, as well as any other citizen, should be able to voice their dissent when things go wrong. Non-voters are just taking the steps to show that they carry no allegiances.

I understand that this is an election unlike any other in recent American history. There are many people voting against candidates out of spite to keep them away from power. For many, the concerns of the election have little to do with policy and are more about preserving good. But those who feel that none of the candidates would be capable of being the president should not be looked down on.

Nate is a prime example of those who have been failed by the U.S. prison system. Like Nate, many people who are incarcerated at a young age have harsh lives after their release. For those,  punishments for felonies are far longer than just a jail sentence.  It’s very hard for felons to get jobs when employers take criminal records into consideration. On top of it being difficult to get a steady flow of income, inmates like Nate would have to deal with paying for visits with their parole officers. The line ‘I gotta pay the public defender who advised me to plead guilty’ stood out to me.

The U.S. prison system is so focused on punishment that second chances are next to none. Instead of working on rehabilitation, we’re turning inmates into either repeated offenders or society’s outcasts. Felons should be given the right to receiving federal aid and the right to vote, if not the chance to be treated equally to everyone else once they have done their time. I also thought of the monologue in a broader sense where I felt like we should look past people’s previous issues and look more towards how a person has changed for the better.