Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Two seperate drug policies

Hey.

I can say controversial things here, right?

I tend to avoid writing columns touching on controversial issues, not because of some fear over political incorrectness, but to avoid contributing to the obnoxious partisanship which has consumed this campus.

That said, I want to talk for a moment about marijuana.

Yes a topic which unites even the most partisan among us, from the hallows of the Republic Club to the smoky dungeon of the Cannabis Reform Coalition.

Not.

The issue is of course a preeminent example of partisan politics fought from the fringes of the left and right with a very confused and somewhat misinformed mainstream public between those fringes.

Decriminalization. Legalization. Rehabilitation.

I'm not sure what -ation holds the proper solution to this problem, but won’t be discovered by legislators from eight different states which proposed the idea of administering random drug tests to individuals receiving welfare, food stamps, or other forms of public assistance.

If a recipient of public assistance is found to have smoked marijuana or some other controlled substance, their benefits would be revoked.

What a great idea.

Perhaps we should extend it beyond eligibility for just food stamps.

Let’s make college enrollment contingent upon a clean drug record, after all, state universities are publically funded by taxpayer dollars.

What about all those Wall Street firms receiving public assistance in the form of TARP funds and bailout money? Set up some random drug screenings outside of the AIG building in New York and marvel at the results.

Of course no legislator would ever imagine enforcement on this side of America, the educated and wealthy. Proposals such as this illustrate the divide in this country not only on drug policy, but on a whole host of issues which effectively create a set of standards and laws for one group and a separate set for another.

One would not have to look hard to find examples of low-income students barred from educational opportunities or thrown in jail for marijuana possession while Johnny Q smokes a joint with his prep school buddies while driving around the suburbs in his father’s Mercedes Benz M-Class.

I fail to envision how marijuana could be legalized in the U.S. and not result in further detriment to a society addicted to tobacco, booze, and fast food, but the maintenance of the status quo in regards to America’s drug policy is simply unacceptable.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Adam Miller Is Awesome

That was the most reasonable, considered piece on the Israeli-Arab conflict I've ever seen. Kudos. If everyone thought like the esteemed Mr. Miller, we'd have cracked this nut by now.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

BURN IN HELL, ASSHOLES!!!

There was absolutely no justification for this, ever, at all. I address this writing to the soldiers who perpetrated these evils beyond my capacity to express in words. You are traitors to your people, to your country, to your cause, and to your army. If you have any honor you will walk across the border into Gaza and kill yourselves.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Obama, race and a little dialogue

As race relations takes a giant step forward, here is what might have been a, shall we say, meeting of unlike minds.

Stephen Colbert: Tonight on my show, we have not one, but two, special guests. Here to explain why race is no longer a factor now that we have a black President, Strom Thurmond. Mr Thurmond will be presenting the “enlightened” view! On counterpoint, we have the Reverend Jesse Jackson on our show. I can’t wait to tell him that he’ll finally get to meet his long lost brother!

Jackson: Mr. Colbert.

Thurmond: Stephen.

Colbert: Gentlemen, welcome to the show. Now Thurmond, many thanks to you for coming on the show tonight. Let me ask you this, now that you have found your long lost relative, do you expect to walk arm and arm with him into this, so called, struggle for racial harmony?

Thurmond: I know it turned out that my relatives may have owned Mr. Jackson’s family but I’m not sure that an outside agitator such as Mr. Jackson would be any help at all. You know we would have integrated after Brown v Board but, I just had to lobby for segregation because we weren’t ready. And fortunately it seems that the struggle is now over. My efforts later on to bring about racial harmony are realized. Why are they still arguing?

Jackson: Let me interrupt you right there. I know, Mr. Thurmond...

Colbert: Umm, Mr. Jackson, why are you standing?

Jackson: Oh, sorry, force of habit. As I was saying.. I know, Mr. Thurmond, you believe that your state is well ahead in terms of race relations but Lord, let me get this straight: Are you actually, as God as your witness, arguing that race relations and racism are over? In your home state of South Carolina, in your own home state Mr. Thurmond, blacks make up over a quarter of the entire population and yet they own only 9.8 percent of the businesses. If racism is over, then we have
surely lost.

Thurmond: You have to understand that, as a proud Southerner, the good people of South Carolina try to educate you blacks so that you can do well and give something back to the communities from which you take so much. Surely there is the occasional racist but it isn’t really a problem anymore now is it? You’ve got a black President, what more do you people want... our flag?

Colbert: Now as you know, I don’t see race, so I can only assume that Mr. Obama is black because he says he’s black. He’s in the White House... well, he will be once they have the place fumigated, so racism is, for all intents and purposes, over. I’ve got to agree with the man from the south, like myself, a southern gentleman, Mr. Thurmond.

Jackson: Oh Lord, it is certainly not over! God says to ask my brothers and sisters why it is that so many people in states like Indiana, Kentucky and, yes God, South Carolina still spell negro with two r’s... when they can spell at all.

Thurmond: Don’t speak poorly of your betters boy. Regardless Mr. Jackson, weren’t you crying election night because, now that racism is over, you’re essentially unemployed? There ain’t no more work, nor need, for the pompous, uppity, civil rights activist.

Jackson: What?? Good God, are you crazy, man? I was crying because this country, God’s country, had made progress! Not because I’m out of a job! Are you senile?

Colbert: But isn’t the fact that you two are sitting here together undeniable evidence that racism is no more? Done? Kaput? Much like the future prospects of my beloved republican party?

Jackson: No sir. God knows we have crime problems. We have teen-age pregnancy problems. We have disparities between white and blacks all over this country. I have been astounded, yes absolutely astounded...

Colbert: Mr. Jackson, please sit down.

Jackson: Oh, um, sorry... where was I... yes astounded by the various white folk on television talking about how racism is over! That’s just what my black brothers and sisters need; another opportunity for the white man to talk about the black man’s future.

Thurmond: Is it time for you to apologize for those violent riots now?

Jackson: Apologize? As God as my witness, it is surely time that you apologized for years of oppression. For not protecting our children and letting racists kill those who protested against you.

Thurmond: Hold on now boy. During Vietnam I spoke up north at the University of Massachusetts and I thought, sincerely thought, that they were going to kill me. How can you defend that kind of violence? How is any different?

Jackson: (Quietly) I’m going to cut your f*&%ing nuts off.

Thurmond: I can’t hear so good boy, what did you say?

Jackson: You, sir, are talking down to me and my brothers and sisters. I’ve been sitting here listening to Mr. his-dad-owned-my-dad say I need to shut up. Racism is alive and well, not only in the South, but across this great country of ours! You sir, taught people to think that we shouldn’t drink from the same water fountain not so long ago. The fight is not over. We will still have to fight to gain education reform and career opportunity despite what you and those like you have to say. Yes, I’ll say it; People who say that racism is over are blind... but, unfortunately, they are not color blind.

Thurmond: Would you sit down. I’m getting a crick in my neck. Usually you’re a pain much lower.

Jackson: Mr. Thurmond, we are all God’s children. On the inside we are all the same color. And the color of your daughter is the same color as I Mr. Thurmond!

Thurmond: Oh God, I wish I were dead.

Thurmond’s triple digit age began to show as his face went even whiter. As he slumped further down into his chair, the audience could hear him mutter, “she made me feel powerful.” A small, cocky grin spread over Mr. Jackson’s face. The grin seemed to say, “We may not have reached the promise land yet, but we’ve finally gotten to the point where men like you realize what an embarrassment you are. That makes me proud to be an American. We’ll continue to work on the rest.”

Friday, March 13, 2009

Ebad, Hamas Made No Acceptable Offer

Ebad Rahman, I have to unfortunately take issue with one of the statements in today's column:

Hamas has even proposed a peace plan – which would establish a PalestinianState within 1967 borders, with Jerusalem – and right of return for refugees.


Hamas has proposed something like such a plan. It was not a peace plan, but a plan for a long-term "hudna", an Islamist term meaning a long-term truce in which both parties to a war resume normal life long enough to prepare themselves for the next phase of battle.

The additional problem with this proposal is the so-called "right of return for refugees". Israelis, Jews and our supporters have heard this proposal before. We've derisively nicknamed it the "1.5 state solution", and I'll explain to you why. Any peace deal that creates a Palestinian state and gives Palestinian refugees a right of return into Israel does not actually result in a Jewish Israel coexisting alongside an Arab Palestine. It results in an Arab Palestine, possibly with a tiny minority of Jewish settlers, and an Israel whose population contains more Arabs than Jews. That would force Israel to make a sadistic choice between its democratic character and its Jewish character -- the very apartheid that Israel's enemies allege already exists. Thus, if Israel chose to remain Jewish it would become a true apartheid state, and if Israel chose to remain democratic it would become - by popular vote! - an Arab state with an official Jewish minority. Thus, this solution results in either apartheid in Israel alongside a Palestine or two Arab states, one of which happens to carry the name "Dawlat Israil".

None of us sensible people want this. I believe that you don't want such a situation either. The question is: why does Hamas?

Hamas wants such a "solution" because it favors them while defeating the Jewish state. It results in either Arab reign in "kul Falistina" without any Jewish state at all, or it results in a truly apartheid Jewish state that Hamas can easily turn the world against, thus transforming bad-case of an apartheid Israel into the worse-case of no Jewish state at all.

And if you truly believe that the Palestinian capability for violence is "insignificant", I don't think you've payed close enough attention to the situation. Israel has become very effective at preventing Palestinian terrorism by employing the very unpleasant tactics that Palestinian Arabs' supporters decry. Without the security fence, the blockade on Gaza, or the occupation of the West Bank, Israel would find itself facing near-total war with the Palestinian Arabs. Please do not confuse Israel's extreme competence at protecting themselves with a Hamas or Palestinian inability or lack of desire for violence.

What the area needs is a real two-state solution, not a trap to force an Arabic victory.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Obama's executive reach

Any Obama voter hoping he would denounce Bush's use and abuse of signing statements to dictate which pieces of which legislation he intended to abide, better start regretting their ballots. This article details Obama's continuation of Bush policy to disregard anything he wants to in federal legislation.

Is this what we want? I know liberals scoffed at Bush's signing statements and called them excessive uses of executive power consistent with Bush's desire to run things the way he wanted to run things, no questions asked, no checks and balances accepted. But will they, too, denounce Obama's executive abuses?

Doubt it.

The left's anti-speech

Today's Collegian chronicled the Feder hate crime speech, which was smothered by people who have no respect or understanding of the right to free speech.


“There’s absolutely no room for hate speech on this campus,” said winter 2008 graduate Natalia Tylim. Her friend, senior Katie Perry, concurred, adding “I think campuses are places for open-mindedness, and this is the opposite of that.”

Anybody who doesn't recognize the inherent contradiction in these statements needs to listen closer. I'm sorry, but it is actually nonsensical in a sort of baffling, if not irritating, way. At one end it is said that open-mindedness is what college campuses should embrace, and at the other its saying there is "absolutely no room" for this type of speech on this campus. What is meant by this quote is that "only those who agree with me can be considered open-minded and can exercise their right to free speech, but all those who disagree with me are close minded and do not have that right."

This is insanity and the people who squelched the speech the other night should be ashamed of themselves. Listen people, we never get through to people by shutting them up. Bellicosity and loud protestations meant to smother those we disagree with may silence our opponents, but will rarely persuade anyone. Persuasion is an art, not a shouting match. And if any commie liberal or kooky right-winger wants to ever be heard and have any affect on people, they'll scrap this intolerance and begin to listen and speak peacefully. Otherwise, no one will ever get anywhere.

Monday, March 9, 2009

SGA, Our Dorms Ain't OK

You know you go to UMass when your department receives millions in funding for wireless sensor networks that track wild swamp turtles (YALLAH TURTLENET!) but you can't get a nice, hot shower in your dormitories. And somehow this has never been an issue in the SGA elections.

One half of the toilets in my dorm have some kind of leak in their pipes, often spraying (clean, thank God!) water from the handle when flushed. One third of the shower stalls have heating and water-pressure problems that force students to dunk ourselves under a meager stream of lukewarm water to get clean. One fifth of the faucets have a leak or a water-pressure problem. One fifth of the clotheswashers are out of order at any given time. One third of the clothesdryers don't work but remain labeled in-order to encourage hapless students to waste $1.25. Last year my entire floor suffered a massive mildew infestation in our ceiling with every snowstorm just because we happened to live on top of the building; we had to cover our noses and mouths for days but could still feel our eyes burn.

And the SGA does nothing! They don't even care! In all the hubbub over SGA elections, I've yet to see a single candidate make a nice campaign promise like "I'll stop spending money to have 3-hour SGA meetings on weekday evenings that keep everyone from their lives and don't end in an up-or-down vote so that we can have dry clothes and warm showers". Hell, the SGA appears completely unaware that we even have these problems. Apparently they're too busy fighting for lower student fees and the expansion of wireless internet access to the dorms (incredibly insecure, never send your personal information over such a connection) to realize that our basic infrastructure needs work.

I remember another place where a government with almost no popular support claimed to stand for the little guy while its constituents' basic infrastructure crumbled: Soviet Russia. The SGA aren't Communists, are they?

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Sure, Mr Brooks

Just got done reading the mildly interesting bit by David Brooks posted to our Collegian Columnists Facebook group. He doesn't seem to say much of real implication except for...


Yet they set off my Burkean alarm bells. I fear that in trying to do everything at once, they will do nothing well. I fear that we have a group of people who haven’t even learned to use their new phone system trying to redesign half the U.S. economy. I fear they are going to try to undertake the biggest administrative challenge in American history while refusing to hire the people who can help the most: agency veterans who are registered lobbyists.





Here the true colors show! Brooks isn't really some moderate worried about overconfident government. He's just another neoconservative (ie: a Trotskyist who saw the error in their ways and - instead of ceasing such stupid views as historicism and Manicheanism - just went to the other side) looking to get his lobbyist buddies into power and office. Way to play!