THE ARCH CONSERVATIVE, Summer 2015

Q& A — :S p. GA 1

4 Ex

Summer 2015

Raising the Standard.

Why we need conservative reform

by John Henry Thompson

israeli elections, p. 6 • fraternities under fire, p. 16

ec

The editors

Senior Advice The Arch Conservative’s graduates bid farewell to UGA.

D

ear Reader,

As our time at the University of Georgia comes to a close, we are at once nostalgic and excited. The last four years have been truly enriching, not least because of the success we’ve enjoyed here at The Arch Conservative. Founding this publication and guiding it through its first two years of operation has been an honor and a great pleasure. In an age of increasing isolation and declining social capital, we’re proud of The Arch Conservative’s role as one of Burke’s influential “little platoons” on campus.

Now, as any conservative knows, human nature is immutable.

Our perspective has changed over the past four years, but we’re not higher life forms merely because we’ve received an undergraduate education. Even as seniors we hold no special claim on universal knowledge. Still, senior advice can be extremely helpful. Getting the most out of your time at the University of Georgia is a worthy goal, and if anything we have to say can assist you in the pursuit of that goal, we will have succeeded. So here are a few things we’ve learned: •

•

•

Often, the most valuable things to be gained from organizations are relationships. Rather than offering tepid involvement in a host of organizations, invest yourself fully in the things that you care about. Ultimately, most fruitful friendships and lasting memories will come from these involvements, not from resume padding. Fulfilling efforts are those for which you don’t mind working hard. Sometimes the organization that will spur those efforts doesn’t even exist yet; if so, create it.

Ultimately, the things that matter most in college are the relationships you build, memories you make, and knowledge you acquire. As time passes, you will almost certainly place diminishing importance on the transient things about college (e.g. term papers or casual campus involvement). College students have an uncanny propensity for self-promotion. They boast of membership in honor societies and tout leadership positions that mean exceedingly little in the real world. Instead of chasing these distinctions, using them as a proxy for personal worth, take a step back and evaluate the things that really matter.

The art of communication is becoming endangered on college campuses. Many colleges have seemingly abandoned the cause of liberal education, i.e., to create well-rounded, analytical, academically-motivated students. Instead, many schools wish merely to train a legion of politely groomed job candidates. As such, students must take it upon themselves to develop their communicative minds. Outside reading is essential. Writing, especially for business or science students, has been neglected for far too long.

2 / The Arch Conservative

•

Read campus journalism and engage in the campus political discussion. Publications and outlets such as The Red & Black and Georgia Political Review are worth reading. More generally, those of you who are interested in politics should become engaged in the political conversation that constantly swirls on college campuses — especially our like-minded readers. Conservatism needs articulate, confident voices at the modern university. We’re grateful for The Arch Conservative’s position as a platform for those voices, but this mission is larger than us. Young people committed to intelligent political discourse need to get in the arena.

•

General electives present an opportunity to expand academic horizons and pursue auxiliary academic interests.

If you’re interested in theater, take a screenwriting class.

If you are fascinated by programming, enroll yourself in a computer science class. For these four (or five) years, we have the unique chance to learn heedlessly, so take the initiative and do so. Remember that as free citizens who can devote several years to the pursuits of the mind we are in a select group. In human history, very few have been granted such an opportunity.

•

Students often conflate the freedom associated with college with an excuse to engage in reckless behavior, drinking too much, and making irrational, hasty decisions. This notion sells freedom short. There’s a better use for the flexibility of your college years. Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb and explore. Take a road trip to an away football game or to see old friends. Drive thirty minutes out of your way for good barbecue. In short, explore new ideas and places.

•

Do not neglect your spiritual health. College can present an obstacle to living in a morally upright way, but only if you let it. Instead, reach out to your peers and learn from their religious journeys as you progress in your own.

Again, we don’t have the answers to life’s big questions. In fact, we’re only now discovering what the next few years hold in our own lives. But we hope we’ve imparted some wisdom on our way out. In the meantime, keep reading The Arch Conservative.

Best regards, John Henry Thompson Editor-in-Chief Davis Parker Manager summer 2015

Summer 2015 The Editors

Senior Advice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

THE CAMPUS INFORMANT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 columns

Netanyahu’s Big Win

A New Necessity

Graduation Blues

Tristan Bagala.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Baylee Culverhouse .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Seth Daniels .

Repealing the First Amendment features

The Right Agenda

Narrative Politics

6

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Nick Geeslin .

John Henry Thompson.

Connor Kitchings.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Q&A: SGA’s Executive Board. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Culture

In Defense of Greek Life

Jake Shumard. .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Review: The Conservatarian Manifesto Sports & Humor

G-Day in Athens

Davis Parker.

Elizabeth Ridgeway.

. . . . . . 17

8

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Satire: D.C. Summer Internships. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

A quarterly journal of opinion raising the standard at the University of Georgia.

John Henry Thompson, M. Blake Seitz,

Editor-In-Chief

EDITOR-At-Large

Elizabeth Ridgeway, Davis Parker,

Cover Photo COURTESY gage skidmore

Connor Kitchings, graphic design Moira Fennell Business Marian Young

publisher

archconuga.com archconuga@gmail.com twitter: @ArchConUGA Mail: P.O. Box 1181 Athens, GA 30603

on the web: EMAIL:

Manager

Associate Editor contributors Tristan Bagala

Seth Daniels

Jake Shumard

Nick Geeslin

Ryan Stewart

Tucker Boyce

Sophie Giberga

Austin Summers

Cole Calfee

Rebel Lord

Baylee Culverhouse

Sam McCoy

Colin Daniels

Vijeth Mudalegundi

The collegiate network

The Arch Conservative is a member publication of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s Collegiate Network. Special thanks go out to Mr. Philip Chalk of The Weekly Standard for his inestimable help.

summer 2015

The Arch Conservative / 3

CAMPUS

founded for the sole purpose of staving off the Big Box menace.

Occupy Athens and Tim “Comrade” Denson got involved: “If they [the monied, capitalist interests] try to break ground on this WalMart,” Denson promised, “when they come in the morning with bulldozers they’ll find tents there.” Salon.com called the proposed Athens Wal-Mart “The End of the World as We Know It.” ThinkProgress called it an “invasion.”

The deal eventually fell through, in part because of the Townie Left’s drum-banging. The food desert we have today is a legacy of their campaign of massive resistance.

—M. Blake Seitz

DT Remains Grocery-free

Charles C. W. Cooke Event

A

O

The food desert lives on.

new mixed-use development project in downtown Athens will not include a grocery store as originally planned, the Athens Banner-Herald reported late last month. While the developer, Landmark Properties, hoped to lease some of its site’s 38,400 square feet of retail space to a grocery store, it couldn’t find a taker.

Downtown Athens will remain grocery-free, which is a problem for poor residents who live nearby, particularly those who depend on Athens’s unreliable public transportation.

It is worthwhile to bring up some history here, because the disappointing situation Athens residents find themselves in was never a fait accompli. In 2012, a major purveyor of affordable groceries proposed to open its doors in an expansive, 35,000 square-foot plot within easy walking distance of the Athens urban core. Poor Athens residents supported the development, citing its promise of cheap groceries and 300 new jobs. The Clarke County chapter of the NAACP voted to endorse the development. The Chamber of Commerce registered its approval. Students feeling the squeeze of UGA tuition hikes spoke out in favor.

However, white townies and the hipster scriveners at The Flagpole promptly lost their ever-loving minds, because the grocer in question was... Wal-Mart. The Townie Left hates Wal-Mart, low prices, and consumer surplus, generally speaking.

The ensuing debate between these two coalitions dragged on for months. A group called People for a Better Athens was

TAC hosts National Review writer.

n April 14, The Arch Conservative hosted Charles C. W. Cooke, journalist for National Review, political commentator, and author. Cooke addressed an audience of TAC contributors, students from across campus, and visitors from the Athens area.

The topic: Firearms and the Second Amendment.

Cooke’s speech focused on the historical underpinnings of the right to bear arms, as well as his unique perspective as an immigrant to a gun-loving nation. Cooke is British, so he has witnessed a real gun grab in action — and he is convinced that the U.S. ought to reject that dark path. Other topics included the demonization of the “assault rifle” (a politically contrived nonentity), the Supreme Court’s affirmation of the Second Amendment as an individual right, and how conservatives can improve upon their traditional pro-gun arguments.

We’re immensely grateful to Mr. Cooke for speaking at our event. To those of you who attended TAC’s two events this semester, I’d like to thank you on behalf of the Editors. If you haven’t come to an event yet, there are sure to be more in the future.

—John Henry Thompson

A Twilight Tradition Returns Athens residents enjoy a spring highlight.

n Friday April 24, the AOC Twilight festival, one of Athens’s biggest spring events, took place. The central event, the Twilight Criterium, is an 80-kilometer bike race that circumnavigates downtown Athens. The race attracts professional and amateur cyclists from all over the world. Over $120,000 in prizes were awarded to winning cyclists over the course of the weekend. Even though it was originally centered on a group of bike races, Twilight has now grown into a massive, weekend-long festival. In addition to the bike races, the festival included live music, a 5k race, a children’s fun run, and a Red Bull chariot race. Events like Twilight are part of what makes Athens, Georgia the best college town in America.

If only...

4 / The Arch Conservative

—Connor Kitchings

Summer 2015

Kilroy was here.

O

campus

sga

Photo Courtesy Mackenzie myers

O

watch

n Thursday, March 26, thirty UGA students were officially elected to positions in the Student Government Association Senate. These 30 victors were the product of the 2,265 votes cast in SGA’s annual election.

But in reality, the lion’s share of SGA’s impact over the next year will be facilitated by three individuals: Johnelle Simpson, Houston Gaines, and Darby Miller. These three, the members of the unopposed “Momentum” executive ticket, will serve as President, Vice President, and Treasurer, respectively.

Over the past few years, a trend has developed in SGA: The executive branch does a disproportionate amount of work compared to its legislative counterpart. During their one-year term, Drew Jacoby and his cabinet have helped implement the new withdrawal policy, spearheaded an initiative for more inclusive post-secondary education, expanded the Open Dialogue forums, made progress in establishing a women’s center, and been on the front lines of dealing with a fistful of crises (e.g. bomb threats, racial conflicts, and football ticketing issues). While it is fair to question the merits of some of these developments — and SGA Watch has — it is hard to argue that the executive branch has been idle.

On the other hand, Senate (an organization twice as large as the entire executive branch) has limited itself to picking out a new name for the basketball student section, passing numerous resolutions regulating itself, and attempting to take both sides on the Israel-Palestine debate.

Though to be fair, in late March, SPIA Senator Madison Turner did successfully lobby the University into providing safe rides from the SLC to the Hull Street deck — a key facet of her campus safety initiatives. This exception almost proves the point. While Turner’s title undoubtedly gave her credibility in dealing with administrators, the balance of her work was done independent ly of the Senate.

According to outgoing Vice President Jim Thompson, Turner’s success is emblematic of Senate’s biggest weakness as a whole.

Thompson believes that Senate has a tendency to tackle campus-wide issues, pass resolutions to alleviate the issues and then plant the post-passage legwork on the shoulders of one or two individuals. In Thompson’s eyes, senators “see themselves as individuals and not a part of the collective.”

This dynamic may be the result of an election system that treats candidates as singular entities and not members of a larger party. While would-be senators can technically form tickets, the student body votes on each candidate individually. This undermines a sense of teamwork that would encourage senators to work together and collectively pursue policy goals.

Additionally, the Senate seems plagued by the contagious disease of apathy. Though many senators are punctual and passionate, VP Thompson — the President of the Senate — must often bend over backwards to reach quorum and finds many of the legislators to be passive in their work.

Unlike the top members of the Executive Board, senators do not have to worry about The Red & Black plastering their name

Summer 2015

on the front page or having their reputation sullied amongst administrators. Thus, the incentive to work hard is mild at best.

According to departing Franklin Senator Jack Owen, Senate’s stagnation is rooted in the transitory nature of its membership. As senators often only serve one or two terms, most of the body has trouble navigating the legislative rules, such as Robert’s Rules of Order, effectively. In Owen’s opinion, “by the time [senators] feel comfortable enough to begin pursuing their own projects and present legislation, it is election season again.” To alleviate the pains of such a steep learning curve, Owen would fill empty seats in the spring and then install a more extensive training process — ensuring that all senators are ready to hit the ground running in fall.

Perhaps, though, the struggle of Senate is not one rooted in apathy or confusion, but one inherent in the foundations of the Student Government Association. SGA possesses soft power — very soft power. With the exception of its presence on Universitywide committees and governing bodies (i.e., the Student Advisory Council of the Board of Regents) and its ability to distribute student fees, SGA has little to no unilateral authority within the University. Thus, the near totality of its influence comes from the relationships its leaders have with the administrators and faculty members who pull the strings. This dilemma lends itself to a disproportionately powerful executive branch — one with the nametags necessary to schedule bi-weekly meetings with Vice Presidents and Deans.

But maybe brighter days are ahead for the Senate. This year, Senate adopted changes to the Student Life seats, making them more democratic and responsive to student needs, and according to Owen is filled with people who “care enough about [SGA] to seek out ways to improve it.”

SGA Watch will continue to keep our readers informed of Senate’s antics, but we sincerely hope that the institution can reform itself.

—Davis Parker

Momentum: Miller, Simpson, and Gaines (L-R)

The Arch Conservative / 5

Columns

Netanyahu’s Big Win One of our closest allies just had an election. Here’s what to know.

THE Parties Israeli parties can be separated into five groups: conservative, liberal, centrist, Arab, and ultra-orthodox.

There are three rightwing parties elected to the new Knesset: Likud, The Jewish Home, and Yisrael Beiteinu. Likud, the mainstream centerright party of Prime Minister Netanyahu, is the largest conservative party in the country. Yisrael Beiteinu is an ultranationalist party, but is the only right wing party to accept a variation of the two-state solution. The Jewish Home is the party of expanded settlements in the Palestinian Territories; their rise in the most recent elections has pulled Lukid and Yisrael Beiteinu further to the right.

The two traditional liberal parties joined up in the 2015 election to form the Zionist Union, giving PM Netanyahu his toughest electoral challenge in recent memory.

Comprised of the Israeli Labor and Hatnuah parties, the joint ticket of the Zionist Union focused on Netanyahu’s failings: a frayed relationship with the E.U. and the Tristan Bagala is a sophomore studying international affairs.

He is a regular contributor to The Arch Conservative.

6 / The Arch Conservative

U.S., out of control cost-of-living increases, and continuing conflict with the Palestinians. Further to the left, Meretz focuses on environmental issues, human rights for all minorities, and European-style socialism.

In 2014, the electoral threshold for Israeli elections was increased to 3.25 percent. This endangered many of the small Arab parties and led to fears among the Arab community that the minority group would not be adequately represented in the next Knesset. In response, all four of the major Arab parties formed the Joint List.

Under this umbrella, a communist party, a green party, an Islamist party, and other Arab factions joined in the spirit of opposi-

Zionist Union campaign billboard, 2015 tion to a one-state solution and became the third largest faction in the Knesset.

In the center, two new parties have risen to prominence in the past three years in Yesh Atid and Kulanu. Yesh Atid, founded by former news anchor Yair Lapid, attempted to shift the typical nexus of Israeli elections by adopting centrist positions on Palestine, security, and hot-button economic issues to focus on the struggles of the average middle class family. Yesh Atid also advocated forcing the ultra-orthodox into the military conscription mandated for other Israelis. Kulanu, founded by a former Likud Member of Knesset, followed the same pattern by only campaigning on cost-of-living increases and the Israeli housing crisis.

The ultra-Orthodox parties, UTJ and Shas, represent Haredi Jews, a segment of Orthodox Judaism that rejects modern culture. These parties are almost always needed to form a coalition and enter conditionally based on protection of funding for

religious institutions and draft exemptions.

THE Candidates Despite the large number of qualifying parties, the election boiled down to a race for prime minister between sitting PM Benjamin Netanyahu and a “rotation” of Zionist Union leaders Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni. On the night before the election, Livni withdrew from her partnership, leaving the election to Netanyahu and Herzog. As the campaign came to a close, the race for prime minister started to revolve around Israel’s relationship with the rest of the world and national security. Many Israelis were uncomfortable with Netanyahu’s callousness toward the Obama administration and unwillingness to work with an EU that seeks the establishment of a Palestinian state. Yet, under the shadow of a possible future war with Iran, Israelis had a decision between standing on principle alone or giving in to the demands of their fickle allies. Likud’s resounding victory shows that the race was ultimately decided upon security issues that favored the right-wing candidate.

THE Likely Coalition So far, 67 of the 120 newly-elected Knesset members recommended Netanyahu as prime minister, which offers key insight into Likud’s likely coalition. Shas, UTJ, The Jewish Home, Yisrael Beiteinu, and Kulanu offer Likud an opportunity to form the most ideologically stable coalition seen thus far during Netanyahu’s long tenure. With each party jockeying for the best Ministry and committee leadership roles, it will be up to Netanyahu to forge a stable and ideologically cohesive coalition.

One thing seems clear: In Prime Minister Netanyahu’s first right-wing, religious coalition, he will be relatively unshackled by coalition palace intrigue. He will stand for his principles of security for the state of Israel with support — and he’ll have enough MKs to stand with him. b summer 2015

Photo Courtesy ranbar

I

srael elects representatives to its legislative body, the Knesset, through a proportional representation system.

Citizens vote for a party ticket rather than a single candidate. Parties that receive over 3.25% of the vote are then apportioned seats based on their share of the final tally.

Because of the proliferation of parties catering to a myriad of specific interest across the ideological spectrum, no single party has come remotely close to a majority in recent elections.

Columns

A New Necessity As Georgia grows, transportation infrastructure must adapt.

T

his year, the Georgia state legislature was faced with a crisis that threatened one of the most essential functions of government: transportation. As it stands now, Georgia is dead last in the country in transportation spending despite outpacing most of the country in population growth. Georgia’s need for transportation funding is much greater than what we allocate in tax dollars. This gap will only expand as Georgia attracts more business, new residents, and more tourism. Governor Nathan Deal recognized the importance of this issue and threatened to extend the state’s 40-day legislative session until a new transportation funding plan was reached. On the penultimate day of the session, a solution was finally reached and passed by both chambers of the Assembly.

The state House of Representatives bill recommended raising an additional one billion dollars and dedicating it all to transportation. As of passage, the House bill raises that money by restructuring the gas tax and adding transportation related fees. Instead of a seven cent excise tax on gasoline (plus state and local sales taxes), there will be a flat, 26 cent-per-gallon tax on gas and a bit more for diesel. This number represents the total tax on gas based on the average cost of fuel over the past two years, so what consumers end up paying isn’t drastically altered. Because gas prices are currently very low, the 26 cent tax amounts to a handful of pennies more than what a consumer would pay at the pump in a month under the status quo. Should gas prices surpass three dollars per gallon, we would actually end up paying less than under the current structure.

On top of the gas tax remodel, tax credits for jet fuel were removed, and fees were applied to electric cars that don’t consume

Seth Daniels is a senior studying political science. He is a regular contributor to The Arch Conservative.

summer 2015

gas (thus not contributing to transportation funding via the gas tax) and large commercial trucks which are the biggest cause for road maintenance. Additionally, a five dollar-per-night charge is charged to hotels and motels, passing some of the cost of transportation to the out-of-staters that also wear down Georgia roads. This sustainable plan can adapt to fluctuating fuel demands. As electric cars become more popular, the estimated yearly contribution towards the gas tax, roughly $200, is replaced by an annual fee. As a consumption tax, consumers are only taxed according to how much gas they buy and therefore how much the individual impacts the road system. Electric cars that don’t use gas still impact the roads, so the annual fee makes up for their contribution to the transportation fund that they would pay if those consumers bought gasoline for their cars. Big trucks weighing over 15,000 pounds exert a much higher toll on roads and although those vehicles do tend to use more gas than the typical consumer, the owners of those trucks must pay an extra $50 or $100 (depending on the size of the vehicle) to help make up the extra impact on road surfaces.

The new system ensures everyone pays their fair share based on their use of our roads and covers gaps in funding.

Since the session began in January, concerns have been raised by those wary of higher taxes. This is the appropriate instinct, but in this case, the plan is better than it sounds to tax-skeptic ears. Some are promoting a narrative describing the transportation bill as “a billion dollar tax hike.” While “fee” and “tax” are often interchangeable, the simple truth is that a

growing state like ours requires an expanding and flexible transportation plan that needs to be funded properly. Providing for roads and bridges is a necessary function of government essential to our economy and even our safety. It is no small feat that Georgia’s General Assembly has developed a plan to meet our infrastructure needs as well as provide for new projects — especially considering the minimal impact the new plan has on consumers’ wallets.

Projections indicate that taxpayers will pay nearly the same amount in taxes over what they would have before. But these marginal changes, while unlikely to make a dent in our bank accounts, will provide millions more for state-funded transportation projects. Several cents (or at most a few dollars) more a year hardly amounts to a drastic tax increase. It is important to focus on the results of this legislation instead of the rhetoric. For the price of a large cup of coffee, taxpayers can expect highways and bridges that are built to last and support the weight of an expanding Georgia economy.

For less than the cost of a meal at Chik-filA, we can lessen traffic congestion, reduce the likelihood of a tragic bridge collapse, and pursue priority infrastructure projects.

A well-oiled and maintained highway system is necessary for our state’s economy. As consumers, we exert a demanding toll on our roads and bridges, therefore it is only reasonable that we provide for the maintenance of that infrastructure according to our usage. This new transportation funding scheme is a responsible plan to meet the current needs of our state and can adapt to future growth. b

The Arch Conservative / 7

Columns

Graduation Blues Higher education costs are skyrocketing.

B

efore long, Sanford Stadium will be filled with proud parents, fanning themselves with programs and eagerly scanning the robed crowd for a recognizable face. Graduation season is upon us, and with it the requisite excitement and tears. But for graduates, there exists a lingering sense of uncertainty.

College is expensive. Housing, textbooks, transportation, meal plans — these costs mount up, piling on the already bulky cost of tuition. With interest rates for student loans commonly fixed around the five percent mark, the Institute for College Access and Success reported that nearly seven out of ten graduating seniors in the class of 2013 left college with (on average) $28,400 in student loan debt. Nationally, the average student loan debt now exceeds the average amount of credit card debt.

Loans can take years to pay back. After graduation, students can choose from a variety of different time periods in which to pay off their loans, often ranging from 15 to 18 years. While the amount of student debt differs significantly between private colleges and public colleges, there is one common thread: The cost of college is rising despite a weakened economy. Why do prices continue to climb? According to a study from USA Today, only 28 percent of college spending enables instruction.

The rest is divided between athletic spending, research financing, maintenance, faculty members, and other necessities — some more valid than others. Dealing with high education costs has become a political football.

The average cost of tuition and fees for the 2014-2015 school year was around $9,139 for instate residents at public colleges, $22,958 for out-of-state residents at public colleges, and $31,231 at private Baylee Culverhouse is a freshman studying political science and English. She is a regular contributor to The Arch Conservative.

8 / The Arch Conservative

colleges. College is becoming unaffordable, even for those in the middle class. We can blame the federal government for a chunk of that inflation.

In his latest State of the Union address, President Obama introduced a proposal to make two years of community college free and universally available. Under the proposal, the federal government would pitch in 75 percent of the average cost of community-college tuition, which adds up to an estimated $60 billion over ten years.

State governments would be expected to pay the remaining 25 percent. This (incredibly costly) proposal would give colleges zero incentive to lower tuition costs.

Here’s the kicker — it wasn’t intended to.

The subsidization of higher education has untethered that market from the regulation of normal price elasticity behavior.

In Georgia, the HOPE scholarship (funded by the Georgia Lottery) pays the tuition for students attending public universities within the state if they meet several requirements associated with GPA, SAT scores, and minimum hour enrollment requirements. In Tennessee, “Tennessee Promise” is a scholarship program launched in an effort to provide free community college to all state residents. While these programs have been semi-successful (Tennessee Promise is too young to know its full effects) in both of these states, Chairman of the Senate Education Committee Lamar Alexander pointed out what the president does not realize: There is a big difference between a federally-implemented initiative and a state-implemented initiative. So how can we fix the higher education dilemma?

First, we can try to stop society’s degradation of technical schools and hands-on, degreeless jobs. According to Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, 36 percent of all job openings require no college experience at all. Our nation runs on the labor that these jobs require, especially those in agriculture, energy, and food service. Too often, those who choose to pursue careers in such fields (thus eschewing higher education) are

viewed negatively, as if they are somehow less intelligent or unsuccessful merely because they didn’t take the four-year degree route. Local initiatives to support those who choose technical education or job training apprenticeships would be helpful.

Adding technical instruction to the high school curriculum would be an effective way to introduce students to alternatives.

Woodshop, a course that is often the first to get cut when funds get tight, would allow those who aren’t the classroom type to learn practical skills in a hands-on way, rather than through lectures and textbooks.

One of the major problems with higher education is that our competitive society holds this notion that every student must go to college directly after graduating high school. Every student should have the opportunity to go to college, and reforms centered on reducing tuition should be encouraged. But too many students are pressured (whether by society, parents, or peers) to go to an expensive school, major in a subject they aren’t interested in, and subvert other ambitions in pursuit of modern America’s most-favored entryway to adulthood: the “college experience.”

The Advanced Placement (AP) program was created to form a liaison between secondary schools and colleges.

The AP program has saved thousands of students both credit hours and money, due to the fact that high scores on the difficult, comprehensive exams translate into college credit hours. If an advanced program were implemented for those students who are more hands-on and physical learners to gear them towards technical school or jobs right after high school, I believe we would see higher employment rates, higher high school graduation rates, and lower tuition at standard universities.

As graduation caps are flung into the air, worries about student loans and job options will persist. There’s a lot to love about college, but America’s higher education system is broken. Hopefully the next president will recognize the problem and offer some reasonable solutions. b

summer 2015

Columns

Repealing the First Amendment Senate Democrats tip their hand.

L

ast September, a Senate proposal that would have allowed for the restriction of campaign spending in the name of “Democratic self-government and political equality” fell only six votes short of passing. Senate joint resolution (SJR) 19 would have allowed Congress and state legislatures to “regulate and set reasonable limits on the raising and spending of money by candidates and others to influence elections.”

In other words, SJR 19 attempted to overturn the landmark case Buckley v. Valeo (1976), in which the Supreme Court deemed it acceptable to have caps on campaign donations from individual sources but not on total campaign spending. The cap on campaign donations eliminates the possibility of any kind of bias toward the legal interests of especially big donors once a candidate is in office: a simple idea aimed to thwart the potential for corruption that few would legitimately oppose.

Someone with a shallow understanding of the first half of the Court’s ruling might come to the conclusion that campaign spending should also be limited to give all candidates equal footing. However, since communicating with a wide audience requires money (e.g. in the form of travel or advertising costs), limiting spending would narrow the scope of a candidate’s campaign. Therefore, the Court deemed such a restriction unconstitutional on the grounds that it would infringe on candidates’ free speech rights.

What’s really at issue here is the battle between two important principles in American law: liberty and equality. Those in favor of the cap on campaign spending are ready to sacrifice some of a candidate’s liberty in the name of a “fairer”, more equitable election. The proponents of the Nick Geeslin is a freshman studying journalism. He is a new contributor to The Arch Conservative.

summer 2015

aforementioned amendment — SJR 19 — were in the same boat. Equality is often a worthy goal; that is, until it interferes with the Constitution. In Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court affirmed that money spent on campaigns is a substantive extension of free speech. Now, the Democrats’ SJR 19 may not have been intended to do violence to the First Amendment, but it’s hard to argue that the effect could be anything else.

The controversy over Citizens United v.

Federal Election Committee (2010) began with a fight over the airing of (nonprofit corporation) Citizens United’s anti-Hillary Clinton documentary in the wake of the 2008 primaries. At issue, according to Chief Justice John Roberts, was government policy on indirect support (advocacy for a candidate without contributing directly to the campaign) by for-profit corporations — and unions. (Apparently, no one told our friend in the union hat pictured above.) The Court ruled that political advocacy by corporations and unions fell under free speech, and were therefore protected by the First Amendment. Much of the public reaction to the majority’s ruling was swift and angry. In a shocking move, the president denounced the decision quite publicly. The dissent — both in public discourse and on the Court — stresses the importance of eliminating the possibility of corruption by eliminating the opportunity

for large corporations to advocate for candidates. However, the Wal-Marts of the world aren’t the only ones that fall under the category of corporation. Newspapers, churches, and media outlets are all given essentially the same amount of free speech as the common person and freely endorse candidates.

Contemporary public opinion of corporations casts them as evil, rapacious entities, and undoubtedly plays into the debate.

Nonetheless, the Supreme Court’s majority decision was to allow advocacy of candidates by corporations. Their reasoning is straightforward: Political speech is indispensable to a democracy, a fact unsullied by the possibility that corporations (and unions) wish to participate.

Despite some grave errors in the past, the Supreme Court has arrived at a point of relative clarity on questions of speech under the First Amendment. The instances in which free speech is limited are logical, for example, in matters of national security, child pornography, libel, and slander.

America’s traditions of dissent and free speech have been incredible blessings for our republic. The country’s original patriots spoke out against British misrule and what resulted was (eventually) our own government. That is to say, our founding fathers used each other’s criticisms of the British style of governance, along with their own knowledge, to create the system that persists to this today. The drafters of the Constitution and Bill of Rights realized that the (relatively) unrestricted flow and expression of ideas between people was essential.

That Senate Democrats would introduce — let alone wholeheartedly support — a reolution along the lines of SJR 19 speaks volumes about the Left’s careless disregard for free speech. As Thurgood Marshall put it, free speech is necessary to “permit the continued building of our politics and culture, and to assure self-fulfillment for each individual.” The First Amendment is a vital thing, and burdening our speech rights with even minimal limitations requires careful consideration. b

The Arch Conservative / 9

Features

The Right Agenda Reform conservatism — and why we need it. by john henry thompson

C

onservatism is timeless. It is not defined by any particular policy platform. We conservatives, far more than our progressive friends, have inherited the firm bedrock of guiding principles. Conservatism doesn’t need policy: It’s a lens through which to see the world, not a governing agenda. This basic truth is both a blessing and a curse.

After all, progressivism is a mission more than a true belief structure. The missionary element of Leftism has made it attractive to many over the past century or so. The mission is superficially noble but deeply quixotic: to re-mold human nature; to craft a race of people truly worthy of their elites. This motivation has lent itself to different political efforts, some heinous (e.g. eugenics), some praiseworthy (e.g. women’s suffrage). But as its name suggests, progressivism is transient, even nomadic.

To be sure, American liberals wield totemic words; words they claim undergird their policy goals (think “democracy” or “equality”). But their ends are always evolving, to use another progressive shibboleth. In a progressive utopia, protests and marches and initiatives and projects are the highest goods. Society must exist in radical, tumultuous flux — or “justice” is surely being neglected.

I’d never trade the stolid, slow-moving conservative societal ideal, with its unique blend of communitarian and individualistic motivations, for progressive angst. As an experiment, watch a Republican primary debate, even for a small local office, and a Democratic one. Note the differences. The Economist (not a Tea Party-friendly publication) did just that during the lead-up to the midterm elections. It turns out that

John Henry Thompson is Editor-in-Chief of The Arch Conservative.

10 / The Arch Conservative

conservatives talk about “big things”: Constitutional order, libertarianism and traditionalism, family, faith, patriotism, and the like. Democrats talk about dividing the spoils of taxation. Conservatism’s attraction to first principles can be seen to hamstring the political wing of the movement.

We are told that voters don’t care about the Bill of Rights; they care about their electric bill. And this is true, to an extent. Sometimes the political Right gets caught up in its own mythology and forgets the people it purports to serve, but the same can be said of the political Left.

The conservative view of the world at its most Burkean (“a contract between the dead, the living, and the yet to be born,” etc.) is innately appealing to Americans.

Our revolution was about reminding our colonial governors of the aims of British liberty, not overthrowing an institutional structure. Americans aren’t radicals. We want the freedom to live our lives in peace, and to strive to improve our lot and that of our family. Conservatism’s principled foundation can be a curse that dooms the Right to irrelevance — but only if conservatives let it. Alternatively, it can be the Right’s greatest strength. I’ll let Ramesh Ponnuru clarify: “Conservatism should be home to everyone who takes seriously the task of strengthening the constitutional structure of a limited, accountable government that serves rather than masters civil society.”

The challenge for conservatives, then, is to apply the often abstract principles we revere to today’s problems. This must be a dynamic process, not a dogmatic one. Political conservatives often act as if there is only one conservative policy platform, brought down from Sinai by a Mosaic Ronald Reagan. Bearing all the proper endorsements (The Heritage Foundation, NRA, Americans for Tax Reform, etc.), the Stone Tablets of conservatism are complete and infallible.

Lower top marginal tax rates, deregulation, spending cuts, ending welfare as we know it, cautious monetary policy, muscular foreign policy (although libertarian influences have made this controversial) — all the old standbys of post-1976 Republican platforms.

In short, conservatives have a great set of solutions for the problems of 1981. Don’t misunderstand: Confiscatory income taxes, runaway inflation, and Great Society excesses were serious problems. In some cases, today’s problems can be met with similar approaches. But today, our top marginal income tax rates are among the lowest in the world. Inflation is all but nonexistent.

Welfare reform changed the check-cutting mindset of the Great Society (but only to an extent — and we need more welfare reform today). It’s time for the Right to promote solutions to the problems of now — problems that deeply trouble middle class Americans, and problems that the Left cannot address properly.

Fortunately, there are some intelligent, articulate folks working on just that. But in order to understand their proposed policy solutions, we need to grasp the nature of the problems facing American families.

The primary anxiety of the middle class (and of new college graduates, as any senior at this university will admit) is economic security. By all indications, most people are concerned that the American Dream is on life support if not dead already. The ugly coupling of stagnant, inflation-adjusted, take-home pay and increasing expenditure requirements has wreaked havoc on Americans’ monthly budgets. Higher education costs, uninhibited by the price responsiveness of less-subsidized sectors and protected by the guardians of the education cartel, have skyrocketed. College is becoming less successful at guaranteeing a middle class life even as a degree becomes summer 2015

Features

more important to one’s future earnings, a catch-22 that leaves parents both broke and renting a room to their recent graduate.

As for health care expenses, a mix of statist social engineering, insurance structures unchanged since the Truman administration, and adverse incentives for care providers (especially large hospitals) makes for a health care system in need of reform. (The Affordable Care Act is woefully negligent in addressing the fundamental problems facing our health system, opting instead for a mandate scheme that lines the pockets of insurance companies and expansion of the already-bloated and questionably effective Medicaid program.)

Furthermore, the plight of the poorest in America has gotten worse relative to the rest. Economic mobility is in dire need of resuscitation. An unfair and often corrupt public education system harms the worstoff every day. Structural unemployment, once thought only to plague the sclerotic economies of old Europe, has reached our own shores in the form of staggeringly low workforce participation rates, especially among working-age men.

If conservatism is to remain relevant in American political life, it must address these problems. But more important, conservatives are morally obligated to offer solutions; solutions characterized by pragmatism but unquestionably rooted in our defining theories of order, liberty, community, and federalism. This truth, at once frightening and promising, has launched a new movement: reform conservatism. The “reformocons” — to use the unattractive portmanteau weaving its way through the media — want to address the problems of America’s middle class through policy. But their policy approach is not of the progressives’ vaulting, moral superiority-laden flavor. It is humble and stands (as it should) in the shadow of important conservative assumptions, such as human fallibility, limited government, and reverence for civil society.

The reformocons are an eclectic mix of think-tankers (especially from the American Enterprise Institute, with a few allies here and there at Heritage and Brookings), politicians, columnists, and political observers. (Liberal readers will note that the word “eclectic” is a relative one.) The thought leaders of reform conservatism include National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru, Ross Douthat of The New York Times, Yuval summer 2015

Levin of National Affairs, and Peter Wehner of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

They are joined in the political arena most prominently by Senators Marco Rubio and Mike Lee. Economists and policy wonks like James Capretta, Michael Strain, Andrew Kelly, and James Pethokoukis provide the empirical firepower for reformocon policy arguments. The reformocons’ magnum opus, Room to Grow: Conservative Reforms for a Limited Government and a Thriving Middle Class, was published in the summer of 2014. Readers who want to get into the policy weeds of the reform conservative agenda can download the book for free online. It’s an engaging read, and its authors are unabashed in both their defense of conservatism and their frustration with the intellectually bankrupt conservative rhetoric of recent years.

Reformocon proposals deal with every-

It’s time for the Right to promote solutions to the problems of now — problems that deeply trouble middle class Americans. thing from the tax code and higher education to health care and crony capitalism.

Tax code reforms are generally familiar to most conservatives. Reformocons want a less economically burdensome tax structure that will incentivize economic growth without giveaways to favored industries or firms. One element that has attracted negative attention from some quarters is the support for an increased child tax credit found across much of the reform conservative movement. Some conservatives view any tax code policymaking as a betrayal of conservative tax principles.

Their argument is compelling from a viewpoint of strict ideological consistency. But the more important perspective is that of the many middle class families who are too cash-strapped to raise the family they want to raise (some fiscal conservatives should reacquaint themselves with the fact that America needs more children to support

economic institutions).

This example aside, reformocon policy ideas have been met with general approval on the Right. Senators Marco Rubio and Mike Lee introduced their sweeping tax reform proposal to applause from conservatives focused on economic growth, not just from fellow reformocons. Indeed, Rubio’s new book, American Dreams: Restoring Economic Opportunity for Everyone, borrows heavily from reform-focused think tank scholarship (especially from the AEIdriven Room to Grow). Senator Rubio has gone out of his way, more so than any other probable 2016 candidate, to identify himself with center-right reform policies. For example, Rubio recently appeared on The Daily Show to defend a policy proposal popular in reformocon circles: a change to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).

Rubio would transform the EITC into a wage supplement instead of an annual tax credit check. Now, this is certainly not earth-shaking stuff, but it’s common sense — and it’s conservative. If the government is going to have an EITC, it should have an EITC that is tied as closely as possible to wage-earning employment. Rubio’s new Wage Enhancement Credit would accomplish that. But Rubio doesn’t stop there: his book pushes for transparency in higher education, so-called “Flex Funds” to states that would streamline the current welfare funding system, and corporate tax reform focused on competitiveness. Policy-heavy campaign books are a rarity, but Rubio has shown a refreshing desire to move beyond platitudes — a risky move in today’s GOP. President Obama won two presidential elections by dominating one polling metric: “[Candidate X] cares about people like me.” People respect Republicans for having strong principles and for their embrace of American exceptionalism. But this is for naught if people perceive the GOP as solely working on behalf of the rich. This perception is already inaccurate, but it must be countered nonetheless. There’s no need to shy away from conservative principles.

The Right should be bold in its promotion of the conservative governing vision, i.e., a world in which the state serves to foster — rather than replace or intrude upon — civil society. But boldness untethered from concrete goals is worthless, both politically and morally. Reform conservatism understands this, and the next GOP nominee should as well. b The Arch Conservative / 11

Features

Narrative Politics On the Left, ideology trumps truth. by connor kitchings

P

lato asks a profound question in The Republic: Is a lie told in the pursuit of a just cause itself morally just? Are people who knowingly commit wrongs in the pursuit of what they believe is right immoral? This is a question that has flummoxed the greatest political minds in human history. Of course, telling a small lie to do greater good is easy and maybe even necessary. But the question remains whether such a lie does violence to the liar’s morality.

Machiavelli had an answer, of course: The ends justify the means. Progress is a filthy business, so instruments of progress need to be prepared to get their hands dirty.

In a truly unfortunate and even dangerous development, today’s self-described agents of progress have taken up the Machiavellian mantra.

American progressives have moved beyond the basic democratic principles of virtuous self-governance and liberty. They have decided that if people are left with all of the genuine information, then they may come to the wrong conclusion. Of course, progressive elites know that they cannot simply take the political choices out of the public’s hands. They are now attempting to tailor the political information that the public receives, in an attempt to guarantee the public makes the “correct” choice.

Click over to Vox.com if you don’t believe me. Even though the goal of “explanatory journalism” is to explain the news to people who do not grasp the complexity of politics (Vox’s tagline: “understand the news”), Vox and its creator, former Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein, have not truly created a new form of news. Vox-style reporting has merely dropped the pretense

Connor Kitchings is Associate Editor of the arch conservative

12 / The Arch Conservative

of impartiality. Klein and his merry band simply editorialize the facts, presenting the news through a progressive lens. Some of their more laughable headlines include “Kathleen Sebelius is resigning because Obamacare has won” and “Chelsea Clinton is very typical pregnant woman.” In short,

To see the narrative machine in action, we turn to three liberal outrages du jour: Unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, a “rape” at the University of Virginia, and Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act. “explanatory journalism” is simply a new flavor of the lazy, manipulative journalism that Americans have come to expect. Biased journalism and noble lies go hand-inhand. Once a journalist allows an ideology to cloud his journalistic responsibility, he will defend lies, that is, if the motivation of said lies is accepted by his ideology.

Today’s tolerance of the reincaranation of yellow journalism is not due to an oversight. It is due to a system that has detached honesty from politics. The public no longer punishes politicians for failing to tell the truth. There was a short period following the Watergate scandal during which people on both sides of the aisle collectively decided that political dishonesty was unacceptable. But once a president (William J. Clinton) was left unpunished after lying under oath, politicians knew that they had

been given a free pass. It has become less politically costly to lie in Washington than ever before. Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was recently asked if he regretted falsely accusing Mitt Romney of tax evasion. His response: “I don’t regret that at all…Romney didn’t win did he?” Knowing that he would never face any consequences for lying, Reid made a false statement to further a narrative. The narrative was as simple as it was disingenuous: Romney was a greedy rich guy that was only running for president to make the rich richer. The narrative paid off, Harry Reid succeeded, and Romney didn’t win.

Narratives, in and of themselves, are nothing new. Every political campaign tries to create a narrative that portrays their opponent in a negative light. Political narratives outside of campaigns, in the traditional arenas of policy making and governing, are a thornier issue. They are more difficult to publicize and harder support with evidence. But armed with the support of an acquiescent and corrupt media, progressives have fined-tuned a frightening narrative-generating machine.

To see the narrative machine in action, we turn to three liberal outrages du jour: unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, a “rape” at the University of Virginia, and Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In Ferguson, a tragedy was hijacked for political purposes. In mid-August of 2014, unarmed teenager Michael Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson.

Once it was reported that Brown was black and Wilson was white, the story soon became a national obsession.

There were many different accounts of what occurred that day. Between the official witness statements made to police and “witness” interviews with national news agencies, there were too many different stories floating around to gain an accurate summer 2015

Features

view of what had happened. That didn’t stop progressives from finding the most compelling narrative and latching onto it.

One of the first narratives to make it into the national news was the firsthand account by Brown’s friend Dorian Johnson.

He told CNN that officer Wilson was very aggressive toward Brown and Johnson, eventually assaulting Brown and causing the pair to run away. After Wilson told them to stop and raised his weapon, Brown then stopped and raised his hands in surrender, telling Wilson that he was unarmed and not to shoot. According to Johnson, Wilson then fired multiple shots and killed Brown. In the wake of the Trayvon Martin affair, this was the perfect narrative for progressives. By the time facts that disputed the narrative began to be publicized, it was too late.

Thousands of people from around the country descended on Ferguson to protest a narrative that was built on a lie. Months later, even after the Department of Justice and Ferguson District Attorney announced that Wilson would not face any local or federal charges for his actions, many people have still been duped by the protests and media coverage into believing in “Hands up, Don’t shoot.” Such is the power of a narrative.

Just as insidious, the advancement of a false narrative, as occurred in Ferguson, can cheapen the importance of stopping real racial violence.

In North Charleston, South Carolina, a police officer shot an unarmed black man.

The officer has been charged with murder.

Conservatives have denounced the officer and applauded the investigation into his actions. Still, the narrative refuses to die: Liberals now chastise conservatives for, apparently, not decrying the murder vigorously enough.

From the streets of Ferguson we shift our focus to the bucolic Charlottesville campus of the University of Virginia. In November of 2014, Rolling Stone published an article describing a brutal gang rape that allegedly occurred at a UVA fraternity party. Using pseudonyms, the author, Sabrina Rubin Erdley, described in graphic detail a rape survivor’s story about the terrible event and its lingering effects. The rape survivor had summer 2015

not filed a police report following the rape, so her assailants continued to walk freely on campus.

Naturally, this article created a firestorm around the subject of campus rape. The story fit perfectly into the narrative that there is a “rape culture” in America and was the perfect rallying cry for supporters of more government oversight of college campuses. Following the publication of the article, UVA suspended all fraternity and sorority operations indefinitely and the police department began an investigation into the fraternity named in the article. There was just one problem with the article: The story it reported was a lie.

As was reported later, Erdley did not stumble upon the story. She had embarked on a search through many college campuses. Her quarry: A specific rape case that would show, in her words, “what it’s like to

Living the narrative. be on campus now…where not only is rape prevalent but also there’s this pervasive culture of sexual harassment...rape culture.”

Once the police concluded their investigation, they found no evidence that many of the events surrounding the rape in Erdley’s story had even taken place. Evidence indicates that Erdley’s heroine, “Jackie,” fabricated most if not all of her tale of woe. Bad reporting? Absolutely. But the underlying problem is that Erdley already believed a narrative — and she went looking for a story that confirmed her belief.

Lastly, consider the firestorm surrounding Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Progressives do not like RFRAs, at least, not when these laws may defend Christians from government mandates.

Ever since the Supreme Court used the

federal RFRA to allow Hobby Lobby an exemption from Obamacare’s contraception mandate, progressives have been looking for a battleground to fight back. When Indiana passed a modified version of the federal RFRA into their state law, they found their fight.

Shortly after Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed the legislation into law, Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post, explaining how the entire religious liberty movement is secretly just a cover for discrimination towards gays and lesbians. Soon after, the national media fanned the flames, demanding that the law be changed or repealed. Pence later capitulated, signing additional legislation that “clarified” that RFRA could not be used to discriminate. As it turns out, RFRAs have never been considered a legal protection for discrimination. Not once in the 20 year history of such laws has a RFRA been successfully used in a court to defend a discriminatory action. This inconvenient truth, which undermines the narrative, has been ignored.

Indeed, most Americans support the actual substance of Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It is hard to argue against the idea that a government should only be allowed to burden a person’s religious conscious (or practice) if the government has a compelling interest in doing so and the government is doing it in the least restrictive manner possible. That is why progressives like Tim Cook are forced to build the narrative that any state that passes a RFRA is discriminating against homosexuals. The anti-RFRA narrative is built on lies and paranoia, but it is also a political necessity for the Left.

Disingenuous narratives have become dangerous in today’s world of political polarization. When gridlock reigns, dishonest and deceptive procedures become tempting options. But if creating false narratives and telling lies to further an ideological cause have become standard procedure, then the very soul of our governing system is at risk. Honesty should trump narratives.

Thanks to the political Left, that basic truth is in harm’s way. b

The Arch Conservative / 13

Features SGA Exclusive

Q&A:

Momentum UGA Johnelle Simpson and Houston Gaines are the new President and Vice President of the Student Government Association. The two sat down with The Arch Conservative’s John Henry Thompson to discuss SGA elections, Senate, and more.

THE ARCH CONSERVATIVE: Johnelle, I’ll start with you.

Take this question wherever you want, since it’s pretty broad, but what’s your vision for SGA at UGA for the next year?

Johnelle Simpson: My main vision for SGA is to have a larger presence on campus. In the past, SGA has tried to do things like Open Forum where students come to express their concerns.

Something I want to do differently is to personally visit a lot of student organizations. Whether it’s me, it’s Darby, or it’s Houston, if we’re at a meeting, we can stop by and say, “Hi, I’m with SGA, do y’all have any concerns?”

Wherever I am, I want people to know who I am and to know that I’m a resource. A lot of times, SGA tries to do polling and such, but I think the best way to figure out what’s wrong on campus is just to have a casual conversation with a person. I want SGA to be more present, and I want people to know who we are and how to find us to get their concerns addressed.

TAC: Your Momentum platform talks a lot about SGA being a voice for students. Houston, what is your plan for making SGA that voice?

Houston GAines: I think that in the past (although this past year has been a bit different) SGA hasn’t focused on advocating on behalf of the student body, especially as it relates to local and state governments. We’re over 30,000 individuals, and there are a lot of issues that directly impact students. At the local level, that could be a crosswalk across Milledge Avenue — the university has no control over a crosswalk, but Clarke County government does. At the state level, we actually just got a bill passed through the General Assembly that would change underage possession of alcohol from an arrest to a citation. [NOTE: This bill, SB160, has a major exception for those who are intoxicated to the extent that they pose a risk to themselves or others.]

That would not have happened if it weren’t for SGA. To lawmakers, that’s not an issue at the top of their priorities. So looking at issues that are important to students is our goal.

Obviously this is only the part of student representation that involves external entities. The other big piece is representing students within the university. This is where SGA has done a better job traditionally, and it’s basically bringing student views to the administration. That’s everything from meeting with [UGA] President Morehead to the Vice President for Student Affairs, and presenting students’ concerns. This is important because they have to rely on somebody to get the students’ viewpoints.

That’s why SGA was created originally, to say, basically, this is who the administration can go to if they want to know student views. If there wasn’t an SGA, the administration would have no one to look to for that. There has to be some organization that 14 / The Arch Conservative

is designated to represent the students as it relates to either the administration or outside entities. taC: If I can, let me push back a little bit on SGA as a true voice of the student body. Your Executive ticket received 1,988 votes in this past election, which amounts to 5.7 percent of the overall student body at UGA, or about 7.6 percent of undergraduates. How can SGA be a legitimate voice for all students when the people who participate in that ‘voice’ are a small group of students that might be systematically different from the student body as a whole?

Gaines: I completely agree with that and can understand those concerns. But why are only 2,000 people, give or take, voting in SGA elections? Why are we at this point? It’s because SGA hasn’t taken on the issues that are actually important to students.

There are a lot of things that SGA has done or tried to do, but if it’s not actually attacking important issues to students, and representing their actual concerns, no one cares. If SGA can tackle the types of issues that we think are important, you’ll see increased engagement.

This is going to take a long time, certainly more than just one year. Even this year, the numbers could have been substantially higher if we had a better elections code — which is something we want to tackle early on. That would get you to perhaps 5,000 to 7,000 votes, I think. But how do you get to something like 15,000 or 20,000 votes?

TAC: Like at Alabama, for instance. gaines: Exactly, or at Auburn. At both of those schools, the SGA deals with the county government on a daily basis. These are organizations that make a difference, and I’d like UGA to follow in that way. But it’ll take some time, and students have to realize that SGA can actually be a facilitator of change on several levels.

TAC: Johnelle? What say you?

Simpson: As you mentioned, this year we received 1,988 votes, but that’s more than the winning ticket from last year, and we didn’t have competition! So I think there’s a change in the students’ attitude towards SGA already building. We do need to be a more important presence in front of the students. They need to know what we’re working on. You don’t always get results. But if we at least let the students know what we’re working towards, what we see as important priorities, they can begin to see SGA as helpful. Results are good, but they aren’t always going to happen.

We’ve been working on meal plan changes, and those are hard to get done — they might not be accomplished. But the students should be aware that we’re trying, and that we’re listening.

One of the biggest issues has been the system through which students have cast their ballots, and that’s beginning to change.

With the UGA Involvement app, students can vote more easily.

It’s easy to access from a cell phone. That ought to help voting numbers. And of course, the elections code is a problem too. One thing that gets overlooked is engaging students on south campus, who don’t necessarily walk by a polling station.

Also, keep in mind that voting is a problem for the entire country, not just SGA here at Georgia. How many people vote in congressional elections? Voter participation is a problem faced by democracy, not just by SGA as a small example of democracy. Some people channel their apathy towards government or towards SGA and refuse to vote. What will encourage people to vote, and to get involved and engaged, is a feeling that any student can contact us with concerns.

Summer 2015

FEATURES SGA exclusive

TAC: Let’s talk a little bit about what you want to accomplish. Your platform mentions student services, expanding access to services, etc. You’ve talked about a campus night shuttle, commuter meal plan, and expanding access to Student Legal Services. What are your specific service-related goals?

Simpson: I’ll start with meal plan. For a lot of students who want to access dining halls, a problem exists. Some students are only on campus for a certain amount of time and would like to eat a lunch or something. We’d like a commuter meal plan that would solve that particular problem. We do, however, face the concern of overcrowded dining halls. Working with Auxiliary Services, we’re trying to come up with a system that works for students. We’d like it to be something that students actually want to purchase, something that’s the right cost.

Another service we’d like to develop, which is in a pilot program stage right now, is a student nighttime shuttle. This services the main library, the MLC, and the Science Library. We want students to be safe on campus and to feel safe on campus. A lot of other schools have turned to this type of shuttle program.

Improving this service and looking into some way to accommodate our off-campus students; these are things we’d like to look at. Houston, Darby, and I met with the UGA Mobile App people to see if our secure transportation system could be included on the app, so that you could request a ride from a parking deck to the MLC, for instance. We want to see this service used and expanded.

Gaines: And for legal services, the main issue is that students aren’t aware it exists. I think it could be an incredibly useful service. But we’d like to try and connect students to the resource. Student Legal Services needs to be reevaluated, and we need to make sure, if we’re spending money on this, that students actually know about it and are using it as a helpful resource. It was implemented two years ago, and it hasn’t been looked at since then. We want to examine the program and make sure it can work for students.

TAC: This is an institutional question. Since I arrived at Georgia, SGA Senate has been a better source of humor than of real accomplishment. What is your view of the role of Senate? What good, if any, can Senate do?

Simpson: I can speak to this first as a senior senator from Terry, and then Houston can talk about our plan for Senate this year. I applied to be a senator from Terry because Senate lacked Terry representation. SGA had no program to help senators with their job, how to write legislation, that kind of thing. There was no collaboration between the branches for senators. I eventually figured out how to write legislation and how to be a more effective senator, and we want all senators to get to that point. This year, you’ve seen a decrease in the amount of legislation, and that’s because senators are actually doing research. My first term in Senate, voting on, no joke, whether scooters and motorcycles should have to stop at red lights.

TAC: There was the famous Chick-fil-A Ban resolution...

Simpson: Yes, the Chick-fil-A bill...also there was a resolution to recommend that the Georgia General Assembly “rethink HOPE.” I mean, no actual policy was in these resolutions. This year, you’ve seen a lot more well-researched legislation with real policy goals. We want to steer senators away from drafting legislation just so they can say they’ve drafted legislation. Also, we’d like senators to really reach out to their schools. As a Terry senator, I summer 2015

let my school know what I’m working on for SGA. I let student organizations within Terry know about funding that may be available to them. Houston, Darby, and I can’t be everywhere at once, so we need senators to be involved with their schools and getting feedback from the students they represent.

Gaines: The most important thing is to be productive, to use Senate time wisely. As Johnelle said, we have to have meaningful legislation. This year — and this is a change — we will have every senator in place before the summer. That’s the goal, and I fully anticipate getting it done. That gives us this summer to communicate with the senators and prepare for the fall. As soon as we get back next semester, I’d like to jump immediately in and start working. And even though senators can write their own legislation, we hope to be able to really address the elements of our Executive branch platform.

TAC: Another Momentum platform point dealt with transparency as it pertains to Student Fees and how that money is spent. Many readers have voiced concerns to us about these funds — for instance, the fact that “Dawgs after Dark” received nearly a third of a million dollars. How will you bring transparency?

Simpson: Having served on the All-Campus Allocations Committee, what we do is we evaluate each organization, for instance Union, which puts on Dawgs after Dark, and make our recommendations to the Vice President for Student Affairs. We’re a recommendations committee. That committee has to evaluate fairly. Last year Pandora yearbook came in and requested more funds, but we noticed that they had gone fully digital, so they probably don’t need as much money. When an organization is spending $2,000 - $3,000 on events and bringing 17 people out, it’s our job to ask why they’re only getting 17 people on board when this other organization is spending $500 and getting 150 people out to an event.

During this process, any new organization can come in and request funding, it doesn’t have to be the big ones like Student Union every year. That $1.7 million doesn’t have to go to the same organizations every year. As for Small Funds Allocations, those have a lot of rules associated with them that come down from the Board of Regents and the University administration. Our Treasurer, Darby, has a plan for transparency that involves workshops to inform students of their funding options.

Houston, Darby, and I feel that we could adjust the food spending percentage, since UGA’s 20 percent limit is very low.

Some schools have limits at around 50 percent. If students have concerns about funding rules, they should let SGA know, and we will communicate their concerns to the administration.

Gaines: I think it would be useful to evaluate, perhaps in the middle of the year, the state of organizations like Union in terms of their funding requirements.

We need to ask, every time, is this or that program an effective use of the students’ money? That way, when we get back around to evaluating funds at All-Campus, these organizations know what to expect in terms of which proposals will be likely to receive funds. Right now, this is just done once a year, checked off like just another box on a list. But if we’re actively meeting with these organizations, we can make sure resources are allocated in the most effective way. b

The Arch Conservative / 15

Culture

In Defense of Greek Life Fraternities and sororities deserve a fair evaluation.

T

he college Greek community is under fire. Fraternities and sororities have become a hot topic among college students, school administrators, journalists, and even civil rights activists.

Detractors claim that Greek life in its totality is needlessly (or maliciously) exclusive.

Others complain that it serves no discernible positive purpose. And they have ample ammunition, which is replenished by the antics of some Greek organizations.

But there’s another side of the story, as 85 percent of Fortune-500 CEOs, 18 Presidents of the United States, the first female astronaut, and the first female U.S. Senator could tell you. Sometimes fraternities and sororities make grave errors, but the overarching media narrative about Greek organizations deserves a degree of skepticism.

If we analyze the role of fraternities and sororities on the American college campus with only half of the story in front of us, we’re making a grave error.

Let’s start with academics. Greeks are leaders in academic success. If graduation rates are any indication of academic performance, it should be noted that 71 percent of all fraternity and sorority members graduated within four years in May of 2014, whereas only 50 percent of non-members graduated within four years. Why the 20 percent difference? Just about every fraternity and sorority chapter in America has a certain grade point average (GPA) requirement that it expects of members. Take an example from our own campus: In the fall semester of 2014, the University of Georgia Greek system carried a 3.36 average GPA, versus the all-undergraduate average of 3.24. Many would argue that this disparity is because of a socioeconomic effect, that members of Greek Life come from more wealthy families, but this does not Jake Shumard is a freshman studying agricultural science and environmental systems. He is a regular contributor at The Arch Conservative.

16 / The Arch Conservative

take away from the fact that Greek members contribute to a stronger academic environment.

Academic requirements foster ties between brothers and sisters. Those who are more academically adept are encouraged to strengthen the organization by helping out those who struggle. Many tools are available to Greeks in order to achieve academic success, not just current brothers and sisters, but also a network of thousands of alumni that can offer advice and guidance to those seeking it. While it may seem unfair to some that Greeks carry this advantage both in the classroom and in the work world, it must be noted that this is one of the values to joining a Greek brotherhood or sisterhood. It is a tremendous resource that strengthens fraternity and sorority members and the university system as a whole.

Furthermore, very little is said about the millions of dollars that Greeks raise annually for charity, or the countless volunteer hours undertaken by fraternity and sorority members. A simple web search for “Greek life and charity” yields a plethora of results. Some of these include the University of Michigan IFC’s anticipation to write a check of $75,000, the proceeds of their Greek Week celebration, to charities around Detroit. As undergraduates, Greeks raise approximately seven million dollars for charities and donate approximately 850,000 volunteer hours of their time annually. Anytime charity is marked as an important aspect of student life, the modern university should be proud. The University of Georgia should be all smiles when certain chapters go above and beyond. For example, Georgia’s Phi Mu chapter raised over $144,000 for Childrens’ Healthcare of Atlanta this past year.

But the positive externalities of a thriving Greek campus community extend well beyond checks written to charity. If a coach of a varsity sports team at a university notices that fan attendance is struggling, where is the first place he or she goes? The coach will more than likely contact the school’s Interfraternity

Council, the governing body that oversees national fraternities on campus. What better way could Greeks show that they value their school and support their peers than to strengthen the fan base when the coach needs an attendance boost? Members of fraternities and sororities are involved in many activities outside of their chapters.

The promise of building a positive image, for not only their chapter but Greek Life on campus, spurs Greek students to contribute to organizations across campus, from service groups to campus journalism. For Greeks, university pride matters, and this pride is often converted into positive action. Pride for their organization translates into generous checks written by alumni associated with Greek Life. Representing 80 percent of our nation’s university alumni donors, members of Greek Life are leading the way in investing in higher education.

Thanks to today’s media, one needn’t look too hard to discover the darker side of Greek organizations. Headlines about Greek life are dominated by accusations of racial prejudice and hazing. Media sources love headlines about culturally-insensitive themed parties, but ignore millions of dollars given to charity. Websites gather more hits with articles about pledges being asked to do push-ups than about Greek achievement in the classroom. Some of this reporting is (unfortunately) an accurate portrayal of certain fraternities and sororities.

Indeed, Greek systems across the country will need to institute internal reforms to survive. The onus is upon fraternities and sororities to defend their role in society.

But there’s more evidence on their side than is often reported. Greek organizations offer a college campus a more accomplished academic environment, a steadfast willingness to get involved in charity work, and a community that values the important tenets of support and pride for their school. We ought to evaluate Greek life on an even playing field, take stock of its merits, and proceed accordingly. As Greek alumni nationwide will attest, the merits are important, substantive, and all-toooften overlooked. b

Summer 2015

culture

The Conservatarian Manifesto Cooke examines the New Right.

T

he Conservatarian Manifesto (Random House, 2015) leans heavily on the political fusionism of Charles C.W. Cooke’s native writing habitat, National Review. In the tradition of Buckley’s “vigorous and incorruptible journal of conservative opinion” — where viewpoints do not so much compromise as sharpen each other, iron on iron — Cooke confronts the modern Right’s tendency to weakly accede to encroachment on individual freedom. Liberty is a “rare privilege” in human history, Cooke warns. “If conservatism in America has one goal, it is to preserve that opportunity.”

Beyond calling politicians to task, Cooke’s Manifesto articulates anew the first principles which Republicans and Libertarians claim to champion. Cooke reconciles liberty and tradition with the practical causes today’s voters find compelling: fiscal and foreign policy, social issues, and the duties of central and local government.

In doing so, he conveys what is unique about American conservatism.

Cooke’s “conservatarians” respond to the tension which American politics has always drawn between libertas and mores: on the one hand, personal freedom, and on the other, social norms which restrict action but bind a community together.

Cooke points out that internationally, right-leaning political parties generally seek to maintain whatever government is established in their home countries. By contrast, American conservatives and libertarians exalt rather “eccentric ideas that have surfaced only recently.” They embrace Enlightenment legacies like individual autonomy, the free market, private property, and in some cases, abstention from religion. What Americans seek to preserve, Cooke argues, is relatively new. But the

Elizabeth Ridgeway is a junior studying Latin, Greek, and classical culture. She is Publisher of The Arch Conservative.

summer 2015

Founders’ departure from monarchy was also quite new.

Novelty ought not to be an innate flaw, and our nation’s founders recognized this.

One could claim that before 1776, they were dissatisfied with George III because he denied them their rights as Englishmen, according to the laws of England.

The Revolution began when our forefathers renounced the British monarchy as an institution which was inherently unfit to administer those rights.

Therefore, Cooke works with a historical precedent of radical political evolution when he asserts that “the primary weakness of conservatism is that, relying as it does on the Burkean presumption that society is the way it is for a reason, it can refuse too steadfastly to adapt to emerging social and economic realities.” Conservatives too easily adopt what were intended to be ephemeral solutions for particular crises as “articles of high principle.”

(Generally, The Conservatarian Manifesto claims the modesty of the former — practical propositions for the emerging Right in 2015 — rather than the ambition of the latter.)

Cooke points out conversely that “the primary weakness of libertarianism is that it can become unreasonably ideological and unmoored from reality.” Libertarians’ zeal for unbounded freedom can take on almost “Jacobin” tendencies.

Nevertheless, Cooke insists, the libertarians’ paramount concern for individual liberty is something Republicans would do well to emulate — even as they maintain a practical view of how gradually any changes must be made.

Reducing federal overreach, step by step, comes from a proper understanding of federalism, explains Cooke. Our founders divided governing authority between central and local institutions, recognizing that “the best way to limit power and its abuses is to fracture that power, thereby bringing those abuses as close to the people they affect as possible.”

Corrupted government will occur, the authors of the Constitution predicted with certainty. When it does, the voices of

individual citizens have far more influence in changing local laws and their administration than they can alter the earmarked, lobby-driven,1000-page policies of Washington, D.C. The Conservatarian Manifesto’s policy suggestions follow logically from Cooke’s liberty-minded principles. Competition in a free market is a more effective tool for social change than bullying activism or federal intervention. Multi-step, educational immigration processes — what critics call “social engineering” — are acceptable and even necessary to maintain our common heritage as Americans. In a hopeful trend, opposition to abortion is increasing in post-Roe v. Wade generations. Meanwhile, the push for equal recognition of homosexual and heterosexual unions has developed illiberal tactics which, unfortunately, severely undercut its message. (Cooke identifies himself as both pro-life and progay marriage.)

National strife over social issues makes Cooke’s observation sadly poignant: “If the people cannot agree upon the fundamental framework under which they are to live, they will tear each other apart.”

For the Founders, this “framework” was a morality which affirmed objective virtue and the dignity of the human condition. In his discussion of policy, Cooke provides glimpses of the moral “framework” which guides his conclusions without revealing much of its structure or source.

Overall The Conservatarian Manifesto is, in the words of Buckley, a “responsible dissent from the Liberal orthodoxy.”

Americans’ unique way of life — with its most compelling highlight, individual liberty — is well worth the political struggle which preserves it.

As Cooke writes, “Conservatives have on their side the most successful, virtuous, and radical political philosophy in the history of the world.” In America, they’ve been drifting gradually from from first principles. Now, “their task is to catch sight of the star once again, to work out what went wrong, and to sail on without loss of enthusiasm or purpose.” b

The Arch Conservative / 17

SPORTS

G-Day in Athens Football returns to UGA.

by DAvis Parker

O

n Saturday, April 11, Bulldawg Nation descended upon Athens for the annual spring ritual known as G-Day, UGA’s intervarsity football team scrimmage. G-Day serves a dual purpose.

It provides eager fans with a glimpse of next year’s team while allowing coaches to simulate the in-game environment that players will soon face. When it comes to evaluating players at every level of the depth chart, this is vital.

Coming into the game, two key questions were on the minds of Georgia fans.

First, would any of the program’s three quarterbacks (Brice Ramsey, Faton Bauta, and Jacob Park) make himself the clear front-runner for the starting job next year?

While the answer to this question is far from definitive, Ramsey and Bauta appear to have an edge as spring practice closes.

While both had solid G-Day performances,

each quarterback brings a different skill set to the table. Ramsey, a more traditional pocket passer, is known for his strong arm and propensity to break the defense with the deep ball. On the other hand, Bauta is a dangerous runner who forces defense to game plan for his legs as well as his arm.

Unfortunately, this skill set was not on exhibit during G-Day, as the quarterbacks wore black non-contact jerseys.

The second question facing the Dawgs is the effectiveness of new offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer. Once again, answers were not forthcoming. The offense played well at times but has been plagued by a rash of injuries at the skill positions.

Running backs Keith Marshall and Sony Michel did not participate due to injury and wide receivers Isaiah McKenzie and Malcolm Mitchell left the game with apparent hamstring and shoulder injuries, respectively. Additionally, the offense had trouble replacing center David Andrews.

Coaches were hoping that converted guard Isaiah Wynn would step into the role, yet he has experienced significant growing pains this spring, specifically with shotgun snaps. Going into fall camp, it will be interesting to see these plot lines unfold as the offense attempts to recreate the success it enjoyed under ex-coordinator Mike Bobo.

Spring games provide scant insight for fans and media. Injured players are kept out for even the most precautionary reasons and play calling is notoriously bland.

While the game provides a platform for players to separate themselves from the pack, G-Day cannot outweigh a player’s accumulated body of work over off-season workouts. Perhaps its greatest value is giving die-hard Bulldogs a reason to journey back to Athens. There is never a bad day to return to the Classic City, but one would be hard-pressed to find a better time than the vanguard of spring, when Athens is bathed in verdant beauty. b

itics

itute of Pol st In & y ic l o P r enter fo

C

HUMOR

ton, D.C. 20008 Ave NW · Washing ____ 1450 Connecticut ________________

______

________________

Dear Mr. Mitchell,

ce ashington, D.C. offi ternship in our W in id pa un an u to offer yo litics skills before ! We’re delighted your policy and po ne Welcome to CPIP ho to e ac

pl ct with CPIP is the perfe ual curiosity, but ink you’ll find that mitted to intellect m co nk ta k this summer! I th in th rsity. CPIP is a tical policy elites, State College Unive ideologically iden th wi e gl in m your senior year at to e eYou deserve a plac you. For your conv ic progressivism. rward to meeting fo ok lo I d an a focus on dogmat , ay ll join CPIP in M at will make your ace. We hope you’ nce (see below!) th rie pe ex ip sh and CPIP is that pl rn te ur Washington in ided a guide to yo nience, we’ve prov ble. and highly enjoya summer enriching Best regards,

Making th e

Most of Yo u

__________

__________

r CPIP Inte

__________

rnship

__________ Here at CPIP , we want a ll o f o u r ers interns to b connection Beth Sand e contributi s and exper ng member Internship Director ie ics n lit ce Po of yo te tu s of our poli u sti ’l In l d g an a y in lic Po en h for er jo cy and poli e are unpara yable summ Center tics teams. m ll er .co el ail h ed tm er ho in Washing e in the nati The girlpower4obama@ ton! But we on’s capital. also want yo The guide b u to have a elow will m n ake your su will enhance mmer one to your CPIP ex re member, an perience as d well!

• Be pun ctual! CPIP scholars are busy folks, America in and the task to enlighte of dragging ned moder a kicking, sc nity will on • Get cult reaming ly b ec ome harder ural! Wash if their inte ington in th rns aren’t o e summer is tell you. Rel n time. a magical p ax in the su la ce , as any CPIP ve n at the Nat teran will ional Mall, Keystone X protest wit L rallies, an h th e b es d agitate fo t of them at r the rights AntiLGBTQQU of the gend IAAP march er -n onconform this side of ing at the b San Francisc • Build tr iggest o! ansaction al relation ships! Tired seem to dem of the effort and? Never that heartfe fear! The D lt friendship istrict of Co s always of that tim lu m bia is the w e honored orld-recogn tradition — ized epicen using other the thrill of ter people! Wh providing a et h er you want to kickback to experience an easily-bri treat those bed Congre who disagre ss m an e with you or just wan like dirt, W t to dehumaniz ashington is ation! the place to revel in corr • Travel upt smart! Try ing to get ar ound in D.C D.C. Metro .? Don’t wo rry — we’ve is convenie nt and clea got you cove n , red. The as ar e don’t engag the city’s fa mous taxica e in the cutt bs! Just mak hroat capit alism of Ub e sure you CPIP intern er or Lyft. A s to be able lw ay s remember, to tell the d we expect ifference bet unregulate ween the “s d market in haring econ disguise!) an omy” (it’s a d true collec • Save up brutal tivism. ! Washingto n is a little expensive, something but you’ll m to ease the anage. Sure pain on you , we could p r ay you w al le t, but hey, w office refrig e provide fr erators (No ee bottled w te: do not take soft dri ater from nks).