responses

Corbin White

With so many different state political cultures it is very difficult to create an all encompassing solution to more controversial issues that our nation faces. As a result of this leaving these issues up to the individual states I believe is a good solution. It is not necessary to come to an overall consensus on issues like these and others. I don’t think that the varying political views of people will ever align to allow for an agreement that both sides would be happy with in regards to these more controversial discussions. Because of this I believe that decisions on topics should be decided upon by a majority vote, depending on how the majority of the people feel on one of these topics is how a decision should lean more towards. Rather than leaving all of the power to the federal government to decide an end all be all law to an issue that many may feel opposite feelings towards than that of the federal government, local governments should be able to take the consensus of the people in that state to determine what is going to be done in that area. In the example of marijuana, federally is is illegal and a schedule I drug, along with heroin and cocaine, but states have found no problems with it and have actually been using some of its properties to treat peoples illnesses. These states have made marijuana legal, but at anytime the federal government can come in and arrest everyone in that building. This should not be the case, as a majority of the citizens of that state are in favor of and voted for it to be legal in their state.

Matthew Kennedy

Most people will not change their beliefs and this is on both sides of the isle, Republican and Democrat, but not all issues are the same and I think that for the issue of gay marriage everyone is coming together and while some will still not conform with the idea of legal gay marriage everyone else is on board. A perfect example of this is the new president, most people like to put him off as someone that is very hateful, but he is actually the first president to be elected while being open to gay marriage and supporting legalization of it. This is big because even when Obama was elected he wasn't for legalizing gay marriage. I believe in gay marriage as I do not believe the government should be able to say that two people of the same gender can not be married. Same for gun control how can the government tell me how many bullets a magazine can hold and then because a rifle does the same thing as another rifle but is black and scary it is called an assault rifle. This is possibly the dumbest thing because states are defining weapons as assault weapons when an assualt weapon is a select fire machine gun not a semi automatic. With different people who live different lives and different traditions people have, it will be impossible to come to a consensus because what works for some will not work for all. The best thing people can do is if they disagree with some they should just be respectful of that person's position.