In the Senate

Date: 2/9/15       SB: 169

            Senator CJ Steiner, Tate Jensen, and Brent Ogren introduced the following bill, which was referred to the committee on February 13^th, 2015.

Section 1 –

 To establish stricter regulations on out-of-state hunting and fishing licenses when game populations are decreased in number and struggling to rise to normal standards.

 

1. Be it enacted by the Senate and
2. House of Representatives of the
3. United States of America in
4. Congress assembled, that

 

Section 2 –

            If certain game/fish populations including; deer, pheasants, turkey, and all species of fish are diminishing the out-of-state residents will be unable to buy hunting, fishing, and fur-bearer licenses. When any of the populations of these species drops to seventy-five percent, then tags/licenses will be cut to out-of-state residents. The bag limits for residents of the state will reduced to one deer per person, two pheasants per day, one turkey per season, and the limits on all fish will be reduced by fifty percent. When it comes to waterfowl, (ducks, geese, ext.), It only counts the local population. The Game Fish and Parks Department will decide when the local populations have moved on and the migratory populations are on their journey south. Once the populations are back to their normal standards, all regulations will be lifted and out-of-state hunters will be granted the privilege to hunt in South Dakota for pursued game and fish.

 

Section 3 –

            The Bill will be enforced by the South Dakota Game Fish and Parks association. They will be in charge monitoring the population of animals, and they decide when tags/limits should be restricted. The South Dakota Game Fish and Parks will also monitor the populations, and decide when the populations are back to a healthy level.

 

Section 4 –

            The penalties for violating the concerns of this bill apply for out-of-state residents, and also in-state residents. Penalties for in-state-residents that violate the bill will be the same as they are now, with possession limit fines, and over bagging fines. Penalties for out-of-state residents will be, the convicted persons will lose all rights to hunt in South Dakota for ten years, and also be fined the same amount that a resident of South Dakota would have been.

Government Trip

                I thought that the trip to Pierre was a pretty great experience. I had been in the capitol building before, but never up stairs and in the committee places. I thought that the most interesting part of the trip was sitting in on the committee. It was pretty neat to get a first-hand experience of what a bill has to go through. It was also very interesting that ordinary people could go up to the stand and talk about their feelings on a particular bill. Another very cool part of the trip was sitting in on the House session. I learned a lot such as; they stand and clap for just about everything, they take roll call very, very fast, and they yell like a bunch of kids when they say yay or nay. I wish I would have been sitting in a different spot however, because I didn’t get to see every one that was talking. Another very interesting part of our trip was talking to our local representative and senators. It was really cool to see their views on bills, and what they were doing in legislature. Maybe one of the most exciting things we did was feed the geese and ducks crackers. That was really fun, and really made me wish it was fall. Overall, the trip was a success.

Thoughts on Capitalism

                Has Capitalism out used its usefulness? I believe that Capitalism is good when it works, but it has become out dated and faded in our country. Capitalism is a good system when the wealth is evenly spread out throughout the social classes. Once all the wealth becomes stationary in the “one percentile”, capitalism falls down the tube.

                Capitalism started during the 1600’s when times were rough for the lower class. As the merchants and lower class started their own businesses and become wealthy, they started to become powerful in government. The thing about it is that the feudalism governments of the time supported this new concept! This is how capitalism got started!

                People in politics today argue the Barack Obama is turning our capitalistic government into a socialistic government. Socialism in my opinion is just barely a step above communism. It is taking a step toward more government control in everything that a person does. In a capitalistic government, there is only a slight presence of government control. With the new technology and policies of our day and age we are straying very far away from that “slight presence of government control”.

                I like in the quote by Martin Luther King Jr. how he says, “And yet I am not opposed to capitalism that I have failed to see its relative merits”. This shows that a very educated man even thinks that a capitalistic government can have a large downfall to it. Martin Luther King Jr. pretty much says, yeah it is a government, but it isn’t a well put together government. Capitalism gets the job done, but only for a little while.

                I believe that the United States should be declared “capitalism”, but we should maybe try to adopt some of the policies that socialistic countries do. Reading about some of the countries that have a socialistic government is very interesting. Some of the countries that have a well-ran socialistic government; have the highest literacy rates in the world. Finland has a literacy rate of 100%. A lot of these countries also have great health care and education systems.  Another interesting fact is that in Denmark, small businesses thrive. The government helps out these small businesses greatly because they know how important they are for the economy.

                I believe that a government that could have a happy medium between capitalism and socialism would be a good step. However, all governments have their weaknesses and time is one of them. Over time every great government will fail in one way or another. So is there really any good form of government?

Democracy: Destined For Downfall

                Democracy has been around for centuries. Democracy is a great system of government to have. It is good, but it is also bad. Democracy tends to fail quite a bit. We can’t have a democracy when all of our leaders are greedy and corrupt. If we had a “true” democracy, the people would really have a say in what happens. Our government is technically a republic with only a select few higher up people.

                What I think John Adams was getting at was this; do not be surprised if the government system fails in the future. Being an intellectual person, John Adams probably studied the world and how the people in the world responded to different situations in their political government. He knew about all the other governments in the world that tried democracy but went corrupt and turned to a monarch, communistic, or some other type of government. This could eventually happen to the United States. Everyone always talks about how great our government policy is set up, and all the power that we have as a nation. What is power worth when you are in debt and have a government that can’t get anything accomplished?

                I like how John Adams says, “…It is more bloody than aristocracy or monarchy…It soon wastes and murders itself”. I was thinking about this part of his quote when it hit me. Our government is very bloody. All the different politics bash each other and say bad things about the other political parties just so they can get nothing accomplished. All the different people in politics HATE the people of the other party. Why can’t politics be friends to one another and positively criticize each other? They would get so much more accomplished and maybe our government wouldn’t be a political bloodbath. In the second part of the quote where it says, “it murders itself”, is so true that it is terrifying. A democratic government can bring itself to pieces so easily. If it only takes one suggestion  by a political party to cause an explosion of anger and idiotic stress, what would it take to bring the entire system down?

                Egypt, Greece, China, and Rome are all examples of ancient world powers. These countries succeeded greatly in the ancient world. If our government is striving for the same success that these empires had, I believe that we need to make changes, or at least get along in our government systems. Is any government system without flaw? Probably not, but with flaw there is room for improvement. Hopefully our nation can improve instead of crumble.

Bicameral Government

                After the Colonies won the Revolutionary War against the British, they needed to set up a government. When setting up this government, they based it off of what they knew. What they knew was what the British had. They chose to also have a bicameral legislature, just like the British had. This is the historical part of it. The practical reason for the choosing of this bicameral legislature is that something had to be done about the Virginia and New Jersey Plans. They were compromised together, creating the government we have now. As for the theoretical part of it, the founding fathers thought that one house would keep the other house in check. What I mean by this is, that one house wouldn’t let the other get out of whack and go nuts. This is the history of our bicameral government that runs our great country. I believe that this system works "sometimes". Key word, "sometimes". I think that it is a great idea and it can run a government very well, but sometimes it can be ineffective. What I mean by this is that when people get too stubborn, nothing gets accomplished. This sometimes happens in government. Take the Keystone Pipeline for example, it is a stalemate. There are good and bad things that come along with a Bicameral Government. I think that our founding fathers did a good thing by establishing one in our country.

Torture

                Torture has been part of many cultures for centuries. If a country caught a spy, and wanted to know why he was there, they would torture him. Simple as that. They would do whatever it took to get the answers they wanted.

                To support what I said above, in the one article it says that the U.S military paid some people to figure out new ways to torture their prisoners. The U.S and other countries will go through great efforts to figure out what people are up to. What is wrong with this is, some of these torture procedures did not even work! So prisoners were being put through torture session after torture session. This is how twisted our government has become.

                I found the “Salt Prison” article to be more interesting. I think that this article defines where the torture line was crossed. I think that you should be able to do simple torture methods to find out immediate threats. I do not think that you should hang people from the ceiling by their wrists, make them wear no clothes, randomly dump buckets of ice on them and beat them, and drag them through the hallways repeatedly. Why would anyone even think of doing this?

                There are many black prisons across the world. One of them is in Poland. A former leader of Poland recently said that he had no idea of the torture methods that went on in the black prison. The CIA has been keeping secrets about the torture methods that they use. The only reason we are hearing about it now is a political scheme. To learn more on the Poland issue, click the green.  Poland Gets Fooled

                Where does torture cross the line? It is mainly a personal opinion. In my opinion, I think that there need to be more regulations on it set by the Geneva Convention. Even though it has been a part of worldly cultures since the beginning of time, it should be less harmful to people.

The 28^th Amendment

                I am proposing an amendment that the draft age be changed to 24. This way it would give the person that is put in the draft a chance to go to college and get an education that they can put to use after the draft. I feel that if there was a draft, all the people that are 18 might go to the draft, without getting an education. Can you imagine how hard it would be to come home from the draft and go to college?

                “The 28^th Amendment of the United States Constitution proposes the following: All persons under the age of 24 are allowed to go to college before going into the draft. This allows all persons to get an education before the draft, so they do not have to go through the struggle of getting one after a war.”