BINGHAMTON REVIEW Editor-in-Chief Contents
P.O. BOX 6000 BINGHAMTON, NY 13902-6000 EDITOR@BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COM
Founded 1987 • Volume XXX, Issue I
Dear Readers,
L
Patrick McAuliffe Jr. Managing Editor Kayla Jimenez
Copy Desk Chief Elizabeth Elliott
Business Manager Jason Caci
Editor Emeritus Sean Glendon
Assistant Editor
Adrienne Vertucci
Staff Writers
Aditi Roy, Luke Kusick, Chris DeMarco, Max Newman
Contributors
Random White Dude
Special Thanks To:
Intercollegiate Studies Institute Collegiate Network Binghamton Review was printed by Gary Marsden We Provide the Truth. He Provides the Staples.
CUOMO’S EXCELSIOR SCHOLARSHIP HOAX
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by Chris DeMarco
8 Four Books to Read in College by Kayla Jimenez 10 White Supremacy: The Only Supremacy? by Random White Dude 11 Should you Punch a Nazi? 12 Punching Nazis, the Ins and Outs by Patrick McAuliffe 14 Politically Incorrect Bingo by Patrick McAuliffe 15 Join the Review! by Kayla Jimenez
Departments 3 Editorial
Throwbacks 6 1999?
TELL US WHAT YOU THINK! Direct your feedback to editor@binghamtonreview. 2
BINGHAMTON REVIEW
EDITORIAL
Vol. XXX, Issue I
From the Editor
It feels almost unreal that I get to write to you this way for the first time. I know the stereotype is that not many people read the editorial, so my audience gets even smaller than it was before, but I don’t mind. The letter from the Editor seems a bit more chill than a normal article, and I’m a big fan. For those of you that don’t know who I am or who we are, my name is Patrick McAuliffe Jr. I’m a junior double majoring in philosophy and political science, and I’m the Editor-in-Chief of the Binghamton Review this year. I’ve been involved with the Review since my freshman year here, where I had already heard about it from picking up a copy of the Review on my tour the spring prior. Writing, editing, learning layout software; you can do it all with the Review. So you’ve stumbled upon this magnificent bound magazine of paper and ink; now what? We’re a conservative/libertarian publication publishing bi-weekly (or fortnightly as our friends across the pond say) that covers everything from campus and local news to national and international politics to everything in between. They say the world is your burrito; the Review is the entire taco truck. Anything you want to write about, we will publish. Obviously we reserve the right to edit submissions, but our primary function is providing a platform for the free and open exchange of ideas. I’m sure you could get that from the mission statement to my right, but it’s so gosh darn important that I have to say it again. It’s important for that free exchange of ideas to have an outlet because now, more than ever, speech and the mind it comes from are targeted. One cannot have an open political discussion or intellectual debate without cultural authoritarianism trying to shut it down. Honestly, with the long parade of hostile left-wing groups on Binghamton’s campus, it’s a miracle we weren’t shut down sometime in our thirty year history. And what a history it’s been! We still have copies of our paper from the late 1980s when we used the traditional newspaper format. We can trace the exact month and issue where our iconic green border became a mainstay, and the month and issue when it went away. As an homage to our rich past and the spirit of cheeky conservatism we’ve managed to keep throughout the years, we’ll be sometimes featuring articles from past issues in our current ones. There may even be some showcases from former members eventually, as they impart their words of wisdom to us dewy-eyed tenderfoots. You’ll be hearing from us very soon, and at the very least every other week when we publish again. So stay strong! Face this new year with confidence. And if you think you’ll be a good fit for what we do, shoot me an email at editor@binghamtonreview.com or come to our GIM on Wednesday August 30th at 7pm. Our office is UUWB05, right under the Marketplace, and office hours will be starting eventually, so we’re here for you! Tell us what you want this publication or this campus or this world to be. I hope to hear from you soon. Sincerely,
Our Mission Binghamton Review is a non-partisan, studentrun news magazine of conservative thought at Binghamton University founded in 1987. A true liberal arts education expands a student’s horizons and opens one’s mind to a vast array of divergent perspectives. The mark of true maturity is being able to engage with those divergent perspectives rationally while maintaining one’s own convictions. In that spirit, we seek to promote the free and open exchange of ideas and offer alternative viewpoints not normally found or accepted on our predominately liberal campus. We stand against tyranny in all of its forms, both on campus and beyond. We believe in the principles set forth in this country’s Declaration of Independence and seek to preserve the fundamental tenets of Western civilization. It is our duty to expose the warped ideology of political correctness and cultural authoritarianism that dominates this university. Finally, we understand that a moral order is a necessary component of any civilized society. We strive to inform, engage with, and perhaps even amuse our readers in carrying out this mission.
Patrick McAuliffe Jr.
Views expressed by writers do not necessarily represent the views of the publication as a whole. editor@binghamtonreview.com
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THE ABCs OF BINGHAMTON ANTHROPOLOGY: For people that really REALLY want a hard time looking for a career.
BARTLE: Great place to pick up printing, Krispy Kreme donuts, and a panic attack.
CRAMPS: They come for free with your meal plan! DOWNTOWN: Keep it classy by stumbling from corner to
PIPE DREAM: When you want something to call “fake news” but CNN has stopped responding on Twitter.
QUOTATIONS: Even after years of doing it, you’ll still worry that you didn’t cite a source properly in a paper.
corner while your friends call a cab. For extra pizazz, throw up on the sidewalk.
REVIEW: The only right-leaning publication in the
EINSTEIN’S: If you want to eat their bagels at a normal breakfast time, it will be lunch by the time the line dies down.
for 30 years, and where you’ll get your REAL Bing-
FLEISHMAN CENTER: They’ll look over your resume, help
you practice interviews, and sponsor helpful career events. No joke here; if anything, the joke is how little they’re utilized.
GEOLOGY: Did you know a class with about as much difficulty as your high school earth science class counts for a lab science requirement? You heard it here first.
HILLSIDE: Farther up the hill than Mountainview, so that naming definitely makes sense.
INTRAMURALS: When you’re a college athlete but you “got
other stuff going on.”
JOGGING: The entire Brain makes a great track for you masochists out there.
KOSHER: DID YOU KNOW BINGHAMTON HAS A 30% JEW-
SUNY system, somehow managing to stick around hamton education.
SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT: They wear business clothes every day, they’ll have a better job than you after graduation, and no you can’t get in.
TULLY’S: HI HOW YA DOIN’? UNIVERSITY FEST: Trick yourself into thinking you’re busier than you actually are after the listserv emails from ten different clubs start piling up.
VESTAL: Where Binghamton University is ACTUALLY located, with strip malls and slightly better socioeconomic conditions than the surrounding area.
ISH POPULATION and they all live in Newing?
WEATHER: That feeling you get after waking up
LATE NITE: Don’t want to get blasted out of your mind on a
but before having coffee is basically how the sky
Friday or Saturday night? Come make arts and crafts and watch movies!
will look from November to April. And there’s snow
MOUNTAINVIEW: Leg day every day. The view from Appala-
XANAX: Yes, it’s the only thing that starts with
chian is our A E S T H E T I C.
NATURE PRESERVE: For when Green Day Fridays just aren’t enough of an opportunity to get your green in. And there’s Wi-Fi!
OCCT: Actually extremely helpful and almost always reliable for getting around town to the three or four places outside of campus that matter.
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most of the time.
X related to college, and yes, it’s as helpful as they say it is.
YIK YAK: Do people still even use this? Z: Zombie Student Association: They’re our Z every year, they’re nerdy but brave, and they have a special place in our EIC’s heart.
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CUOMO’S EXCELSIOR SCHOLARSHIP: A FREE TUITION HOAX
Cuomo’s Excelsior Scholarship: A Free Tuition Hoax By Chris DeMarco
I
n what was largely a political power play, aimed at a possible 2020 run for president, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo introduced the Excelsior Scholarship, granting many students in New York State “free” college tuition. While this is likely to please many millennials, who supported Bernie Sanders’s plan for free college, in reality it does nothing to address the crisis of unaffordable college. The Excelsior Scholarship is akin to bringing a stick of butter to a gunfight. The real problem is that costs have skyrocketed. In 1990, SUNY tuition was $1,350, which adjusted for inflation in 2017 dollars, is $2,497. Logically, one would assume that SUNY tuition in 2017 would be $2,497. But instead,including the countless fees tacked on to tution, it now is a whopping $9,271. Tuition in SUNY schools is almost 4(3.7) times what it cost in 1990, and the product, a college education, has the same value. (Or arguably even less value, as the college degree is the new high school diploma in today’s high-information economy). This great increase is creating a “bubble” in the market for a college education. Eventually, liberal arts majors will realize that going $100,000 into debt for a gender studies degree, only to end up working at Starbucks, probably is not a worthwhile proposition. This bubble, similar to the housing bubble that caused “the Great Recession” of ‘08-’09, is the result of overeager government lending creating artificial demand, driving up prices exorbitantly. According to a study done by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, for every dollar of government student aid, tuition goes up by 70 cents1. Cuomo’s “Free” tuition will again raise the cost barrier for attending college in New York, creating an army of indentured servants who are required to work in New York After graduation. What America really needs in order to create a truly affordable and accessible system of higher education is to return
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to 1990 pricing, when it was possible for a student’s summer job to cover the cost of tuition. This is far easier said than done, as federal student aid is not going anywhere (nor should it until prices are reasonable again), and today’s entitled millennials are pushing for even more aid, which will only exacerbate the problem. Glad-handing politicians like Bernie Sanders and Andrew Cuomo, spending other people’s money, will further increase student aid until the bubble in the value of a degree bursts. Instead, they should look at ways to rein in costs. Reining in costs however does not mean a strict austerity that will lead to fewer professors, larger class sizes, and a greatly diminished quality of education. It simply requires a cutting down of the administrative bloat, bureaucratic red tape, and fees that have nothing to do with education that plague higher education. These are the real causes of extortionate pricing, even at public universities. Bloomberg reported that the number of administrative positions at universities have grown by 60% since 1993. In comparison, the number of tenure track faculty, the people who actually contribute to a student’s education, has only grown by 6% over the same time period2. Like any bureaucracy, college administration is self-interested and in most cases it is accountable only to itself for its bloated costs. The government will continue to increase student loans, and the costs will be passed on to mostly poor and middle-class students who have no choice but to accept such usury if they would like to attend college.
“For every dollar of government student aid, tuition goes up by 70 cents.”
Not only are administrative bloatocracies unaccountable, they are often have a heavy partisan bias on many issues. For instance, one administrative department that
has been greatly expanded is the admissions department. If students were simply chosen on the basis of merit in high school, the admissions process would be a no-brainer; applicants with the highest GPA would be accepted, as was the case in the past. Instead, teams of trained “experts” now pore over data that should be irrelevant to admissions, such as race, in order to have a more “Fair” process. Whatever that means. Another cause of administrative bloat is the increase in Title IX spending. Schools spend millions of dollars each year setting up kangaroo courts that are severely unfair and biased against males to adjudicate cases of sexual assault. These cases require full time administrators, counselors, and lawyers (although the accused is not allowed a lawyer), with each case costing a school hundreds of thousands of dollars of (Borrowed!) student’s money that could have actually gone towards education. This should not be interpreted as a dismissal of the seriousness of sexual assault; the United States already has an excellent system of fair and impartial courts in which to try these cases, at no cost to students. The goal of a public university should be to educate the students as efficiently as possible, and although Binghamton University does a good job of this compared to other schools, it is a miserable failure compared to how things were in the past. The measure of success should be how cheaply a student gets his or her degree. After all, it’s a well-known inside joke that most of us would have gone to a different school if we had the money. It’s about time we took a hard look at where our borrowed money is wasted.
References 1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2015/07/13/financial-aid-helps-collegesmore-than-students/#693aed3b693f 2. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/23/nyregion/tuition-at-suny-to-rise-500-increase-isthe-third-in-2-years.html
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1999?
BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COM
1999?
By Joshua Trapani
This work of fiction was originally published in the Review in 1993.
H
e had been awake for more than five minutes before he realized his alarm had not gone off. Full of foreboding, he turned to look at the lit-up numbers on his clock. Sure enough, they informed him that he had less than ten minutes before his first class started. He flew out of his dorm room and down the stairs, past the soda, candy, and condom machines in the lobby of his building and out into the blustery morning. The campus was full of others who hadn’t gotten up on time, but he rushed past them and into the building where his first class was being held. He passed the posters on the wall (notifying students of such things as the new all-nude theater production and the abortion-on-demand clinic located in the Union) without so much as a glance, quickly entered his classroom and discreetly took a seat in the back. The first class was a history called “Columbus and Hitler: Separate Paths to the Same Goal”. The subject matter didn’t greatly intrigue him, but like most of his classes, he needed it to fulfill his diversity requirements. Registering for classes was quite an ordeal these days. Not only did students have to contend with the formidable diversity requirements and the mandatory “Understanding Others” classes, but placement in desired courses was often a problem. The makeup of every single class had to have the same percentage of each race, sex, and ethnic group that the school as a whole did. And the school as a whole had its population carefully crafted to reflect the state as a whole. In addition, students also had the responsibility of making sure that their professors were mixed according to the same lines. There were stories abound of seniors who’d had to stay an extra semester and take unnecessary course with professors of a certain ethnicity to graduate. “And so you see,” the professor (incidentally a white male) addressed the class, “We can never establish full equality in this country until we pay
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for our past. Therefore, I would argue that all European-American citizens of this country should have to pay, as a portion of their taxes, reparations to the African-American citizens for the years of suffering as slaves which the latter endured.” A black student raised his hand, and the professor pointed at him. “Are you proposing,” asked the student, “that because I’m black, I should get money from the whites - because I was enslaved?” “Yes I am,” answered the professor.” “But I wouldn’t want that money. Besides, I was never a slave!” The professor smiled. “Ah,” he said, “but your ancestors were. And their ancestors were the slave owners, and so they have to pay for the sins of their forefathers.” Now a white student raised her hand, and the professor called on her. “How come I should have to pay,” she asked, “when my ancestors didn’t even arrive in this country until after the slaves were freed?” The professor looked at her oddly and shook his head. “That is irrelevant.” His next class was English. It was called “American Literature During Periods of Repression.” It dealt primarily with books from the 1950s and 1980s. He liked a lot of what they read, and was glad he’d taken the course. Especially since his only other choice for a possible English class had been “Poetry of Parisian Lesbians.” which somehow sounded more like the topic of a
bad talk show than a serious literature course. Besides those two, he took a required “Understanding others” course and a biology class. The bio was straight science. It was by far his favorite. In English, he was getting an essay back. “As you know,” said the professor, “we can no longer tell you what the class average was, for fear of making the more intellectually-challenged of you feel inadequate or unintelligent. And please remember that when I give these back you’re not allowed to show them to anyone, or tell other people how you did. You can be expelled for sharing grades. Especially those of you who did well. Those are the rules and you know as well as I do that they’ve been enforcing them strictly.” This wasn’t the only restriction that had been placed on academic achievement. Graduation honors had been abolished, as had all honors programs. Higher level classes in the arts no longer required auditions or portfolios from potential entrants. Everyone was allowed to take any classes they wished. This was because, according to the guidelines, a student’s need to take a class was much more important than his or her ability in the subject. When English was over, he went to the Union in order to pick up the school newspaper. The Union, as always, was alive with people and buzzing with conversation, especially where stacks of the newspaper had been placed. He knew which part attracted their attention - the List of Expulsions.
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“People had to be very careful about what they said these days. One “insensitive” word could result in the end of a career, academic or otherwise.” Each week, the paper published names of students who had been expelled that week, and on what grounds. He grabbed a copy and opened it up to see what all the fuss was about. The list was relatively relatively short, only about twenty for the week. But the reasons they’d been expelled seemed relatively glamorous. “Look at this one,” said someone near him to her friend, “Expelled for telling a derogatory joke about homosexuals. I know what joke he told.” “What was it?” asked her friend eagerly. “I can’t tell you,” she answered, looking at her friend as if she were crazy. Then she looked around warily. “I can’t say it in public. It might offend. I don’t want to get expelled, too. I’ll tell you later.” He turned away from them and towards another group discussing the list. “...and he had the audacity to go up to her and ask her out right to her face!” one of them was saying, and the mouths of the others formed big “Os” in response. “What did he expect?” He looked down at his list and read through the names. There it was. Under reason for expulsion: sexual harassment. People had to be very careful about what they said these days. One “insensitive” word could result in the end of a career, academic or otherwise. Looking around he saw that most of the group were made of one type of person. All blacks or all whites, all Asians or all Hispanics, all males or all females. Most people were very uneasy around groups of others because it was so easy to get into trouble around them. On his way out of the Union, he passed an old friend of his from high
editor@binghamtonreview.com
1999? school. They hadn’t been very close, but they’d hung out a little back at home. She was Asian, and she was female, and since coming here he was afraid to talk to her. “Hi,” he said curtly, and didn’t stop walking. “Hi,” she answered back, and didn’t stop either. She was afraid to talk to him, too. He thought he saw what might have been regret in her eyes, and he hoped she saw the same in his. That night, there was a Coalition meeting. The Coalition was the student government, and membership was mandatory (although attendance at the meeting was not). The Coalition’s full name had once been “The Coalition for a Republican-Free America”. But since virtually all rightist and moderate thought had been eliminated from campus, the name was abbreviated. It was this student-led organization that had been instrumental in many of the more drastic changes that had occurred in the school recently, including the Diversity Requirements and the expulsion lists. He did not like to attend Coalition meetings, but they were big social events. Outside the meeting room would be congregations of students. He headed down to see if anyone he knew was there. All around him he caught
pieces of excited conversations. “And did you hear, the professor failed her because she wrote a paper and spelled “womyn” with an ‘e’ instead of a ‘y’?” “But you can’t join the school newspaper. They already have their quota of Asian-Americans.” “Marx was actually a genius. It was just the wrong type of countries that first experimented with his ideas.” “How do you know she’s doing so well in that class? She hasn’t been showing you her grades, has she?” “Reverse discrimination is just a myth, created and perpetuated by the ruling class to prevent the spread of sensitivity and understanding.” “Censorship? That’s a terror tactic of the right. You know as well as I do that liberals believe in free expression. We never censor anything!” He started to feel a little sick to his stomach. He was sorry he’d come. Just then, he saw some of his friends standing with a big group of students. They beckoned him to approach, but there were so many people he didn’t know with them, and he didn’t want to risk offending anyone. He smiled weakly and waved at them, but didn’t go over. Instead, he went back to his room and to sleep, remembering this time to carefully set his alarm.
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FOUR BOOKS TO READ IN COLLEGE
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Four Books to Read in College By Kayla Jimenez
3.
In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto
by Michael Pollan
FOUR BOOKS TO READ IN COLLEGE
Do you eat food? Great! Read this book! Pollan writes about the ins and outs
A
h, reading. Some love it, some hate it, but everyone should do it. Ever since elementary school, teachers and parents have pushed us to read, and for good reason. With the approach of a new school year, for some of you your first year in college, it’s important for us to set goals. For me, reading more is always something I strive for. Whether that’s actually reading your textbooks for class, or reading a book for entertainment as opposed to scrolling through Facebook, is up to you. If you’re looking for new books to read this semester, I’ve got you covered. As John Locke once said, “Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.” In that spirit, here are the books I’ve read since coming to college that have made me think, made me laugh, opened my mind, changed my perspective, and gave me all the feels.
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Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
of the food industry, and the ins and outs of the human body as it consumes and digests food in this nonfiction work. There are a lot of movies, books, and TV shows on the subject of food, but many of them condemn meat-eating, over-promote unrealistic diets like veganism or paleo diets, or expect people to cut out traditional supermarkets and restaurants completely. Pollan takes a different approach. He provides an explanation of the modern history of food consumption in West-
I first heard of Ayn Rand in an anti-capitalist documentary I had to watch in
ern societies, predominantly the United States. He then exposes the roots of many
my women, gender, and sexuality studies class. She was labeled as a heartless conser-
Western diseases and links many of society’s health struggles to poor eating habits
vative who hated all poor people and was likened to a devil Paul Ryan’s shoulder. As
and irresponsible food production. Finally, he offers ways to improve one’s own
a joke, I decided to read her famous novel, Atlas Shrugged. I expected to hate it and
life through dietary choices and habits. Food brings people together, as does this
barely make it half way through. That is far from what occurred.
book. In Defense of Food is a positive influence on one of the most personal parts
This novel, no joke, changed my life. It taught me, and still teaches me, how to
of one’s life, food.
live, how to love, how to grow, what respect is... it defines my life philosophy. Before reading Atlas Shrugged, I was emo, full of self-loathing, I struggled to find motiva-
4.
tion and lacked work ethic, and felt lost in my own body and mind. Rand’s novel
Wicked by Gregory Maguire I know what you’re thinking, Wicked? Isn’t that a musi-
intercepted and allowed me to be the confident, happy, and hard-working (conser-
cal? Yes, it is, but the book is so much more than the musical.
vative) woman I am today. People may be turned off by Atlas Shrugged for many reasons: because it’s too
In fact, the book tells a completely different story. Wicked is
long, it’s known to preach libertarianism, because the negative reviews could be a
a compelling novel about morality, individuality, pursuing
novel of their own. But if you can, take the time to read this book; you won’t regret it.
what one believes is right, and standing strong in the face of
If you have less time, consider some of Rand’s other work, such as The Fountainhead.
adversity. It’s actually quite the political book. Wikipedia de-
Just as moving, only it accomplishes similar effect in less pages.
scribes it as a “political, social, and ethical commentary on the
2.
nature of good and evil.” It explores themes of racism, indi-
Street Smart by Samuel I. Schwartz Ever driven a car? Taken a bus? Rode the subway? Travelled by train (I know half of y’all
vidualism, tyranny, and injustice. Not only does Wicked hold
are from Long Island, LIRR anyone?)? Walked down the street? If so, then this book is for you.
up on the making-you-think front, it also has an extremely
This nonfiction book provides readers with America’s transportation history and explains how
engaging plot. It’s one of those “just one more chapter before
we wound up with over 250 million cars on our roads, a crumbling infrastructure, and lackluster
bed” books. You seriously won’t be able to put it down, that is,
public transit in many U.S. cities. Schwartz redefines how one thinks of and sees roads and calls
if you choose to pick it up.
for a change in the way we travel. His anecdotes, whether personal or historical, his data and research, and his knowledge of America’s transportation past, present, and future will completely change how you feel about getting from place to place. Witty, intelligent, and shocking, this book is a must-read.
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People always say when you go to college, your life changes, you grow into yourself, and you broaden your perspective. With the help of these books, those cliches truly become a reality. Do not sit and wait for your life to change, do not expect to learn and grow while in college simply because you’re here. You need to be present. Picking up a book and reading it is a good place to start. Lucky for us, Bartle Library has all of these books on its shelves just waiting for you to take them out. Have at it. Happy reading! Note: All image credits go to their respective owners, the authors of these novels.
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WHITE SUPREMACY: THE ONLY SUPREMACY?
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White Supremacy: The Only Supremacy?
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By Random White Dude
R
ecently, a wave of neo-nazism and white supremacy heavily related to political events, such as the election of Trump, has surged across our nation (and the internet). It has me, a white male, thinking a lot about my place in this country. The Charlottesville riots and the events that followed really struck a nerve across the board, understandably so. Myself and other white people must acknowledge that there is a logical argument for the existence of white privilege that stems from these recent events. Truthfully, I am not a proponent of government expansion, which is why I often battle liberals and people who mindlessly vote for candidates that want nothing more than institutional manipulation. But when it comes to social issues, including acknowledging white privilege, I see eye to eye with the same people I battle. Racism is one of the highest forms of stupidity, and it courses and evolves through generations as families learn to depend on opportunities they were given because they were white.
Over time, on a national level, these racist narratives have been beaten down, but in certain crevices of our country, there still are many who are too dependent on the privileges of old
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to turn to anything but racism. This is why Donald Trump got elected, as Hillary Clinton’s campaign aggravated enough of these people to convert them into a grass roots movement. Events of the nature of the Charlottesville riots are destined to happen considering the current racially charged environment. As white people, it truly is our obligation to reject these hateful narratives and see them for what they are: illogical, hateful, and regressive. To move towards a better future, being neutral towards hateful movements is not an option (@realDonaldTrump). We cannot and should not depend on government institutions to step in. There is another side to this coin. Violence cannot be met with violence if the expected outcome is peace. There is no logic to that, and the “Antifa” should not be praised when they commit violent acts. Far too many on the left subtly praise this movement, when far too often all they are responsible for is being in the place of some traumatic event. To all the non-racist white people like me, who consider themselves truelibertarians, republicans, indep endents, social liberals: d is ass o c i ate yourselves from mainstream political parties and denounce racism wherever you see it. We cannot allow Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists to throw dirt on the name of all white people. If we stand by and do not condemn them openly, this is exactly what will happen. When is the last time you met a
supremacist of any other race? One could bring up the black panthers, or Black Lives Matter, but those groups mostly fought and continue to fight against institutional bias. They are not supremacy or hate groups. The KKK and plenty of other organizations throughout the south were responsible for essentially a genocide for 100+ years. It is understandable why there are groups that promote the pride of other races, because stupid and evil people had beaten their pride down to overarch their own.
“To move towards a better future, being neutral towards hateful movements is not an option (@realDonaldTrump).” Thankfully, we have moved on from that. Unfortunately, the remnants of our history are showing in all of these events, and history is repeating itself. As the “alt-right” clashes with the “antifa” over and over again, all I can wonder is when will people realize that all of these people are mindlessly looking for an excuse to cause societal disruptions? For libertarians that are sick of the system, be aware that associating yourself with a racist militia will have consequences. For leftists who are associating themselves with violence through “antifa” or other similar movements, there will eventually be consequences as well. Even when you disagree with someone, violence only breeds more violence. The only true way to change is to talk like intellectuals and use logic to understand what the closest and most agreeable version of the truth is.
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PUNCHING NAZIS, THE INS AND OUTS
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Punching Nazis, the Ins and Outs By Patrick McAuliffe Jr.
Battle lines are being drawn around this great nation in the last few weeks and months, sometimes even literally. From Boston and the North to Charlottesville and the South, clashes between far-right extremists and far-left counter-protestors is reaching a boiling point. So, in case you find yourself in the neighborhood of a racially or politically charged protest or demonstration, follow both the handy guide on the previous page and the following tips and tricks to answer the age-old question: is it ok to punch a Nazi? More importantly, should I punch that Nazi? Before this question is explored any further, I want to state something that I hope would be obvious from a paper that supports limited government power: Nazism is a repugnant ideology that has resulted in the deaths of millions of innocent human beings, and asks of its followers actions that no human being should ever consider doing. However, it may come as a surprise that traces of Nazism’s ideological premises can be found in other ideologies and political theories. In an attempt to be philosophically consistent, rationally sorting through all of the actions, moral questions, and actors involved is imperative for rooting out and defeating this and other ideologies that degrade human beings to something less than themselves. An ideology that calls for hating another person merely for their existence advocates for the evil it is trying to prevent. Let’s start with the semantic questions. What do we mean by the terms “ok,” “should,” “punch,” and “Nazi”? There is a big difference between something being “ok” and a moral imperative that something “should” be done. It’s a question of permissibility - either by our own moral code, an objective moral code, or the current legal system - contrasted with something that must be done, every time the circumstances arise. If I pass someone on the street and I can clearly tell that they support the fascist regime of Hitler, am I required to punch them? Or is it an optional action? What does a punch signify? It is an act of physical violence against a person, with the intent of either righting some injustice or attempting to coerce some action out of them; sometimes it is both. Punching a Nazi, in this modern-day case, would perhaps be done with the intent of laying the blame of the Holocaust and other atrocities on that person. Believing that an ideology that called for such terrible things could ever rationally make sense is something most people find inconceivable. And, for those that still hold out hope for convincing the Nazi that his or her ideals are wrong through means other than dialogue and debate, their act of punching is done for merely pragmatic purposes: stop believing in Nazism and you will stop being punched. Nazism is our final word to dissect, and as it is thrown around so often it can be hard to pin down. In its historical context, the National Socialist Party was the extension of a philosophy that painted the German people or German race as inherently superior - physically, genetically (whatever that means), perhaps even morally - to other races. If this was true,
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naturally that would mean that the German nation-state would be inherently superior to other nation-states. By setting the German race, the “Aryans,” as the baseline for an ideal human being, Nazi leaders were able to paint anyone that did not meet their qualifications for “German” as lesser people and, as the mass killings indicated, not even human. Much of this ideology is carried over today, with the superior and inferior peoples’ names replaced like a horrifying version of Mad Libs. Now, instead of anointing only Germany as superior human beings, white supremacists and neo-Nazis laud all white people as inherently superior, often looking through a very closed-minded and narrow reading of world history. Those that are inferior are still the Jewish people, but the qualifications have extended to anyone that does not have white skin. Some of these extremists carry their hate even further, calling for the denial of basic human rights to the LGBTQ community, members of certain religious groups such as Catholics or Muslims, and those with left-wing ideologies, no matter how moderate or extreme. Now turn your attention back to the provided flowchart (page 11). Walking through it and asking why these certain conclusions are drawn will help us get at the root of the punching Nazis problem. First, starting off with the provided dates of 1938-1945, punching a Nazi at this specified period in history is because this is where the Nazi government’s aggression in Europe constituted acts of war. This flowchart assumes that initiating physical violence against a person or their property is reprehensible, and only if this violence is clearly committed can one retaliate with full but proportional force. To preemptively attack someone because of a perceived threat can quickly become dangerous, because if the violence is preempted one would not know if the violence would have been committed at all. But that will be addressed later on. Assuming that this year is, in fact, not 1942, we choose the “No” option and move on. Now one must test the Nazi’s ideology. If they have a swastika tattooed on the back of their shaved head and are shouting in the street calling for the government to kill Jews and people of color, it is safe to assume they are proudly a Nazi. If the only outward sign of their Nazism is a flag of the Third Reich hanging outside their house, then they are also a Nazi. However, if someone is mistakenly identified as a Nazi when in reality they believe in everything that opposes Nazism, and far-left antifascists believe them to be complicit in the Nazi threat, they do not seek to bring about the hateful politics of their ideology (because they don’t exist) and do not deserve a use of force against them. It’s well put in the chart: “Since no Nazi is present, then no Nazi can be punched, even if it was OK.” (Side note: here is where we can have a discussion about identifying as a Nazi versus being one or not, related to a transgender or nonbinary discussion on how one identifies versus what their biology determines they are, but I don’t want to stay on this paragraph forever. We have important moral questions to consider! Another time.) Having no Nazi present ends the flowchart chain, so we’ll
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BINGHAMTONREVIEW.COM assume that there is a real, full-fledged, card-carrying neo-Nazi white supremacist Klansman in front of us. What is the Nazi doing? For example, the Nazis are at a march intending to be peaceful; simply march through the streets, shout some slogans and have people’s eyes rolled at them, and go home. They aren’t carrying fully automatic weapons or machetes, just banners and musical instruments. Would somebody who knew nothing of Nazism’s horrors see that march and think that they were in danger? If the answer is no, one would assume that the marching Nazis are presenting no legitimate threat at that time to anyone’s property or person. What most antifascists would think is not peaceful about the event is the fact that Nazism inherently calls for initiating violence against other people. And here is where the nucleus of the issue resides, so we will look at the rest of the chart briefly after extrapolating upon this point. Nazis do not believe in the right of certain groups to exist. Their mentality is a blanket declaration of war against given groups, quickly becoming a battle of “us versus them.” If given the chance, their enemies would extinguish them from the face of the earth, as the Allied Powers seemed to be doing to the German people after World War I. The only way to achieve victory for the Nazi is to beat them to the punch, to strike first and strike hard, because any sort of political power in the hands of their enemies would mean the downfall of the group. In this ideology, it is revealed that twentieth-century political systems, and even modern-day ideologies, have not progressed beyond the tribal warfare and social Darwinism of past eras so commonly detested. If I had replaced certain vocabulary in the previous paragraph with pro-Marxist terminology, would there be any difference? The overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the call for the proletariat revolution, the abolishment of individual human rights in favor of the one social unit; communism and socialism call for all of these things. When the rich control the power, they seek to crush and exploit the workers. The only alternative is to take the power from them, and use it as a weapon against them. It is another instance of “us versus them,” another instance of calling for preemptive violence against people that have not actually committed violence to warrant retaliation. Herein lies the hypocrisy of those calling for Nazi punches. If the ideology of a person, no matter how benevolent their ideal world, is sufficient reason to commit violence against them, then the same violence called for against far-right fascists would have to be applied to far-left socialists. Both groups call for subjugation of certain enemy groups before they themselves are snuffed out. The main difference is that one is divided along racial lines, while the other is divided along class lines. As a result, one horrific ideology is fought against with violence, while the other horrific ideology still continues to be part of the intellectual and political discussion. Subjugation i subjugation,
editor@binghamtonreview.com
PUNCHING NAZIS, THE INS AND OUTS
Credit to Adult Swim
no matter who is doing the subjugating or why. And if the argument goes that one’s ideology calling for violence is equal to real violence, there would quickly become very little room in the political discourse for rational discussion and debate. Societies would descend into a race to preemptive violence, trying to one-up the people that would silence them in the instant that they gained power. How does one prevent this hellish future where, in the quest to rid the world of intolerance, the world becomes completely and totally intolerant? If you see a Nazi on the street, or a fascist speaks up in your class because they are now emboldened to say what they’ve always believed, challenge them. Ask them whether what they believe is actually right; challenge their premises and find fault in their reasoning. There is an old expression (and lyrics from a song by The Lumineers) that says “The opposite of love is indifference.” By the same logic, the opposite of hate is also indifference. Like answering a crude remark with apathy, or ending a relationship because you no longer feel anything for the other person, the lack of emotional response completely destroys the other party. Refusing to engage with the party you find despicable is one way of cutting off their supply of fresh warriors or cannon fodder. Despite what ideologies like Nazism and communism claim to see, the world is not always about one-upsmanship and preemptive violence. Minds and hearts can change; rationality can win people over. And if it doesn’t, the answer is not to punch them for wearing a Pepe pin. Let them suffer the nonviolent consequences of believing what they do. In the world of adults and not tantruming children, one can both be mindful of the horrible things that certain ideas have caused while at the same time attempting to bury them for good by total and complete refutation. Do not put Nazism and communism and every other ideology that enslaves human beings on a pedestal, but don’t martyr them either. Simply refute them for the violent ideologies that they are, and continue on your way. Don’t honor their existence with even a punch.
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