THE ARCH CONSERVATIVE, Winter 2014

Winter 2014

Jo Pa hn le Ba — Blu rro p. 6 e D w, ot

Raising the Standard.

FREE TO SPEAK

by Blake Seitz

LEAVING AFGHANISTAN, p. 10 • PRO-GMO, p. 16

THE EDITORS

Opportunity on the Right Congress should advance a conservative agenda.

T

he midterm elections brought refreshing change to Washington.

Republicans are in control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 2006. State governments are more Republican than ever. Some exciting young conservatives now find themselves in positions of power. Mia Love, Ben Sasse, Elise Stefanik, and our favorite freshman Tom Cotton are beyond promising — they’re instant stars.

Across the country, voters were presented a choice between tired Democrat talking points and mostly stellar Republican candidates, and they made the right choice.

What happens next carries great implications for the future of conservatism in American government. As excited as we are about the prospects for the coming years, it is important to remember that immense challenges lie ahead.

As conservatives concerned with the policy agenda of the right, we hope to see a renaissance of conservative reform in Washington. A positive center-right agenda is long overdue, both for the American people and for the fortunes of the conservative movement. Unfortunately, the opportunity to embark on such an agenda will be squandered if the GOP caucus devolves into internecine backstabbing, posturing for presidential runs, or unrealistic expectations.

There is a fine line between healthy intra-party debate and unproductive disunity. Mitch McConnell, having achieved his long-held goal of becoming Senate majority leader, must utilize skill in managing his troops. With Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul all angling for higher office, McConnell will have his hands full.

Now is not the time for purity tests, or for overzealous preening for the votescorers and fundraisers at think tanks and interest groups. Extrapolating the “voice of the people” from this election to justify brinksmanship and attention-seeking is to be discouraged.

Most importantly, Republicans must move past the Obama years, setting the stage for 2016 and beyond, while also 2 / The Arch Conservative

handling the final two years of his dangerous hold on executive power. President Obama will not go quietly into the night, as his executive amnesty has revealed. Republicans must be unafraid in their opposition, and should do everything in their power to prevent the type of lawless overreach President Obama has epitomized. Difficult fights are fast approaching.

But the Obama era is waning, and conservatives need to prepare to move beyond the comfortable and familiar defensive crouch they have adopted during his presidency. Now is the time to pivot to conservative reform. To win, the right must present

A positive centerright agenda is long overdue, both for the American people and for the fortunes of the conservative movement. its policies as a viable, positive alternative to the liberal status quo, not merely as a prophylactic against Obama-style failure.

The onus for crafting the conservative agenda is on center-right thought leaders, who have worked diligently to counter the claim that conservatives have no ideas.

Now it falls to elected representatives to advance those ideas in Congress. If done skillfully, this campaign will reintroduce the American public to a conservative policy platform, a platform which has been notably absent in recent election cycles.

It is our sincere hope that the next Congress will do the hard work of conservative governance. But unrealistic expectations are also a threat. The Democrats can block much of the GOP agenda, and President Obama will undoubtedly veto many of the Republicans’ attempts to deconstruct his handiwork (e.g. by repealing Obamacare) or advance center-right policy (e.g. border security or energy bills). Conservatives

cannot expect easy results from the next Congress — reality simply won’t allow it.

But conservatives can and should expect the Republican House and the new Senate majority to go to work on behalf of the American people.

Our publication is an ideological one, but it is nonpartisan. The Republican Party is a woefully imperfect institution, one with a lot of work to do if it wishes to meet the challenges of the coming years. Insofar as we are committed to conservatism, we believe that the GOP can serve as a vessel for our policy preferences and as a mechanism for developing and electing conservative talent like Tom Cotton and others. Furthermore, the only entity standing between Hillary Clinton and the White House is the Republican Party. This fact alone justifies our desire to see the GOP convert its midterm election successes into victory in the upcoming presidential contest.

Likewise, we perceive much of the modern Democratic Party as standing in distinct opposition to our stated principles.

Democratic candidates in 2014 did little to dispel this concern, and we applaud the voting public for granting a number of them early retirement. We should note, however, that the last Republican majority did little to advance the type of conservative agenda we seek. We will be unsparing in our criticism should the incoming majority follow suit.

We will watch with interest as the White House and Congress continue their precarious dance, and as the 2016 race begins in earnest. Now as ever, we remain committed to the notion that the great experiences of life are outside the realm of politics, and cannot be manufactured by government.

As Charles Krauthammer likes to say, politics is an intermediate good. As we near the holidays, conservatives should relish this electoral victory, but also be mindful of the limits of politics.

—The Editors

WINTER 2014

Winter 2014 THE EDITORS

Opportunity on the Right. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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THE CAMPUS INFORMANT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 COLUMNS

John Barrow, Pale Blue Dot

Rebel Lord. .

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Franklin’s Multicultural Requirement FEATURES

Free to Speak

Blake Seitz.

Leaving Afghanistan The Gun Controllers

Elizabeth Ridgeway. .

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Seth Daniels.

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Connor Kitchings .

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Getting to the Core of Education Reform CULTURE

Pro-GMO

Sophie Giberga.

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Baylee Culverhouse. .

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Review: Capitalism and Freedom HUMOR

#RelevantOnCampus

Colin Daniels

Ryan Slauer .

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The O’Shaughnessy Variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

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

M. Blake Seitz,

EDITOR-AT-LARGE

“FOUR FREEDOMS: FREEDOM OF SPEECH” BY NORMAN ROCKWELL

John Henry Thompson,

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Elizabeth Ridgeway, Davis Parker, Connor Kitchings, GRAPHIC DESIGN Moira Fennell CONTRIBUTORS Tristan Bagala Tucker Boyce

PUBLISHER

archconuga.com archconuga@gmail.com TWITTER: @ArchConUGA MAIL: P.O. Box 1181 Athens, GA 30603

ON THE WEB: EMAIL:

MANAGER

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Cole Calfee

Rebel Lord

Baylee Culverhouse

Vijeth Mudalegundi

Colin Daniels

Jake Shumard

Seth Daniels

Ryan Slauer

Russell Dye

Ryan Stewart

Sophie Giberga

Austin Summers

THE COLLEGIATE NETWORK

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

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The Arch Conservative / 3

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recognition of many months of hard work on the part of our diligent editors and staff.

We extend our congratulations to other CN publications that received awards, especially The Princeton Tory, which received the “Best Paper” award. The contributors to our fellow CN publications are good folks, and we’re proud to be a part of a network that promotes right-leaning journalism. The conference itself featured speakers such as Marc Thiessen of the American Enterprise Institute. We’re looking forward to another great year, and I suspect The Arch Conservative will join the Tory in the ranks of “Best Paper” recipients in the near future.

— John Henry Thompson

Waffle House ...Then goes dark.

T

he Sexual Health Advocacy Group (SHAG), a student group run under the auspices of the University Health Center, took a field trip to a Planned Parenthood clinic and a sex shop that doubles as a sex club.

When asked for comment, a university spokesman assured The Arch Conservative that the field trip — again, to an abortion mill and a sex shop — held academic value as part of an “objective and complete health education.” Nothing to see here!

Actions speak louder than words, of course. As soon as SHAG’s trip was exposed by The Arch Conservative, garnering national media attention, the UHC scrubbed the group’s page from its website. SHAG also memory-holed a lewd Vine of their faculty mentor, paid UGA administrator Katy Janousek, controlling a talking vagina puppet. Never fear, we took screenshots for posterity.

We score it as a victory that SHAG’s page has been removed from the UHC website, a perch which made it appear as though the group has more legitimacy than it does. If SHAG wishes to agitate for unlimited abortion and self-actualize through kinky sex, it’s a free country. But it should not be given special privileges by the UHC, and it certainly should not claim to be an inclusive and objective resource for all UGA students.

—Blake Seitz

TAC Wins Recognition More right-wing agitprop to follow.

A

t this fall’s Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s Editors Conference, The Arch Conservative was presented with the “Best New Paper” award for 2013-2014. The award is a wonderful

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A

thens residents savored the taste of victory after defeating Auburn 34-7 in November. The popular restaurant chain Waffle House had announced that it would serve free food in whichever city won the much-anticipated rivalry game. The Wednesday after UGA’s sound victory, the gratis meals were dished up at the downtown Waffle House location. The franchise chain also donated $15,000 to scholarships at UGA. Waffle House is the proud polar opposite of a “foodie” establishment, serving salty, heart-stopping, cavity-inducing eatables from a mysteriouslly sanitary open kitchen. In towns across the South, the restaurants form a microcosm of local community, with “regulars,” caring servers, and a casual environment for dining late into the night. Perhaps that’s why the Waffle House logo features prominently in the graphic for Berry College professor Peter Lawler’s National Review blog, Postmodern Conservative. For the South, Waffle House represents a dying breed of social interaction: small-town community.

— Elizabeth Ridgeway

Barrow Goes Home Blue Dog tucks tail, runs north.

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fter losing to Republican businessman Rick Allen in the 2014 midterm elections, it took Congressman John Barrow just a week pack up and head out of Georgia’s 12th congressional district. His loss was anticipated by colleagues — an unnamed Democrat close to Barrow admitted to The Daily Beast that a Barrow loss “probably would’ve happened” in 2012’s election cycle if Barrow’s opponent, State Rep. Lee Anderson, had “not been an idiot” — and a blast of polemical ads from the National Republican Congressional Committee was the final straw. Barrow has sold his Augusta home, moved out of the district, and headed back to his hometown of Athens. He’s back in the Classic City likely for good.

— Russell Dye

WINTER 2014

KILROY WAS HERE.

SHAG Goes Wild...

Victory over Auburn gives Athens free food.

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SGA

W

WATCH

elcome back. Our last installment of SGA Watch featured coverage of SGA’s new executive board, comprised of President Drew Jacoby, Vice President Jim Thompson, and Treasurer Brittany Arnold.

This semester has been refreshingly free of controversy.

Previous executive boards had an unpleasant habit of agitating for whatever leftist issue happened to be in vogue during their tenure. For example, this time last year the SGA president was opining the grave intolerance of his classmates, and the vice president … well the vice president was a stone-cold leftist. What last we heard, she has embedded with FARC deep in the Colombian jungles.

The current board, as SGA Watch hoped, has a much more sober understanding of their role in university life.

On to SGA’s agenda so far.

THE GOOD: • SGA Senate has passed a resolution supporting common-sense reform to the university’s class withdrawal system. Under the new system, unlimited withdrawals would be allowed before the withdrawal deadline, after which none would be permitted. This eliminates the WP/ WF designation that exists today. President Morehead will consider the policy for signature if it is approved by the University Council.

THE BAD: • The Red & Black reports that student organizations whose causes are taken up by SGA (in the form of gratuitous Senate resolutions) are seeing less-than-ideal followthrough. Of course, SGA Watch would caution any such organization to remember that most SGA resolutions carry exactly zero meaningful weight. But if SGA spends the time to pass them, it shouldn’t then turn around and ignore those seeking assistance.

Still Smoking

An ambitious policy has its first brush with reality.

PHOTO COURTESY SAM HOWZIT

U

GA has officially joined the ranks of the progressive tobaccofree campuses across the country ... at least on paper.

All over campus, tobacco is still being used because students have come to realize that the university has no means to enforce the ban. Campus police seem reluctant to lower themselves to hall monitor status by issuing citations to apathetic offenders. The same old smoking hotspots remain inhabited by loyal smokers, as visitors to the second floor SLC walkway can attest.

Once again, we are witnesses to a politically motivated policy that will fail, and deserves to. A regulation should only be enacted if those in positions of authority are willing to enforce it. Useless, unenforced rules are something that universities and lawmakers everywhere grow fonder of with each passing year.

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•

SGA has once again thrown in with an insipid, photobased social media campaign: #ITooAmUGA. The campaign involves students taking pictures, often while holding captions, to raise awareness about marginalized groups on campus.

SGA Watch doesn’t disapprove of the campaign’s aims, although we are skeptical of any movement that uses the word “microaggression” with such frequency.

Instead, we find this to be a classic example of SGA as official feather-in-the-cap provider for activist groups.

Incidentally, an error in the SGA resolution supporting the campaign indicated that African-American graduation rates were “second lowest above undocumented students.” Actually, the group with the lowest graduation rate is non-resident aliens. One hopes that the resolution’s sponsors understand the difference (or reacquaint themselves with it before the next undocumented students’ rights resolution comes around).

THE UGLY..: ...This excerpt from SGA’s write-up on the “Campus-Wide Smoking Ban,” known around these parts as “smoking prohibition”: An SGA senator passed a resolution in support of a smoking ban in 2013 which was used in the Board of Regents’ decision making process.

Though the tobacco ban can be seen as a controversial issue, as there are students, including members of SGA, who are in support of the tobacco ban for health and wellness reasons as well as others who oppose the ban for ethical reasons, SGA is proud to have played an influential part in a decision that is affecting all the public university campuses across the state of Georgia.

As always, SGA is continuing to listen to student responses and concerns to this issue [sic] and will continue to amplify the student voice to the administration and Board of Regent [sic].

— John Henry Thompson

So enjoy that cigarette. Nobody, it seems, will stop you.

— Ryan Stewart

The End of an Era

The rise, fall, rise and fall of the great Todd Gurley.

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mid eager anticipation from the Georgia fan base and the entire college football community, running back Todd Gurley returned to the field Nov. 15 for a convincing 34-7 win over Auburn.

Sadly, Gurley’s departure from Sanford was premature. The star, was forced to leave midway through the fourth quarter with a knee injury. The worst was later confirmed: Gurley had torn his ACL. A day that began with such promise and excitement unfortunately ended with a goodbye.

— Jake Shumard

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John Barrow, Pale Blue Dot The last of his kind.

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Rebel Lord is a junior studying political science and anthropology.

He is a regular contributor at The Arch Conservative.

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Rep. John Barrow (left) and Congressman-elect Rick Allen. marketed a version of himself that would appeal to an unlikely mix of supporters.

As such, no one counted him out in 2014. Barrow has always been a better politician than his weak challengers, even when facing less-than-ideal circumstances.

He survived 2010’s Republican tsunami. In 2012 he defeated well-funded challenger Lee Anderson despite his district’s heavy Republican leanings.

One of the wiliest Southern Democrats of his era, John Barrow has finally met the fate of his now-extinct brethren.

Unfortunately for Barrow, times have changed. When he entered office in 2005, Barrow was one of 11 white Democrats elected to represent the Deep South in the U.S. House of Representatives. That number has been dwindling ever since. One by one, the ballot box killed off this endangered cohort. The 2010 midterms spelled the end for every white southern Democrat in the House, save Barrow.

But November’s GOP sweep proved Barrow’s undoing. With no presidential election to drive turnout, and a Republican tilt of about nine points in the redrawn 12th district, Barrow had good reason to worry.

One of the wiliest Southern Democrats of his era, John Barrow finally met the fate of

his now-extinct brethren.

It is inadequate to say that Barrow lost simply because of Rick Allen (though he was a good candidate). Barrow is the last and latest victim of a developing trend. The Blue Dog coalition is all but gone, its ranks decimated by the realignment of the last decade. It was not too long ago that everyone in the South identified as a Democrat, but those days are gone. Barrow sustained the image of the homespun lawmaker with the Southern drawl long after others of his ilk had switched parties.

As The Economist points out, Republicans in Barrow’s district considered him to be “about as conservative as he could be and still be a Democrat.” His loss indicates that American voters might not really mean it when they call for moderate, aisle-crossing representatives. Instead, it appears the public sees politics as a zerosum contest between two national political parties. In the eyes of voters, policy questions may lag behind partisan competiton in importance.

In the South, there is no more room for the “conservative” Democrat. Voters in the Deep South’s conservative districts have realized that any Republican is preferable to even the most independent of Blue Dogs.

Barrow was a nuisance to the GOP for a decade, a “Pale Blue Dot” in a sea of red. In the wake of his defeat, the Deep South will trend further and further from candidates like Barrow. Future generations may never know a white Congressional Democrat from Dixieland. b WINTER 2014

PHOTO COURTESY U.S. CONGRESS

oyager 1 embarked on its historic journey in the year 1977. It will travel through space collecting data until its generators run out of power in 2025. The spacecraft had travelled 3.7 billion miles by the year 1990, when it captured a now immortal photograph of planet Earth. Knowing just how small we really are on this “Pale Blue Dot” is a sobering reminder of our mortality and our finite existence.

As the last white Democrat in the Deep South, John Barrow knows all too well about political mortality. A native of Athens and master of retail politics, Barrow has survived for five terms despite concerted Republican efforts to get him out. Gerrymandered districts and electoral challenges haven’t fazed him — until now.

Like Voyager, his generators had to eventually run out of power.

Some Southern pundits have likened Barrow to a weasel. Despite being politically cornered every election, the unlikely predator somehow came out on top. He is one of few Democrats to be backed by the National Rifle Association; in the South, stealing such an endorsement from conservative Republicans is no small feat.

Campaign advertisements touting his record on guns have been praised and have even received awards in political science circles. His famed “Nobody” ad recalls a time gone by when Barrow’s grandfather used a Smith & Wesson to stop a lynching.

“These guns are mine now,” Barrow says, “and ain’t nobody gonna take em’ away.”

Such was the greatness of John Barrow.

Rarely can a politician court the votes of both rural whites and African Americans in one thirty-second ad. But Barrow’s canny identity politics managed just that.

Through deft political maneuvers, Barrow

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Franklin’s Multicultural Requirement Better on paper than in practice.

“A

nd I imagine most of you are in here for the requirement. In fact, is there anyone who’s in here just because they really, uh, love multicultural literature?”

Hesitant silence greeted my English professor’s question. Apparently no student had voluntarily enrolled in my 30-person Multicultural American Literature course.

In fact, students across campus are reticent about multicultural requirement courses, citing little direct correlation with their major, low class rigor, and vague classroom management.

The intentions behind Franklin’s project are praiseworthy. Their current execution, however, actually does disservice to the value of studying diverse cultures.

Franklin initiated the multicultural graduation requirement in the mid-90s to address a percieved problem on campus: the need for meaningful conversations about diversity of race, creed, culture, and social class within the UGA community and beyond. In seeking to deepen discussion about these perspectives and educate students about cultures beyond mainstream America, the college set for itself a lofty and noble aim. The requirement responded to grievous errors in American history and the West’s failure to live up to its own liberal ideas.

On paper, the Franklin standard exposes students to “scholarly considerations of one of four American minority groups,” according to a 1999 statement by the Office of the Dean. The requirement looks to truly educate undergraduates: that is, to lead them out of their innate prejudices to a deeper understanding of how non-mainstream cultures share and shape the world in which we live.

Sadly, students’ course selections and Elizabeth Ridgeway is a junior studying Latin, Greek, and Classical Culture. She is Publisher of The Arch Conservative.

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the nature of a college-wide standard often intersect to trivialize the value of the very cultures the mandate claims to uphold.

Franklin currently offers around 40 three-credit courses which fulfill the multicultural requirement, ranging from “African American Women in Cinema” to “History and Analysis of Rock Music” in departments such as African-American Studies, Comparative Literature, Language and Literacy Education, and more.

There’s a discrepancy between the appeal of these courses — particularly to a humanities major — and students’ general dissatisfaction with the requirement.

Perhaps most importantly, courses taken to fulfill the multicultural requirement cannot be sufficiently rigorous to present a true and complex cultural portrait. This flaw lies in the graduation standard itself: Because they’re required for all Franklin students, so-called “multicultural” courses must cater to their enrollees’ lowest common denominator of writing and comprehension skills. If estimated accurately, this situation alone would not necessarily hinder educational experience in the class.

A good professor knows how to create a course syllabus and environment which challenges all skill levels enrolled.

Problems arise because multicultural requirement courses are usually tangentially related to students’ majors. The unrigorous nature of the classes, combined with their seeming irrelevancy to “practical” knowledge, incentivizes students to push them further to the bottom of their priorities.

Sensing this, professors respond by further decreasing the difficulty of courses: in my Multicultural Literature class, we read a culturally diverse selection of Young Adult novels, all intended for a reading level supposedly several years behind the capacity of a college undergraduate.

At this point, students do not lose interest in the cultural material they’re examining per se. Instead, the courses have simply become so easy — or vaguely administered — that they fail to command their attention and commitment. Students sense that they’re not being academically challenged, that the course is “talking down” to them

in a way that insults both their own intelligence and the value of what they’re studying. They respond by withdrawing their interest and most non-grade based motivation to work diligently. Though certainly unintentional, Franklin’s institution of the requirement forces multicultural classes to communicate that “This culture is not worth your time” — the polar opposite of what the standard is intended to express.

Additionally, though a semester-long course may be personally enlightening, gaining wisdom about foreign cultures is a lengthy process. Time and experience are key to character growth: A four-year college education, much less a three-credit “multicultural” course, is the beginning rather than the culmination of a lifelong educational process.

As it stands, the Franklin College multicultural requirement expects too much of itself and demands too little of students. It aims to be a program which liberates students’ perspective on the world, broadening their cultural sensitivity and understanding of diversity in the modern era.

Attempting to squeeze such a noble goal into the radically insufficient space of a semester, however, gives the impression that Franklin values “behavior modification” rather than the deeply embraced understanding born of years of life experience.

Conversely, the nature of the requirement necessitates frustratingly easy courses. Professors respond to lack of interest by further lowering the rigor required for a class. This is disrespectful both of students’ time and of whatever culture is being studied.

The flaws of the multicultural requirement can’t keep the best professors from creating meaningful, formative courses.

Such courses are currently the exception rather than the rule, sadly. If the multicultural requirement is to stand, it must truly align with the principle it claims to advance: that is, that the study of non-mainstream cultures is difficult, but rewarding and well worth the effort. b

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Free to Speak The colonial origin of a fragile right.

by BLAKE SEITZ

“G

entlemen, The Matters we request your Concurrence in, are, That Zenger’s Papers … be burnt by the Hands of the common Hangman, as containing in them many Things derogatory of the Dignity of His Majesty’s Government, reflecting upon the Legislature, upon the most considerable Persons, [and] in the most Distinguished Stations in the Province.”

John Peter Zenger was publisher of the New York Weekly-Journal, which in 1733 was the only independent newspaper in the Province of New York.

Within a year of the paper’s launch, it attracted the ire of the provincial government for publishing satires and editorials critical of incumbent Gov. William Cosby.

This set the stage for the above-quoted passage, and for a lengthy trial whose verdict did much more than save back-copies of a New York rag from the roast.

To understand why Crown v. John Peter Zenger was so important — why it was later referred to as the “morning star” and “germ of American freedom” by Founding Father Gouverneur Morris — the reader must understand the legal environment in which it was argued. Zenger was brought before the court to answer for charges of “seditious libel,” a Common Law doctrine that can only seem shockingly broad from our current Blake Seitz is Editor-At-Large of The Arch Conservative.

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vantagepoint. As laid out in instructions to the Grand Jury, seditious libels were claims which “endanger the publick Peace … by stirring up the Parties immediately concerned in it, to Acts of Revenge,” and which have “a direct Tendency to breed in the People a Dislike of their Governors, and incline them to Faction and Sedition.”

Crucially, the truth of the publishers’ claims were immaterial. The Crown had only to prove that the disputed claims met the Common Law standard and that the ac-

Andrew Hamilton makes his appeal. cused was responsible for their publication in order to win. In other words, if you had consulted the royal bookie in His Majesty’s Province of Las Vegas before the trial, you would have gotten long odds against Mr. Zenger, who was indisputably publisher of the Journal.

Realizing this, Zenger’s court-appointed attorney, the upstart Andrew Hamilton, threw the legal equivalent of a Hail Mary by asking the jury to consider an entirely

different question from the one they were asked. Indulge a lengthy quotation, because it is best experienced in full.

“Men [Gov. Cosby] who injure and oppress the People under their Administration provoke them to cry out and complain, and then make that very Complaint the Foundation for new Oppressions and Prosecutions,” Hamilton explained to the assembled audience. “…The Question before the Court and you, Gentlemen of the Jury, is not of small nor private Concern, it is not the Cause of a poor Printer, not of New York alone, which you are now trying: No! It may in its Consequence affect every Freeman that lives under a British Government in the main of America. It is the best Cause. It is the Cause of Liberty.”

The gentlemen agreed.

They returned a not guilty verdict, “Upon which there were three Huzzas in the Hall,” according to Zenger’s account of the trial.

Evident in the Zenger case is the American people’s rebellious streak, which existed long before they went dukes up with the military and economic hegemon of their time. Evident also is the first glimmer of the free speech and free press rights we enjoy today. Crown v. Zenger represented a shift in sentiment against the doctrine of seditious libel, which was officially rebuked by the Founding Fathers in the Bill of Rights. Zenger walked free, and we talk free today as a result.

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PHOTO BY ELIZABETH RIDGEWAY.

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government.” The reprehensible Gov. Cosby is a deservedly forgotten figure, but one almost wishes he was remembered, if only to serve as an example to the many individuals who threaten free speech today.

Nowhere should free speech be held more inviolate than at the university. After all, according to classicist Allan Bloom, their discourse and tenure system are modeled after the example of Socrates, whose unpopular speech cost him his life.

Apart from the ethical imperative of free speech, free speech is to be valued because it contributes to the sum of human knowledge. When competing ideas clash, error is challenged, though it is not always defeated. When knowledge from one field is dissiminated to others, the resulting crossfertilization can lead to tremendous advances. Sadly, colleges and universities are ever dreaming up novel reasons why certain speech should be excluded from their classrooms and grassy commons.

The restrictions take many forms. Most worrisome are instances where agents of government at public institutions use their positions of influence to chill unwelcome speech.

A particularly pitiful example comes out of the University of Oregon student government association, which is of course a particularly pitiful body. At U. of O., two satirical Tumblr accounts, ASUO Conservative Problems and ASUO Progressive Problems, comment on the inside baseball of student governance. The accounts post .gifs from stupid movies that Millennials love, usually captioned with jokes about members of student government. From a brief tumble down Page One, the Tumblrs are as catty as the Mean Girls .gifs they post, but that is about it.

Enter Senate Vice President Miles Sisk.

According to The Daily Emerald, Sisk claimed at a late October Senate meeting that “What is happening on these blogs is cyber-bullying and I believe that this is a crime. The people running these blogs are criminals. Frankly, I’m done with it.”

Channeling Tailgunner Joe, Sisk went on to claim that he had in his possession a list of IP addresses connected with the blog, and would summarily turn them over to university administration if they were not “shut down within the next 48 hours.”

What with his special pleading, civic illiteracy, and inflated self-regard, Sisk is the poster child for illiberality on college WINTER 2014

campuses today. When the jokes sting, cry the Sisks of the world, banish the jokers.

Of course, you don’t need to look as far afield as Oregon for examples of free speech violations. Administrators and student government at the University of Georgia can clamp down with the best of them.

In 2012, I cut my teeth in campus politics writing about SGA’s reprehensible Chick-Fil-A resolution, which encouraged administration to terminate its contract with the restaurant chain for “inciting spiritual violence” against LGBT people. Chick-Fil-A’s late founder did not support gay marriage, so his Tate Cafe franchise had to be destroyed as retribution. That an agent of government like UGA would even contemplate such an action is deeply disturbing.

The resolution was ultimately defeated.

Whether this was due to uncharacteristic sanity on the part of senators, or enlightened self-interest as the meeting overtook dinnertime, we may never know.

And then there is Young Americans for Liberty v. Morehead, the case that seeks to strike down UGA’s oxymoronic “free speech zone” policy. As you may know, students and visitors to campus can only demonstrate freely in two small areas: Tate Plaza and Memorial Hall. Demonstrations in other parts of campus must be cleared by administration two days in advance, and must meet a series of criteria that opens the door for viewpoint discrimination. The case is currently wending its way through federal court, and the university has unfortunately indicated that it will go down fighting.

I talked with Travis Barham, who works for the public interest law firm representing YAL in its suit against the university, about the state of free speech on campus.

He is optimistic about YAL v. Morehead.

“The law is quite clear on this,” Barham said. “Free speech zones are unconstitutional. These policies have fallen every time students stood up and challenged them in court.”

He is also optimistic about campus free speech generally, citing successful lawsuits against speech codes. While practically every campus used to have a speech code, he said, fewer than 60 percent do today.

Free speech restrictions are not limited to official and semi-official policies, of course. Thugs and vandals acting outside of

official channels can create an unwelcome climate for free speech even though their actions do not legally implicate the First Amendment.

Last semester, The Arch Conservative broke the story about repeated vandalism of posters advertising a Students for Life event on campus (picture above). “I keep putting the posters up … and someone keeps taking them down,” SFL President Rebecca Stapleford told me at the time. “I put them up, go to class and within an hour they are gone. I put them up again, and within five minutes they are gone.” Evidently, the vandals could not bear the possibility that impressionable minds would be exposed to ideas contrary to their own.

Contrasting these examples with the purpose of higher education — free and open discourse —, one cannot help but be concerned with the peculiar PC of the modern university. There is a chill in the air, and it manifests itself in every vandalized poster, free speech zone, and Maoist denunciation of a nonconforming restaurateur.

Eighteenth century America did not have free speech as we know it today. Under the legal regime of British Common Law and then the American Constitution, there were obscenity laws and even blasphemy laws (lightly enforced) which would not pass legal muster with the free speech hawks of the Roberts court. If you read accounts of the Zenger trial, however, and if you read the freewheeling debates over American independence and constitutional ratification, you will have read the stirring rhetoric of men who delighted in open and honest political discourse.

That is the quality of discourse that free men and women must insist upon on their campus. b

The Arch Conservative / 9

FEATURES

Leaving Afghanistan After years of war, what’s next?

by SETH DANIELS

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s we approach the end of 2014, we also reach the end of an era in Afghanistan. By 2015, most foreign forces will leave Afghanistan, handing down infrastructure and equipment from a 13 year war to the local Afghan police and military. The American forces that remain in the country will cease combat operations.

In October of this year, U.S. Marines ended their operations in Helmand province, a region in southwest Afghanistan on the border of Pakistan that has seen heavy fighting throughout the war. Helmand produces the majority of the country’s poppy seeds and their derivative product opium, which has been a critical source of funding for the Taliban.

The Marines have made Helmand the focal point of their mission in Afghanistan, dedicating billions in equipment and fortifications to the province that has taken the lives of more Marines than any other area of operation during more than a decade of war. Camp Leatherneck, a 6,500 acre compound that was home to 40,000 U.S. and allied forces, was among the resources passed to the Afghan military upon the withdrawal of USMC and British troops from Helmand this fall.

They will need it too. Despite years of counter-insurgency operations, Helmand remains one of the most contested regions in the country and still harbors Taliban strongholds.

Transferring Camp Leatherneck to full Afghan control is a reality check to both American troops beleaguered after 13 years of war and Afghans, whose security and future now rests almost entirely in their own hands. What was once the center of Seth Daniels is a junior studying political science.

10 / The Arch Conservative

coalition operations in the country’s most volatile region is now the full responsibility of the Afghans. By the end of next year, there will only be about 12,500 foreign troops in Afghanistan, most of them Americans. They will serve an advisory role to Afghan security forces throughout the country, training soldiers and police to combat the Taliban after the U.S. pulls out all of its troops by the end of 2016.

The question here may not be as simple as “success” or “failure,” because fighting an ideology makes for a long war, one that could never have been solved by merely kicking in a few doors and launching a few drones.

In addition to the withdrawal of troops in Afghanistan, the military will see force reductions at home. By the end of next year, barring any change in the plan laid out by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, the active Army will be cut down to 490,000 soldiers from the current force of approximately 510,000. By 2019, the active Army will be no more than 450,000 soldiers, for a total reduction from 2013 numbers of 80,000 troops, almost matching the number of total soldiers and marines in Afghanistan at the height of the Surge. Keep in mind that the remaining troop force is made up of a variety of career branches and job specialties, only a handful of which focus on combat missions.

With these reductions, America’s ability to defend itself and its allies across the world is cast into doubt. While simultaneously reducing our troop numbers and defense budget, we must also dedicate more resources than ever before to combating cyberterrorism. Intelligence collection and assessment will also demand significant resources and attention if we hope to be proactive in countering terrorist threats.

Withdrawing from Afghanistan prompts us to question the long-term success of our operations there. Not long after our departure from Iraq, things went south when ISIS exploded onto the scene.

Some view the Islamic State as worse than Al-Qaeda or the Taliban, with a rap sheet that includes decapitation of American and British reporters among its host of crimes against Iraqis, Syrians, and Turks.

While some view the devolution of Iraq as a preview of what will happen in Afghanistan, there are some key differences between ISIS and the Taliban. ISIS is a Sunni fundamentalist group that was born during the Syrian civil war. There, nominally proWestern and pro-democracy rebels fought both the Assad regime and radical Islamic groups that aimed to turn Syria into a fundamentalist state. This created a trifecta of chaos which is now entering its fourth bloody year. Iraqi Sunnis, disaffected by the ruling Shiite government, moved into Syria to help the radical Islamic rebels fight Assad. They seized vehicles, weapons, and oil refineries to fund their operations, then they turned their sights on the Kurds and Shiites in Iraq as well as the Turks in border towns. ISIS moved rapidly through Iraq, seizing from the Iraqi Army vehicles and equipment left behind by U.S. forces and occupying some of the country’s largest cities. Fallujah, where many U.S. Marines died taking the city, was among the first to fall.

The Taliban, on the other hand, are WINTER 2014

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Final boarding call.

largely contained to Afghanistan and don’t have an anarchic miasma next door from which to seize weapons and vehicles and fuel its ideology. The Afghan government we’re leaving behind does not appear to be as corrupt as the Iraqi government that was in power in 2011, and doesn’t have a population of citizens divided between three major demographic groups (Sunni, Shia, and Kurd). The Afghans face distinct challenges, but those challenges arise from a situation not wholly comparable to the one in Iraq.

As the combat mission in Afghanistan comes to a close, it is unclear whether the war can be considered a success. Depending on whom you ask, Afghanistan may or may not be safer than it was 14 years ago or any point in between, and the Taliban may or may not be as strong and dedicated to their fundamentalist cause as they were before 9/11.

But in 2001, Afghanistan was a hotbed of radical Islamic sentiment that produced one of the most horrific tragedies in American history, and no one was there to stop them. By invading Afghanistan, the U.S. was able to collect intelligence on terrorist cells operating in the area and dismantled the Taliban government. Fundamentalists WINTER 2014

still exist in Afghanistan, and there’s an entire generation of Afghans that have grown up under American occupation. Some of that generation may be drawn to radical Islam as a result. The Taliban will continue to recruit and plan attacks against the Afghan government as long as it operates. Some might even be bold enough to try and plan another attack, similar in scale to those perpetrated on 9/11.

Now, as American presence begins to wane, there will still be troops conducting patrols, sometimes routing the Taliban from poppy fields, other times destroying weapons caches and bomb factories.

Friendly forces will still collect and assess

Helmand Province, Afghanistan

intelligence that could prevent another terrorist attack, and they’ll be there to kick in the door of the planners. But for the first time, those troops won’t be Americans.

They’ll be Afghans, fighting for the peace and security of their own country with equipment and training passed on to them from the U.S. and allies.

The U.S. can maintain the ability to thwart terrorist cells in Afghanistan without American boots on the ground. The question here may not be as simple as “success” or “failure,” because fighting an ideology makes for a long war, one that could never have been won by merely kicking in a few doors and launching a few drones.

The success of 13 years in Afghanistan will be defined by the willingness of the Afghans to fight the good fight with all the best equipment and training we can provide.

Finally, let us not forget the sacrifices made by the men and women of the United States armed forces in Afghanistan.

When the enemy struck, these courageous Americans risked everything. A proper endgame in Afghanistan is required, if for no other reason than to honor their exertions. b

The Arch Conservative / 11

FEATURES

The Gun Controllers Sacrificing freedom and self-defense for ephemeral “safety.”

by CONNOR KITCHINGS

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ne of the most significant pillars of conservative thought is the notion that human nature is flawed. As far as civilization has come and as far as civilization will go, humans will never approach perfection. This idea is one of the main philosophical differences between conservatism and liberalism, and it is a division that helps explain many of today’s political issues. In no dispute is the division clearer than that of gun control.

The Founding Fathers agreed with conservatives on this issue. They recognized that evil will always exist in the world and that powerful men cannot be trusted, which is why they enshrined the Second Amendment in the Constitution. They saw it not only as a fundamental right, but also a fundamental duty of man to protect relations and property from aggressors and tyrannical government. This is one of the necessary defenses of liberty.

Benjamin Franklin said, “They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

I can think of no better assessment of liberal gun control efforts today. While all political judgments, including the Second Amendment, have nuance and require exceptions, the principles that undergird the Constitution must be respected.

Take mass shootings as an example.

These tragedies are some of the worst actions that human beings can commit. Unfortunately, the liberal reaction to these horrible events is always the same. While there are three main components to a mass shooting, namely the weapon, the killer, Connor Kitchings is Associate Editor of The Arch Conservative.

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and the culture, liberals only focus on the weapon. Conservatives know better.

On what, exactly, do we blame the deaths in a mass shooting, and how can these deaths be prevented?

Conservatives recognize that once a man sets his mind to kill another, bureau-

They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

—Benjamin Franklin

cratic hurdles to acquiring the tools to do so will not stop him. Indeed, it is likely that he will acquire the weapon outside of the legal market, bypassing regulation entirely.

Liberals, on the other hand, believe that additional legislation aimed at those legal markets will prevent the tragedy. Confiscating a weapon will only delay a killer. In order to truly stop him, you must stop him.

Conservative policies aimed at stopping mass shootings recognize this fundamental insight. There are two plausible strategies that can stop a monster who is intent on commiting a shooting: Strengthening mental health laws so that once a person is recognized as a danger they can be committed to a mental institution, and eliminating gun-free zones so that vulnerable citizens can protect themselves against assailants.

Over the past few decades, mental health

laws have been weakened significantly. In the name of civil liberty, groups such as the ACLU have successfully fought for more individual protections from forced institutionalization. This process has facilitated the release of hundreds of thousands of mentally ill individuals back into the public and made it more difficult for someone diagnosed with serious mental illnesses to be institutionalized. In 2013, the United States had only five percent of the psychiatric beds that it had in the 1950s. Predictably, many mentally ill people end up living on the street or in prison. Nearly 20 percent of incarcerated Americans have been diagnosed with a mental illness.

The slackening of mental health laws has had an obvious effect on the number of mass shootings that the United States has seen. In 2000, The New York Times conducted a study of 100 mass shootings that occurred between 1949 and 1999, finding that 73 had occurred since 1990. According to Mother Jones there have been 33 more since just 2000.

As the majority of the shooters have had untreated mental illnesses, it seems clear that the weakening of mental health laws has been an underlying cause of these mass shootings. If someone close to Adam Lanza (of Sandy Hook infamy), Elliot Rodger (University of California, Santa Barbara), or James Holmes (Aurora) had recognized the seriousness of their mental illnesses and had the resources to get them help, maybe these shootings could have been prevented.

If one examines the mass shootings that have occurred over the past two decades, a consistent thread emerges: a very large number occurred in gun-free zones. Sadly, gun-free zones have created a false sense of security among the public.

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Yes, there are places that some believe guns should not be allowed, and for good reason. Unfortunately, the places where guns seem most out of place — such as schools, shopping malls, movie theaters — have now become prime targets for perpetrators of mass shootings.

For example, in Aurora, Colorado, there were seven movie theaters within 20 minutes of James Holmes’ home showing the movie he was targeting. The Cinemark Theater that he chose was not the biggest, nor the closest, yet it was the only theater that had posted signs banning concealed handguns. While noble in their attempts to stem violence, gun-free zones clearly do not work as advertised. Rather, they advertise to potential killers that their victims are unarmed.

It is easy to forgive progressives for trying to prevent mass shootings when they offer up largely ineffective assault weapon and high capacity magazine bans; they are trying to save lives in the best way they think possible. But once liberals step out of that arena and into serious gun control measures, their intent drifts away from preventing mass shootings and toward categorical gun bans.

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Take the response that Georgia’s Safe Carry Protection Act received from liberals. Signed into law in April by Gov. Nathan Deal, opponents refer to it as the “guns everywhere” bill due to its expansion of gun rights. Liberal commentators have ridiculed many of the new policies enacted as though they have transformed Georgia into the Wild West.

On the surface, there do seem to be some strange new allowances for people with concealed carry permits. But once you dig deeper, it is obvious that the law simply transfers decisions about where guns are allowed from government to individuals, bringing Georgia in line with a majority of other states in the country.

It is true that the law now allows concealed-carry permit holders to carry a firearm into bars — but only if bar owners choose to permit it. Before the law, it was expressly illegal for churches to allow their congregations to carry guns. In effect, the government was telling churches how to run their affairs, a troubling trend. Now, the law transfers the decision about whether to allow concealed firearms on church property to the property owners, which is the law in more than 30 other states as well.

The media’s portrayal of any incident involving a gun — “If it bleeds, it leads” — hasn’t helped liberal hysteria. When stories of violence dominate local and national broadcast news, it is no surprise that more than half of all Americans believe that gun crime is getting worse, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Over the past 20 years, study after study has shown that gun violence is decreasing in America. Not just gun killings: gun violence. Yet liberals continue to act as if gun crime has never been worse.

It is not a coincidence that over this period, some federal gun laws have expired, the Supreme Court liberalized the federal government’s view on the Second Amendment, and many states have become more friendly to concealed-carry permit holders. According to Second Amendment opponents, it is wholly counterintuitive to say that allowing guns in more places will save lives. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

Conservatives’ grasp on the darkness and light of human nature is an essential element in our national debate on guns, and that insight is reflected in the facts. Americans have good reason to be proud of the Second Amendment. b

The Arch Conservative / 13

FEATURES

Getting to the Core of Education Reform

by BAYLEE CULVERHOUSE

T

he Common Core State Standards Initiative, an educational reform program introduced in 2009, has been hotly debated by many.

During Georgia’s U.S. Senate primary, Senator-elect David Perdue was accused of supporting the controversial program but quickly denied the charge. Many have come across questionable articles on social media which attribute blatantly incorrect math problems to Common Core and claim that its standards have ruined education once and for all. But what’s the true story? Is Common Core the final nail in public education’s coffin, or have its ills been exaggerated?

Adopted by 43 states including Georgia, the Common Core initiative was sponsored by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

Common Core focuses on reforming English, language arts, and mathematics education in grades K-12.

In 2009, President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan introduced federal “Race to the Top” grants as a motivation for states to adopt the new standards. Distributing funds through a national contest worth $4.35 billion, the Department of Education used a point system to award money to states that adopted certain changes in their school systems.

The department gave a major point bonus to those states that adopted the Common Core standards.

Georgia implemented Common Core in July 2010 and finished as a Race to the Top finalist. It was awarded $400 million.

The new standards have been fully implemented in state schools for the 2014-15

school year.

Amy Lauritsen, a second grade teacher at Matt Arthur Elementary School in Kathleen, Ga., has already noticed the impact that Common Core has had on teaching.

“Math is the main thing that [Common Core] has changed,” Lauritsen says. She explains that the program influenced the way teachers instruct students by mandating different strategies for solving math problems. The program is rife with oddities, a recurring theme in federal education interventions. “Some of the less gifted students find it difficult to remember all the steps,” Lauritsen explains. “Sometimes it takes a whole page to do a problem. It’s inefficient.

We should just go back to the basics.”

Lauritsen has also noticed inconsistency in training between grade levels under the Common Core standards. A student might

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SOURCE: EDUCATION NEXT

GRAPHICS BY MOIRA FENNELL

Teachers’ Changing Opinions of Common Core Initiative

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PHOTO COURTESY WOODLEYWONDERWORKS

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learn one way to do a math problem in fifth grade, and then get to sixth grade and have to learn a completely different way to do the same problem. The program was formed to help equalize educational opportunity across states and raise the rigor of previously underperforming schools.

Nevertheless, it seems to jeopardize what fragile gains students make.

Belinda Rozar, a math teacher at Southwest Laurens Elementary School in Rentz, Georgia, explains that some students have difficulty adapting to the new program.

“The students have to think more critically than ever before. Some are not used to explaining a ‘why’ along with their answer.

They are also not used to as many models as are used in Common Core,” Rozar says. “It is just a whole different mindset.

I do believe that had Common Core been tweaked a little, with more Georgian input, and phased in beginning in kindergarten and moving up, we would not have as much animosity about it.”

As American students fall behind their international peers in core subject areas like math, reading, and science, it’s obvious that our education system needs reform. In 2012, the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) delivered a blow to American public schools. Among 34 developed countries, the United States ranked 26th in mathematics, 21st in science, and 17th in reading. China came in first place in all three subjects, trailed closely by Singapore, Japan, and Taiwan.

This decline has been evident for several decades and doesn’t seem to be getting any Baylee Culverhouse is a freshman studying English and political science.

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better. But is a federal system aimed at enforcing consistency really the answer to the problem?

Rozar explains that part of the Common Core math reform is “strongly based on Singapore Math,” a curriculum program “that facilitates a deep understanding of the ‘Base 10’ system and place value.” Rozar sees this as a positive change but explains that “the issue becomes that [the new system] has to be consistently used from K-12 to be as successful as in Singapore.”

The Common Core website claims that “the Common Core drafting process relied on teachers and standards experts from across the country… to create the most thoughtful and transparent process of standard setting.” However, many teachers express dislike for the program.

Rozar says, “The implementation of Common Core set it up for failure. Also, the individual states not individualizing [standards] for their students did not help.”

In a 1985 speech on education, Ronald Reagan claimed, “Our schools hold the future of America in their hands. They will decide whether that future is enlightened, free, and informed, or shrouded in the darkness of ignorance.” With the adoption of Common Core, all who participate in our educational system must question the direction we’re headed.

As funding is tossed to states that conform to the federal government’s standards, it seems that money alone cannot improve our educational system. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the U.S. spent over $3,000 more per student in 2010 than the average for industrialized nations. This input-based model of education has been a flop. American students’ scores haven’t improved.

Quite simply, local control of schools is important. Every state has different educational obstacles to overcome, and interference by the federal government just adds another hurdle to the list. Policymakers should give control of public education back to the states and seek input from teachers like Lauritsen and Rozar to develop sensible lesson plans and standards. The best teachers know that everyone learns differently, and they encourage students to embrace their individual learning style instead of forcing a method upon them.

The same lesson applies to the relationship between the federal government and our nation’s schools. b

Federalism and Education

T

raditionally, education has been a task for state and local governments.

The national government has long viewed this tradition as irksome, and has attempted to overthrow or bypass it on several occasions (see: No Child Left Behind).

The conservative view of federalism, called dual federalism, posits that states and the national government have separate duties, because the states surrendered only a select group of powers in the Constitution. The Tenth Amendment confirms this separation.

The generally-held view on the left, that of cooperative federalism, emphasizes national supremacy and views the Constitution as a contract among the people, not between state governments.

Common Core, in and of itself, does not violate the dual federalist concept. Had the program been implemented with an eye to practical rather than political motivations, it could have been a success. Unfortunately, a promising (and deeply federalist) reform concept, i.e. state-led collaboration on educational standards, fell victim to cooperative federalist instincts.

Far from acting in an advisory role (as originally imagined) the federal government turned to coercion to secure Common Core’s foothold.

If Common Core is to be made workable and beneficial, the campaign must be reacquainted with its federalist origins. A truly state led effort would not include the federal bribery, curriculum intrusion, and heavy-handedness of the current version.

— John Henry Thompson

The Arch Conservative / 15

Pro-GMO A Western fad hinders the fight against hunger.

O

ver 800 million people around the world will go to bed hungry tonight. That’s about one out of every nine people alive. Furthermore, 13.5 percent of the population in the developing world is undernourished. If you think those numbers are shocking, consider this: The world’s population is expected to increase to 10 billion by the end of this century. Feeding that multitude will be the biggest challenge of our time.

To illustrate the magnitude of the problem, consider vitamin A deficiency, one of the leading causes of preventable blindness and hunger-related deaths in the world. Approximately 250 million preschoolaged children are vitamin A deficient and up to 500,000 of them will go blind this year.

In 1999, biologists Inge Potrykus and Peter Beyer developed a solution to widespread vitamin A deficiency. For a decade they worked to produce “golden rice,” a version of rice modified to produce beta-carotene, which is the precursor to vitamin A. If golden rice could be mass-produced in developing countries, they predicted it could reverse the staggering vitamin A deficiency death rate.

Fifteen years later, golden rice has yet to see broad use, or any practical use at all. It has fallen victim to the latest far-left environmentalist crusade: the anti-GMO movement.

GMOs, or genetically modified organisms, were first commercialized in 1996.

Their use has since grown exponentially; more than 90 percent of all acres planted are now genetically modified crops.

Sophie Giberga is a senior studying economics and political science. She is a regular contributor to The Arch Conservative.

16 / The Arch Conservative

It is easy to see why farmers would be quick to jump on the GMO bandwagon: Genetically modified crops contain genes that make them resistant to droughts, insects, and other undesirable variables.

Farmers can produce more on less land and with less labor. According to a 2013 report by PG Economics, farmers earned

The “party of science,” indeed. $19.8 billion in added economic benefit in 2011 due to GMO use.

The introduction of genetically modified crops has saved money, increased production, and saved lives. So why did an estimated 200 million people participate in the annual “March Against Monsanto” — Monsanto is a leading producer of GM seeds — in 400 different cities last year? Most opponents of GMOs cite the potential health risks associated with GMO consumption. An overwhelming body of research shows that genetically modified crops are just as safe as conventional ones, however. The FDA, the WHO, and the British Royal Society have all confirmed the safety of GMOs. Vandana Shiva is an environmentalist and one of the leaders of the anti-GMO movement. Shiva is from India, which is home to a quarter of all malnourished people worldwide. At this time, the only genetically modified seed allowed in India is insect-resistant Bollgard cotton. Researchers have found that use of the modified

Bollgard cotton has increased production by nearly 80 percent. This gain translates into higher profits for poor cotton farmers, more education for their children, better living conditions, and better nutrition. But to Shiva, who was raised in a well-off Indian family, modified Bollgard cotton represents “monocultures, deadness. Everyone depressed. Everyone on Prozac. More and more young people unemployed. We don’t want that world of death.”

Even as an Indian woman, Vandana Shiva refuses to see the economic and health benefits of GMOs. And it is her voice that inspires and encourages the rest of the antiGMO movement. Opponents of GMOs take myths about the health implications of GMOs and combine it with antipathy toward technology and intellectual elitism to decide that no one should have access to the world-changing crops.

Of course, GMOs should not be accepted without caution. There are some arguments against their use that should be considered. Exclusive use of genetically modified crops would lead to less crop diversity, which could be disastrous if a nasty fungus or insect were to infect that particular crop (as in the Irish Potato Famine). There are also intellectual property concerns linked to expanding GMO use. Because genetically modified seeds are patented, farmers are prevented from reusing seeds in multiple planting seasons.

Some argue this prevents competition and ultimately drives up costs for farmers.

While these are valid reasons for caution, a simple cost-benefit analysis should tell us that they are no reason to ban GMO use outright.

Residents of wealthy countries like the U.S. have the luxury to demand organic vegetables. But such veggies are exactly that — a luxury. To insist that the poor of the developing world do the same is not only arrogant and elitist, it is negligent. Opponents of GMOs need to wake up from their Kombucha-induced haze and accept that genetically modified crops are essential to combating world hunger. b

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PHOTO COURTESY OF YIK YAK.

CULTURE

CULTURE

Capitalism and Freedom Friedman on free markets and human flourishing.

“A

sk not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country,” preached President Kennedy in his inaugural address.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman begins his classic 1962 work, Capitalism and Freedom, by dismantling this quotation: Kennedy’s sentiment is unfit for free men in a free society. Government is neither a paternalistic entity providing for our every need, nor is it a deity to which we owe service.

“To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them,” writes Friedman.

The most striking insight in Capitalism and Freedom is the reminder that freedom matters, an idea which was sadly underappreciated both in Friedman’s day and in ours: “Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”

For this reason, the book can be seen as both a defense of the competitive free

Ryan Slauer is a premed senior studying economics an Latin. He is a regular contributor to The Arch Conservative.

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market in an age entranced by central planning (the Soviet Union claimed it would bury the U.S. economically) and as a defense of freedom in the face of paternalism. Friedman explains, “A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that…it gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want.”

Capitalism and Freedom is arranged topically, with each chapter devoted to analyzing the role of the free market in monetary and fiscal policy, education, discrimination, the licensure of lawyers and physicians, and so on.

Throughout, Friedman notes the misguided, if well meaning, efforts of government to fix perceived problems: “Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.”

Why is this “concentrated power” so harmful? Because central planners often seek to address an issue “not by establishing a framework that will eliminate the conflict…but by forcing people to act against their own interest…these measures are therefore countered by one of the strongest and most creative forces known to man — the attempt by millions of individuals to promote their own interests, to live their lives by their own values.” Moreover, vested special interests often derail government programs.

To give an example, consider Friedman’s analysis of public housing measures. What is the reasoning behind government-provided housing? Perhaps slums represent a negative externality, not only aesthetically but also fiscally — more fire and police protection means increased taxes. But the most likely reason is to provide lowincome families with a home. Friedman wonders, “If funds are to be used to help the poor, would they not be used more effectively by being given in cash rather than in kind?”

It is not unreasonable to imagine that many families would rather live in poorer conditions in order to save money for their children’s education — sending them to a better school than the one down the street (school choice is another one of Friedman’s

most passionate pleas).

The only true justification for public housing, argues Friedman, is paternalism: these families “need” better housing, but we can’t trust them to make the best choice for themselves.

The result, Friedman notes, is dismal. The number of homeless remains unchanged, and the only notable consequence is more people per dwelling unit.

As is often the case, a well-intentioned government plan fails to solve the problem, and it spends a lot of money in the process.

Friedman is no anarchist. He praises the legitimate roles of government, including umpire through the courts, provider of public goods, and mediator of externalities. He praises its success stories: the interstates “crisscrossing the country… orbiting satellites… all tributes to the capacity of government to command great resources…[and] public health measures have contributed to the reduction of infectious disease.”

Friedman’s strongest case for freedom is implicit throughout the book: Liberty is more realistic. The reason, he contends, that intellectuals of the 1930s and ‘40s converted from capitalism to collectivism, is not because of any actual collectivist success. Instead, they compared the imperfect system around them with a hypothetical utopia: “The actual was compared with the ideal.”

The temptation to such thinking is as strong today as it was then. Progress in science and technology is mistaken for progress in human nature. Surely, we think, “we can do far better with a democratic political structure, modern tools, and modern science than was possible in earlier ages.”

We fail to remember that those in authority are all too human, and history’s narrative is riddled with all-powerful leaders doing evil in the name of good. This is why Friedman is so adamant that government power must be dispersed: “The great tragedy of the drive to centralization, as of the drive to extend the scope of government in general, is that it is mostly led by men of good will who will be the first to rue its consequences.”

In the long run, the competitive free market ensures the dignity and well being of the individual in a way that government policy never can. Capitalism and Freedom reminds its readers of this and more. b

The Arch Conservative / 17

HUMOR

#RelevantOnCampus

by COLIN DANIELS

U

niversity of Georgia students concerned about the Ebola epidemic — currently affecting West Africa, Dallas, Emory, the American media, and public health experts on Twitter — have formed a support group sponsored by UGA’s College of Public Health.

The group, #Students4EbolAwareness, meets every time a new hyped-up, oversensationalized, and mildly factchecked story appears in the media.

S4EA has received effusive praise across campus from students who have been emotionally afflicted by the disease’s numerous microaggressions.

Though it has yet to support anyone in West Africa or elsewhere who is actually infected with Ebola, the group is popular

18 / The Arch Conservative

with students as a way for them to express their anxiety regarding the disease, while not actually having to do anything of real significance.

Microbe-aggression.

S4EA is also known for its above-average catering, which surpasses even the brownies of the Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and the steak dinners of a Young Democrats group desperate for attendees.

It may seem odd for the College of Public

Health to spend so much money funding the Ebola support group while other health problems — which have affected far more than eight people nationwide — exist.

Nevertheless, Edith Crowder, Assistant Dean of Spending Taxpayer Dollars, said in a statement, “It’s not like we asked for the money. But like they taught us in public administration: If you’ve got it, flaunt it.”

(Though members of S4EA advise against this if you’ve actually contracted the disease.)

Regular S4EA attendee Clarice Johnson, a freshman from Buckhead, said that “I love what the group is trying to do. What with feeding us and stuff. You’ve seen the news, ebola is everywhere, and we have to stop it.

“I’m, like, so stressed out. I wish UGA had banned ebola instead of smoking. I could totally use a cigarette to destress.” B

WINTER 2014

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION

Consideration of a pressing issue.

HUMOR THE O’SHAUGHNESSY VARIABLE BEGIN TRANSCRIPT - 12/01/2014

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(Buffer Music plays) s have reported a This next report comes to us from idyllic Athens, Georgia, where student ly dubs “Winter Break.” disturbing change in policy regarding what the administration cynical the University of Georgia, In the inaugural year of his much-anticipated term as president of those Americans who celebrate President Jere Morehead has taken unprecedented steps to subjugate t the use of “Merry Christmas” the embattled holiday of Christmas. Did President Morehead restric “Happy Holidays”? No. on campus, instructing UGA dining hall icon Miss Sandra to wish patrons something worse. Using the Did he ban the emblem of the Christmas tree from campus? No. He did ted student access to insidious craft of the UGA academic calendar, President Morehead restric their families during this most tender Advent season. semester an extra six days, For those who have not consulted the calendar, UGA has extended its e goal: Destruction of from Dec. 11 to Dec. 17. This is just the latest sign of its ultimat break, students will skimp that most holy of holidays. With less days at home during Christmas tomfoolery is nothing more on the sacred traditions that bind us together as Americans. This Christmas season from the than another attempt by liberal eggheads to strangle the joy of the Easter, Thanksgiving, and UGA student body. Without Christmas, what’s to stop them from wiping Veterans Day off the calendar?

Santa’s hands. I can Next they’ll be ripping the bells straight out of the Salvation Army parents how they decorated already see children coming home from elementary school telling their a holiday tree and sang festivus hymns with their classmates.

Grinches and say, Enough There is a point where every sturdy patriot has to stand up to these d’s brave new world — is enough. I think I speak for all such patriots when I say that Morehea Griswold — is not one where a world sans stiff eggnog, Buddy the Elf, and American hero Clark against this — and let’s call our children should be raised. So I challenge one and all to fight Let us not forsake the it what it is —, this War on Christmas with all the tinsel they have. g of Rudolph’s bells until the traditions of our Yuletide forbears, but rather ensure the jinglin end of time.

the calendar adjustment What’s that? Folks, we have an update. A source is telling me that c year. shortening Christmas break was due to a later start date for the academi naked women firing AK-47s at Up next, a retired fireman is forced to remove a t-shirt featuring First Amendment. mallards. Stay tuned for a report on this egregious assault on the (Buffer Music...fade out) END TRANSCRIPT