Week 3?

Again a bit late but here is a summary of my 3rd week:

Monday
                                 

On Monday, I was told to provide a briefing on new psychoactive substances; however, the email sent to me was incredibly vague with half of the content speaking about road closures. I then proceeded to research on road closures in Aberdeen City Council, only to discover 3 hours later that I was supposed to research new psychoactive substances. New psychoactive substances (NPS) are essentially imitation drugs that give individuals the effect of drugs such as cannabis or marijuana, but manage to bypass the legal system. The problem with NPS’s is that it’s easily accessible, cheap, and once you ban one form of NPS, another new NPS comes up again; thus, the problem of stopping all NPS’s seems futile. I personally believe that NPS’s with similar chemical structures to banned drugs should automatically be banned. Although I know that this would not stop all new psychoactive substances from emerging, I do believe that it would at least delay the prevalence of obtaining NPS.

Tuesday

On the day same-sex marriage passed a rainbow appeared over the Scottish Parliament and Edinburgh
How coincidentally fitting :).

My Tuesday was spent working on the NPS briefing, then proceeding to go watch the stage three same-sex marriage bill and related amendments. Words can’t describe how mind-blowingly amazing it was, but something that I noticed is that when it comes to actual freedom and separation of church and state, Scotland tends to do a better job than America.

When amendments favouring any religious preference were proposed, they were immediately shut down by a majority of the Scottish Parliament. I think the reason Scotland was able to effectively pass the bill is due to 3 things: party ideology, representation, and efficient voting system. With regards to party ideology, Scotland is dominated by the Scottish National Party which is centre left; however, even if it wasn’t the Labour Party, another centre left party would probably dominate. In comparison, America’s only party that is somewhat left centre is the Democratic Party. I hesitate to call it truly centre left because economically the Democratic Party’s policies often favour tax cuts for businesses, pro-business economics, etc. This I think is perhaps due to the lack of representation. In Scotland, although not everyone is truly represented there is more representation in ideology than in America. If one for example wants to be the president, one would have to go through the first past the vote system. The problem with this system is the fact that in America only 2 parties dominate. Even if citizens didn’t like either party, they know their votes would be useless if they tried to vote for another party, so they cast their votes to the candidate that they hate less. In contrast, the Scottish system is based on multiple voting systems that make mixed proportional voting possible; thus, if one person liked the ideology of the Labour party, their vote may actually represent them. Furthermore, the whole bill took 4 hours to pass, and each vote/ amendment was finished in 30 seconds – 1 minute. The fact that the MSPS have less time to vote means that the votes are passed through quickly and efficiently. In Scotland, it took 9 months for the same sex marriage bill to pass. With regards to America, bills creating discrimination such as Proposition 8 were passed by the state; however, it took years before the Supreme Court was able to strike it down and legalize same-sex marriage. I'm now convinced that America could learn a thing or two from Scotland.

Wednesday


My Wednesday was spent mainly finishing the briefing, and inputting in broadband survey responses. I don’t think I enjoy inputting data because I have a hard time reading some constituents' handwriting; however, I was pretty satisfied once I finished inputting 200+ responses. It was nonetheless incredibly productive, but exhausting.

Thursday


My Thursday morning was spent going to the FMQs. The Labour Party leader, Johann Lamont kept asking Alex Salmond to name one oil business CEO whom actually wants independence, and Alex Salmond kept avoiding the question, focusing on the people. I personally think Alex Salmond needs to do more research and give more specific answers, and the Labour Party needs to represent people rather than business corporates. Alex makes the point that a parliament and government is essentially run by its people; thus should be representative of its people. Johann makes a point that businesses need to be considered; however, I do believe the whole picture should be looked at, like asking what the strategy is to keep oil business CEOS from investing somewhere else. Then the rest of my Thursday was spent trying to read up on Changing Places toilets for disabled people and preterm premature rupture of membranes.

Friday

Today I spent my time reading more information on disability toilets and premature rupture of membranes. Not exactly as productive or fun as I wished it to be, but everyday is a new day I suppose?