“Mitt Romney has no path to victory”: Like a broken record, that statement been a common theme amongst political junkies and much of the news media narrative since Mitt Romney has locked up the Republican nomination for the presidency. In making that statement, ironically, those making the statement have presented a path to victory for Mitt Romney. For any analysis of the 2012 election must include the age-old problem plaguing Democratic politicians all over the country – that of voter apathy.

Whether one agrees with the Republicans ideologically or not, it is indisputable that Republicans, particularly very conservative ones, vote early and vote often relative to their left-leaning peers. Looking back to the most recent date from the 2010 midterms, many metrics suggested that Republicans were more involved in party politics and more likely to vote in the upcoming election than their Democratic peers. The Democrats, of course, were the party in power at the time in both chambers of Congress, and they suffered enormous losses in the midterm elections as enthusiastic Republicans voted in scores.

That is why the Obama team needs to do everything they can within their power to prevent apathy and complacency among the Democratic base if they are to beat Romney and the GOP this fall. The Republicans have a boogeyman to rail against in Obama, and they will stop at nothing – whether it’s calling him a socialist, a communist, a fascist, or a promoter of class warfare – to instill rage in their base and ensure they cast their ballots for Mitt Romney come November. Democratic officials have a much harder job, as they must convince their base and independent voters that the changes over the last four years have been beneficial for the nation and that Obama is still capable of fixing a seemingly stagnating economy.

This fall’s election will not be a blowout unless the economy skyrockets, which does not seem likely at this point. Obama can reach 270 electoral votes and guarantee his victory simply by holding on to the 19 states that John Kerry won in 2004 and winning Florida. There are many more complex paths to victory as well, some of which look easy to achieve at first glance, some of which do not. But the crux of the point is that if the Democratic leadership cannot motivate their likely voters to get to the voting booth this November, many of Romney’s paths to victory become extremely viable.

Obama won many states in 2008 based on widespread voter enthusiasm for a new and exciting candidate. As an incumbent, he will not be able to muster that enthusiasm again no matter how hard he tries. If the Democrats want to win this fall, they need to emphasize the gains made over the last four years and be clear that Obama’s centrist policies of his first term will not continue into his second. They must make it very clear how imperative it is that the Republicans not take over the White House and gain more ground in Congress, for a Republican victory will spell immense trouble for healthcare reform, Wall Street reform, and the economic recovery.

All of this seems pretty clear-cut, and the President’s team conducted perhaps the best-run campaign of all time in 2008. But when the Democrats have such a strong history of missing obvious points of attack and missed what seemed like can’t-miss chances in 1988, 2000, and 2004, it makes sense to be a little concerned about complacency and missed chances moving forward. A path to victory is always present for any presidential campaign – and in this case, a complacent Obama and uninspired voter base is just the opportunity Romney’s people are looking to pounce upon.

STEROIDS ARE BAD – BUT THROWING OUT AN ENTIRE ERA OF BASEBALL IS WORSE
By Zach Goldaber

The steroids scandal in baseball, whispered about for years in certain circles, broke through to the mainstream in December 2007 with the release of the Mitchell Report. The Report, authored on commission for Major League Baseball by former Democratic Congressman George Mitchell, named 89 current and former major league players as users of performance-enhancing drugs. A furor ensued, with reporters and fans alike asking what this meant for the legacy of the accused players, how pervasive steroids were in the game, and how to distinguish the guilty and suspected from the innocent.

While the pure substance of the steroids scandal -performance-enhancing drugs yielding unquantifiable effects on player performance – represented something brand new, in reality steroids simply form the latest link in the long chain of baseball history. Since organized baseball’s birth, players have done whatever they think it takes to give them a competitive edge.

In 1889, Hall of Fame pitcher Pud Galvin injected himself with a concoction consisting of monkey testosterone and bull semen on a routine basis because he thought it could make him a more effective pitcher. It is widely known that former home run king Hank Aaron used amphetamines on a routine basis. Gaylord Perry made a Hall of Fame career out of using the spitball and emery board ball long after both were banned. Cheating, in other words, is ingrained in baseball history. Many players have been rewarded, and even admired, for trying to get ahead, even if they did so outside the laws of the game.

Steroids, for some reason, have provoked an entirely different reaction. In the wake of the Mitchell Report, the consensus among the writers and the fans seemed to be that those who admitted or were accused of steroid use would suffer. Surefire Hall of Famers like Mark McGwire have languished on the ballot, and some first-ballot candidates suspected of use with no concrete proof like Jeff Bagwell are engaged in struggles for their own legacies. All-time home run king Barry Bonds, statistically one of the top five hitters of all time, and Roger Clemens, a top ten pitcher, face their own reckoning this fall when they appear on Hall of Fame ballots for the first time.

It is undeniable that steroids violations are unfortunate. Organized baseball did not test for steroids until 2004, and most reports indicate that use began in the majors sometime in the late ‘80s. That leaves a 15 year gap where, admissions of guilt and Mitchell Report aside, the innocent are indistinguishable from the guilty and everyone is tainted with the brush of playing the so-called “Steroid Era”.  Every power hitter or power pitcher, regardless of what they actually did, is tainted with the idea that they might be dirty. That’s wrong and absolutely ludicrous, and harmful to many, many good or great players who had the misfortune to happen to become a pro baseball player in the 1990s or early 2000s.

Shamefully, organized baseball and the writers that vote for the Hall of Fame have placed 99% of the blame on the players for what happened. But they should be ashamed, because when players are willing to step forward and clear the air to establish a true image of who was innocent and who was guilty in the Steroid Era, those players are roundly assaulted. When Mark McGwire owned up to his steroid use last year, his Hall of Fame vote totals actually dropped. I am all for punishing players for wrongdoing, but in this situation punishing a player for admitting to his mistakes and being honest is counter-productive, as it completely de-incentivizes other former players’ desire to clear the air. Why be honest if you know you’re going to be punished for it?

So baseball needs a change in attitude. Major League Baseball needs to realize that their negligence for 20 years in testing and unwillingness to discuss steroids with players for so long makes them almost as complicit in the scandal as the offending players.  Put the allegations on Bonds’, Clemens’ and McGwire’s plaques, if you must. Do no more – because we have no idea how steroids truly impacted their performance.

The only proper thing to do in that situation is judge the Steroid Era players by their numbers, and no more, just like the writers do with every other player in baseball history. Doing so allows players to admit what they did and receive a degree of punishment while gradually establishing a picture of who was truly clean. It’s not the simplest solution, but it’s the one that baseball needs to truly move on from the mess it created.

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PRESERVING THE GAME’S INTEGRITY
By Jonathan Labib

The Baseball Hall of Fame is a venue to celebrate the greatest athletes who have ever played the game. But the sport’s rich history of cheating has prevented the venue from celebrating the true integrity of baseball, as many of its members were far from upstanding citizens. From the spitball and pitchers scuffing baseballs to players popping “greenies” before games, baseball has been riddled with cheating, especially during the steroid era of the 1980’s 1990’s and early 2000’s. This raises questions as to whether or not players who have been linked to steroid use should even be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

While personal integrity isn’t a factor considered for admission, integrity to the game of baseball certainly is. Two of the best to ever play the game, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and Pete Rose, are not in the Hall of Fame because they violated baseball’s cardinal rule. Both players were implicated in gambling on baseball with Jackson throwing games in a conspiracy, and Rose betting on the Cincinnati Reds while he was managing them. These two scandals were the biggest disgraces in the history of the game, until the revelations of the steroid era.

But the difference between steroid use and other forms of cheating is that we have positive tests, admissions, and league sanctioned reports that identify steroid users. Despite this there is lingering doubt about many players who played during the steroid era but were never implicated for using steroids. While suspected players should be given the quintessentially American treatment of being innocent until proven guilty, players that have been linked to steroid use should have to face the consequences of their actions.

Every player that took steroids during the steroid era knew that they were violating the integrity of the game and still chose to do so. Their cheating diminished the accomplishments of players that chose to follow rules, which forced them to play on an unlevel playing field. The most egregious cases are the players who tested positive for steroids once major league baseball implemented testing in 2005. Potential Hall of Famers Rafael Palmeiro and Manny Ramirez both tested positive for steroids, with Ramirez testing positive twice. Both players knew that they would probably get caught when they used steroids but decided to anyway, and for brazenly defying the rules of the game they deserve to be shunned from the Hall.

But then there are players who never tested positive for or admitted to using steroids, but were identified as users in the Congressional Mitchell Report. The Mitchell Report identified 89 players who are alleged to have used steroids or other performance enhancing drugs. Implicated potential Hall of Famers include Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. I am confident in the veracity of the report, and feel that Bonds and Clemens should also be kept out of the Hall of Fame. If we do take the report at face value, those players implicated took the morally reprehensible action of using performance enhancing drugs to try and gain an edge. Many of these players were already good enough to be in the Hall of Fame before their alleged steroid use, it was their hubris that caused them to try and game the system. To put it bluntly, cheating is wrong, and the correct message to send to cheaters is that their actions are not acceptable and they will not be rewarded for them.

We know that there are already players in the Hall of Fame that have cheated at the game of baseball, and I don’t advocate for their removal. I do feel that we can’t in good faith vote in players that are up for consideration while we already know that they violated the integrity of the game. Every player that took steroids knew very well that what they were doing was wrong and chose to do so anyway, they need to face the repercussions for their actions.

Unless the Hall of Fame voters come down with any iron fist on anyone that has admitted to, tested positive for, or been implicated with steroids it will validate their cheating. For the sake of maintaining the Hall of Fame’s integrity as it pertains to athletic merit, players who took performance enhancing drugs should be kept out.

Even after game-changing Democratic electoral victories in 2006 and 2008, my home state of Virginia can still be a potent source of distress for liberals like myself.  Recent efforts by the state’s social conservatives to move from crafting fanatical bumper stickers   (a personal favorite of mine: a picture, in stark relief, of a fetus in-utero is captioned by the words “LIBERALS, pretend I’m a tree and SAVE ME.”) to crafting actual social policy in Richmond have been especially troubling. In 2009, Republican then Attorney General Bob McDonnell, whose briefly infamous 1989 Regent University thesis claimed that working women were “detrimental” to families, won the state’s most decisive gubernatorial victory since 1961.

It was a nationally significant event: Virginia, one of the nation’s newest and, arguably, most important bellwether states, had elected a governor who had once argued that “government policy should favor married couples over cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators” on the strength of a vague “pro-jobs” platform and empty sloganeering. Given the economic anxieties of most Americans, it seemed likely that similar worrying outcomes were possible across the country in 2010’s all-important congressional elections.

Now, almost a year and a half after those feared GOP victories became a reality, Virginia is once again the center of national attention. This time however, social issues and the radical conservatism of both Governor McDonnell and Republicans in the Virginia legislature sit squarely at the fore of debate. Virginia conservatives recently joined a seemingly concerted anti-choice effort by GOP lawmakers across the country to push two highly overreaching bills on reproductive rights.

The first bill, signed into law by Governor McDonnell early this month, mandates that all women receiving abortions undergo medically unnecessary ultrasounds. An earlier version of this bill was scrapped after a national outcry over provisions specifically calling for highly invasive and often painful transvaginal ultrasounds.

The second, which would have granted the rights of legal personhood to fertilized eggs, was passed by the House of Delegates but shelved by a Senate committee until next year. If passed, this bill would potentially criminalize abortion, stem cell research, In Vitro fertility (IVF) assistance for childless couples, and, possibly, contraception in general. All could potentially be classified as murder.

The palpable outrage from state and national pro-choice activists over the measures, compounded by the opposition, according to a February Christopher Newport University/Richmond Times-Dispatch poll, of 55% of Virginians to the ultrasound bill, as well as the taking of thousands of female protesters to the streets of Richmond last month, might suggest to some that the Virginia GOP’s partial victory in this latest front of the culture wars is a pyrrhic one. However, several factors suggest that the decision by Virginia Republicans to conspicuously take on an anti-choice legislative agenda will not prove to be as damaging to their political strength as some might predict

Observers should keep in mind that even though the majority of Virginians oppose the specifics outlined in at least one of the bills, the legislative success of both measures would not have been possible had the Virginia electorate not sent such staunch social conservatives to Richmond in the first place. Thus, the drama of the past few months should primarily serve as a reminder that Virginia, despite recent Democratic victories, is still a largely conservative state. Republicans have held the House of Delegates, where the personhood bill passed by a disconcerting 66 to 32 margin, since 2000.

Moreover, the electorate, as a whole, hasn’t changed very much since 2006, when 57% of state voters ratified an amendment to the Virginia constitution banning gay marriage. And although the GOP’s success in 2009’s state elections had more to do with economic concerns than social issues, the willingness of moderate state voters with reasonable economic concerns to put Republicans over the top by voting for conservatives with wholly unreasonable stances on reproductive rights does not bode well for liberal social policy in Virginia.

The fact that support for these anti-choice measures transcended the state’s conventional political boundaries is particularly worrying. Both bills received support from representatives from my region of the state, Northern Virginia, famously excluded from “real Virginia” by then McCain campaign spokesperson Nancy Pfotenhauer in 2008 for its tendency to vote more Democratic than the rest of the state. This is proof positive that, even in fairly “blue” regions, social conservatives are perfectly capable of being both outspoken and effective in moving a right-wing agenda forward.

What has happened in Virginia can thus be read as a lesson in not only vigilance, but also diligence. As pro-choice liberals take on conservative legislatures across the country, it is more important than ever to remain cognizant of the fact that success on social issues depends on their constant presence in the public eye beyond election season.

The only way to prevent Republicans from reversing the progress made over the past half century on reproductive rights is to persistently illustrate to voters the absurdity of a political party that wishes for a government too small to deliver vital social services in the public interest, yet somehow big enough to wrest away a mother’s control over her own maternity.

By Zach Goldaber

Milwaukee Brewers slugger and reigning National League MVP made waves last week when he became the first major league baseball player to successfully appeal (and overturn) a 50-game suspension for use of performance-enhancing drugs. In doing so, Braun revealed that the American public is not as firm a believer in the age-old doctrine of innocent until proven guilty as we all like to think.

The facts are this: Braun and his legal team had to prove that the validity of Braun’s urine sample was at any point in doubt. Win, and Braun’s suspension is overturned and his record cleared. Lose, and Braun misses 50 games of the regular season and has his legacy tainted forever.

The Brewers slugger himself proclaimed that he was fighting appeal both to proclaim his innocence and to fight the notion the “he was 100 percent guilty until proven innocent — (the) opposite of the American judicial situation,” as Braun himself stated in an interview with NBC Sports on Friday.

Braun’s legal team won by showing a panel of three men, including an independent arbitrator, that Braun’s sample was left unprotected in a drug tester’s refrigerator for two days. Under testing regulations, it ought instead to have been dropped off at a FedEx location with facilities to secure the sample in anticipation of shipment to the testing lab in Montreal.

The attorneys’ logic was that the time the sample was left unprotected violated Braun’s right of due process, and the panel agreed with them by a 2-1 vote, exonerating Braun. There, the story should’ve ended. Instead, it did not. While Americans love to proclaim their respect for the judicial system, they do not practice what they preach – not when it comes to baseball, but also not when it comes to the judicial system. Ryan Braun’s case is a wonderful example of how Americans view criminal actions as a whole. If someone seems like a villain instead of a victim, they are condemned as guilty before proven innocent.

For example, many commentators have stated their belief that Braun was guilty of steroid use in spite of the successful due process argument. MLB officials themselves implicitly agreed in a statement released Friday when they stated that “neither Mr. Braun nor the MLBPA (Major League Baseball Players Association) contended in the grievance that his sample had been tampered with or produced any evidence of tampering.”

That sort of argument is disgusting and shows a total lack of respect for the legal process. No reasonable person would reject using a due process argument if it could lead to their exoneration in criminal court.  The burden was on Major League Baseball to prove that Braun’s test was ironclad. They failed. Braun’s legal team took the easiest path to victory, and for that they should be commended.

It was not their job, nor Braun’s, to prove that his test was negative, just that there was a chance it might be tainted and therefore not positive They won their case on those grounds, and on that basis Braun was declared innocent. Instead, he has been excoriated by a cynical American public who are not willing to apply the same standards they might to a normal citizen to a public figure.

Ryan Braun’s record is now clean and clear, as it should be. His story has instead raised questions about the record of Americans and their belief in the basic groundwork of our legal system.

Most Americans expect to be considered innocent until proven guilty if they are ever placed on trial. But their willingness to condemn Braun and other figures of his stature in spite of their legal innocence indicates that the reality in our country today is very different indeed.

My esteemed colleague and I do have common ground when it comes to the taxation system in one area: I, too, believe the tax code is broken and needs to be re-written. But Americans don’t need to be taxed less – they need to be taxed more. And believe it or not, there is a way of raising taxes on Americans so that they will learn to love it.

The tax code is broken because it is a decrepit, towering behemoth full of loopholes. That the tax code needs to be simplified is something we all agree upon. But taxation in the United States needs a re-working of a different kind, too, one that will make it friendlier to the average American in ways a simpler code never could: It needs to be made one hundred percent transparent.

It’s utterly absurd that most citizens have no idea where their tax dollars go. It should be required of the United States government to send every citizen a simple dossier at the end of each fiscal year detailing where every single cent of their income tax dollars end up.

In the first place, this will make Americans more comfortable with taxation by removing the feeling that your money disappears into a vacuum when you fill out your 1040 form every year.

The act of paying taxes is reprehensible to so many because it represents the unknown, and hand-in-hand with that lack of knowledge is the feeling that tax revenue has no tangible yield for the average American – the money goes away, and they never see it again. That’s not true, of course, and transparency would help eliminate that feeling.

Secondly, transparency yields accountability in ways that no other process can. If citizens learn that that even $2.50 (or some such figure) of their tax dollars is going toward a federal program they believe is wasteful or otherwise objectionable, you’d better believe that they’ll protest about it.  If they feel too much of their tax money is being invested in one area, or not enough in another, they will complain.

In a functioning democracy, if enough people complain, change inevitably follows. Through protest, the ballot box, and good old-fashioned debate, transparency would allow the American public to take control of the tax code in a way they could not now. If you have faith in the wisdom of American public – and I certainly do – after a little while the tax code will be efficient and fair.

Taxpayers from all income brackets receive an inordinate amount of important services from their tax dollars as it stands now – most of them just don’t know it. A transparent tax code would only increase the amount that each tax dollar helped an average American, and they would be well aware of the benefits.

I don’t think very many people would argue against paying a high tax rate if the money they paid went directly back toward taking care of all of their basic needs – food, shelter, health care, and the like. And I don’t think very many of the super-rich would object to paying even a 90% tax rate if they knew that the vast amount of money was going toward services that they used and that were directly helping other Americans rather than toward earmarks.

Even conservatives who agree with the idea behind my plan tend to believe that it could not be effectively implemented because the federal government could not possibly do a good job taking care of Americans. I disagree. The federal government has a 200 year history of taking on increasing responsibility for the welfare of each individual American, and for the most part they have done a good job of it – no one wants to get rid of Social Security and Medicare now, do they? Under the eyes of a watchful American public, an effective tax system where everyone pays high rates and is happy is more than possible – and more than that, it ought to be aspired toward.

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ENLARGING THE ECONOMIC PIE
By Jonathan Labib

Famed economist Milton Friedman once remarked that “most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.” While my roommate and I can both agree that the current tax code is an absolute disaster that might be just about the only thing that we agree on regarding taxes. The tax debate usually comes down to two competing goals: fairness and efficiency. The goal of tax reform shouldn’t be to redistribute more wealth from the 1% to the 99%, but instead to grow the economic pie so that everyone is better off.

The most recent reports by the Congressional Budget Office show that the top 1% of the American population by income pays 39.5% of Federal income taxes while earning less than 20% of all income. In contrast, almost half of all American households pay no federal income tax. The American taxation system is already one of the most progressive systems in the world. If proposals such as President Obama’s “Buffett Rule” are enacted the top income earners will be taxed at an unreasonably high rate.

The question of efficiency can be addressed by removing all of the distortions in the tax code and providing incentives to invest and work more to jump start economic growth. Take the Simpson-Bowles commission tax plans. The crux of the plan is to eliminate all loopholes and deductions in the tax code while lowering the top marginal tax rates.

My one point of difference with the Simpson-Bowles plan is that I would leave the deduction for charitable donations that exists in the tax code, as I believe that it doesn’t have a negative impact on the economy. All other deductions in the tax code distort the allocation of capital, such as the deductibility of mortgages which contributed to the housing bubble. The Simpson-Bowles plan would have led to an extra $1 trillion of revenue over the next decade, and lowered rates for everyone. Under the plan the lowest two rates in the tax code would drop from 10% and 15% to 8%, the middle two rates would drop from 25% and 28% to 14%, and the highest two rates would drop from 33% and 35% to 23%.

I recognize that America’s debt problem, while mostly caused by excess spending, will also need to be solved with some increases in revenue. However, the prudent way to go about raising revenue isn’t by raising rates on the rich, but instead by eliminating loopholes and deductions in the tax code while lowering rates for everyone. The holders of our debt don’t care who the money comes from, just that they get it back. Many argue that a tax cut for the wealthy is unfair because they aren’t paying their fair share, but as demonstrated above they are already paying more than their fair share. If we lower rates for the rich it will increase their incentive to work and invest, which will jump start the economy as a wave of new capital is poured into it.

Flattening and simplifying the tax code will stimulate the economy in two ways; reducing compliance costs, and increasing the rewards for working. As the tax code is currently written filing your tax returns every April is a time consuming and complicated endeavour, one that usually requires the use of lawyers and accountants. With a tax code with no deductions and loopholes besides for charitable donations filing taxes will be much simpler, and much cheaper. The IRS estimates that each year Americans spend 6.6 billion hours per year filling tax forms, the money and time that is spend complying with the tax code is detracting from economic growth. Lowering marginal tax rates on higher income earners will lead to increased production because it alters their risk-rewards calculations.

When someone is deciding whether to invest their money in the US economy they think about the risk that they are exposing their money to, and the potential rewards that they will reap. By decreasing marginal tax rates the reward portion of the equation is increased, because people are allowed to keep more of their profits. When people are allowed to keep more of the money that they earn they will take more risks, which will in turn lead to more jobs and a higher GDP. The United States needs to keep tax rates low to entice people to invest domestically; we now live in a globalized economy and the wealthy have plenty of other places to invest their money.

My vision for tax reform is one which all of the inefficiencies in the tax code that distort the allocation of capital are removed. A tax code that is both simple and fair to everyone. More revenue can be raised while lowering rates at the same time, raising rates on the wealthy in the name of fairness is the wrong thing to do. Under my proposal everyone will be paying their fair share, and the pie will grow for everyone at no one’s expense.

It’s become trite, but nonetheless true, to cite the emptiness captured by ‘America.’ To be an American today is merely to take part in a nationalism that has mires itself in wars, ideological battles, and a post-Cold War history that prizes rhetoric over value. Many look back at the daily pledge of allegiance with a kind of knowing smirk, their pride overshadowed by propaganda. However, this does not mean that there is no truly American bond. It exists in what is missed by patriotic thought: In the place where national unity is broken into true community.

I spent last winter traveling this country–13,000 miles in total–stopping in as many towns and cities as I could find places to stay. If nothing else, I saw the way communities–real communities–exist in this nation. I missed many things, but the murky swamps of Louisiana and the pristine mountain roads of the Pacific Coast Highway all told the same tale: a tale of communities where bonds stem not from images, but from true personal interaction. These are places where social interactions have nothing to do with clichéd identities or a common brand loyalty or imagined culture, but concrete experiences and solidarity. In other words, these are not artificial cultures.

This tale (my new American thesis) came first in a shock while standing on an empty New Orleans block. The Lower Ninth Ward, pockmarked by Katrina’s indifference to a historic city’s past, limped into its sunny, spring-in-winter existence, sagging skeletal homes still labeled with warnings of gas leaks or structural instability. And yet here, in this most forgotten of places, neighbors called out greetings and jokes from homes still broken and those being rebuilt. This neighborhood, ignored as it drowned, stood out as the most removed, isolated place within a city unrivalled in America. And here I found community that grew from the cracks unaided by cultural fads.

Perhaps some parts of New Orleans attract new residents because of an aura they are supposed to have. Perhaps some imagine New Orleans in a particular light that suits them, the images of the French Quarter or the Garden District having been played out on the Real World or in movies. The effect of mass media is the dissemination of manufactured images that create self-fulfilling cultures: the culture put across in media attracts those seeking that culture, and a city is built from artificial images or what were once half-true stereotypes.

The Lower Ninth Ward, on the other hand, does not attract new residents. If anything, its supposed image keeps it from fostering this artificiality. Left out of ‘America’, the neighborhood has been left to grow on its own, shared experiences pushing neighbors together, bringing them closer, cementing and crystallizing the bonds between them.

And there is our truth–only in these circumstances does community exist. Only in being not-American can one find what is American. The forgotten of New Orleans–as well as the mocked in the Tennessee hills or the Utah deserts–find their homes in being separated, cast-off from the rest. Community, in ‘America’, finds the soil to grow only in the spaces declared different from the whole, where the content isn’t filled in beforehand with a cookie-cutter culture. Raised on symbolic flags and soaring eagles, American unity fragments itself into something that is much stronger: community.

Perhaps this is a necessary thing. Perhaps it can only ever be through negation of another that a people can define its borders, its customs, and itself. The birth of a community may only ever come from this trauma. But then the question arises: what does our bankrupted American ideal serve? Our communities exist only on the obverse of the American identity. But then is this identity necessary for the obverse to exist? In other words, must we posit the American whole in order to make community possible?

That is a question that can only be answered with a thorough theoretical investigation. But as a question it serves to mark out an important point. Our American way, unity without community, serves at most to prepare the way for the true bonds to grow behind this totalizing ideal. Mythical America cannot be: we can never exist simply as Americans. We need our hidden communities.

Early last week, British rapper Dan Bull released a rap video entitled “SOPA Cabana,” which accuses the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA or H.R. 3261) of Internet censorship and violating freedom of speech. Bull’s rap is part of the growing anti-SOPA movement, which recently exploded after Internet giants like Google, Facebook, and eBay warned of the bill’s consequences. Opponents of SOPA argue that the law mirrors censorship laws in China, Malaysia, and Iran.

If SOPA is an intentionally and explicitly tyrannical censorship law that threatens to destroy the Internet as we know it, why has it flown under the radar until now?

Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) first introduced SOPA to the House of Representatives on October 26, 2011. The full title of the bill claims:

“… to promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. [intellectual] property, and for other purposes”.

The bill grants the government to enforce copyright and trademark protections held by corporations. SOPA emerged a few months after its Senate counterpart, the Protect IP Act (PIPA). The House Judiciary Committee began hearings on the bill on November 16, 2011, giving naysayers ample time to protest.

So, why is there resistance now?

First, the bill considers complicated intellectual property issues that are difficult to understand. The average American does not deal with the intricacies of the Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC). Consequently, the general public does not consider how a law like SOPA could interfere with DNSSEC, especially when facing unemployment, foreclosure, and an ailing economy. However, SOPA opponents like politicians Ron Paul and Nancy Pelosi and companies like Yahoo and LinkedIn attacked the bill in more general terms. By labeling the bill as “censorship” and an “infrignement on First Amendment rights”, these opponents have successfully made SOPA into an issue that Americans can protest.

Second, when SOPA was first introduced, it was considered unenforceable. For example, after the government shut down the torrenting websites Bearshare and Grokster, which are communities that encourage large-scale electronic file sharing, the torrenting community did not fall apart. Instead, users fragmented, making piracy detection more difficult. It may still be possible for dedicated users to access the same material, but SOPA would make it easier than ever before for copyright holders to sue websites, which distribute copyrighted material. Venture capitalists fear this ease of litigation, believing investment in a web-based company may involve more legal expenditures than business management. According to its opponents, SOPA would decrease investments and limit innovation.

Finally, opponents of SOPA do not hold that the bill is intentionally harmful, but flawed in its construction. SOPA gives copyright holders and the government the power to seek court orders against websites that host or traffic counterfeit or stolen intellectual property. If the bill is enforced, the Department of Justice (DOJ) would decide if a website infringes or enables infringement of intellectual property. Depending on the infringement, the DOJ can bar search engines from listing or linking to it, order domain name registrars to take it down, force service providers to block access to it, and ban payment processors like PayPal to stop working with it.

This lengthy process is SOPA’s main flaw. H.R. 3261 bars access to specific sites, meaning Internet services providers must inspect all the Internet traffic of its entire user base. These companies would invade millions of users’ privacy in order to meet governmental demands. The bill would also allow the DOJ to take down websites with virtually no obstacles, fueling censorship concerns. If the DOJ alone is in charge of website surveillance, it could easily shut down websites it does not like or support, especially whistle-blowing websites.

The Stop Online Piracy Act was created to protect major corporations reliant on trademarks like Pfizer, Nike, and Sony and copyright-dependent organizations like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). While these companies present valid concerns, the bill should not exert total control over the Internet and free speech. Unfortunately for its opponents, the government’s inability to acknowledge and amend the potential consequences threatens privacy, free speech, and business. The House has rejected twenty amendments intended to prevent these unintended consequences already. The bill will most likely pass in early January without undergoing major changes. Its supporters and its opponents can only guess what will follow its passage.

Alida Miranda-Wolff is a second-year double major in English and Law, Letters, and Society pursuing a path in law.

Courtesy of the The University of Chicago Undergraduate Law Review

When a school district finds itself in the midst of a sex scandal, the administration must find a way to remedy the situation. Usually, this will consist of firing the offender if he or she works for the district, notifying the authorities, and other such actions to protect the district’s reputation.  However, in a recent sex scandal at Homestead High School in Mequon, Wisconsin, there was no one to fire. This past November 3rd, four teenagers, two of whom were below the age of consent, participated in illicit sexual activity on Homestead’s campus. More specifically, a 14-year-old female student gave oral sex to three boys, Deangelo Dantzler, Brent Anderson, and an unnamed 15-year-old boy. Alcohol, which Anderson provided to the girl, was involved in the incident as well. When the district received news of these acts a week later, they “launched a joint investigation into the incident with the school’s police liaison officer,” according to a letter issued by the superintendent, Dr. Demond Means. The investigation determined that the acts were consensual and the boys were booked and released [1]. Later, however, the parties representing the girl insisted that Dantzler and Anderson had forced themselves on her, and are now seeking a monetary settlement with the district, though for what is unclear [2]. This raises the concern that the school district may be at fault, but if so, no clear example of a wrongdoing is immediately evident.  Uncovering the true story is crucial to examining the fates of Dantzler and Anderson.

According to the police reports, interviews with the students were conducted in the school by the police liaison officer as well as the assistant principals; two males and one female were present for the interview, potentially overexerting a masculine influence in the interviews. The police report lists three versions of the girl’s story. Initially, she only told the principals and the liaison officer about the oral sex with the 15 year-old boy, adding the contact with Dantzler and Anderson during a re-interview with her father present. Later, she claimed that the acts with Dantzler and Anderson were not consensual [3]. There are a number of potential reasons for the potential victim to recant multiple times: she could have changed her story herself, or her father or the district could have influenced the change.

What is not immediately evident in the police report may be explained by examining the tapes of the interviews; however, as these records are sealed, each situation must be examined separately.  If her attorney is correct in stating, “Based on the interview I performed and based on the information I’ve read, she was raped,” [4] then some force may have been preventing her from conveying an honest account of the events, and that force may have been the district administration. While the investigation initially deemed the sexual acts consensual, it is possible that she was pressured into making this claim.  The fact that the victim’s father declined a re-interview until the police offered a female police officer to conduct the interview [5], suggesting that the male presence in the first interviews could have influenced her story. If this is all true, the district would have been tampering with the evidence in the case [6] as well as committing official misconduct [7]. While corrupting an investigation is less reprehensible under the law than statutory rape, it nevertheless reflects poorly on the district administration and recalls the history of poorly handled scandals in which the district has been involved, including allowing previous student offenders to continue attending school after being accused.

Alternatively, the victim’s father could have altered her initial story.  According to the police report, the girl’s father “became very upset and started to yell ‘Forget about this whole thing, this never happened’ and threw his arms up in the air” when he learned of the consequences related to the incident [8]. After taking the time to talk with her father after these events, she may have accused Dantzler and Anderson of rape at his behest to exact some form of revenge on the boys. On the other hand, her father may not be able to believe that his daughter could have consented to sexual activities and claimed rape, removing the fault from his daughter altogether. Regardless of his motive, the father would be guilty of tampering with evidence if he coerced the alleged victim into changing her story. It is worth noting that if the girl simply changed her story, many of these issues would disappear. As previously stated, her father was extremely frustrated after discovering his daughter’s actions and their subsequent consequences. Convincing her father she was raped would relieve her of blame. However, without the tapes of the interviews, it is impossible to know which story is true.

The shifting account of events remains relevant in this case because it will affect their criminal conviction.  According to the police reports, all four actors were charged with second degree sexual assault of a minor, and all but Anderson admitted to the crime. If Dantzler and Anderson forced themselves on the victim, then this would qualify as first degree sexual assault of a minor.  The language in statute chapter 948 states that “Whoever has sexual contact with a person who has not attained the age of 16 years by use or threat of force or violence is guilty of a Class B felony if the actor is at least 18 years of age when the sexual contact occurs” [9], If they did not this statute, it would qualify as second degree sexual assault of a minor, a crime which the offender has “sexual contact or sexual intercourse with a person who has not attained the age of 16” [10]. All three boys have committed second degree sexual assault of a minor and face the ramifications presented for a Class C felony, which amounts to up to 40 years in prison, a $100,000 fine, or both [11]. In addition, the girl in this case has the potential to be convicted of second degree sexual assault, as she has maintained that the contact between her and the younger boy was consensual. The statute does not explicitly state that the offender must be over the age of eighteen, and even consensual acts between two underage teens could be interpreted as sexual assault, but convictions in situations like this vary depending on the circumstance [12]. Though the contact with the younger boy was separate from the contact with Dantzler and Anderson, whether or not the alleged victim was raped could play a part in how she will be treated in trial. As a victim, her charges would bear no fruit, but if all the sex acts were consensual, she could be painted as a poor decision-maker worthy of jail time for her actions.

Additionally, the alleged victim and her family are seeking a civil case against the district. In this case, the district could be guilty of failing to fulfill its ministerial duty. In Manning vs. Necedah Area School District (2007), another sexual abuse case, the Wisconsin Appellate Court ruled that the district was immune from prosecution during a child abuse scandal under Wisconsin Statute Chapter 893 due to the fact that the plaintiffs do not allege negligence of a certain ministerial duty in the case against the district. However, this case does cite “a well-established exception to the rule of immunity [which] holds that an officer is liable for damages resulting from the officer’s performance of a ministerial duty,” [13] which in this case, meant that the failure to perform a ministerial duty to report abuse would have removed the right to immunity. In the Homestead case, the district apparently fulfilled its ministerial duty, reporting the abuse and conducting an investigation into the events. However the district may have some fault in this case separate from reporting the incident. Though much at this point is inconclusive, if the girl’s testimony was unduly influenced by external forces, then the district may not have fulfilled its duties. What remains unaddressed is how exactly the district failed in its duties if it conducted an honest investigation. Much like the case against Necadah Area School District, unless the prosecution can provide evidence of misconduct and address it directly, the district has no fault in the action. So far the prosecution has not even stated for what it is seeking damages. A monetary settlement would seem justified if the district were at fault, but otherwise, the district can sit safely behind the legal wall of Statute 893, having done nothing wrong in the eyes of the law.

There are at least two ongoing tragedies in Modern American culture that are accepted: murder and poverty. Moreover, they go hand-in-hand. A murder in a rich suburb will always make itself known while the countless violent crimes that happen daily in the rotting inner-city neighborhoods around the country usually only make back pages. The disparity in class here cannot be overlooked–class in terms of both social status and income. The only violent crimes which make national news are those involving beautiful little girls or something exceedingly heinous.

What’s worse, this carries over to our attitude on issues outside our nation, such as the ongoing drug war in Mexico. Every important media outlet runs frequent stories on the Mexican drug war, and many have run cover stories. And yet there is no public discourse about the events. The issue, then, is that Americans do not care enough about it for it to become a pressing matter. The reason for this is the very same reason we ignore the crime in our ghettos.

To see this, it’s important to first note what we do discuss with regard to Mexico: immigration. The political discourse is focused on jobs plans, medical inefficiencies, and tax rates, all with implicit references to the illegal immigrant as the cause of these problems. He is the one, as the often mocked story goes, who is stealing our jobs. He is taking all tax revenue for his medical care. Modern American politics often contains the illegal immigrant as the great Other who is threatening our way of life. Such a discourse does not easily allow or encourage a humane discussion about the situation in Mexico.

With the only real imprint of Mexico on American life being the illegal immigrant, Mexico is seldom viewed as more than a land of poverty and crime. What else would force so many to risk their lives to come to a nation trying to remove the little social structure that exists for the poor? Just think of the typical picture of Mexico in the American psyche: It is a nation that exists in the picture of Tijuana, of a dirty, cheap, and hilariously shameful place to party or buy drugs. This caricature does not entirely represent the stance Americans’ stance on Mexico, but it is reflects how our southern neighbor is adopted into the American zeitgeist. It also must be mentioned, of course, that the drug cartels who are pillaging the country made their fortunes supplying our drug habits.

So what separates Mexico from America? The obvious answer seems to be class. If Mexico exists, as the cartoon picture of it goes, to supply Americans with cheap fun and drugs, it is because Mexico is lower class. Mexico is thought of solely as our “dollar store,” as our supply of shameful and cheap things that America is too good to supply. Think of the typical ways you hear Mexico mentioned. I, for one, have not heard it discussed often, as it should be, as a land of culture and history, of pride and strength. No one mentions the glorious history of Mexican nationals, rebels, and those who gained independence. It seems, then, that the American picture of Mexico is one of a lesser place, of a place without worth. It is lower class and of lower value.

But it would be premature to say Americans ignore Mexico simply because of class. It helps to see the numbers here. Since December 2006, 34,600 people have been murdered in Mexico in cartel-related violence. But every year in the United States about 14,000 are violently killed. Twice the number of people killed in cartel violence have faced a parallel fate within the (ostensibly) most first world of first world countries. Per-capita that still leaves far more murders in Mexico than here. However, Mexico is in the hands of an extreme situation, an all out war on the streets while we are living with the highest standard of living in the world. For that reason, few discuss our murder problem as a blight or epidemic. It’s something we’ve come to accept of our rotting ghettos and collapsing inner-cities.

The problem, then, is an apathetic lack of understanding. By painting Mexico and our own poverty stricken areas in such a poor light, we have made a psychic separation along class lines that allows us to overlook their horrors. In a strange way, Mexicans have been adopted into American culture through our disregard of them–this apathy is simply how we respond to poverty and violent crime. It is, in fact, something that lies at the core of American culture: poverty and murder existing together without any real remorse. The Mexican drug war is the perfect example of what is wrong with our culture, and if we won’t react to the tragedy unfolding everyday with a discussion of how to give aid, we should at the very least discuss the reflection it has on our very uncivil values.

The fact that there are thousands of demonstrators currently on the streets of New York and other major cities around the country is good news. But while the existence of Occupy Wall Street is exciting, its content is not. As of yet, it does not contain any actual potential for a true political moment. That is, it does not have any revolutionary content, no threat to the current power structure, or any serious momentum for social change.

I don’t mean to say that the protestors don’t have goals and demands. However, many of these demands are the kind of resistance which is expected in any system of government. Many of those people who defy social norms and resist, in whatever political structure, serve to mark out the limits of what that structure deems acceptable. The outsiders can be punished, made an example of, ignored, or mocked, but in each case they are nothing but a social tool used to perpetuate the status quo. Every shopping mall has a store that sells studded belts and gauge earrings because teenage rebellion is something both expected and without real content something that demonstrates who has reached maturity. Occupy Wall Street currently holds that place in political discourse.

Our current political system is one in which wealth garners power. It is one in which lobbyists determine policy. It is one in which, as the Occupiers tell you, 1% of the people have all of the power. These are no secrets. Corporate influence in elections, especially following the Citizens United ruling, has taken an unprecedented place in typical political maneuvering. These are, in fact, what Occupy Wall Street is responding to. However, the way the movement exists now is only a way of saying “they have power and we don’t like it.” So far, the protests have not approached the justice of our politics. They make claims about justice, but the way in which Occupy Wall Street has unfolded makes it more teenage rebellion than something meaningful. Too much of the focus during Occupy Wall Street has been in being pithy and clever. As a result, the movement seems adolescent, and allows the powers that be to ignore or mock the protestors.

However, this doesn’t mean Occupy Wall Street can’t have any meaning or develop any revolutionary potential. It takes a great deal of bravado to be trite, and even teenage rebellions can often lead to greater things. Occupy should be viewed in the same light–it should be celebrated as a necessary first step before something meaningful can be done. After all, the status quo must be pointed out before it can be changed. What this means is that while Occupy’s demands don’t need to change, its methods must. It is these methods which have undermined the content.

Specifically, it needs more frankness and resolve. First, that means the protestors need to act in a way that befits a serious movement. They need to stop making signs with catchy slogans and ranting rhetoric. They need to stop with kitschy tactics from the 60s.

They need to take off the Guy Fawkes masks and realize a true political movement is something greater than what they have now. For Occupy Wall Street to have content it must refocus on true political discourse. It is this focus on show that makes Occupy easy to discard.

Second, by suing the NYPD over the recent mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge Occupy has shown a lack of resolve by turning to the current political system to judge an abuse of power rather than confronting it themselves. If the goal is to alter the political system, one cannot turn to that system for judgment. This is showing implicit deference to the very thing the protestors are protesting.

These failures of frankness and resolve, and indeed all of Occupy’s failures, are demonstrated best in the reaction to police macing protesters. They show that a generally accepted (if not justified) crowd dispersal tactic is being treated as a grave attack on civil liberties. Though the macings are wrong, whenever one of these incidents occurs the protestors just hide behind camera phones and retreat to blogs to post the videos under titles like “POLICE BRUTALITY ON WALL STREET!” These tactics leave it to the police to decide when to change their ways.

This public shaming tactic only works with grave abuses to humanity, which is why they succeeded in the Arab Spring. But even in Egypt, however, the Army’s power was never threatened and the ruling generals are acting in ways that, to many, seem to border on the undemocratic. In any revolutionary movement, the protestors must be willing to fight crime with more than youtube videos. I am not asking for open violence against law enforcement. I am, however, saying that if a police officer is using unjustified violence against a protester, others should fight back, even if that requires a physical confrontation. As of now, the protestors are refusing to do so.

Yet the confrontation of power is what makes the true content of any political movement. America needs its May ’68–a movement that was frank and resolute beyond all doubt. Occupy Wall Street contains within it the first step. But so far it has merely indicated some of the social problems which exist in the status quo. For any revolutionary potential, the movement must be willing to not only confront the powers which have protected that status quo, but to institute the frankness and resolve necessary into the way in which the movement operates. We must make politics earnest.