Everyone wants to defend your right to speak when you agree with them, but how many will go to bat for those they disagree with? It is my belief that free speech is one of the most necessary and fundamental rights in a Liberal democracy. Without the ability to freely discuss the ideas and problems of our day, we will never be able to properly address the world as it stands. Beyond the government-protected Right to free speech, I believe that we ought to fight for a social standard of ideological tolerance as well as the maximization of free speech in academia. The governmental level is perhaps the easiest to defend. When the Founding Fathers drafted the Bill of Rights, oppressive British restrictions on Freedom of Assembly and Freedom of Speech were fresh in their minds. It's no surprise that this was the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights - it is, quite possibly, the most important. Unfortunately, in spite of the Constitutional protections, many States and jurisdictions are moving to place ever greater restrictions on Free Speech, both in Red and Blue States. It is my belief that an increase in political literacy of the general public, in addition to greater dedication to free speech among policymakers , will lead to a renewal of political freedom in this area. After graduation, I hope to work on political campaigns as a policy advisor, where I will have immediate access to those with the power to defend this critical Right. In his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius wrote of a close family member who convinced him that he ought to tolerate the greatest degree of free speech among his friends and advisors. This, in my opinion, ought to be the default for us all. Freedom of Speech ought not just be a Human Right, but rather a standard of personal conduct - it's all too common for people to cut ties with friends and family over political disagreements. We, as a society, will only become further radicalized and polarized when we lose touch with those we disagree with. The more we can tolerate disagreement among friends and acquaintances, the better our understanding of the world will become. Lastly, I believe that academia ought to maintain even greater free speech protections than the rest of society. There is nowhere else that is better equipped to deal with competing opinions than the very pot we stew them in. Where else should we allow Holocaust deniers to spew their propaganda than among historians capable of debunking it? Where better to allow Stalinists or Nazis to argue their case than among the sociologists and economists that are best equipped to point out the errors in their thinking? If we value truth at all, then we ought to allow it to be challenged the most in the places that are most responsible for grasping hold of it. Free speech is not just an arbitrary Right enshrined in an outdated document written two hundred years ago by a bunch of racists; it is the cornerstone of our Democracy, a foundational pillar that holds it aloft. The job of the field I hope to enter, Political Science, is to defend this right on the political level, but I hope to do so on a broader stage, as well. Without the ability to engage in open, earnest discussion with those we disagree with, our Democracy will inevitably fail.

My father's time in Iraq will always be a defining time in his life - and, by extension, the lives of his children. In spite of the indelible scars left by that conflict, however, he never lost his love for the outdoors. Growing up, some of my earliest memories are the camping and hunting trips we went on with him. I never really appreciated the importance of those moments. For whatever reason, one trip in particular springs to the front of my mind. We lived in an Arizona suburb, smack dab in the Valley of the Sun, but Dad's go-to spot was way up in the mountains of northern Arizona. Sometimes we would load up his little Ford Ranger with our tents and our sleeping bags, or sometimes it would be the big white van that he and my Mom bought when they realized they needed something big enough to lug around six kids at a time. This time, though, he had just bought a pair of four-wheelers, so we rode along the bumpy dirt roads with a little trailer hitched up to his pickup truck. First we drove along the highways, beautiful desert vistas on either side of us, the Superstition Mountains ever in sight. Soon the desert faded away and turned to plains with ever denser scrub and occasional pine trees. The pines became more numerous, and soon we were in the forest. It might have been Spring, but we were all desert rats, so the mountain air certainly felt cold to us - well, at least it did to my brother and I. My Dad always made fun of us for feeling cold. We spent a four-day weekend up in those woods, riding the quads around and shooting Dad's guns. He had his concealed carry gun, of course, but also a dinky little .22 pistol - he liked to dump the entire magazine into a target - and a kid-sized .22 caliber rifle. I actually shot a hare with the rifle, but when he cut it open he said it wasn't good to eat. He shot a squirrel the same night, and we roasted it over a fire. He let me eat the thing, and it was absolutely scrumptious - right up until I took a bite of still-raw leg meat! I don't think that my Dad really knows how important those camping trips are to me. He was never the touchy-feely type, even before the Army. But I'll always have them with me.

It is a cliche to say that we live in troubled times - and yet, it always feels true. Our country is facing dozens of rapidly snow-balling crises and critical failings that threaten to tear it apart. From the ever-accumulating ramifications of climate change to the steadily deteriorating public education system, one can scarcely look at a section of our society without spying the cracks that threaten to undermine the stability of our society. It is my belief that the solutions to these problems can be found not in the remote and dramatic environs of national-level politics, but rather in the smaller, seemingly less significant world of local politics. As a citizen of the United States, my hope is to help to combat these problems - be they written in the zoning laws of the city I live in or in the crumbling and outdated public services that so many seek to undermine. My first, and greatest, ambitions lie in the municipal domain. I live in Seattle, and I hope to push for sustainable, empirically sound laws to drive this city into the future. One of the most harmful legacies of the Twentieth Century is the car-dependent infrastructure that has left us atomized and isolated, with the ability to go from sitting alone in a one-bedroom apartment to sitting alone in a car on the highway to sitting alone in a cubicle at work. It is my belief that we have a duty to reverse this trend of community decay wrought by the short-sighted zoning and construction practices introduced in the Twentieth Century. It is a well-documented fact that residential zones and large parking requirements are financial blackholes for the cities that implement them. Likewise, it is a well-documented fact that increased residential density, mixed-use zoning, and improved public transit greatly improve the financial stability of those cities that implement them. Perhaps there was room for debate fifty years ago, but the facts are in - the way that American cities are built just isn't working. How can we fix this? The steps to achieve this are small and eminently doable - the goal, really, is to begin accumulating a snowball of positive changes with the end result of financially solvent and sustainable communities. In a neighborhood zoned solely for single family housing, we can up-zone to allow for duplexes. In a community without bike lanes or sidewalks, we can introduce them. In an area under-served by public transit, we can improve the reliability and reach of the bus network. Where there are empty lots and over-restrictive construction regulations, we can loosen the requirements for construction and duplicate the regulatory structure of cities, such as Tokyo, that have solved the housing and construction problems. The cumulative effect of these changes will be greater freedom, greater financial health, and greater physical health for every community whether rich or poor. With safe bike lanes and sidewalks, children will feel safe walking to school and professionals will feel safe biking to work. With neighborhood small businesses, fewer parking requirements, and upgraded public transit, overall traffic and air pollution will be reduced. When I graduate, I intend to lobby for these changes wherever possible. Whether I'm able to sign on with a political advocacy group or am forced to push for them on my own, I hope to reforge my city into a city made for the people who live within it, not the people driving through it.