Humurous Argument

It may be a relative easy skit to choose, but I choose the SNL skit of the presidential debate in Mississippi to be my example of a humorous argument. The way that each actor accentuated the candidates diction and common ideas was hilarious. They pointed at each candidates overwhelming disadvantages using hyperbole. For example, how McCain kept justifying how he was different from Bush by explaining his predictable voting patterns against some of republican's, especially Bush's, policy, they characterized what he was saying by the actor of John McCain proclaiming that he is an unreliable candidate. The joke of Obama pulling the race card in dealing with North Korea, represented the lack in confidence of Obama being experienced enough to be effective in international diplomacy. This skit is also a very good example of the kind of things I want to implement in my humor piece. I want to create a dialogue between John McCain and Asian leaders as well as Obama's dialogue with them, emphasizing on redundant points the candidates brought up in their debate, and other things I found amusing.
http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/presidential-debate/704121/

Op-Ed

I want to be creative on this project and write the piece from an Asian point of view. Many different nationalities live in America and their voice has a right to be heard too. What I specifically want to do with the topic from the Article "The Next President should focus more on Asia is to focus on the benefits of focusing more on Asia, and not just the countering reasons like we are doing nothing in Iraq. I think it will be hard trying to voice it through the perspective of a different nationality, but I want to try. Plus, the study the author of my artist used for research had a variety of nationalities within the study itself that will help me achieve my goal.

Letter to the Editor

Re: Next President should focus more on Asia.
I think that an account of how the United States should focus more on Asia, from a foundation mixed with Asian and American logistics and views, is an interesting way to analyze the situation. Normally, this type of account would allow the reader to see both perspectives of the nations in question. Although Paul suggests that it is a foundation of both ethnicities by quoting the retired US diplomat and the South Korean Minister, who developed parts of the study, I think that Paul fails to address the views of the Asians in the article. The article highlights how the U.S has been neglecting Asian diplomacy, not how (according to Han Sung-Joo, Tommy Koh, C. Raja Mohan of the study) Asia “wants the U.S to be an effective, global leader” when dealing with, as stated in Peter’s article, “pressing international problems.”
However, Peter does include quotes from the South Korean Foreign Minister on the topic of how the next president “will inherit the North Korean nuclear problem and should not lose time in diplomacy aimed at talking Pyongyang into giving up its atomic weapons.” Peter includes this claim to show how the American government might lose sight of important economical relations with Asia, and how Asia does not want this to occur. Though this point is an interesting outlook of why the U.S would be more active in Asia, it does not explain why it should.
The U.S focus “on the urgent at the expense of the important,” explains how the U.S. has lost some of its standings in Asian politics, but not why the U.S should focus more on Asia. In the Introduction to the study titled “Americas Role in Asia,” it explains how the U.S. is losing its dominant role in Asian trade due to the rising regional identity of Asia that constitutes the majority of Intra-Asian trade. I may have assumed that the U.S. might want to be more focused on Asia due to economic reasons, but I would have not known that the U.S’s importance to maintain this relationship was so dire because of the declining majority it has within Asian trade interactions.
Peter’s extensive knowledge of the study puts him at a credible position with his audience to consider his point; however I think he missed out on a few details that would allow reader to fully understand why the next president should focus more on Asia.
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1034895420080911

Factual Argument

The title of my factual argument article is McCain Seen as Less Likely to Bring Change. Although the poll's title referring to the people's positon on change, it also bring's a number of other issues, like people's position on the Republican candidates after the convention, and different groups of people decisions on who the advocated. What I though was important in this article is that the authors Robin Toner and Adam Nagourney included a detailed description of what poll they found their factual data from. For example, how much the sampling error was, how many people were included in the nationwide telephone poll, and how many were registered voters. Another point that they brought up was a correlation between the economy being the top issue affecting their voting position, which presidential candidate will be able to manage the economy better, and who they think was less likely to bring change. Since the majority thought Obama had the greater ability to manga the economy McCain was ultimatly the candidate who was seen less likely to bring change.

My Editorial Piece

Since I am in Model United Nations, and because I am required to take a class on the origins of the UN, I decided that I wanted to pick a topic dealing with the candidates and their position on the UN. After many searches I found an article in Reuters that is based off a study that the next president should focus more on Asia. The main point of the article is to illustrate that the U.S. needs to maintain alliances with powerful nations such as Japan and China to help solve international problems. I am very intrigues in the metamorphosis that the United States role in international affairs will turn into. The next president has a lot to do with the changing role the U.S plays in foreign diplomacy. I also found an interesting structure of words that I think suggests bias which will be a great point to bring up in my rhetorical response.

How will I choose?

As of now I am maturing in my political position. In other words, I am at the intermediate stage between changing from the politics/values that I was encultured into, to determining my own position about policy. Because of this state, I can not reach some decisions on ethical issues such as abortion or gay marriage.

I do want to choose the candidate who I feel has the best policy to restore The U.S's economic state. I understand that the United States is a very social entity that wants to engage into the activities of other nations, but there comes a point and time where the nation's leader must solve the problems of his or her country.

Once I find the candidate that appeases my feelings towards the economic intent, discovering exactly what the candidates foreign diplomacy policy is will be another important component in my decision. One of of the big issues dealing with foreign diplomacy is how will the candidate handle the War in Iraq. If I do vote, I might be likely to chooses to create a plan to pull out of the Iraqi war.

Global Warming is another important stand I will consider in my choosing. I want to pick the candidate that identifies that this is in fact a growing problem that must somehow be retarded.
In relation to this issue, I want to choose the candidate who I think has the best goals in developing alternative energy due to the depletion of oil and because of the negative effects it has on the environment.

Though I am not one hundred percent about my own stand on some issues, I do have some strong ideas of what would be the better policy to benefit American citizens.

Logos

As I was thinking for something to use for my logos, I decided to pick an object that would hold true to "Everything's an Argument" , that everything can be an argument. As I glanced to the ground, I saw pack of lights bulbs that I had recently bought. Highlighted in red, "50% longer life*" was the first thing my eye was drawn to. Then I immediately looked to see the brand, which was GE, to see whether this brand has credibility due to its performance in electrical supplies. Thus when I read the explanation inferred by the *, the numbers that were shown to prove that GE's Long Life white bulbs were 50% more efficient than regular soft white light bulbs, I thought the explanation was true. GE's had 1125 hours of efficiency whereas the regular ones had 750 hours, and the number of lumens( the measure of how bight it is) were fairly close. They use mathematics to prove their claim that their bulbs lasted longer to try to persuade you to buy their product(act). But as a skeptical consumer I did the mathematics and 50 percent of 750 hours was 355 . And 1125 hours is not 355 more hours than 750, 1105 is. Yes, the numbers are close so did they just round the number up to make it a solid even number or did they use a multiple of tests and that number was the median? Should I trust this product, or buy it again?

Logos

Ethos

As I was reading Obama's campaign site and the different policy's he will establish as President, I could not help but notice that he had a number of other website groups he was apart of on the side of the page. The weblink on the top left was Facebook. I clicked on the link, and on the very top of the page I saw a picture of Barack Obama and his candidate for Vice President, Joe Biden, and the phrase, "Our moment is now," above them. Facebook is a very popular site, predominatly used by American college students and teens. Having a facebook profile is displaying that Obama is trying to connect with Americas youth. He is displaying himself as a candidate who knows interests of Americas youth, and participating in it as well. He also uses Ethos to show America's youth his credentials, one of them being a graduate stundent of Harvard Law along with the year he graduated. The slogan also represents his position in that he is a candidate of the "now".

I realized that having a facebook was an important way of campaiging for both presidential candidates, but the facebook application on Mccain's campaign site was not so easily found.
http://www.facebook.com/barackobama?ref=s&refurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fs.php%3Fq%3Dbarack%2Bobama%26init%3Dq