Hot Button Topics Are Issues

Hot button topics are issues that promote debate and urge people to take a second look and perhaps change perspective. Of the many things that have become conversational in modern American society, three topics have yet to reach a conclusion. These three are: providing contraceptives to minors in school, legalization of marijuana, and the death penalty. Each topic has vehement supporters on both sides. The question of whether or not they will reach a conclusion is up in the air. Will it benefit American society as a whole if either topic went either way permanently?

Providing contraceptives to minors has long been debated. Schools want to educate teens about safe sex to avoid unplanned pregnancies and parents want their kids to remain abstinent until they reach a certain age. This pull from back and forth creates tension on both sides and generates a grey area where some schools offer contraceptives and others, namely private schools, (IE. Catholic) abstain from providing any contraceptives, instead giving out purity rings. ("Plan B. And Birth Control in School: We Need Some Perspective | TIME.com," n.d., p. 1) Purity rings are used by teens to make a vow of abstinence. Another hot topic is the legalization of marijuana.

In states like California and Colorado, marijuana is legal to some extent. On the state level people can buy marijuana with a license or ID card, on a federal level if they get caught selling or buying, they could be arrested. For decades marijuana has been viewed as being illegal, bad for one's health, addictive. Recent research has proven marijuana to be beneficial to some degree. ("Debate over legalization of marijuana grows nationwide | WJLA.com," n.d., p. 1) If marijuana became fully legal it could get taxed and regulated. If it went back to being fully illegal, more people would go to jail. The third and last hot button topic is the death penalty.

Some people oppose the death penalty because they don't believe in wasting a life. Others believe in the death penalty because they believe criminals should pay for their heinous crimes. If the death penalty was enforced in every state, the possibility of innocent people dying could increase, but the population of overcrowded prisons would decrease. It all depends on what the government and the country as whole needs.

It is quite difficult for people to decide on whether something is good bad. History has proven that people change their mind based on new evidence and public opinion. What was once a taboo is now the norm. Hot button topics like these only need for time to show just how good or bad they really are.

Section 2

1. His tone is that of a relaxed news reporter. It's as if he doesn't believe the extravagance of some of the examples he gives. He tries to equate debauchery and under age sex with the prom and frivolous spending. "Over the years parents have become more active in creating the 'prom experience,' from personally signing for houses for a three-day drug/sex/alcohol bash, to mothers making motel reservations for their sons and daughters for the after-prom-get-togethers." (Brown, 2008) This in turn enables the reader to quickly side with him because underage debauchery is viewed as wrong. He uses words like "extravagant," "orgy," "$20,000" to get people to see these prom goers as satanic, rich savages. It definitely succeeds in convincing an audience that prom is bad on some level. I think also the simple fact that he keeps mentioning price tags and eventually the "$100,000" some of the prom families make connects the audience to the idea the rich are spoiled and do immoral things. Prom is something that brings positive memories to some but the writer twists it around and make it worse than a guilty pleasure.