Political affiliations are often a personal choice made based on an individual’s morals, trust in the government and economic situation. Many young people usually affiliate with the same party as their parents until they get to college, gain independence, and become more informed. However, numerous academic institutions that students attend are bias towards one party and do not offer students the chance to see the aspects of both platforms.

Typically, public universities tend to favor the democratic party and focus teachings around their platforms and principles, while openly showing detest towards other ideas. Even the textbooks that are used for classes explicitly favor liberal policies and frame conservative policies as shameful and egotistic. The strong-opinionated teachings that are executed at many public universities, such as UNC, are not appropriate in order to facilitate unbiased learned that leads to self-made opinions based purely on factual evidence. Even worse, students are learning to develop a hatred for not only other parties, but also those affiliated with those parties. The universities depict the Republican Party in a singular way and mislead their students into thinking that there is only one way to be a republican. They teach that there are not diversions in ideology, when in actuality, there are many degrees of republican, just as there are many degrees of being a democrat. The professors who teach in this way are limiting the minds of students and only showing them one path, when there is a magnitude of combinations of ideologies in which the students could study. Narrowing students minds to only consider one political party and directly steering them to detest other parties is limiting the minds of future generations.

Classes should not inaccurately shame other political affiliations because many students trust the learning institution whole-heartedly and will believe whatever is taught to them. Then, their opinions are based solely off of their trust of the professor and not through their own research and findings, creating naive citizens. Students should be shown an unbiased overview of party platforms along with the positions that each party takes and the moderations that are made. Students should be able to make a decision of their party individually, without feeling ashamed for what they believe to be correct. And students should not be taught that other parties are wrong, but rather to respect each person’s opinion of why they support their chosen party, even if they do not agree.

Religion is a positive influence on a person. It brings good morals, guidance, structure and peace of mind to daily life. Different religions differ in morals and some are more extreme than others, but most have good intentions. Some moral decisions play a part in politics, an aspect of life that has become increasingly stifling toward religious opinions. People are made to feel bad about their religious beliefs if they are contrary to popular opinion, calling into question our respect for the First Amendment.

The fundamentals of most religions teach right from wrong, which is an important concept for each and every person to understand. That does not mean that one must be religious to understand right from wrong, but without the structured learning of these morals, there might never be the chance to learn. America was founded on Christian principles, but lately it seems to be encouraging the suppression of public acts of religion. The general discouragement of religious practices in public places is increasing, as is the lack of morality in our society.  Some are teased or scorned for their religious beliefs. Within politics, conservatives tend to be more religious than liberals. Some liberals have used that as a weapon against the generally conservative Republican party when, in reality, it should be an advantage. Many people are passionate about their religion and find it important to uphold their religion’s standards. Everyone else should respect that. Our country is avid about accepting people from all different backgrounds based on race, but we should expand that to accepting them for their religion, and not shaming them or belittling their beliefs.

As a society, we focus more on what the media tells us is right than we focus on basic readings of principle, like the Bible. Hardly anyone questions the media’s judgment about everyday occurrences, which in light of recent events we know that there are many cases of false reporting, yet basic principles that teach good morals are scrutinized.  As a country, we should be supportive of each other’s religions. It should not be used as a way to discredit someone’s opinions if it is based off of their religion.

This past Sunday, February 15^th, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released an outline of rules for drone usage by companies. These proposed regulations are extremely limiting to businesses, like Google and Amazon, which wanted to begin using drones as a delivery system.  However, the drone industry and many lawmakers are in favor of these regulations. The proposal says that drones must stay in sight of the operator, and it cannot fly over people who are not involved in the drone operations, strongly limiting the drones’ capability of providing delivery services.  The FAA also limits the weight of an unmanned aircraft to 55 pounds, which puts a restriction on the size of packages that can be delivered. The drones are only allowed to fly up to 500 feet high according to the proposal.  Other countries, such as Canada and Denmark, are already using drones for commercial purposes. The benefits are quick delivery that is cheaper, less wasteful and more environmentally sensitive.  One of Google’s Project Wing goals is to increase same day delivery that is already occurring by automobiles in cities like San Francisco and New York. The drones would expand same day delivery to other cities, further away. Another benefit that Google hopes Project Wing will be able to provide is quick emergency delivery to disaster areas, where the drones can distribute first aid kits, food and other supplies.  There are those who are not in favor of this drone delivery system for many reasons including crowding the sky, drones used for indiscreet surveillance, and the possibility of these drones being hacked. These regulations that have been proposed are not definite yet and a 60-day comment period has been opened. Executives within Google and Amazon are asking the FAA to reconsider the regulations and make them more business friendly, whereas executives in the unmanned aircraft industry already believe the proposal is a huge milestone that will make the industry more fruitful and create more jobs.

Recently, The Islamic State (ISIS) fighters have successfully been driven out of Kobani, a town on the Syria-Turkey border. Had they gained control of this huge part of the border, controlled by Kurds, it would have been a huge victory in terms of territory. After four months of fighting for this land, the Kurdish victory is a brief sigh of relief. However, ISIS is nonetheless dangerous. The group has been releasing videos of beheading hostages and terrorizing towns in the Middle East, taking innocent lives. In the past two weeks, the group has released videos of two Japanese hostages being beheaded.  ISIS is out of control and growing rapidly. How did it become so prevalent? George Bush could not have been surprised because he predicted the exact circumstances during his speech about the Iraq War on July 12, 2007.

In Bush’s speech he stated that pulling troops out of Iraq before the right time “would mean we would be witnessing mass killings on a horrific scale.” ISIS has taken over towns in the Middle East, leaving destruction in its path. The group has used beheadings, crucifixions, and has even buried women and children alive, as they try to spread their beliefs. Bush warned that by taking troops out of Iraq, a safe haven for terror groups would be created.  He was right. The Islamic State now covers a large amount of territory, the size of Belgium. By removing U.S. troops before the commanders on the ground said that the area was stable enough, a new terror group was able to form and flourish. In his speech, Bush said, “it would mean increasing the probability that American troops will have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous.” Unfortunately, he was correct in his predictions.  Now, our troops are being deployed again to confront this enemy. The more relevant terror groups had already been conquered at the end of the Bush administration. However, by revoking all of our forces, terrorists were able to regroup, gather in Syria and then once again, establish themselves in Iraq.

To address the debate that we should not be sending our troops back, this country has a duty to protect our citizens. ISIS has personally threatened our country and beheaded American citizens on video for the world to see. We cannot sit back and let that happen again; we must fight. We have a duty as Americans to defend our rights and help those who do not have as great of defense programs. It is important that we make it clear that we do not tolerate any single one of our innocent citizens being brutally murdered for their beliefs. It goes against our fundamental beliefs of freedom. Our country must stand firmly against this terror group and take actions to defeat them before The Islamic State expands into even more territory, destroying the lives of innocent people and brainwashing the naive.