Threatening Burdens

The Editorial Board of the New York Times (made up of writers, editors, and various experts) wrote about the disproportion of military spending by NATO (Sharing the Nato Burden). The audience they write to seems split because on one end they determine the dangers of threatening our allies while later on, they refer to said allies as "laggards". The argument being made is that the new Secretary of Defence's message to NATO (echoing Trump's sentiments of recalling support if financial obligations are not met) was unsettling, but not unfounded. The provided evidence includes percentages of gross domestic product spent on military (each country is supposed to spend 2%) with the U.S. spending the most at 3.61% and Germany the least with 1.1%. I believe these statistics to be misleading, especially if you consider the difference in spending as far as refugee resettlement is concerned.

The written persona of the editorial is fairly concise in its opinion about the topic. Obviously, there is a lot of observed anxiety about what is happening and what is going to happen with our new President (or his dealings with Russia). The sentiment of the opinion is unity while "sharing the burden". When speaking about a singular subject, such as "sharing the burden", and providing evidence for said subject, it leaves out 90% of the picture. The logic is biased and uninspiring. This doesn't mean the opinion is a false argument; all it means is that the argument is skewed to have the reader believe in something without all of the evidence.

I do not believe this to be a bad editorial, as it does provide clear (albeit little) information on a tumultuous subject of current events. The opinions being stated are something that a large majority are thinking as well, but towards the end, it feels as if the evidence being provided is there only to make you think as they think. At this point, it stops being an opinion and starts being a paper written to persuade the reader to think that the other nations in NATO aren't pulling their weight (when they actually are in different ways that weren't expressed in the editorial). There is no clear way to criticize the opinions of others, as you do not have their exact viewpoints, but looking with an outsider perspective is beneficial to forming precise arguments.

Hungry for Education

In this article, The Number of Hungry and Homeless Students Rises with College Costs, the author describes the desperation of affording modern day higher education. He uses a specific story of a young college student who could not afford a place to live. The student was dependent on shelters for living and maintaining academic interest/success. The author also uses a Wisconsin study of undergrads in community college to display a shocking statistic about student homelessness. The basic message of the article is that modern college students are in dire straits. The burden of this lands on state and national government to provide for students in need. But as we can see this is not happening. Cost for attending colleges and universities is still rising while the amount of students who can no longer afford it rises as well. This article should be important to all of us because at some point, none of us will be able to afford the classes we are currently taking.