Argumentative Essay On Crime And Terrorism

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This year’s election has been like no other; the extreme polarization of parties have caused the loss of friendships, marriages, and jobs. Donald Trump ran his campaign with the platform that under his presidency, America will become great again, whereas Hillary Clinton declared that “America has never stopped being great.” However, the statistics for the most important aspects of this country, safety and the economy, show that both Trump and Clinton are correct. Although crime and terrorism rates are lower today in the US, our nation is worse off than in the 1980s because the national debt is the largest it has ever been, unemployment rates are higher, and the rapidly increasing rates of the cost of higher education and health care do not …show more content…
In 2015, ABC News and the Washington Post conducted a poll and reported that 76% of Americans are “worried about a major terrorist attack in the United States” (Bergen). However, there were approximately 500 attacks during the decade of the 1980s compared to only 208 attacks after the Twin Towers catastrophe in 2001. The FBI defines terrorism as crimes that are politically motivated and are intended to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping” (“Terrorism”). For example, in April 1983, a suicide bomber who was a member of a militant anti-U.S. Islamic group killed 63 people and injured 120 more at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon ("Terrorist Attacks on Americans 1979-1988”). A few months later, in December 1983, 241 U.S. Marines were killed and 100 more injured after another suicide bomber bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut. Rates have since decreased since the 1980s due to stricter regulations and increased securities in many places such as airports, schools, and government buildings. Joint Terrorism Task Forces are also used to decrease the terrorism rate (Bergen). The first was established in 1980 and throughout the 1980s, few existed. Currently, there are 104 nationwide. In the 1980s, the No Fly List, …show more content…
Work time cost is a measure of how much time one must work in order to purchase a good and is useful because it accounts for inflation. For instance, it would take the average American worker 95 hours of work to cover the $340 needed to buy soft contacts in 1971 (Time Well Spent). In 1997, the average American would only need to work 4 hour to pay the $50 to purchase the contacts. Many products have not only a lower work time cost, but a lower price too due to new technologies that keep products up to date. But one major work time increase is in college tuitions (Moreno). Students now must work more than the double the amount of time to cover the average cost of tuition compared to 1980 (20 weeks of work in 1985 compared to about 48 weeks in 2009). Although students may be receiving slightly better education, it is not by alot. The cost of higher education has risen by 439% in the past 25 years, but the amount of future income with a college degree is higher than it was in the 1980s (Woodruff). Essentially, the rapid increasing rates of the cost of higher education does not match the slower increasing

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