Electoral College Analysis

Caroline’s presentation was on the issue of if the electoral college should be retained for the purpose of electing presidents or if it should be done away with. The thesis presented was that the electoral college is too outdated and contradictory to the popular vote to justify its continuation, even if was meant as a more efficient way of deciding victors. Besides the supporting points of its contradictory and outdated nature, it was also pointed out that its does more to divide the country than it does to elect candidates for the whole nation. As for the damage the college deals to the actual popular vote, that originates in the massive disparities that are present across the board concerning the number of electoral votes states are granted.

The point having been made was that the country was much smaller then than it is now and very little worthwhile revisions have been carried out. This leads into the counterclaim of saying how the college is more efficient than a direct democracy and can handle ties easier because of the 270-out-of-538 majority required to elect a candidate. In response to that, it was given that when there actually wa a tie in 1824, it was a much messier and arduous process that required the House of Representatives’ weigh-in to actually make a decision. That effectively discredited the ability to handle a tie and the claimed efficiency of elections through an electoral college. Personally, I agree that the electoral college should be a thing of the past and my reasons for believing so were pretty much spelled out during this presentation. While it most certainly would be more demanding to tally up 300 million individual votes compared to just 538, today’s technology, would think, ease the process compared to if the college was done away with 20 or even 10 years ago. Also, if the US is going to continue take such enormous and all-encompassing pride in our democracy, it needs to better represent the popular vote than winner-takes-all

There’s also no arguing the prominence of oil in modern society, especially a highly industrial society as America and the need for a reliable method of getting stuff from A to B. There’s also a number of positions that can be turned around and filled with Americans who have seen decreasing unemployment as a result of pipelines. Jobs such as inspectors, technical specialists, supervisors, schedulers, and what not can be had with the installations of this infrastructure. At this point in his presentation, Kevin displayed a infographic with numerous positive percents showing job/economic growth which was a use of logos. To see the infographic and have it aid his argument concerning job growth, was to be presented with a logical reason for the defense of oil pipeline construction in this country. Also reasonable was the point that increasing our nation’s energy production will lower gas prices and eventually national debt because then there’s less international reliance on things such as OPEC