The Debate With Electronic Cigarettes

I agree with S. Singh's article, but only to some extent. Smoking has always been a big health issue in our recent history, causing companies to stop sponsoring cigarettes' companies and causing the government to publicly discourage the public to consume such products because of their negative impacts on health. There's many proven cases of cancers and diseases caused by the sole reason of smoking, but I will not go into details because Singh's article is about e-cigs and their impacts.

Although I agree with the main point of promoting electronic cigarettes in states and allowing Texas to fully benefit from e-cigs, Singh argues that e-cigs should not be banned in bars which I don't agree with. Although e-cigs aren't dangerous to the health and don't produce the smoke and smell that comes with regular cigarettes, it's still an action; the action of smoking. Smoking in public institutions has been ruled against, and that's how it should be. E-cigs were put in the market to allow people to slowly step away from their smoking habits and of course not having to deal with the harm that regular cigarettes cause. Allowing e-cigs in public institutions only promotes the idea of smoking. It doesn't matter that e-cigs are not dangerous, they are still promoting the idea of smoking in public institutions which I don't agree with.

However, I agree with Singh's idea of promoting e-cigs. As the author stated, e-cigs don't have the 4000 chemicals that the regular cigarettes have, and that's definitely great for e-cigs. However, Texas should aim to reach out to smokers about e-cigs, give special deals on them, promote the idea of using e-cigs instead of regular cigarettes. However, I refuse with Singh that they must go out of their way and allow them in bars and such; places that smoking in general is banned. E-cigs can and will save hundreds of millions of lives, and that can easily happen; but smoking in general should be disallowed in public institutions that has already banned regular cigarettes. Our goal as a society is to eliminate regular cigarettes, and by keeping smoking in general restricted in certain places will help to do that.

The Success of Governor Perry

As the state of Texas is blossoming as a whole, many of the deserving credits go to Governor Perry. There are people, mainly his political opponents, who claim that Texas' success has nothing to do with Perry, but I completely disagree with such. Since 2009, Governor Perry has enabled the state to gain 40% of the new jobs in the country, and the unemployment rate stands at 8.2 which is well below of the national average of 9.1. Governor Perry and his colleagues were able to bring jobs to Texas, and that alone solved a lot of the crisis that was happening back in the mid-late 2000s. In fact, Perry enabled Texas to boost their high-education professional jobs (engineering, science, math-related, technology) by 11% since 2009. That is the fastest growing number compared to all other states, and nearly four times the national average growth. One of the biggest issues in America today is how these types of jobs can grow, and Texas seem to be doing a very well job at it. Also, the cost of houses in Houston, Dallas and Austin is much less than those in for examples Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. Keeping the cost of living in the state reasonably lower than other states, is one of the great jobs done by the Governor.

Besides the economic reasons, Governor Perry has not waited for President Obama to take action against illegal immigration. Since Texas has the borders connected with Mexico, Governor Perry has strengthen the borders patrol without waiting for the Federals to take action. In fact, he's on a mission to completely reduce the illegal immigration happening in the country because if we recall, the 2012 President Debates mainly included such discussion in every discussions held between President Obama and Governor Romney. Governor Perry has publicly stated many times that the Congress should actually do what their supposed to do, giving them no slack since he works with high expectations and standards. His leadership is something to admire; he took the country's problems and turned into his own in which he does a good job at minimizing the negative impacts of it.

Finally, there's a strong reason why Governor Perry has been the longest serving Governor in the history of Texas. He has not upset the state and that is proven from his re-elections over the years. Although he has stated that he will not be back in the next re-election, he will always be remembered as a savior of the state in times of crisis for the country.

Sources: 
1- http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2011/08/22/what-does-rick-perry-have-to-do-with-texas-success/
2- http://conservativetribune.com/rick-perry-to-congress-do-your-job/

Drugs in Texas

Here's my commentary on Brenda's post.

I don't agree with her stance. She believes that by allowing the sell of their execution drugs, the state will allow transparency to their public and therefore not allowing secrets within the state when it comes down to the execution drugs Also, it is believed that it will proceed the execution process much more smoothly than having the electric chair execution, for example.. I disagree with this stance because we have to realize that execution drugs can have a domino effect. In fact, if the state start manufacturing these drugs, thugs & criminals will try to get their hands on it. One or two solid contacts at the manufacturers of these drugs and you can get your hands on it; for a very low price. This will eventually increase the crime rate in Texas, and therefore have the domino effect I have explained. If European drug companies do not wish to cooperate with the country anymore when it comes down to selling the state execution drugs, then the state should find another exporter of such drugs; private companies they can privately deal with. Bringing these materials in cities or around them in the country will only cause more danger to the public. These are the reasons why I disagree with her article.