Questions to Consider: Flipping the spotlight from the presidential candidates to ourselves

The third democratic debate in New Hampshire occurred less than an hour ago on the ABC station. The three candidates for the Democratic candidacy included Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, Senator of Vermont Bernie Sanders, and Governor of Maryland Martin O’Malley.  The presidential race trickles down to the few candidates in which the people have taken an interest.

However, I honestly had never heard of O’Malley’s name until this debate. But then again, I also hadn’t really paid much attention to the debates in general while I was in school. I guess this holiday break will be my time to catch up.

Since my return from school, my dad and I have taken as much time as we can catching up and discussing new things we’ve learned and debated new and old things we had different perspective on. Recently, we got on the topic of stereotyping, racism, and profiling. Little did I know the debate would hold questions concerning the same topic.

But it made me think of how often we need to discuss issues and how we cannot depend on our political leaders to analyze the choices our country makes. We are the American people and our younger generation will be the voice of the future. So I thought, what if we ask ourselves the questions the candidates are asked. Are we able to respond?

I tend to have the perfectionist attitude and usually don’t feel comfortable talking on a subject I don’t have much knowledge on. Yet, this is what we ask of from our country’s leaders. Shouldn’t we hold ourselves to the same standard?

Below are some of the questions I caught. What do I think of them? How would I respond to them? What else do I need to research to better answer this question?

How would you find would-be terrorists?

No clue. I would hope our technology and intelligence department has enough resources to find the terrorists.

Is profiling ever good?

This is what my dad and I had a debate on recently. I was really quick to judge; the word itself has a bad connotation to me. So I argued that profiling is wrong. But there are different factors to finding the criminals in a situation. The problem I found I had with profiling is the actions and thoughts when a person takes the stereotype of one person and treats or thinks of them differently even though there’s no evidence to prove it.

What is profiling? According to Google:

“the recording and analysis of a person's psychological and behavioral characteristics, so as to assess or predict their capabilities in a certain sphere or to assist in identifying a particular subgroup of people.”

So the analysis of a person’s characteristics isn’t bad.  But in my opinion, what is bad is the judegment action taken when one small trait of a person makes other think this person deserves less opportunities. There should be in no way a fear of Muslims because of the recent terrorism, in my opinion. Same as how, just because I’m Hispanic/Latina, people shouldn’t assume that I am undocumented or a drug dealer. This I don’t consider profiling, this I consider fear, and letting fear control your thoughts and actions. You know, be a decent human being. But this is just what I think off the top of my head.

Would you discourage people from buying guns?

Eeesh, gun control. A sticky subject, But it shouldn’t be. Since I hadn’t really heard of O’Malley, I looked him up and I like his stance on gun control. Rather than going on one extreme, he seems to focus on gun violence and reducing the illegal selling of guns. I don’t like guns in general, but I do know that people like to hunt. And though I’m not researched on the subject, I’m at least not going to go down one extreme.

How do you raise incomes for middle-class families?

So I might go off topic a little on this issue. I don’t know much about money and how to budget and change the economy. But I do like what a friend recently told me. This friend said, ‘the conservatives and republicans fight for the rich, upper class. The democrats and liberals fight for the middle class. But who out there is fighting for the poor?’ (Not word for word, but the idea is there). Good point. I don’t know. Who out there is talking about homelessness? So far, no one I know.

*Should corporate America love Hilary Clinton/Bernie Sanders/Martin O’Malley (you)?

Corporate America, hmmmm. Like I said before, I don’t know enough about the economy to comment on it. But I do know that if I want to lead the people of the United States, shouldn’t I listen to all sides of the story? Why should one group love/hate their country’s leader? Shouldn’t all people be listened to?

What’s broken with Obamacare? And how do you fix it?

Honestly I do not know. But I remember the TV said something about how more people are covered now but the people who had it before have to pay more now? What are your thoughts? What is broken? What needs to be fixed? And how do we get there?

How do you bridge divide between civilians and law enforcement?

Education? I feel like that could be the answer for everything. I took the lazy route on this question.

What would you do to combat heroin epidemic?

Just drugs in general….education again. We all need to learn more about the benefits and negatives of drugs. I mean, I have actually heard a lot of good things about marijuana. So I know I need to look up more what the bad side effects are.

What I did like about this topic was that it was fresh and all the candidates showed their compassion on this topic.

How much responsibility does Secretary Clinton bear for Libya?

I keep hearing about all these scams? What is Clinton doing? Why haven’t I heard about it? What is Bengazi? And since it was a question, why didn’t Hilary answer it. Everybody needs to own up to their mistakes. What did Hilary do?

Hmmm, just realized how ignorant I am on this subject.

Is it time to change the role of a president’s spouse?

Well, I am all for equal treatment.  Again, I liked O’Malley’s response. Him and his wife are so cute. Who is this guy?

What are your thoughts? How would you answer these questions?