The Illinois Pension System

Illinois has many problems with dealing with their pension system. Illinois funds about 43.4% of the pensions it is supposed to fund. It is considered healthy to support the pension systems at least 80%. Illinois also faces a 83 billion dollars in unfunded pensions. Illinois seems to be doing a lot of things wrong but they are trying to set the record straight. They are attempting to get rid of their unfunded pension debt and are now one of the top taxing states in America along side New York, California and Maryland. Illinois thinks that changing the year that government workers may retire, 55, and making them wait longer will help them deal with the pension, which it will. The problem is some people get sick and die even before they reach fifty five or they get so old that when they retire they cannot do the things they dreamed of anymore because they are so old. I believe that this it is wrong to raise the retirement age, but I do believe that what they are doing with education is worse. Governor Quinn said that there will be more cuts to education to help the pension system. I see education as one of the most important utilities that America has and what Illinois is doing is destroying their education system. I believe that many people see education as something to cut because it does not affect them anymore, everyone voting is done with their government funded education. I believe education is the building blocks of everything that this country has because everything that is made, decided is by (hopefully) people who have had a good education. By cutting education, the US is not going to be what it is now because the people leading this country are going to be the people who were starved of education.

The Constricting Pledge of Allegiance

The pledge is something that should not be mandatory to do and yet in schools it is something that is mandatory. I agree with the decision from West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette which says that students do not have to say the pledge of allegiance. The pledge is something that should be said with your heart and soul and if someone is not willing to say it in that way then there is no point in even saying it. I agree with Mark Silverstein when he says "beliefs and ideals of liberty and justice should be voluntary" because I believe that people should say the pledge out of their own will and not be forced to say it, thus taking away the freedom (something that this country was founded on) that every American should have.
I believe that in Lipp v. Morris, when a student would not stand for the pledge, the student deserved to be punished because the law at that time only covered a student who would not talk. I believe that students should be allowed to stay seated and not say anything just as long as it was not disruptive to those saying the pledge. A similar case to this is the Holloman v. Walker County Board of Education which concluded that a student had the right to raise his fist during the pledge as long as he was not "disrupt(ing) the educational process or the class in any real way". I believe that as long as whomever is not saying the pledge or doing something disruptive should not be penalized for it.
I disagree with the measure saying "under god" should be in the pledge. Although President Eisenhower signed it saying that this measure should be added to the pledge, I believe that the government and religion should be separate, in the same way that the government does not force its people to take on a singular religion. A major problem is that the pledge is supposed to be said in school. With the laws about church and state being separate, the measure "under god" should be taken out without any hesitation. I agree with Goodwin who believes that the measure "under god" should be taken out because of his reasoning when he states "the inclusion of God in our pledge therefore would acknowledge the dependence of our people and our Government upon the moral directions of the Creator".
The Pledge should not be mandatory to be recited and it is not, students are allowed to opt out yet still to this day, students are not protected from the law to stay seated or to do something else that could possibly be judged as "disruptive".

Environmental saftey

I drove through the corn lands of Illinois about a month back going on a visit to a few colleges. On my way there I saw all of the wind turbines out in the fields gathering energy from the wind. I have always been interested in alternative energy and I hope that someday the world will lean away from energy such as oil and nuclear energy. I have a belief that clean energy is the way of the future since we will destroy ourselves if we do not find another source. A large factor of my belief that we need clean or cleaner way to gather energy is because of global warming. Many disagree or do not believe that it exists but I believe it does. The temperatures of the ocean are rising ever so slightly and the weather is something that is becoming unpredictable and more extreme such as the harsh winters the Britain experienced and the roasting summer that America experienced. Although many people I talk to do not believe that this is true I strongly believe that it is. There are those that are trying to find greener energy, such as when I got a text from my girl friend about electricity being used for cars which was then quickly followed by a picture message of cars being filled up by odd looking gas pumps. Some understand that  green energy is the way of the future, and that this will help the rest of the world prosper. Without people that believe in a "greener" future, our future generations will have greater problems that we have today.