Kenyon Observerthe

February 15, 2012

James Neimeister|page 6

If You Wish to Make an Apple Pie From Scratch

Kenyons oldest UndergradUate political and cUltUral Magazine

Inside: Exclusive Interviews with Professors Macionis and Villegas

Kenyon Observerthe

February 15, 2012

The Kenyon ObserverFebruary 15, 2012

From the Editors

Cover Storyjames neimeisterIf You Wish to Make an Apple Pie from Scratch

jon green and gabriel rom State of Affairs: Professors Talk PolicyInterviews with Professors Villegas and Macionis

gabriel romIsrael Approaches Zero Hour

tess waggonerContext Matters Rights For All, Not Some

jon greenRon Paul is Not the AnswerYoung People, Convenient Truths and a Distorted Picture

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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 letters-to-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@ken- yon.edu) or Gabriel Rom (romg@kenyon.edu).

Cover Art and Illustrations by Nick Nazmi Quotes Compiled by Ryan Baker

Editors-in-Chief Jonathan Green and Gabriel Rom

Managing EditorSarah 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

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

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Dear Prospective Reader,

The Kenyon Observer prides itself upon keeping the spirit of debate and discussion alive on Kenyons 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 Baumanns submis-sion in our last issue regarding Israels 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 Democracys 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 sub-missions 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

FROM THE EDITORS

6JAMES NEIMEISTER

Occupy Wall Street has so effectively used the 99 percent and the 1 percent to define the prob-lem of American income inequality that even con-servatives are embracing these terms. For example, in his endorsement of presidential candidate Mitt Romney, New Jersey Gov-ernor Chris Christie used an increasingly prevalent analogy to neatly sum up the Republican approach to this issue: the economy is like a pie. Everyone has a slice, and some peoples slices are bigger than oth-ers. That is a shame, but the Republicans point out that the pie is infinite in size, so if the pie as a whole grows, so does every-ones slice. But no matter how big the pie is, the relative slice size still matters.

Just because the pie is bigger does not mean that everyone reaps the benefits of growth. The pie can grow without increasing the size of each groups slice. Furthermore, the Republican platform for economic growth holds that such growth should

focus on the wealthiest Americans. Republicans bread and butter strategies of tax cuts, deregula-tion and austerity all intend to grow the economy by concentrating wealth and power in the hands of the most capable (i.e. those who are already wealthy

and powerful). The reason-ing for these policies is that when the most wealthy and powerful members of society control most of the wealth, society will be more prosperous because only the capable and hard-working become wealthy and prosperousa convic-tion as preposterous as it is circular. As such, the pro-

growth agenda that Republicans invoke in the name of general welfare paradoxically embraces inequal-ity as a social good.

Republicans embrace tax cuts as a core strat-egy for economic growth. Tax cuts allow people to keep more of what they earn, allowing them to spend, save or re-invest that money. Special income tax cuts for the rich, who tend to invest more than

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

If You Wish to Make an Apple Pie From Scratch

PRO-GROWTH POLICIES, BUT FOR WHOM?

... the pro-growth agenda that repUblicans invoKe in the naMe of general wel-fare paradoxically eMbrac-es ineqUality as a social good.

7the 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 nations economy.

Conservatives claim deregulation spurs eco-nomic growth by removing barriers that prevent businesses from operating at their full potential. In practice, however, deregulation targets any legisla-tion that would prevent large corporations from further asserting their near-limitless power. De-regulation is heavily influenced by the mistaken belief that markets can solve all problems through competition. This is rarely the case, as even com-peting firms have rallied together under the ban-ner 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 ob-ligation to extract all the oil this country has to offer. Likewise, the financial industry successfully lobbied to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act, which pre-vented banks from merging commercial and invest-ment operations. The repeal allowed risky invest-ments 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 in-fluence 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 bar-gaining 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 in-crease investor confidence by reassuring the govern-ments solvency, Republicans can hardly claim to be proponents of solvency after nearly causing a gov-ernment shutdown this past July, a clash that ended with the U.S. Treasurys 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 govern-ment 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 al-low 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 back-wards 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 co-herent narrative to burst open the warped and self-contained universe in which the Republicans have sealed themselves. Repeatedly foiled by the ungov-ernable 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 Streets shadow hangs over the Statue of Liberty?

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

TKO

Concluding our interviews with Center for the Study of American Democracys 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 Occupys desire to operate outside of the political mainstream a benefit to their ability to shape the political discourse or does it make them less po-litically viable?

CMV: You have to look at this in terms of the structure of political engagement in civil society. Occupy oper-ates outside the system insofar as it doesnt play by the rules in which interest groups interact with parties and interact with the state. And theres 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 youre thinking. The great thing about 99% as an idea is that it turns some-thing thats common sense into good sense. That has been effective, and I could be an optimist and say, theres 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 inequalitywhos taking it up in the political system?

Im not a student of American politics so much as I am of other countries, so I tend to think that parties are lim-ited in scope, but the US is a unique case because theres 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 dont feel that theres always a necessary change in terms of political action. So far, there havent been any people who are willing to take up the mantle of that label.

TKO: How much do Occupys and the Tea Partys influences change if the economy improves?

CMV: It doesnt make a whole lot of sense to say that they both go away because you have to wonder, even if

State of Affairs: Professors Talk Activism

JON GREEN and GABRIEL ROM

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

INTERVIEWS WITH PROFESSORS VILLEGAS AND MACIONIS

9everyone goes back to work there is still inclining income inequalityeven 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 youre not work-ing you shouldnt get anything. This works on both ends; theres the perception that those on the top make a bunch of money without producing anything. Then theres the image of the shifty college students and welfare queens sitting around expecting to get healthcare when they didnt 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 theres also this sense of the middle class as a symbolic group; these are the peo-ple 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 didnt get them from someone else or the government. Theres an attitude that both of them share that if youre working hard you should receive a payoff to that work. That wont ever go away; its particularly American.

John J. MacionisProfessor of Sociology

Prentice Hall Distinguished Scholar

TKO: What is the relationship between income equality and social mobility in America?

JJM: Thats a complex question. First, lets look at the trend in income. Over the last thirty years, income has become less equal. For about 80 percent of families, in-comes 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 fami-lies: 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 peo-ple 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 as-sets have increased in value. Well-off people have had the wind at their backs. People near the middle of the distri-bution 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 incon-sistent. 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 CEOs have presided over companies experiencing declines. Second, and perhaps more important, an in-creasing 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 Republi-cans thought that there are strong conflicts between rich and poor.

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

TKO

With the Middle East in flux, Israel again finds itself unsure and unstable. Surrounded by instabil-ity 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 Minis-ter Netanyahu likes it or not, Americans are choos-ing 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 per-spective, 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 cur-rent Syrian regime, betting big that President Bashar al-Assad retains power no matter how many civil-ians he kills. If successful, Iran could have renewed influence over Syria, creating a more unified frontwith a lot more firepowerto oppose Israel.

Iran has also reaffirmed its friendship with Hamas. The bond of friendship between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hamas president, Is-mail 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 mis-siles 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-

Israel Approaches Zero Hour

GABRIEL ROM

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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 pro-tracted 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 Is-raeli strike on Iran is still a hotly controversial is-sue within the country, with many major politicians skeptical of attacking Irans Bushehr nuclear plant. Ehud Barack has stated that Iran does not consti-tute 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 Is-raeli 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 Irans nu-clear 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 at-tack on Iran must be debated from every conceiv-able angleevery scenario and counter-scenario must be scrutinized.

Facing these innumerable threats Benyamin Ne-tanyahu must also show a strong face to the power-ful Orthodox voting bloc. The hawkish and some-times 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 real-ism.

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 ap-peals. 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 Ka-tushya 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.

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A fanatic is one who cant change his mind and wont change the subject. Winston Churchill

TKO

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In his response to my article, A State of De-nial: Candidates, Consequences, and the Road to Peace,(Observer January 2012) Professor Baumann [goes] back into history to define the central is-sue of the occupation by Israel of Palestine. This issue is inherently complex and any brief discussion requires selective presentation of information; how-ever, 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 un-just process that led to the states formation. Deny-ing Palestinians and Israelis equivalent rights to the land creates an ethnic, religious and cultural hierar-chy which plagues the region to this day.

According to Professor Baumann, ...the issue isnt 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 pres-ent circumstances came about. Professor Baumann quoted Zahir Muhsein, a former representative of the PLO. Zahir Muhsein was simultaneously a Na-tional Command member of the Syrian Baathist party, which espouses a pan-Arab ideology. Muh-seins 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 cre-ate 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 Palestin-ian diaspora.

I wonder how it would be perceived were I to construct a narrative describing Israel to counter the

Context Matters

TESS WAGGONER

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

RIGHTS FOR ALL, NOT SOME

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 repre-sent the consensus on how Israel should progress towards peace? Do I consult AIPAC? JStreet? The ADL? APN? Jewish Voices for Peace? Each orga-nization cited above is Jewish, pro-Israel and offers a different vision for Israel. Consider this 1983 ex-cerpt from a speech by Israels first Prime Minis-ter, David Ben Gurion. Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ... politically we are the aggressors and [the Palestinians]defend themselves... The coun-try 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 dont believe so.

Professor Baumanns 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 cer-tificates and identification cards which permit and restrict travel. It is compounded by international regulation of refugee communities, settlement con-struction and other zoning regulations. Too often, Arabs are presented as a monolithic entity. In addi-tion 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 itll be fine because theyll be with people like them. Though an admittedly imperfect metaphor, if Pomona students were to occupy our campus and relocate us to Bow-doin, would you feel this is just? Arent all liberal arts schools the same?

The historical legacy of anti-Semitism and Jew-ish 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 Bau-manns 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 rec-ognize that Palestinian leadership has rejected nu-merous proposed resolutions. Palestinian failures, however, do not excuse Israels failure to obey in-ternational 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 Baumanns implication that Palestinian rejections were solely based on their refusal to acknowledge the right of Israel to exist. The causes for each par-ticular rejection are deeply complex and particular to each offer. In general, proposed solutions have left the Palestinian territories economically and physi-cally 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 ah-san min hadd; (nobody is better than anybody else).

In memory of my grandmother, with deep con-viction and with all due respect to Professor Bau-mann, 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 Bahais. 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 cher-ished.

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TKO

RIGHTS FOR ALL, NOT SOME

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

Ask ten people on the street what they think of Ron Paul and you will likely get ten very different answers ranging from I sent him my life savings to What a kook! The man seemed downright wacky ten years ago, but raised some eyebrows in 2008 as the only GOP candidate against the Iraq War. Since then he has continued on a gradual rise to legitimacy in the publics eye. Congress-man Paul has gained particular traction among young people, one of President Obamas core constituencies. This traction is in large part derived from frus-trated idealism, excellent frame setting and rationalization of positive associations.

Ask ten Ron Paul fans why they support Ron Paul and one will begin rambling about stockpiled guns and Orwellian IRS agents, four will enter into a liberty, freedom, and Constitution mad lib and the other five will bring up foreign policy. Surprisingly few will bring up Congress-man Pauls endorsement of the Defense of Marriage Act, advocacy for bringing back the gold standard or

goal of abolishing the Department of Education. None of them will bring up Congressman Pauls opposition to the renewal of the Voting Rights Act, belief that climate change is not an issue or support for the complete de-regulation of Wall Street. Few, if any, of Ron Pauls sup-

porters who overlap with President Obamas 2008 coalition endorse these po-sitions, so why the switch?

Ask ten social psycholo-gists about the idea of convenient truths and half will crack a smile wider than the hole President Paul would leave in the UN after he pulled the United States out of it (a move that Con-gressman Paul has advo-cated). The other half will bury their heads in their hands. All ten will then go

on to explain that once a person has good or bad associated with a given idea, their mind will seek to con-firm their association. Young people associated candi-date Obama with all things good in 2008, and ignored his desire to increase military efforts in Afghanistan and

JON GREEN

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

sUprisingly few will bring Up congressMan paUls en-dorseMent of the defense of Marriage act, advocacy for bringing bacK the gold standard or goal of abol-ishing the departMent of edUcation.

Ron Paul is Not the Answer

YOUNG PEOPLE, CONVENIENT TRUTHS AND A DISTORTED PICTURE

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No one wants advice only corroboration. John Steinbeck

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 humani-tarian crises such as Darfur or advocacy for a health insurance policy that is essentially pay your own wayand 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 free-dom 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. Its hard to ar-gue against more freedom, better government and less death. A significant contributing factor to Ron Pauls rise has been his ability to keep conversations surround-ing him to these three principles, successfully framing himself as pro-freedom, pro-efficient government and anti-death, and his opponents as anti-freedom, anti-good 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 unrea-sonable expectations for what the future can bring. Un-

fortunately, this idealism in elections is often incompat-ible 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 dont have to vote for a candidate who wants to phase out Veterans Administration hos-pitals in order to get a president who opposed the Iraq War. We dont have to vote for a candidate who opposes 14th Amendment protections for sexual harassment, saying: [why] dont they quit once the so-called harass-ment starts? in order to get a president who thinks that the War on Drugs isnt working. We dont 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 1890s in the cloak of freedom and liberty so as to create positive associations that play on the disappoint-ments of the past decade. To the frustrated idealists out there: dont be fooled.

TKO

Interested in Politics? Have an Opinion?

Why not write for the Observer?

Contact us at tko@kenyon.edu

RYAN BAKER and megan sHaw

TKOs Valentines 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 roman-

tic 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!