Second Draft of PS – Criticism Appreciated
Posted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 7:46 am
I need to edit it and rewrite sections, but would appreciate your thoughts on content and the line I'm taking with this. Basically, I have written really shitty PSs to date, and am keen to get a sense whether you think this is viable or not.
When I was younger, I woke up every Saturday morning for five years at 7:00am to attend Chapel as part of our school routine. Later on at university, I elected to tutor high-school students on Saturday mornings instead of during week nights. Since then, however, only two things have been able to Rouse me early on a weekend: good surf and political protests. On Saturday, 4th of February, 2017, I wiped the sleep out of my eye and walked out of the door. After living in London for more than a decade, I’d learned to read the weather. The sky was a particularly unpromising shade of gray – today would be no day at the beach.
I had turned back inside to retrieve my raincoat when the thought crossed my mind: “Bring your passport, just in case.” Sometimes I have an intuitive thought that comes with baggage that needs to be unpacked in order to make clearer sense of the idea. The conclusion may be there, but the rationale for the conclusion is still being formulated, as if my conscious mind is playing catch up with its unconscious self. Just in case...what, exactly? I was mulling it over as I ran up the steps to my bedroom, opened my backpack, and separated my American passport from the U.K. one. I flicked the British passport back into my bag, and was holding the U.S. one in my hands when the thought completed itself: “Bring your American passport, just in case you want to burn it.”
The underground in London is a loud and bumpy ride, but I find it a surprisingly good place to think. I started with the negatives of the proposed course of action. Potential costs could come in the form of time, money, and reputation, as well as legal repercussions. I used the wifi at one of the station stops to look up whether there were any relevant statutes. Destruction of Government Property (18 U.S.C. § 1361) seemed to be applicable, but I figured I was outside of U.S. jurisdiction, and the U.K. did not have any laws preventing destruction of a passport of another nationality. I also considered the divisive nature of the action, and how it could potentially be used for propaganda, before deciding this negative was outweighed by the positive optics the action would have with certain audiences. Ironically, my third greatest concern was how such an action could be perceived by an Admissions officer, if for whatever reason it ever came to light. Naivety, recklessness, and imprudence would no doubt be the potential charges, even if I did not get myself arrested.
It started raining when I got to the U.S. Embassy, where the protest against Trump’s travel ban was scheduled to begin. Pressure had been growing on Trump since his inauguration, with resistance mounting against the ban from the stages of Hollywood, to the courtrooms of Hawaii. There were only several hundred people at the Embassy when I first arrived, but by the time the march reached Downing Street later that day, it was 100,000 strong. Clearly, a lot of people thought as I did, namely that the ban was on travel in name, but on Muslims in practice; that the intent of the law, if not its lettering, offended the First Amendment and Equal Protections Clause of the Constitution; that there was no serious national security rationale to justify the policy; and that the policy would further alienate Muslims and the world from an America exercising a unilaterally aggressive and unapologetically misguided foreign policy. In this context, I thought the image of an American burning their passport in opposition to the travel ban would convey to Muslims a message of solidarity, so that they knew there were Americans who would fight with them, rather than against them.
I love my country and the rights it has enshrined in the Constitution, and so did not take the decision to destroy a highly symbolic document lightly. My hands were shaking and I was emotional, but I composed myself somewhat in the few minutes that passed before someone else noticed what was happening. Shortly thereafter, I was faced with a wall of cameras, and after a couple more minutes of letting the flame do its work, I dropped the passport, declined an interview (what was left to say?), and made a quick exit from the scene. I immediately felt physically sick with nervousness and tried to walk it off for a couple hours in a nearby park. The next day, I saw that a video of the event had made the news and gone viral, enraging Trump supporters, but prompting a universally positive response from Muslims. My mother, however, was not best pleased when she heard.
I tell this story to illustrate a simple point: I have the will to fight. In fact, there is nothing I relish more in the world than a good fight, figuratively speaking. I remember watching Juan Martinez prosecute Jodi Arias for murder, and as Mr. Martinez’s voice raised to a crescendo in his cross-examination of Arias, so too my heart began to race. It was as if I were right there in the courtroom with him, cheering each verbal blow as if the argumentation were my own. It was pure intellectual combat, and I was quickly hooked on the idea of exercising the same fervour in the pursuit of justice at trial one day. My family has often advised me to apply to law school in the U.K., where they are born and bred, and where fees are much less, but I tell them that America is where the fight is, and that is where I am headed.
In addition to will, I have worked for four years to pay for law school myself, to avoid relying any further on unearned benefits from my family or the taxpayer. I possess the necessary means and conviction, and can only hope for the opportunity to hone my skills through legal study. I view the law as the most effective training one can receive in the fight to advance justice for all, and I am keen to learn anything that will make me more effective in promoting this end.
When I was younger, I woke up every Saturday morning for five years at 7:00am to attend Chapel as part of our school routine. Later on at university, I elected to tutor high-school students on Saturday mornings instead of during week nights. Since then, however, only two things have been able to Rouse me early on a weekend: good surf and political protests. On Saturday, 4th of February, 2017, I wiped the sleep out of my eye and walked out of the door. After living in London for more than a decade, I’d learned to read the weather. The sky was a particularly unpromising shade of gray – today would be no day at the beach.
I had turned back inside to retrieve my raincoat when the thought crossed my mind: “Bring your passport, just in case.” Sometimes I have an intuitive thought that comes with baggage that needs to be unpacked in order to make clearer sense of the idea. The conclusion may be there, but the rationale for the conclusion is still being formulated, as if my conscious mind is playing catch up with its unconscious self. Just in case...what, exactly? I was mulling it over as I ran up the steps to my bedroom, opened my backpack, and separated my American passport from the U.K. one. I flicked the British passport back into my bag, and was holding the U.S. one in my hands when the thought completed itself: “Bring your American passport, just in case you want to burn it.”
The underground in London is a loud and bumpy ride, but I find it a surprisingly good place to think. I started with the negatives of the proposed course of action. Potential costs could come in the form of time, money, and reputation, as well as legal repercussions. I used the wifi at one of the station stops to look up whether there were any relevant statutes. Destruction of Government Property (18 U.S.C. § 1361) seemed to be applicable, but I figured I was outside of U.S. jurisdiction, and the U.K. did not have any laws preventing destruction of a passport of another nationality. I also considered the divisive nature of the action, and how it could potentially be used for propaganda, before deciding this negative was outweighed by the positive optics the action would have with certain audiences. Ironically, my third greatest concern was how such an action could be perceived by an Admissions officer, if for whatever reason it ever came to light. Naivety, recklessness, and imprudence would no doubt be the potential charges, even if I did not get myself arrested.
It started raining when I got to the U.S. Embassy, where the protest against Trump’s travel ban was scheduled to begin. Pressure had been growing on Trump since his inauguration, with resistance mounting against the ban from the stages of Hollywood, to the courtrooms of Hawaii. There were only several hundred people at the Embassy when I first arrived, but by the time the march reached Downing Street later that day, it was 100,000 strong. Clearly, a lot of people thought as I did, namely that the ban was on travel in name, but on Muslims in practice; that the intent of the law, if not its lettering, offended the First Amendment and Equal Protections Clause of the Constitution; that there was no serious national security rationale to justify the policy; and that the policy would further alienate Muslims and the world from an America exercising a unilaterally aggressive and unapologetically misguided foreign policy. In this context, I thought the image of an American burning their passport in opposition to the travel ban would convey to Muslims a message of solidarity, so that they knew there were Americans who would fight with them, rather than against them.
I love my country and the rights it has enshrined in the Constitution, and so did not take the decision to destroy a highly symbolic document lightly. My hands were shaking and I was emotional, but I composed myself somewhat in the few minutes that passed before someone else noticed what was happening. Shortly thereafter, I was faced with a wall of cameras, and after a couple more minutes of letting the flame do its work, I dropped the passport, declined an interview (what was left to say?), and made a quick exit from the scene. I immediately felt physically sick with nervousness and tried to walk it off for a couple hours in a nearby park. The next day, I saw that a video of the event had made the news and gone viral, enraging Trump supporters, but prompting a universally positive response from Muslims. My mother, however, was not best pleased when she heard.
I tell this story to illustrate a simple point: I have the will to fight. In fact, there is nothing I relish more in the world than a good fight, figuratively speaking. I remember watching Juan Martinez prosecute Jodi Arias for murder, and as Mr. Martinez’s voice raised to a crescendo in his cross-examination of Arias, so too my heart began to race. It was as if I were right there in the courtroom with him, cheering each verbal blow as if the argumentation were my own. It was pure intellectual combat, and I was quickly hooked on the idea of exercising the same fervour in the pursuit of justice at trial one day. My family has often advised me to apply to law school in the U.K., where they are born and bred, and where fees are much less, but I tell them that America is where the fight is, and that is where I am headed.
In addition to will, I have worked for four years to pay for law school myself, to avoid relying any further on unearned benefits from my family or the taxpayer. I possess the necessary means and conviction, and can only hope for the opportunity to hone my skills through legal study. I view the law as the most effective training one can receive in the fight to advance justice for all, and I am keen to learn anything that will make me more effective in promoting this end.
