TKO 02.15.2012 by Gabriel Rom

Inside: Exclusive Interviews with Professors Macionis and Villegas

the

Kenyon Observer February 15, 2012

If You Wish to Make an Apple Pie From Scratch

James Neimeister|page 6

Kenyonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Oldest Undergraduate Political and Cultural Magazine

the

Kenyon Observer February 15, 2012

The Kenyon Observer February 15, 2012

5 From the Editors Cover Story

james neimeister

If You Wish to Make an Apple Pie from Scratch

jon green and gabriel rom

8 State of Affairs: Professors Talk Policy

Interviews with Professors Villegas and Macionis gabriel rom

10 Israel Approaches Zero Hour tess waggoner

12 Context Matters

Rights For All, Not Some jon green

Ron Paul is Not the Answer

14 Young People, Convenient Truths and a Distorted Picture

Cover Art and Illustrations by Nick Nazmi

Editors-in-Chief Jonathan Green and Gabriel Rom Managing Editor Sarah Kahwash Featured Contributors Ryan Baker, James Neimeister, Megan Shaw and Tess Waggoner Contributors Tommy Brown, Matt Hershey, Richard Pera, Jacob Smith, Alexander Variano and Yoni Wilkenfield Layout/Design Will Ahrens Illustrator Nick Nazmi Faculty Advisor Pamela K. Jensen The Kenyon Observer is a student-run publication that is distributed biweekly on the campus of Kenyon College. The opinions expressed within this publication belong only to the writers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Observer staff or that of Kenyon College. The Kenyon Observer will accept submissions and lettersto-the-editor, but reserves the right to edit for length and clarity. All submissions must be received at least a week prior to publication. Submit to Jon Green (greenj@kenyon.edu) or Gabriel Rom (romg@kenyon.edu).

Quotes Compiled by Ryan Baker

FROM THE EDITORS

Dear Prospective Reader, The Kenyon Observer prides itself upon keeping the spirit of debate and discussion alive on Kenyon’s campus. It is with these sentiments that we are pleased to bring you our latest publication. This issue is in some ways a summation and continuation of issues brought up previously, and in other ways an invitation to enter new dialogues. Inside this issue, James Neimeister breaks down what Republican plans for economic growth mean in terms of income inequality, Jon Green explains why young voters should not embrace Ron Paul, Gabriel Rom outlines political realities facing Israel, and Tess Waggoner responds to Professor Baumann’s submission in our last issue regarding Israel’s right to exist. Also, Professors Macionis and Villegas sit down with us to round up our discussion on the Center for the Study of American Democracy’s Tea Party/Occupy Wall Street Forum. It is our hope that you agree with decidedly less than everything we present, and encourage you voice such opinions with us as well as your classmates. If we are successful, the commentary provided here will provoke thought and conversation away from these pages. As always, we invite letters and full-length submissions either in response to content in this issue or on other topics of interest.

Your Editors, Jonathan Green and Gabriel Rom Editors-in-Chief, The Kenyon Observer

“If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all.” Jacob Hornberger

JAMES NEIMEISTER

If You Wish to Make an Apple Pie From Scratch PRO-GROWTH POLICIES, BUT FOR WHOM?

Occupy Wall Street has so effectively used “the focus on the wealthiest Americans. Republicans’ 99 percent” and “the 1 percent” to define the prob- bread and butter strategies of tax cuts, deregulalem of American income inequality that even con- tion and austerity all intend to grow the economy servatives are embracing these terms. For example, by concentrating wealth and power in the hands of in his endorsement of presidential candidate Mitt the most capable (i.e. those who are already wealthy Romney, New Jersey Govand powerful). The reasonernor Chris Christie used the pro growth agenda ing for these policies is an increasingly prevalent that when the most wealthy epublicans invoke in and powerful members of analogy to neatly sum up that the Republican approach society control most of to this issue: the economy the name of general wel the wealth, society will be is like a pie. Everyone has fare paradoxically embrac more prosperous because a slice, and some peoples’ only the capable and hardslices are bigger than oth- es inequality as a social working become wealthy ers. That is a shame, but good and prosperous—a convicthe Republicans point out tion as preposterous as it is that the pie is infinite in circular. As such, the prosize, so if the pie as a whole grows, so does every- growth agenda that Republicans invoke in the name one’s slice. But no matter how big the pie is, the of general welfare paradoxically embraces inequalrelative slice size still matters. ity as a social good. Just because the pie is bigger does not mean that Republicans embrace tax cuts as a core strateveryone reaps the benefits of growth. The pie can egy for economic growth. Tax cuts allow people grow without increasing the size of each group’s to keep more of what they earn, allowing them to slice. Furthermore, the Republican platform for spend, save or re-invest that money. Special income economic growth holds that such growth should tax cuts for the rich, who tend to invest more than

...

“The most fundamental purpose of government is defense, not empire.” Jospeh Sobran

the less affluent and, incidentally, have more money to invest, and capital gains tax cuts, which also only benefit those capable of investing, are thought to spur investment the most, and therefore the whole economy. Whether tax cuts are the most effective measures for stimulating economic growth, much less equitable growth is a question of econometrics. But Republicans undoubtedly focus on the wealthy with these measures, offering the meager promise that a trickle-down effect follows. Additionally, some conservatives consider tax cuts an effective way to reduce federal spending growth, a crusade they believe is synonymous with the struggle for freedom itself and complementary to attempts to dismantle the regulatory apparatus that monitors the nation’s economy. Conservatives claim deregulation spurs economic growth by removing barriers that prevent businesses from operating at their full potential. In practice, however, deregulation targets any legislation that would prevent large corporations from further asserting their near-limitless power. Deregulation is heavily influenced by the mistaken belief that markets can solve all problems through competition. This is rarely the case, as even competing firms have rallied together under the banner of deregulation to strengthen their economic stranglehold. The oil industry, for instance, pushed with fantastic success to be able to drill on public, environmentally protected wild lands by claiming it would be not only their right, but also their obligation to extract all the oil this country has to offer. Likewise, the financial industry successfully lobbied to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act, which prevented banks from merging commercial and investment operations. The repeal allowed risky investments made before the 2008 Wall Street crash to endanger ordinary peoples’ savings. Even Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia have actively peddled their influence to special interests. They notably struck down campaign-finance laws that protected the free-speech rights of most Americans by limiting the maximum amount an individual could donate to a candidate and prohibiting attack advertisments that only wealthy Americans and huge corporations can afford. Moreover, deregulation has been used as a weapon against American workers, resulting in labor laws that greatly reduced the collective bargaining power unions once had. This has gone even further in states like Wisconsin, Ohio and New Jer-

sey, where Republican governors have attempted to prohibit outright collective bargaining rights for public-sector unions. Austerity, the last horseman of the apocalyptic Republican agenda, aims solely to cut government spending. While they argue that austerity would increase investor confidence by reassuring the government’s solvency, Republicans can hardly claim to be proponents of solvency after nearly causing a government shutdown this past July, a clash that ended with the U.S. Treasury’s first ever credit downgrade. Austerity measures include discretionary spending cuts, hiring freezes at governmental agencies, pay freezes and layoffs for public employees, full-scale privatizations and even significant cuts to the social safety net and the elimination of entire branches of government. Principally, it aims for the exact opposite of growth. Conservatives claim a government that has grown too large needs to be shrunk. The government has always grown along with the size of the economy in order to attend to a growing set of responsibilities. Attempting to dissemble the government by shirking its responsibilities sounds like anything but a pro-growth strategy. As always, Republicans are just making another excuse to allow private, self-serving interests to encroach on the public sphere. These Republican policies would undoubtedly benefit the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the rest of America. They may bend over backwards to argue otherwise, but Republicans should not be fooling anyone. On the other side of the aisle, President Obama made the struggle for a more equitable economy the highlight of his State of the Union address, but Democrats still have much convincing to do. They have yet to form a coherent narrative to burst open the warped and selfcontained universe in which the Republicans have sealed themselves. Repeatedly foiled by the ungovernable House of Representatives, Democrats have yet to justify their own means of constructing a more equitable economy. Economic stimulus, near-certain tax increases and reinforced financial regulations will be tough to swallow in an environment so harshly opposed to any government intervention. It remains to be seen whether the Obama administration can achieve anything of lasting consequence. Can they forge a system of capitalism with a human face as long as Wall Street’s shadow hangs over the Statue of Liberty? TKO

“Republicans have nothing but bad ideas and Democrats have no ideas.” Lewis Black

JON GREEN and GABRIEL ROM

State of Affairs: Professors Talk Activism INTERVIEWS WITH PROFESSORS VILLEGAS AND MACIONIS Concluding our interviews with Center for the Study of American Democracy’s faculty panel on the Tea Party and Occupy movements, Jon Green and Gabriel Rom talk inequality, politics and social movements with Professors Villegas and Macionis.

Celso M. Villegas Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in International Studies TKO: Is Occupy’s desire to operate outside of the political mainstream a benefit to their ability to shape the political discourse or does it make them less politically viable? CMV: You have to look at this in terms of the structure of political engagement in civil society. Occupy operates outside the system insofar as it doesn’t play by the rules in which interest groups interact with parties and interact with the state. And there’s some theory out there that insists that the important thing is not necessarily to work vertically so much as to work horizontally; you have

to get people to think the way that you’re thinking. The great thing about 99% as an idea is that it turns something that’s “common sense” into “good sense.” That has been effective, and I could be an optimist and say, “there’s been a positive change in the discourse in terms of the discussion of inequality and political power,” but then it becomes complicated when you say “Okay, well now we have all of this discussion about inequality…who’s taking it up in the political system?” I’m not a student of American politics so much as I am of other countries, so I tend to think that parties are limited in scope, but the US is a unique case because there’s a very strong network of relationships between those who make demands for people, the parties that connect to them and how they interact with the government, which creates a lot of veto points. So when discourse changes I don’t feel that there’s always a necessary change in terms of political action. So far, there haven’t been any people who are willing to ‘take up the mantle’ of that label. TKO: How much do Occupy’s and the Tea Party’s influences change if the economy improves? CMV: It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to say that they both go away because you have to wonder, even if

“There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.” Tocqueville

everyone goes back to work there is still inclining income inequality…even if the economy gets better, the gap is still growing. I think some of the demands are lodged in a particularly American discourse about hard work and labor. There is a sense in this country that if you work hard you are entitled to something and if you’re not working you shouldn’t get anything. This works on both ends; there’s the perception that those on the top make a bunch of money without producing anything. Then there’s the image of the shifty college students and welfare queens sitting around expecting to get healthcare when they didn’t earn it. I think this language is evident when you think about what defines being middle class in the US. We think about middle class as an income group, but there’s also this sense of the middle class as a symbolic group; these are the people who work very hard and just want to get by. They want to have a family, a steady job and the ability to acquire all of the things the make up a middle class lifestyle. The reason why being middle class enables you to attain these things is because you worked hard to get them; you didn’t get them from someone else or the government. There’s an attitude that both of them share that if you’re working hard you should receive a payoff to that work. That won’t ever go away; it’s particularly American.

John J. Macionis Professor of Sociology Prentice Hall Distinguished Scholar TKO: What is the relationship between income equality and social mobility in America? JJM: That’s a complex question. First, let’s look at the trend in income. Over the last thirty years, income has become less equal. For about 80 percent of families, incomes have gone up, but much more so for high-income families than for those near the middle of the distribution. The top quintile gained about 50 percent in real earnings

over three decades and the middle quintile gained about 15 percent. The picture is different for low-income families: income for the bottom quintile actually declined by about 5 percent. Many people use the term “social mobility” to mean “getting ahead.” Of course, social mobility refers to people or families moving both economically upward and downward. Over the last 30 years, higher-income people have enjoyed fairly dramatic upward mobility. These are people with symbolic skills who have gained from the expanding postindustrial and global economy. They are also people owning investments, and, since 1980, these assets have increased in value. Well-off people have had the wind at their backs. People near the middle of the distribution have benefitted from overall economic growth, but not nearly as much. Their opportunities to get ahead have been more limited, with factory jobs moving abroad and most new jobs offering less in pay and benefits. They also feel the increasing costs of things like a college degree for their children. The wind here is less strong and also inconsistent. And what about low-income families? People with low-wage work have had a tough time hanging on to what they have. They have had a headwind. TKO: What are the societal consequences if incomes rise across the board in real terms but rise much more for some than for others? JJM: This trend is troubling. Relative inequality is not so much a problem for most people if they are doing all right and, especially, if most people are making some gains over time. But the recent trend has sparked concern for two reasons. First, the income at the very top has increased to levels that most people find hard to explain in terms of attributes such as “being smart” and “working hard.” CEO pay as a multiple of average worker income is ten times what it was 30 or 40 years ago. Many of the highest paid CEO’s have presided over companies experiencing declines. Second, and perhaps more important, an increasing number of people are feeling that their own hard work may not move them ahead. Surveys show a rising share of people who say they have lost much of their faith in the American Dream. Perhaps more ominous is the fact that a significant majority now agrees with the statement “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” One recent survey found that three fourths of Democrats, two-thirds of Independents, and even a slight majority of Republicans thought that there are strong conflicts between rich and poor. TKO

These interviews have been edited for length and clarity. Photos courtesy of kenyon.edu.

GABRIEL ROM

Israel Approaches Zero Hour With the Middle East in flux, Israel again finds itself unsure and unstable. Surrounded by instability and uncertain of its “ironclad” allegiance with America, Israel must try to stand on its own. While the reliance on America for both diplomatic and military aid has done Israel well in the past, the changing geopolitical structure of the Middle East means it cannot afford to lean too strongly on this increasingly tenuous alliance. Whether Prime Minister Netanyahu likes it or not, Americans are choosing to become less, not more, engaged with Israel. Israel must adapt to this political reality accordingly rather than claiming to be a victim of systemic bias and expecting American assistance at the ring of a bell. Israel faces challenging months ahead and it must rely on no one but itself to overcome them. Many criticized Israel during the Arab Spring for appearing to not support democratic movements. As the implications of a democratic Middle East become clearer, these criticisms, from a Realist perspective, now seem shortsighted. The political order of the Middle East has changed radically, and it has become increasingly hostile towards Israel. Egypt has taken a distinctly Islamist path, while Syria is awash with weapons that could easily be passed on to Hamas or Hezbollah. Additionally, according to

recently released Syrian documents, Iran has aided Syria in sidestepping sanctions against the regime. The report, released by global hacktivist outfit Anonymous, states that Iran offered Syria over a billion dollars in the past twelve months to resist sanctions. Iran is staking a major claim in the current Syrian regime, betting big that President Bashar al-Assad retains power no matter how many civilians he kills. If successful, Iran could have renewed influence over Syria, creating a more unified front— with a lot more firepower—to oppose Israel. Iran has also reaffirmed its friendship with Hamas. The bond of friendship between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hamas’ president, Ismail Haniyeh, is arguably the most pressing security issue that Israel faces. Haniyeh just recently stated that “the gun is the only response to the Zionist regime.” Iran is attempting to extend its influence straight to the doorstep of Israel. Iranian-supplied Hamas and Hezbollah could fire thousands of missiles into Israel and be resupplied within days if a large scale conflict broke out. The ressurgance of Islamism in Egypt is also worrying for Israel. Without Egypt, Israel is truly alone in the Middle East. While it could be argued that its friendship with Egypt was based on a dicta-

“In politics the middle way is none at all.” John Adams

tor whose power is illegitimate, the de-facto result of the Egyptian Revolution is a neighborhood far more hostile to Israel. The Muslim Brotherhood has taken more than half of the one hundred sixty seats in the Egyptian parliament, and attacks on the Egyptian-Israeli pipeline have reached double digits. As Leon Wieseltier states, “democratization is not an event in the life of a society, it is an era: a protracted turbulence.” This turbulence will invariably affect Israel and might even shake its foundations. The nuclear question is, of course, the elephant in the room. Contrary to public perception, an Israeli strike on Iran is still a hotly controversial issue within the country, with many major politicians skeptical of attacking Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant. Ehud Barack has stated that “Iran does not constitute an existential threat towards Israel” and that an attack would be a moral and political disaster. It is imperative that more moderate voices within the Israeli political establishment be given legitimacy and airtime. While a nuclear Iran is a threat to Israel, the viability of a strike must be assessed objectively. This week, a report released by the German foreign ministry claimed that an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would set the program back months, not years. A decision on Iran, as well as a decision on how to present itself to the world cannot be made in a vacuum. Sobriety, historical context and

international fallout have to be considered. An attack on Iran must be debated from every conceivable angle—every scenario and counter-scenario must be scrutinized. Facing these innumerable threats Benyamin Netanyahu must also show a strong face to the powerful Orthodox voting bloc. The hawkish and sometimes illiberal views of this powerful swath of Israeli society will only hurt Israel. The far-right in Israel are governed by Talmudic and biblical rationales for geopolitical policy that should be grounded in realism. In a region where life, death and power politics go hand in hand the Israeli establishment could take a lesson from Niccolo Machiavelli: “It is not as if men, when times are quiet, could not provide for [turbulent rivers] with dikes and dams.” In other words: Israel must be ready for anything, and its leaders must resist those who wish to dictate policy through inflammatory rhetoric and religious appeals. What the future entails is impossible to know, but through the tools of statecraft Israel must create rock solid dikes and dams that can withstand Katushya rockets and diplomatic war alike. Questions on the legitimacy of the Israeli state have to take a backseat to the geopolitical realities of war and the very existence of Israel as a home to the Jewish people. TKO

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“A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” Winston Churchill

TESS WAGGONER

Context Matters RIGHTS FOR ALL, NOT SOME

In his response to my article, “A State of Denial: Candidates, Consequences, and the Road to Peace,”(Observer January 2012) Professor Baumann “[goes] back into history” to define the central issue of the occupation by Israel of Palestine. This issue is inherently complex and any brief discussion requires selective presentation of information; however, the result is a misleading picture of the aims of Palestinian nationalism. By insisting that “the issue has never been the right of Arabs to be what they want and call themselves what they want. The issue has always been the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own,” he ignores any rights of the Palestinian people to live on the land they inhabited prior to 1948 and he does not acknowledge the unjust process that led to the state’s formation. Denying Palestinians and Israelis equivalent rights to the land creates an ethnic, religious and cultural hierarchy which plagues the region to this day. According to Professor Baumann, “...the issue isn’t and never has been, about a Palestinian state or a Palestinian national identity. It is, whether the attempt...to delegitimize any Jewish presence in the land of Israel and call it all for the Arab, should and will succeed.” Though I find it reprehensible, I can-

not deny that anti-Jewish sentiment exists within the conflict. I fully agree it is important, “on a subject as historically fraught as the Arab-Israeli issue, to be able to go back into history and see how the present circumstances came about.” Professor Baumann quoted Zahir Muhsein, a former representative of the PLO. Zahir Muhsein was simultaneously a National Command member of the Syrian Baa’thist party, which espouses a pan-Arab ideology. Muhsein’s argument that Palestinian cultural and political identity is a means of political expediency should be understood within this historical and socio-political context. For many Pan-Arabist groups, liberation of Palestine conveniently advanced their desire to create a Greater Syria. Muhsein, and others Professor Baumann quoted, are single voices, rather than the definitive voices, for Palestine. When actors within political movements speak, they do so as individuals and as representatives of the causes to which they have aligned themselves. Any one person cannot fairly represent this issue, which is heavily debated within Palestinian society and in the global Palestinian diaspora. I wonder how it would be perceived were I to construct a narrative describing Israel to counter the

“Nobody believes the official spokesman, but everybody trusts an unidentified source.” Ron Nesen

one presented by Professor Baumann. Whose vision should I choose as my representation of what Israel should be? Theodor Hertzl? Yitzak Rabin? Golda Meir? Ehud Barack? And what if I seek to represent the consensus on how Israel should progress towards peace? Do I consult AIPAC? JStreet? The ADL? APN? Jewish Voices for Peace? Each organization cited above is Jewish, pro-Israel and offers a different vision for Israel. Consider this 1983 excerpt from a speech by Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion. “Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ... politically we are the aggressors and [the Palestinians]defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country.” Is it reasonable to hold all Jewish people to this point of view? I don’t believe so. Professor Baumann’s dismissal of the relevancy of Palestinian cultural identity within the conflict conveniently aids the Zionist idea of “transference” whereby, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt put it in 1942, “I actually would put a barbed wire around Palestine, and I would begin to move the Arabs out of Palestine.... I would provide land for the Arabs in some other part of the Middle East.... ” Though what Palestinians call the nakba, or catastrophe, of 1948 was at times much more violent than this, this is essentially what occurred. Currently, there is no solution to Palestinian displacement. It continues to occur through legal battles over residency, birth certificates and identification cards which permit and restrict travel. It is compounded by international regulation of refugee communities, settlement construction and other zoning regulations. Too often, Arabs are presented as a monolithic entity. In addition to the argument I made in “A State of Denial,” Palestinian cultural identity is relevant because it fights the perpetuated notion that “we can pick them up and stick them somewhere else, and it’ll be fine because they’ll be with people like them.” Though an admittedly imperfect metaphor, if Pomona students were to occupy our campus and relocate us to Bowdoin, would you feel this is just? Aren’t all liberal arts schools the same? The historical legacy of anti-Semitism and Jewish oppression is as undeniable as it is painful. I do

not deny the right of Jews to reside safely on the contested land. This does not, however, eliminate or supersede the right of other historical populations to reside there as well, nor does it excuse occupation and oppression. My opposition has always been not to a particular ethnic or religious group, but to those unjust policies and practices which fuel resentment and impede peace on both sides of the Green Line. And yet, even if I were to accept Professor Baumann’s argument that “the issue has always been the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own,” I cannot help but ask, at what cost? I agree that the decisions of Palestinian leaders have delayed the resolution of this conflict. I recognize that Palestinian leadership has rejected numerous proposed resolutions. Palestinian failures, however, do not excuse Israel’s failure to obey international law, respect established boundaries or provide just compromises which allow for dignity, agency and self-governance amongst all parties. Thus, I must respectfully disagree with Professor Baumann’s implication that Palestinian rejections were solely based on their refusal to acknowledge the right of Israel to exist. The causes for each particular rejection are deeply complex and particular to each offer. In general, proposed solutions have left the Palestinian territories economically and physically strangulated, and unable to defend themselves. To me, this does not create a viable state, nor does it create peace. Palestinians do want peace, but not an unjust one. When my grandmother was growing up in Cairo, she was frequently told, “maa feesh hadd ahsan min hadd;” (nobody is better than anybody else). In memory of my grandmother, with deep conviction and with all due respect to Professor Baumann, I refuse to accept his myopia regarding this conflict. The issue has always been much larger than simply the rights of Jews. The issue is also about the rights of Palestinians. And the rights of Palestinian Jews. And the rights of Christians. And the rights of Muslims. And the rights of Baha’is. And the rights of Bedouins. And the rights of the Druze. It is about the right of all people to live in a truly democratic state where each person has a vote, an education, access to fair legal representation and where they and their cultures are protected and cherished. TKO

“You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.” Buddha

JON GREEN

Ron Paul is Not the Answer YOUNG PEOPLE, CONVENIENT TRUTHS AND A DISTORTED PICTURE

Ask ten people on the street what they think of Ron goal of abolishing the Department of Education. None Paul and you will likely get ten very different answers of them will bring up Congressman Paul’s opposition to ranging from “I sent him my life savings” to “What a the renewal of the Voting Rights Act, belief that climate kook!” The man seemed downright wacky ten years change is not an issue or support for the complete deago, but raised some eyebrows in 2008 as the only GOP regulation of Wall Street. Few, if any, of Ron Paul’s supcandidate against the Iraq War. porters who overlap with Since then he has continued President Obama’s 2008 uprisingly few will bring coalition endorse these poon a gradual rise to legitimacy in the public’s eye. Congress- up sitions, so why the switch? ongressman aul s en man Paul has gained particular Ask ten social psycholotraction among young people, dorsement of the efense gists about the idea of one of President Obama’s core “convenient truths” and arriage ct advocacy half will crack a smile wider constituencies. This traction is of in large part derived from frus- for bringing back the gold than the hole President Paul trated idealism, excellent frame would leave in the UN after setting and rationalization of standard or goal of abol he pulled the United States positive associations. ishing the epartment of out of it (a move that ConAsk ten Ron Paul fans why gressman Paul has advothey support Ron Paul and cated). The other half will ducation one will begin rambling about bury their heads in their stockpiled guns and Orwellian hands. All ten will then go IRS agents, four will enter into a “liberty, freedom, and on to explain that once a person has “good” or “bad” Constitution” mad lib and the other five will bring up associated with a given idea, their mind will seek to conforeign policy. Surprisingly few will bring up Congress- firm their association. Young people associated candiman Paul’s endorsement of the Defense of Marriage date Obama with all things good in 2008, and ignored Act, advocacy for bringing back the gold standard or his desire to increase military efforts in Afghanistan and

’

“Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least.” Robert Byrne

his caginess on the issue of same sex marriage. Now in 2012, a number of those same young people have associated Congressman Paul with all things good, and ignored his denial of the right to privacy established in Roe v. Wade, opposition to foreign aid even in humanitarian crises such as Darfur or advocacy for a health insurance policy that is essentially “pay your own way… and if you are too poor to do so then go to the nearest hospital and pray that someone is feeling charitable.” Ask ten more people on the street if they think freedom is a good thing, if they think the government is functioning poorly and if they think dead soldiers are a bad thing all ten of them will say yes. It’s hard to argue against more freedom, better government and less death. A significant contributing factor to Ron Paul’s rise has been his ability to keep conversations surrounding him to these three principles, successfully framing himself as pro-freedom, pro-efficient government and anti-death, and his opponents as anti-freedom, antigood government and pro-death. If the conversation does not stray past this frame it is nearly impossible not to form positive associations with Ron Paul. Young people are by nature one of the most idealistic demographics in the electorate. We fall in and out of love with candidates fairly easily and often have unreasonable expectations for what the future can bring. Un-

fortunately, this idealism in elections is often incompatible with the pragmatism necessary for governance. We are frustrated because it seems that our government has been broken for the past decade and the “change” that was promised to us has not come quickly enough. But throwing our hands up and walking away, especially into the arms of Ron Paul, is not a productive way to express this frustration. We don’t have to vote for a candidate who wants to phase out Veterans’ Administration hospitals in order to get a president who opposed the Iraq War. We don’t have to vote for a candidate who opposes 14th Amendment protections for sexual harassment, saying: “[why] don’t they quit once the so-called harassment starts?” in order to get a president who thinks that the War on Drugs isn’t working. We don’t have to vote for a candidate who does not recognize a separation between Church and State in order to get a president who opposes corporate welfare. Young voters would be making a huge mistake abandoning President Obama in favor of a candidate who is anathema to the majority of their views. Ron Paul has wrapped the policies of the 1890’s in the cloak of “freedom and liberty” so as to create positive associations that play on the disappointments of the past decade. To the frustrated idealists out there: don’t be fooled. TKO

Interested in Politics? Have an Opinion? Why not write for the Observer? Contact us at tko@kenyon.edu

“No one wants advice — only corroboration.” John Steinbeck

RYAN BAKER and MEGAN SHAW

TKO’s Valentine’s Day Special The Observer staff has decided to give you an update on the romantic activities of your favorite public figures as they went about their business on the most romantic day of the year. Enjoy! Republican primary candidate Newt Gingrich and his forehead have been seen skipping out on the planned group therapy session with their cohorts to go to a barbeque with Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was spotted at a romantic dinner set for two … by herself. As the night went on, she admitted to sources that she was seriously considering texting former Representative Anthony Weiner back.

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was seen … everywhere. Just everywhere. When asked if he had any plans for the day, he replied in rushed Italian, “I swear she said she was 18!”