Letter to the editor: College Dems are no good
Dear Editors,
Use the fields below to perform an advanced search of The Eagle's archives. This will return articles, images, and multimedia relevant to your query.
19 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
Dear Editors,
It seems every four years, we hear that this particular election is the most "crucial" one of our time. While one must always take this claim with a grain of salt - especially because one generally hears it from pretentious blowhards that threaten to leave the States if the election doesn't go their way (I'm talking about you, Susan Sarandon) - it is valid in the sense that the two major candidates for president offer extremely different views for our country and for its future. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., may not be a perfect candidate, but he is a vastly superior choice to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
Sting reuniting with the Police. Steven Spielberg making another Indiana Jones movie. Michael Jordan returning to basketball. It's hard to call it quits and just ride off into the sunset. So here's part two of my pontification about politics.
To the joy of some (NCOR) and the disappointment of others (Mom and Dad), I am announcing that this is my last article as an Eagle columnist. While I may often be a cold-hearted conservative who vehemently disagrees with hippies and femi-Nazis, I don't listen to Ann Coulter or George Bush for my beliefs about politics.
With March Madness hysteria conducting its annual sweep throughout the United States, it seems a suitable time to discuss gambling. Americans love to gamble. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars on gambling annually, from the lottery to horse racing to poker. With the passage of the SAFE Port Act last year, however, online gambling became illegal in the land of the free. While there are serious consequences to compulsive gambling, online gambling is not inherently wrong; as such, it should not be curtailed.
Abortion has been legal in the United States since Roe v. Wade made it so in 1973. However, the way the pro-choice movement paints things, we're always just a step away from back-alley abortions with coat hangers if those Bible-thumping fundamentalists have their way and overturn Roe v. Wade.
The feminist movement, like the civil rights movement, is one that almost everyone is afraid to criticize. If you attack feminism, you're obviously a sexist, misogynistic male who wishes that women would just stay home and cook, clean and raise children. The issues I have with feminism have nothing to do with the idea of equality between men and women; I just feel that women can and will succeed without the now largely irrelevant feminist movement "supporting" them.
Delaware's senior senator, Joe Biden, was recently forced to step down from his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after making what some considered to be racist remarks about one of his fellow Democratic senators, Barack Obama: "You got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. ... I mean, that's a storybook, man." While Biden apologized profusely and tried to rationalize his comments, the damage was done. Facing intense criticism from both sides of the aisle, he agreed to relinquish his chairmanship.
Despite the long and positive tradition of Greek life on many college campuses, fraternities and sororities often come under attack from parents, administrators and other students. While some of this criticism is valid, much of it is holding everyone responsible for the actions of a few bad individuals.
American University prides itself on having highly involved students, who heavily involve themselves in the plethora of student organizations here. Each of AU's 5,866 undergraduates is required to pay $73.50 per semester ($147 annually) for an "undergraduate activities" fee. This money is used to fund our student groups and clubs, such as the Alternative Break club, Mission Improv-able, Treble in Paradise and the National Conference on Organized Resistance. Wait, what was that last one? That's right; NCOR is not only a recognized American University "club," but it is funded by YOUR money, to the tune of $4,500, with only LASO and the Queers and Allies receiving more. The fact that NCOR not only received any student money, let alone the third-highest allocation, is disturbing on multiple levels.
For the first time since 1994, the Democrats have control of not one but both Houses of Congress. They have already announced several goals for the next two years, such as raising the minimum wage, discussing a timetable for leaving Iraq and lowering prescription drug prices for people on Medicare. However, the Democrats would be prudent to look at history before they start invoking the spirit of FDR's 100 Days.
Alcohol is not an inherent evil. While it is perfectly acceptable to rally against binge drinking, drunk driving and the like, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with drinking. People have been drinking for thousands of years as a socially acceptable (albeit adults-only) activity. Ben Franklin was quoted as saying that "God made beer because he loves us and wants us to be happy." Drinking is not a moral wrong, like murder or stealing. Current drinking laws in the United States are ridiculously unfair and must be amended.
No president is ever universally liked. Both Lincoln and FDR were accused by their opponents of being tyrannical for expanding the power of the federal government. Lincoln was also called such names as "ape" and "baboon." There will always be segments of the population that direct venomous hatred toward their opponents. However, it seems this situation has gotten much worse of late. Look at President Bush, for example. You'll hear him called anything from a "moron" (by Martin Sheen) to a "dumb f***" (by Chevy Chase). Why, exactly, does this vitriol seem so much worse lately?
The election is tomorrow, and, to be perfectly honest, I am glad that campaign season is coming to an end. I've had enough with the mudslinging, the misleading commercials and the non-stop news coverage. The million-dollar question, of course, is who will control Congress after this election, and by what margin? After much analysis (and a few throws at a dartboard), I can conclude that the Democrats will seize control of the House while failing to regain control of the Senate.
In case you've been sleeping under a rock for the last few weeks, let me be the first to tell you that Congressman Mark Foley of Florida has resigned due to, among other transgressions, sending sexually explicit instant messages to young pages. But don't worry - it's not his fault. He struggles with alcoholism and he was sexually abused as a child by his priest. In other news, don't blame two teenage girls for being overweight, blame McDonald's (whom they are currently suing) for its deceptive advertising that apparently depicted Big Macs and a large order of french fries as diet food. Give me a break, people! Whether in politics, law or everyday life, people have abandoned the idea of having any sense of personal responsibility.
In the movie "Team America," Janeane Garofalo's character remarks, "Our job as actors is to read the newspapers, and repeat what we've read on TV, like it is our own opinion." What was obviously meant as a comedic statement is, sadly, becoming less satirical and more serious in today's society. Celebrities love to hear themselves talk, cheapening the political discourse in the process.
It's hard to believe that it has already been five years since the shocking events of Sept. 11, 2001 occurred. As with President Kennedy's assassination for our grandparents and the Challenger explosion for our parents, most of us will always remember where we were when we first heard of the horrendous attack against our nation. America was given a wake-up call on that appalling day five years ago, and we must continue to learn from it.
Hear that sound? That ringing you hear is the death knell of Republican control of the House and Senate-or so the Democrats hope. They cite polls showing the job approval rating of the Republican-controlled Congress at less than 30 percent and other polls that show voters favoring the generic Democrat over the generic Republican in a Congressional election by 10 percent. While the Democrats should perform better this midterm election than they did in the last one, in which they lost eight House seats and two Senate seats, it is doubtful that they will wrest Congressional control away from the Republicans.
To call Mr. Dunbar's recent article a ridiculous distortion would be a compliment much more worthy than it deserves. His rant against the "radical right-wing conservatives" is a gross misrepresentation of the views of those that he attacks. I will attempt to show the flawed reasoning and outright deception that takes place throughout this article, although to do so thoroughly would require an article of Biblical (yes, pun intended) proportions.