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(11/04/16 12:21pm)
I don’t quite know if it’s a generational thing or a more nationwide trend, but it seems there’s a widespread belief that eschewing partisan or ideological labels is a good thing. This is understandable — it likely stems from a well-intentioned feeling that we must combat polarization and reach bipartisan solutions — but counterproductive; removing descriptors doesn’t solve the underlying disagreements between individuals. Rather than obscuring our beliefs, we should clarify them by embracing more labels, not less.
(10/21/16 10:16am)
Given the utterly depressing nature of this election, you’d think people would relish any politics-free respite they could find. You would be wrong.
(10/19/16 4:15am)
Last week, my colleague Matt Winesett penned a piece calling for the repeal of the 17th Amendment, which established the popular election of U.S. senators. Prior to the amendment’s ratification in 1913, state legislatures elected members of the Senate. Winesett alleges repealing the 17th Amendment would restore the requisite deliberation expected of the upper chamber of Congress and lead to a greater interest in local politics. However, such an action would merely transfer many of the shortcomings in federal governance to the state level.
(10/10/16 10:36am)
In response to Congress overriding President Barack Obama’s veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA, a recent Wall Street Journal editorial reads: “Instant Senate Remorse: A plea to fix a lawsuit boondoggle only hours after voting for it.” Despite Congress’s astoundingly low approval ratings, the incompetence animating this boondoggle is still hard to fathom. JASTA — a law allowing victims of terrorism to sue foreign governments — sailed through both houses of Congress before receiving Obama’s veto. Congress then easily overrode the veto, but within hours 28 senators who voted for the bill, in Ron Burgundy-esque fashion, immediately signed a letter expressing their regret. The Journal merely argues Congress should repeal JASTA, but we should really target what made this veto override probable in the first place: We should repeal the 17th Amendment.
(09/23/16 1:56pm)
What happens when an unstoppable conviction meets an immovable sentiment? Two recent columns in The Cavalier Daily demonstrate the predicament. First, the conviction: As Lucy Siegel writes, we must take more refugees. It’d be morally repugnant not to; we’d be simultaneously spitting in the face of Lady Liberty and Emma Lazarus. But then there’s the pesky problem of public sentiment. Significant chunks of people in essentially every Western country aren’t happy with mass migration. They express their frustration by voting for politicians promising to stem the refugee tide. But Bobby Doyle tells us these leaders are invariably dangerous; indeed, “the world is much worse off with right-wing populists taking control.” So what to do when the establishment left’s favored policy serves to catalyze its worst fear?
(09/16/16 2:21pm)
Unhappily sensing mass democracy was the inevitable future, the English jurist James Fitzjames Stephen wrote in 1873: “The waters are out and no human force can turn [mass democracy and universal suffrage] back, but I do not see why as we go with the stream we need sing Hallelujah to the river god.” I mention this quote largely because I find its sardonic tone amusing; but also because, despite first appearing in print nearly a century and half ago, it’s still applicable to conversations about voting and democracy in America today. I recognize democracy-expanding policies like automatic voter registration and early voting are on the horizon. But don’t expect any happy, “Annie”-style overtures simply because their arrival is as predictable as the sun coming out tomorrow.
(09/05/16 5:24am)
Cavalier Daily columnist Brandon Brooks penned a column earlier this week dismissing conservative critiques that academia is overwhelmingly leftist, instead alleging it is conservatives who threaten to turn “educational curricula” into political propaganda. He has some compelling evidence, namely the Texas Board of Education’s historical revisionism. I have no intention of defending Texas here, but I would note that citing one deeply conservative state’s ideologically biased education policy hardly invalidates conservative critiques of higher education. While I agree conservatives shouldn’t object to the mere presence of far-left and anti-American class books and professors, the problem isn’t simply their inclusion. More worrisome are the potential trickle-down effects of overwhelmingly lopsided academic institutions.
(08/26/16 4:13am)
Last week, The Cavalier Daily reported the College Republicans are weighing whether to endorse GOP nominee Donald Trump. Some school chapters have already decided, and the consequences of their actions should help guide the decision-making of the University’s chapter. The Harvard Republican Club recently received national attention after announcing in a public letter they would not endorse the GOP nominee for the first time since 1888; according to the club’s president, campus response was overwhelmingly positive, with freshmen students seeking to get involved with the club. The Yale chapter did choose to endorse Trump, which quickly led to the resignation of more than half the chapter’s executive board. I’m not a College Republican, but if the group wants some unsolicited advice from a potential member, here it is: Be like Harvard, not Yale.
(08/16/16 4:13pm)
I hate the term “America First.” To clarify: I don’t hate the idea of putting America first. On the contrary, the idea the American government should prioritize the interests of Americans seems so patently obvious I question the need for adopting an “America First” slogan at all. And that cuts to the core of the issue with Donald Trump’s slogan: “America First” sets up a false dichotomy. It allows Trump to present himself as the patriotic defender of Americans striving to defeat a sinister cosmopolitan elite that believes the very concepts of the nation-state and nationalities are outdated. It’s this commitment to globalism that allegedly motivates the hated “establishment” to adopt free trade agreements, open borders and entangling international alliances, all to the detriment of the American worker. This worldview offered by “America First” advocates has the benefit of being simple and easily understood. But it is also ignores how the policies so derided by Trump and his cohorts benefit Americans.
(05/03/16 6:45am)
Emmett Rensin recently published a piece in Vox lamenting “the smug style in American liberalism.” Rensin is a liberal himself, but like a good team player he isn’t afraid to offer constructive criticism to his own side. Now that a new front has opened in the culture war — the “bathroom bills” garnering national attention in North Carolina and Mississippi — several of my fellow columnists and liberals everywhere eager to enter the fray would do well to first heed Rensin’s advice.
(04/11/16 6:03am)
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) recently signed legislation that will raise the minimum wage in their respective states to $15 per hour. Wages will increase incrementally each year depending on varying circumstances in each state, but the new wage rate will reach its target no later than 2022. Many especially ardent advocates of raising the wage would like to see these laws expanded even further; Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT), for example, proposes implementing a $15 per hour minimum wage on a national scale. However, as well-meaning as supporters of these living wage laws often are, their proposals are misguided. The recent laws enacted in California and New York have the capacity to improve the lives of some workers to be sure, but we should not seek to immediately enact similar measures in Virginia or on a national level.
(04/04/16 4:41am)
“I legitimately feared for my life.” So said a freshman at Emory University after several chalk messages appeared around campus, airing slogans such as “Vote for Trump,” “Trump for Pres” and the ominously-worded “Accept the Inevitable: Trump 2016.” At first glance, this student’s response and the campus protests that ensued after the chalking seem to validate the perception that political correctness on college campuses has run amok. Indeed, our editorial board has even weighed in, declaring the student response at Emory an overreaction. They undoubtedly have a point. However, there is an under-explored component of these protests concerning the role of private property at Emory, prompting me to make a limited defense of these protesters.
(03/26/16 6:58pm)
The prospect of a Michael Bloomberg presidential run may be fading, but the specter of tax hikes on sugary foods and beverages is ever-looming. In a move that Bloomberg View hopes will impact other governments worldwide, George Osborne, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced last week a two-tiered sin tax hitting high-sugar British beverages in 2018. While the exact tax rate has not yet been announced, the Office for Budget Responsibility predicts it could raise prices on some beverages by up to 80 percent. However, skyrocketing prices are not even the largest problem with this proposal. My main concern is that the tax will more likely achieve harmful unintended consequences than the beneficial intended ones. There are limits to what government can accomplish, and the best intentions of tax-tinkerers such as Osborne and Bloomberg don’t compensate for disastrous results.
(03/01/16 6:55am)
A few months ago I stumbled upon an article titled “These are the books students at the top U.S. colleges are required to read.” The list included such classics as Plato’s “Republic,” Machiavelli’s “The Prince,” Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From a Birmingham Jail.” As I read on I realized this article was misleadingly titled. Students at these prestigious universities — the list included schools such as Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and the University of Chicago — were not actually required to read these works. Rather, the list was merely an aggregate of these universities’ syllabi, detailing what students at these schools who took certain classes may have been required to read. To my surprise, I was a bit disappointed. I am after all someone who thinks the University should do away with the foreign language requirement entirely, and thus one would think I would harbor resentment towards all University mandates. But this article jogged my imagination, and got me thinking that it would in fact be a good idea for the University to assign a core list of required reading assignments for all students before they graduate.
(02/09/16 5:50am)
Last semester, my fellow columnist Jesse Berman penned an op-ed declaring Syrian President Bashar al-Assad far more threatening than the self-proclaimed Islamic State, more commonly referred to as ISIS. This semester another Cavalier Daily columnist, Sawan Patel, argued our nation’s fear of ISIS is vastly and unnecessarily exaggerated by opportunistic politicians and journalists. Both columnists’ op-eds contain more than a kernel of truth: Assad is indeed a brutal dictator whose repressive actions have fueled and helped sustain the Syrian Civil War, and politicians (primarily, as Patel notes, Republicans) have turned the legitimate threat of ISIS into hollow talking points in order to appear tougher on terror. But our perception of ISIS does not have to behave like a pendulum: simply because some candidates swing too far to the right on this issue does not mean our editorial pages should swing equally far to the left. ISIS threatens the United States, the world community and — as President Obama recently phrased it — our shared sense of humanity. An enemy this serious warrants a more sober response than mockingly labeling them “a bunch of bandits in a stretch of relatively empty, uninhabited desert.”
(02/01/16 5:05am)
Beginning today, Feb. 1, with the Iowa caucuses, voting to select the next Republican presidential nominee will finally be underway. The horserace that is primary season will reach Virginia, along with several other states, on March 1, also known as Super Tuesday. Ordinarily, the Virginia primary would not be in the news this early in the year, as campaigns are primarily focused on Iowa and New Hampshire. But it made headlines when the state GOP announced its plan to require all primary voters to declare loyalty to the Republican Party. For some, this might seem ridiculous, conjuring up mental images of peasant voters forced to swear fealty to the dreaded Republican establishment. Or it may seem redundant, as one could reasonably expect that GOP primary voters are already Republicans who will assuredly vote for the eventual nominee. But the problem with the pledge is not that it is unnecessary; rather, the pledge does not go far enough.
(12/08/15 5:05am)
If you were asked right now which leading figure of a major political party is suggesting profiling Muslim-Americans and violating their constitutional rights, you would probably answer Donald Trump. You would be forgiven for thinking this: while he has avoided specifics and cloaked his responses in ambiguity, it appears Trump is proposing registering all Muslim citizens in a government database — in clear violation of their First Amendment rights.
(12/02/15 5:00am)
A couple of weeks ago, Mark Zuckerberg announced he will take two months of paternity leave upon his daughter’s birth. Similarly, Rep. Paul Ryan recently accepted the position of Speaker of the House on the condition that he would still be able to spend time with his family. My fellow Opinion columnist Matt Winesett has written a piece concerning the media’s reaction to Ryan’s move, explaining that conservative thought can position one in opposition of a federal mandate even for a practice he may support. Mandated or not, paternity leave could have beneficial implications for how we view the roles of men and women in society, in turn narrowing the wage gap. Businesses should also feel incentivized to adopt it due to the positive impacts it could have in performance.
(11/30/15 5:05am)
Opinion columnist Matt Winesett recently penned a column titled “Thought Police at the Gates” which decried the growing propensity among college students and liberals to desire the restriction of First Amendment free speech rights, especially on college campuses. Student activists have expressed the desire to remove professors for holding opinions contrary to the prevailing beliefs of students, to pressure administrators to condemn the acts of reactionary groups, to discipline “thought criminals” and reeducate them. While these are all dangerous ideas, Winesett misses the underlying frustration with working within the system that drives usually liberal student activists to these strikingly near-fascist ideas. Free speech rights are already restricted in narrow cases and it is hypocritical to condone this in some instances while condemning it in others.
(11/17/15 5:34am)
“When fascism comes to America,” I am repeatedly warned by bumper stickers on Priuses and Mini Coopers, “it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” While this message is hyperbolic, no doubt many people fear the influence of certain right-wing ideologues in America. When these activists pushed for school prayer or supported amendments prohibiting burning the American flag, liberals consistently opposed these measures on the grounds that they would curtail First Amendment rights. Now, however, these same rights are under assault from the left, primarily from our fellow college students and their enablers. Allegedly liberal students are demonstrating worryingly illiberal tendencies at colleges across the nation, insisting professors retire for holding unpopular opinions and demanding administrators condemn flyers promoting the value of freedom of speech. This is a distressing trend, and on principle our University should follow the lead of schools like Purdue and issue a preemptive response.
