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Uncommon Sense: Beginning of the End
Uncommon Sense: Beginning of the End
Monday, November 29, 2010 By Editor Zane Clark
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Everyone will agree that in our world it seems like someone is always mad at someone else. Somebody always steps on another persons toes, forgets to apologize, and World War Three starts. Our good friends in North Korea have recently solidified my point.

On Tuesday November 23, North and South Korea exchanged artillery rounds after North Korea shot an island near the disputed sea border killing at least two South Korean Marines and two civilians, destroying buildings, and scaring the living daylights out of citizens.

As acts of violence like this occur constantly around the globe, our president still wants to sign a new nuclear peace treaty. The treaty will, in theory, reduce the number of long-range nuclear warheads owned by the U.S. and Russia by one-third. 
I have a problem with the treaty.

I want to first say I am not opposed to promoting world peace. I would be dancing in jubilation if there was a treaty that would actually secure world peace, but this treaty actually puts us at more of a risk of being attacked than we are at right now. By reducing our nuke count, even if Russia also complies, we are weakening our defenses against other countries and their crazy dictators like North Korea.
 
North Korea has put the globe on high alert. There are talks about being on the brink of war, and it will be a war involving the U.S. If we reduce our power we won't be as much help, and we won't be held in the same regard by the crazy, power hungry dictators who are constantly looking for opportunity to strike at us.
 
If I know I'm at high risk of having my car broken into, am I going to begin leaving it unlocked?  Perhaps I could leave just one door unlocked and maybe a window cracked. Just reduce my security measures by about a third. I have much more common sense than that, even if the purpose behind leaving it unlocked is to show I have faith that the goodness in people will overcome the evil. When we are at risk, we cannot as a nation put ourselves at more of a risk when we could stay as we are and be safe. It's common sense, and it's hard to come by these days.

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3 COMMENTS - Add your comment below

12/2/2010 8:29:07 PM by Barack Smith    
I agree wholeheartedly with the editor on this view. While reducing our number of warheads seems like a good idea for safety reasons it is still dangerous. What if a tyrannical dictator like Kim Jong Il decides that we are stepping out of the way for a dangerous attack on a nation unable to defend themselves. Besides Jimmy(highly doubt that's your real name) it is a high school paper that is well written and makes a valid point. I don't think it's a good idea to bash on a teenager's work like that. Keep writing Mr. Clark.
12/1/2010 8:22:56 AM by Derek Williams    
Jimmy, thanks for reading. As an advisor, I feel obliged to respond and since the email you provided (yeahuncommon@alright.com) doesn't seem to be working, I will do so here. 1) Please remember these are students writing opinion pieces. While you might not agree, I'd respectfully request you disagree in a respectful manner rather than an accusatory or degrading tone. 2) When providing feedback, I'd encourage you to avoid unreliable sources like Wikipedia. Wikipedia itself is aware of the flaws in its system. In fact, according to Wikipedia, "The Wikipedia model allows anyone to edit, and relies on a large number of well-intentioned editors to overcome issues raised by a smaller number of problematic editors. It is inherent in Wikipedia's editing model that poor information can be added, but over time quality is anticipated to improve in a form of group learning as editors reach consensus, so that substandard edits will very rapidly be removed. This assumption is still being tested, and its limitations and reliability are not yet a settled matter." It goes on to say, "Wikipedia allows anonymous editing: contributors are not required to provide any identification, or even an email address." You can see for yourself at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia#cite_note-1. 3) Other more reliable sources, like the Center for Defense Information, put the number of U.S. nukes at 7,000. While that's still a great deal and probably overkill, Zane's point is these weapons are more of a defensive tactic than an offensive one. If history is any indication, he's correct. I don't tell my kids what to write about. All I ask is their facts be indisputable, their writing concise, and they follow our style guide. This article does all of the above. Thanks for reading.
11/30/2010 6:19:12 PM by Jimmy    
My High School Journalism indeed. I'm assuming your article is regarding the USA/Russia Nuclear Treaty. Your logic in assuming that lowering the amount of nuclear weapons that our country or Russia has will lower national security, is highly flawed. Do you know how many nuclear weapons the USA has? Thousands. Not only thousands, but 9,600 combined+, according to wikipedia. That's enough to destroy every major, mid sized, city in the world, many times over. You'll only need a very small fraction of that to make extinct, every species on Earth. Even if we cut down our inventory by 90%, we'll still have enough to destroy every major city on earth, a few times over. You can't compare destroying nuclear weapons to cars. If we were signing an open border system with Iran, that would be a better comparison. But no, we're talking about nuclear weapons. Finish high school before you start writing about things you have no idea of.
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