Broadside Opinion

Meridith Kaufman, Asst. Opinion Editor

The United States is made up of immigrants. It was created by immigrants. It is being sustained by immigrants. Not many can say that their families are originally from America, and if you ask them where they are from, they won’t tell you a city like St. Louis – they’ll tell you they are German with some Italian too.

With such pride of where our ancestors are from, why do we all still discriminate against people who are coming to the United States now? Many people are upset about illegal immigrants coming in to the U.S. and say they take our jobs and ruin our economy, but these are jobs most would not take because they are at the bottom of the totem pole.

Even though these immigrants are illegal and probably don’t have bachelor or master’s degrees, they take these jobs because they are the only things that are available to them.

This is a reality that we need to deal with. No matter how many walls we build, blockades we create or raids the Immigration and Naturalization Services does, immigrants will keep coming, as we all did.

Right now, the U.S. has 12 million undocumented people living in it. Most are families. Many parents wanted more for their children; they wanted them to have a better life than they did before.

Now you’re probably asking, “So what?” Well, what about that little girl that is being pulled along as her parents are running for their lives, seen on that famous image plastered all over San Diego, Calif.; what happens to her?

Well, she’s introduced to the American culture and taught English. She’ll attend preschool and complete kindergarten through 12th grade without problems or symptoms of an illegal immigrant.

Public schools at the K-12 level do not ask for citizenship before they enroll a student. This is because the Supreme Court ruled that K-12 education was a basic right of all children (Plyler v. Doe).

All of these children, now numbering at two million, are undocumented and, when they turn 18, will not be able to vote, to drive, to work or to receive financial aid for college.

If these undocumented high school students choose to go to college, they must do what every student does. They must excel, succeed and achieve at a high level to be considered.

Then when they receive their acceptance letter and start looking at the tuition they will be paying, they see large numbers that they know they cannot afford.

They also see the financial aid that they won’t be eligible for, but will still pay for it in their tuition, so other eligible students can have it.

These two million undocumented students will work in sweatshops and low-paying jobs in the underground economy for years to pay for a college education.

It won’t be a 4-year plan or 5-year plan, but a plan that is decided and dictated by the less than minimum wage job that they are slaving over, just to pay for a college education, just to be in the United States.

Only 10 states have laws concerning undocumented students who attend college: California, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Washington.

All of their laws indicate that “undocumented students need to have attended [high school] for at least three years and graduated from a high school in their state of residence” in order to receive in-state tuition, as said by Educators for Fair Consideration.

The rest of the 40 states do not provide anything for undocumented students who had no control over being brought cross the border illegally.

On Friday, Nov. 13, Congress listened to a bill called the DREAM Act. It was created for undocumented students and it intends to “increase higher education opportunities for undocumented students,” as stated by the Educators for Fair Consideration.

It also intends to create citizenship opportunities for those undocumented students who arrived in the U.S. before they were 15, or at least five years before the bill’s enactment, and have completed three years of high school and received a diploma or a GED or completed three years of military service.

The DREAM Act is a bipartisan effort by Congress to address undocumented students who have excelled at everything we have asked of them.

It is a step forward for immigration policies. It is a huge leap for the two million undocumented students who will be able to accomplish their dreams with our help.

Yet, due to the controversy of illegal immigrants, trying to support a bill for Congress allows for Immigration and Naturalization Services to take extreme steps.

The last time that the DREAM Act was heard on Capitol Hill, an undocumented student spoke.

This student had graduated from UCLA and was going to Brown University on a full ride for her master’s degree.

Once the Immigration and Naturalization Services found out where she lived they raided her family’s house, taking both of her parents and holding them in a detention center for two months.

It took a Congressional Order to have her parents released, but they were then deported. And she went into hiding.

The Immigration and Naturalization Services uses this as a scare tactic.

Now, undocumented students do not want to speak up because they are afraid that they and their families will be targeted.

The actions of the Immigration and Naturalization Services are completely out of line and a severe violation of their rights given to them in the Constitution.

Yes, the Constitution gives illegal immigrants rights too. As the ACLU states, “It’s worth noting that the Bill of Rights NEVER uses the word citizen – it uses the word ‘person.’ This wasn’t an accident.”

So, even if a person is in the United States of America illegally, they still have certain inalienable rights that the rest of us do.

I know for many people the DREAM Act seems like it will only promote more illegal immigrants to bring their families over illegally, but it combats that by saying in the bill that the children must arrive in the U.S. at least five years before the bill is to be enacted.

Some students may think that their spots at a university will be jeopardized because of undocumented students receiving special treatment. This is untrue because undocumented students only make up 2 percent of all high school students applying for college.

Finally, some will respond that these undocumented students will be taking money from you and your education. Those against the DREAM Act will state that the law-abiding, tax-paying society will be paying for the education of people who are illegal and, therefore, do not pay taxes.

This is completely untrue because even undocumented workers are paying their state, federal and income taxes just like any one else.

We ask these students to do everything everyone else does, but we still take away the elements necessary for them to succeed.

We are punishing them for what their parents did. If we persecuted the children of members of the Ku Klux Klan for the crimes their parents committed, there would be an uproar. This is the same thing. Both sets of parents committed crimes, but neither set of children are to blame nor should be punished.

Brandon Minster, Staff Writer

We’ve all been there before – short on cash and short on options, but what to do? If you’re law-abiding, your options are limited to selling your plasma or getting a payday loan.

Those with a freer sense of decorum have a wide variety of time-tested vices for which the public will pay handsomely.

But if you really want carte-blanche, there’s no surer way to get it than being the government. As the state of California is proving, only the government gets to steal to cover its needs.

According to Los Angeles Times, at the beginning of November the state increased its income tax withholding from workers’ paychecks.

Most citizens would think any increase in taxes could be called a tax increase. It’s that sort of short-sightedness that keeps most citizens from a productive career in swindling, racketeering or government.

Shane Goldmacher and W.J. Hennigan of Los Angeles Times write, “Technically, it’s not a tax increase, even though it may feel like one when your next paycheck arrives . . . Think of it as a forced, interest-free loan: You’ll be repaid any extra withholding in April.”

Goldmacher and Hennigan are correct: That’s not a tax increase, it’s theft. I defy you to come up with a scenario that involves a “forced, interest-free loan” where the forcing party isn’t stealing. Now, it is called the government.

The California withholding increase is reminiscent of some of history’s most famous government sponsored thefts. A George Mason University economics professor, Donald Boudreaux, recently wrote in Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that it is similar to the forced loans that lost England’s Charles I his crown and his head. Charles I raised money through forced loans, which won him the opprobrium of his subjects.

Some resisted, and Boudreaux writes of one such “hero,” John Hampden. He was twice imprisoned for refusing to pay such forced loans. It wasn’t a matter of Hampden’s ability to pay. One loan was for only 20 shillings. It was the principle of the matter. Boudreaux quotes Edmund Burke’s parliamentary speech: “Would 20 shillings have ruined Mr. Hampden’s fortune? No! But the payment of half 20 shillings, on the principle it was demanded, would have made him a slave.”

It is in his finish that Boudreaux errs. He calls on modern politicians to learn the lessons of history, warning “this country is full of people who will not be slaves to any government.”

He has it exactly wrong. This country is full of people who are nothing but slaves to their government, and the increased paycheck withholding in California proves it. Say what you want about the acceptability of Charles I asking for forced loans, but at least he had to ask.

Hampden was a hero because he refused. California has no modern-day John Hampdens because there is no way to refuse to pay a paycheck withholding. Our nation was founded by tax rebels. Now tax rebels find they have no way to rebel.

California can set the withholding percentage at anything politicians want; it’s only the good nature and the self-serving political calculations of the state legislature that keep the number at anything less than 100 percent.

The mechanism for taking all earned income is in place, and the workers can do nothing to stop it. Thus workers work for the state, and to ward off any civil disobedience the state remits some of the pay, but when and how much is the choice of the legislature. This is pure slavery.

When the state feels it can ratchet up the withholding without threat of rebellion, it does just that. The current percentage of a worker’s paycheck that passes through the state’s withholding is the amount the state feels it has to spend to buy the worker’s complacency.

At the beginning of November, the state of California discovered this number was 10 percent too high, and they adjusted it downward accordingly.

History remembers John Hampden because, with our current tax withholding policies, we never have to worry about any new John Hampdens coming along to take his place in our esteem.

Kenny Tindal, Staff Writer

Some weekends I have to catch myself while searching for food on campus. I forget that I can’t go to Taco Bell, Burrito Del Ray or many of the other dining options because they are closed for the weekend.

This is something that has confused me ever since I moved on campus as a freshman a year and a half ago.
During the weekdays I was always impressed by the variety and sheer volume of different restaurants and dining facilities, but I was never sure why they closed on the weekend.

This weekly closing of restaurants still gets me down. Anytime people visit me at George Mason University, usually on the weekend, I have to explain the weekend dining situation.

I normally say something like, “Oh, well on weekdays we have tons of food to choose from, just not now.”
It took me a year to build up the nerves to go and ask Denise Ammaccapane, resident district manager of Sodexo, the company Mason has hired to run the schools dining facilities, why no one seems to like us lowly weekend diners. She set me straight, sort of.

As anyone who has even seen this campus on the weekend, the campus is dead compared to the flowing crowds of students seen during the weekdays.

For example, on some weekdays it is impossible to find a seat in the Johnson Center, but it’s relatively deserted on the weekend.

Well, fewer people means less food sales, and that means Sodexo cannot afford to keep every restaurant open.

Each restaurant requires a certain amount of labor to fully function, and some take more labor than others.

Taco Bell, takes more people to function than Burger King, which can work fine with just one person behind the counter.

Also, students eat at Southside more this year than the previous year, and while this certainly has to do with required freshmen Block or Traditional meal plans, it also affects what is open on the weekends.

If more people are eating at Southside and not something like Burger King, there is less reason to open up more places for students to eat because of the threat of diminished sales.

Apart from the fact that I want to eat Chick-fil-A on the weekends, there are other reasons to open at least some of the closed restaurants on the weekends.

If people tour our campus and see all of the places that are closed, that may be a reason why they do not apply – something we obviously don’t want to have happen.

There are ways to start opening up the school on weekends.

First, I think we should open up Freedom funds to freshmen students, the way it used to be.

The reason freshmen are required to have Block or Traditional meal plans is because University Services believes it will give students an incentive to eat together and bond, to basically form a group of friends that stay with you for the rest of your college career.

If freshmen students were allowed to have Freedom, it would not prevent them from bonding, but would allow them to more easily bond in other places.

Like at the Rathskeller watching Sunday’s games, or browsing the stacks at the convenience store.

Most importantly, if students had more reason to eat, outside of Southside, more restaurants may open up on weekends.

Contacting Student Government is a great way for students to help open more restaurants on weekends, along with any other problems you want solved on campus.

Just go to sg.gmu.edu and get in touch with them.

They do have the power to affect the school in this way. They helped make Starbucks stay open 24 hours; they can make Taco Bell open on weekends.

Justin Lalputan, Broadside Correspondent

President Barack Obama has made a trip to China to speak with its leaders about many things, but one of the major things that he wished to talk about was the impact that China has made on the environment.

This is a good move on the president’s part. China needs to be steered in the right direction.

They have simply continued to pollute with no care for the environment.

In 2007, China overtook the U.S. as the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, and it has not slowed down since.

Cancer has become the leading cause of death in China, and the pollution that causes it comes in many forms.

Air pollution has poisoned the lungs of many Chinese people. A recent study shown in The Independent, a British newspaper, said that China’s pollution had doubled in the last decade and, “with its recent growth rate of nearly 10 per cent, could do so again.”

So why has the U.S. allowed China to do this for so long? Sure, people have mentioned China’s consumption of coal and their emission levels, but China isn’t taking them seriously.

As of right now, China is considering setting a target level for carbon emissions.

“China hasn’t reached the stage where we can reduce overall emissions, but we can reduce energy intensity and carbon intensity,” said Su Wei, a leading figure in China’s climate change negotiation team.

This type of thinking is not going to help the environment and it’s not fooling anyone.

China could very well limit emissions. All they have to do is stop building coal factories and attempt to utilize other sources of energy.

Despite this fact, I bet nobody will attempt to push a serious consequence on them if they do not attempt to come up with a plan to reduce emissions at next month’s conference on climate change that will be held in Copenhagen.

The logic behind my reasoning is simple: It’s all about the money. It’s a well-known fact that the U.S. is deep in debt to China; the U.S. currently owes China somewhere around $2 trillion.

You don’t bite the hand that feeds you. As a result, the U.S. has not taken any real decisive action against China.

Even though President Obama is urging the Chinese president to make a plan, that’s all he can do.

There is also a controversy when it comes to the actual statistics. While it is clear that China and the U.S. are the two largest polluters in the world, the actual numbers involved may be skewed.

There are accusations of smudging the polls on both sides.

Some say that the Chinese government is skewing the numbers, while others say that the U.S. is corrupting the data.

My response to this is simple: If China’s pollution problem isn’t as bad as America says it is, then why are so many Chinese citizens getting infected and, in some cases, dying from the pollution?

I’m not saying that Chinese officials are purposely skewing the data, but something is wrong when an official of the National Population and Family Planning Commission says that “every 30 seconds, a baby is born with physical defects in China, all thanks to the country’s degrading environment.”

China already has power, which has reached a point where it has begun to rival nations like Russia, America and England. That fact is not debatable, but what it lacks is respect.

True, many people dislike China because of their form of government, but that doesn’t mean that people won’t respect them if they clean up their act and start thinking about the environment.

It may very well be true that the U.S. can tell China to reduce emissions, which is pretty much like the pot calling the kettle black, but someone has to do it.

With the world in the state that it is in, the last thing that we need is for environmental problems to get worse than they already are.

Obama said that the time for change is now, and I believe that to be a statement that is 100 percent true.
It’s high time China cut their pollution, and maybe the first step is for us to cut ours.

If we all consume a little less, it could go a long way towards lowering the amount of pollution the U.S. puts out.

Sometimes the best way to lead is by example and maybe, as Americans, we can be the first to start the trend of polluting less.

It may seem like nothing we do may make a difference, but that isn’t true – it takes power to make change and ,as a very wise man once said: The power is yours.

Anandraj Singh, Broadside Correspondent

There are few things hazier in life right now than trying to figure out how we’re going to power the future. Faced with such a daunting task with all the issues, problems, bribes, blackmails, threats and politics that revolve around it, I really wonder how the ministers in charge of energy policies (not just in the U.S., but abroad) get time to sleep at night.

Maybe they get huge piles of money? Either that or they know some very good doctors.

Despite currently being a poor, unemployed student and very much in the midst of papers, it’s still difficult to sleep at night when one truly thinks about the energy situation as it currently stands.

It’s not really the direness of the situation vis-à-vis climate change at all. In fact, while climate change is happening, it’s simply too large and unpredictable to really get too much in a hitch over. At the very least, you know that as long as we continue flopping around without a clue, it’ll happen.

On the other hand, what is far more concerning – and at the same time, amusing – is that very act of flopping around like a fish out of water. A lot of what we hear being tossed around in terms of energy viability and solutions are solar and wind, at least from a layman’s perspective; in many ways, solar and wind have become the poster child for renewable energy sources.

While it is true that these sources are probably among the cleanest and maybe the most abundant in the world, the fact remains that to consider them solutions to the energy crisis – or even as a large part of the solution – is just downright misleading.

I’ll avoid going over the technical details, but what I argue is that solar, wind, geothermal and tidal energy, while efficient, clean and otherwise hassle-free, are simply not available enough in sufficient density and quantities to replace our existing power systems in any economically profitable manner. They exist as supplements: means to fill in the gaps, but little more for the present.

This is especially true given our current level of technology and the materials available to us. Within the next 10 or so years, this situation may have reversed itself – I hope to whoever is listening up there that it does.

However, for the immediate future, barring a sudden “Eureka” moment by an engineer in a garage somewhere, it doesn’t look like it’s going to change fast enough.

Even surpassing technology hurdles may not be enough. Both wind and solar energy suffer from a significant lack of control of how much they generate.

The sky can always go cloudy on us no matter how much we curse it. The wind tends to be even more finicky unless you’re far out at sea.

Tidal and geothermal energies are far more prominent, not just their efficiency and reliability, but their costs as well. However, they too are limited by locations and geological requirements.

With these issues one must question the wisdom of investing billions of dollars into solar and wind renewable energy sources. It’s not questioning the fact that they work – we know that they work – but the only proof we have right now is that they work more on a local scale. The multi-billion dollar risk being taken is whether they’ll work on a national scale.

Considering the needs and power requirements of industry and the new infrastructure needed to construct all those plants and deal with the variability of their output, I have the suspicion that they probably won’t work.

Assuming the worst case scenario – that we can’t use solar or wind on a large scale – what can we use?
Before I can answer that question, we should consider whether we’re looking at this the right way. We’re looking at how to solve our energy problems with the options we have today as opposed to the options we may have 20 to 30 years from now. One of these options has always been nuclear fusion – one of the most promising of the bunch.

Frankly speaking, I’m tempted to cross it off the list simply because of how little progress has been made on it, despite it getting the lion’s share of energy research over the years: an estimated $900 million.

The “official” best hope, according to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, is that the reactor of the same name is due to come online in 10-20 year’s time. Even then it is only a very expensive prototype reactor, with commercial fusion based on its design coming in as far away as 30 years.

But these are the official, government endeavors. ITER seems a tad inefficient compared to some of the other ventures going on in efforts to reach “net gain” – the holy grail of fusion research right now that allows you to output more power from a reaction than what you put in.

However, fusion’s main chance may lie in smaller, private ventures pursuing unorthodox ways to get nuclear fusion. Many of these methods are bogus – little more than con men in some cases – but there are some promising ventures out there. Magnetized Target Fusion, currently pioneered by a pair of Canadian engineers who built a prototype in their garage, does show a fair bit of potential to actually work. If it does work, the potential is there to get fusion reactors as early as 2014 – just five years away.

Either way, one of these ventures surely must have a chance to work. This gives us a range of success anywhere from five to 30 years out at the very maximum.

At the least, necessity will force us to have a clean option by then, even if it is something completely unrelated to nuclear physics.

But this raises problems. If we know that anywhere from five to 30 years down the line we’re going to make something far more efficient, clean and viable available to us, what do we want to spend all that money that we have on right now?

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the crux of the situation as I see it. What the Obama administration needs to realize is that what they are investing in is nothing more than a stopgap solution – one that’s going to have to hold until we can advance far enough to get something far more permanent.

To this extent, people need to realize that a stopgap solution shouldn’t just be finding new sources of energy, although that has to be its primary goal, but also to make far more efficient use of what we already have; in ways that don’t even involve energy generation.

These can range from simple ordinances, to preserving power in the homes, to reworking industrial practices and policies for better efficiency overall. Or it can include finding ways to surpass essential technological limits that are blocking clean cars.

All of these are little things, like solar and wind, which serve to add up to a collective means of cutting carbon dioxide production far better than just switching energy production.

Battery technology, especially, is one of the main stumbling blocks when it comes to trying to get cleaner cars on the road today. This is because it places a large limiter on the distance and performance of most electric cars. Further encouragement of hybrid trucks or buses would greatly help this issue.

What about new generators? Being a simpleton, the only possible solution that comes to mind is nuclear; but the cost of setting up a nuclear reactor far outweighs how much energy and waste it is going to produce. Especially if it’s going to be up only for 10-30 years before being phased out by whatever comes next.

The best method, perhaps, would be finding out where solar and wind works more efficiently.

Then integrating them into the small communities and getting them off the grid, therefore saving power and scaling down energy generation.

These are all but idle speculation of a simpleton; though there are experts out there paid millions of dollars that know these things, it’s hoped that this is what they’re suggesting to Obama right now.

Let’s hope that whichever way Obama’s going to proceed with his energy plan, it takes into account where we may be in 2020 or 2030, as opposed to just when he’s up for re-election in 2012.

Brandon Minster

Instead of watching television, which I can’t afford, I watch online clip shows that recap the socially important parts of the television programs that matter. That’s how I can have believable conversations where I say things like, “I can’t believe Kim sang ‘Don’t Be Tardy for the Party’ on The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” even though I don’t know anything about the show, Kim or the song. I’m also aware of the current status of Dancing With the Stars, thus satisfying Thomas Jefferson’s desire for a well-informed citizenry to manage the republic.

Recently, as I was catching up on missed television shows, I saw Al Gore on The Daily Show, where he said, “Let’s take solar energy, just for starters. More sunlight falls on the surface of the earth in one hour than is necessary to provide the energy for the entire world for a full year.”

A talking point like that is formulated to get the “that’s a crying shame” reaction. The idea is to make it seem like such a negligible suggestion that only heartless Satanists and Republicans (but wait, I already covered them with the Satanists, right?) can oppose it.

I paused my browser and started doing some computations. There are 8,760 hours in a year, so its reciprocal (0.000114155) would be the portion of the earth we’d have to cover in solar panels to get that much energy in a year.

And all left-winged Americans are outraged. “That’s a hundreth of a percent!” they say. “Those oil-loving fascists!” While Gore’s talking point has done its job, here comes Debbie Downer with more than just one inconvenient truth.

First, it would have to be twice that area, since every spot on earth averages 12 hours of sunlight per day over an entire year.

Second, the earth is pretty big. How big? About 510,072,000 square kilometers big. (I know, I’m a total Commie for using kilometers, but that was what the Reds over at Wikipedia were using). Now, only half of that is lit up at any given hour, but that half is always changing. Stationary panels would only be productive for half the time, but we would need 58,227 square kilometers of solar panels in activity all the time. To assure that amount was in sunlight, we would have to have twice that area in existence. That’s an area larger than Hungary, Cuba or South Korea.

Third, the earth’s population density is 13.1 people per square kilometer. That many solar panels, if laid out on a solar farm that didn’t allow for underlying development, could displace over 1.5 million people.
“Oh, but we’d put the solar panels where nobody lives!” Then we’d have a bunch of solar energy where nobody uses it. Because energy is typically used in high-density areas, the incentive will be to place the panels as close to high-density areas as possible.

Fourth, what’s with an environmentalist advocating covering up 116,454 square kilometers of land with giant black tarps? An average American Walmart covers 173,000 square feet (weighing the averages for 2,705 supercenters of 197,000 square feet and 883 regular stores of 102,000 square feet). This means the solar panels would be larger than 7,221,057 Walmarts. I wonder what Al Gore would think of a plan to build seven million additional Walmarts.

Now, not all solar panels would have to be on vacant land; buildings are routinely fit with solar equipment on their roofs. But if most buildings currently don’t have them (and most currently don’t), there must be an economic reason for it. What would be the cost of a kilowatt of energy derived entirely from Al Gore’s seven million solar paneled Walmarts? If some of these panels are placed in high-yield areas, like Arizona and New Mexico, what would be the environmental impact of huge areas of pristine desert becoming energy plants?

Finally, few advocate energy independence plans for their national security implications. If we think the Arab world dislikes us now when we buy their friendship with trillions of dollars of oil money every year, how much will they like us when we turn off the dollar spigot? However much of a half-way job oil-exporting nations do in keeping their nationals from car-jacking airplanes to crash into our buildings (last count: 19), at least they’re doing a half-way job. How much will they do when no one needs oil? Nearly half of Saudi Arabia’s $600 billion GDP comes from oil. Energy independence without national security advances puts our nation at greater risk.

In the end, Al Gore went on The Daily Show and said, “I’ve got a plan to built seven million new Walmarts and antagonize the financial backers of militant Islam.” And the average viewer ended up thinking, Man, that guy’s smart. If only he had been more successful undermining state election laws in 2000, we’d be less secure today.

Justin Lalputan, Broadside Correspondent

A British firm is ready to release a camera that will revolutionize social networking as we know it. Known as the SenseCam, it is worn around a person’s neck and is able to capture images every 30 seconds without manual operation, effectively allowing a person to effortlessly put every minute of their life on the Internet. Is this an example of people taking social networking too far?

This leads into the general debate about social networking sites: some say that social networking can be dangerous, others argue that it is beneficial and healthy to interact with others, even saying that there are positive aspects to social networking.

Now, with an item like the SenseCam, I beg the question: when is social networking taken too far?
The first problem that many people have with social networking is the issue of stalking. In this day and age, many sexual deviants find their prey not by prowling the streets, but rather by prowling social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

In the Internet world, these deviants can silently search for and look at the multitude of pictures of young children and teens that are available on social networking sites.

To counter this statement, some suggest that while the pictures are up on display, not everyone has access to them. For example, on Facebook, users have the option of making their pages private, to only be viewable by people that they know and trust, though their profile picture is still viewable. Despite this fact, every year, there are young people who fall prey to sexual predators on social networking sites.

Even though social networks do have some negative aspects, they also have positive aspects as well. I know from first-hand experience that Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with people that I otherwise would not be able to communicate with.

I have cousins in other countries that use Facebook to talk to me for free, as opposed to making expensive international phone calls.

I feel that social networking is a positive thing overall. As long as parents monitor exactly what their children do on the Internet, and also watch who they interact with, there should be fewer problems with child predators. Also, teens and grown adults need to be smarter about the type of material that they post on Facebook.

Sometimes employers may visit social networking sites in an attempt to view candidates for a job. Therefore, having that picture of you when you were wasted at a party as your profile picture may not be the smartest idea.

In the end, I think that social networking is taken too far when a person starts putting their life out there for everyone to see. It’s one thing for a person to show their mother a picture of the Christmas party they had with their grandparents, but it’s a completely different situation when a person starts showing you a picture of them skinny dipping to complete strangers. Not only is that unnecessary, but iit can be dangerous.

Common sense is the best policy when it comes to social networking. If you post something on the Internet, make sure it’s something that you wouldn’t show to a random stranger on campus, because there is a chance that they could actually see it.

Social networking can be a great tool to connect people to those they care about, but at the same time it can have an extremely negative impact on them, if they choose to misuse it. It can be a scary thing when someone goes from following you on Twitter, to following you home.

Brandon Minster, Staff Writer

In P.G. Wodehouse’s Leave It to Psmith, Ronald Psmith and Even Halliday have the following exchange:

“Do you mean to say you gave me somebody else’s umbrella?”

“I had unfortunately omitted to bring my own out with me this morning.”

“I never heard of such a thing!”

“Merely practical Socialism. Other people are content to talk about the Redistribution of Property. I go out and do it.”

I think of this quote often, as I move through the cocktail parties of the well-heeled set, when I am asked, “How can I tell a theoretical socialist from a practical one?”

The question is a valid one. The battle between theory and practice has been around as long as man. The serpent had a theoretical take on God’s injunctions against fruit consumption. God’s take was more practical.

Years later, Henry VIII renewed the conflict when he bypassed the theoretical argument of divorce with the practical solution of execution.

These instances highlight the difference between theory and practice of socialism. A person can tolerate much more theory than he can practice. If I have to choose an airplane seatmate, give me the one who makes theoretical claim to the armrest, because the one who makes practical claim will end up with a fork in his thigh; I will be wearing zip-tie handcuffs, and our flight will be making an unscheduled stop.
Some readers might wish to make a comparison of their own, only they do not know where to find theorists and practitioners. I recommend they begin their search on their own college campus.

College campuses are lousy with theorists. Ask three random professors for the time and they will begin with a glance at the sun and the murmur, “In theory . . .” Ask someone less versed in the ways of an academic, such as a freshman or a wise senior, and he or she will answer practically, by turning up the volume on his music player.

Politicians are scattered along the socialism spectrum, gravitating towards each end depending on the desires of their current golf junket’s financier. When it comes to the important questions of government, it is wise to use the linchpin of your political decision by asking the question, “Who’s picking up the tab for the mini-bar?” Those bottles of water and specialty chocolates are not cheap.

Presidents are usually the finest examples of politicians. If you take that as a compliment, you’ve misread it, and should back up to make sure you’re clear. Some presidents have parlayed theory into admiration, such as Lincoln, whose Emancipation Proclamation theoretically freed slaves, but the slave owners were still in rebellion three months after its issuance.

Rumor has it that the original design of the Lincoln Memorial featured a larger-than-life marble statue of a slave asking the seated Lincoln, “Am I free?” and Lincoln responding, “In theory . . . ” The design was scrapped when planners realized carved speech bubbles might give the monument a cartoon feeling.

At least Lincoln lived in the days before golf junkets and mini-bars, when political decisions were harder to make. The current healthcare legislation before Congress will be entirely decided on the basis of which lobbying group knows the better steakhouses, insurance companies or trial lawyers.

In these days of corporate bailouts, bank bailouts, newspaper bailouts and my proposed – yet unattractive – grad student bailouts, the line between theoretical and practical socialism is worth noticing.

Wodehouse’s line helps guide the way. The chaps down at the coffee shop might talk a good game of income redistribution, but it is the person sneaking out your back door with a wheelbarrow full of stereo equipment that is the practical socialist.

If two socialists are giving you trouble figuring out who loves theory more than practice, it is helpful to remember to look at their hands. The theorist is the one with his hands in his own pockets; the practical socialist will have his hands in yours.

Frederick Keown, Broadside Correspondent

In 1775 at St. John’s church in Richmond, Va., Patrick Henry gave his famous speech in which he proclaimed, “Give me liberty, or give me death!” Now more than three centuries later, Republican Party members gathered in the Marriott hotel down the street for the November gubernatorial election. For a few tense hours, people sat in the banquet halls and stared at the televisions as districts continued to count their votes. Finally, as the clock neared nine, the residents of Virginia declared their choices. We now welcome Bob McDonnell (Governor-elect), Bill Bolling (Lt. Governor-elect) and Ken Cuccinelli (Attorney General-elect) as the Republican trio that swept this race.

With this miraculous victory in a state that voted democratic for the presidential race in 2008, the Republicans announced that this election was a revolution, as was the speech by Patrick Henry.

What was the action that started this revolution in Virginia? It was the active youth that refused to have their voices silenced. A great example of the determination that lead to this victory is the actions of the College Republicans of George Mason University. When watching the victory speeches of Bob McDonnell, Kristie Colorado, a freshman government major, stated, “those six days a week of campaigning have finally paid off. I gave up my summer for this.”

When faced with the idea that the youth vote doesn’t count, young voters retaliated with such force that they gave us a Republican victory in the gubernatorial race and victories in many of the delegate races. Amanda Johnson, College Republican’s chairman, sophomore and Theater major, responded by saying the claim that the youth vote does not count is “completely untrue, it was the attention that Barrack Obama’s campaign gave to the youth generation that gave him his victory.”

This election, as Republican candidates took the spotlight, the Republican youth responded with unrelenting force. Phone banks were filled with young teenagers, college students and young adults who made some 200 phone calls to families aiding in the campaign. Every Saturday and Sunday morning, while most college students were sleeping and recuperating from the previous night’s events, the College Republicans awoke to their alarm clocks at 7 a.m. to walk from door to door in support of the Republican candidates.

The night of the gubernatorial election, Fairfax turned as red as the blood that pulsed through the veins of Republicans statewide. As the night continued, the color red bled through Virginia from Richmond to Virginia Beach. When the votes were all counted, McDonnell carried eight out of the 11 congressional districts, a victory that put him ahead in the popular vote.

Bob Marshall, a Virginia delegate who also gained a victory on Nov. 2, said in a College Republican meeting that young Americans are the “anti-toxin to negative propaganda.” When we take the time to go door to door, make hundreds of phone calls and hang flyers as the College Republicans did, we show that these monsters created by mud slinging politics don’t exist and that they are Americans like everyone else.

We are the youth of this nation, the nation’s next generation, and it’s time that we make this world as we would like to see it. Democratic or Republican, we have the power to change whatever we don’t like – we just need to put forth the effort to research the facts and make informed decisions. Now is the time to put forth this effort as the College Republicans did and take the cue to move forth and make this world our world.

Justin Lalputan, Broadside Correspondent

There are only two sporting events in the world that cause nearly every single country to stop what they are doing to watch, and both occur every four years. One is the Olympics, which occurs during the winter and summer.

The other is the FIFA World Cup. Many people, especially Americans, dismiss it as a simple soccer game, but it is far from that.

The World Cup is a large-scale soccer tournament that can have effects that many world leaders wish they could conjure.

When the World Cup was held in France in 1998, a French family noted the incredible change that they witnessed by saying, “The team is so different, but they are all fighting for France, and that reminds us to look at what bonds us together.” This sentiment is exactly what I am talking about.
When soccer teams play for their countries, they are not playing for just one city or one area, they are playing for everyone, and that unites the entire country.

The country that is hosting the World Cup this year is South Africa.
It is safe to say that even though the finals have not started, the citizens are overflowing with pride for their country.

A survey given by FIFA said that “88 percent of respondents state that they are proud that South Africa is hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup.”

The World Cup can even serve as a distraction for a country that may be going through tough times.

When Argentina hosted the World Cup in 1978, during social turmoil and political kidnappings, one man recalls seeing a neighbor run out into the street to celebrate a goal, completely forgetting that he was not wearing underwear, all in the name of soccer.

Some argue that the World Cup brings more negative effects than it does positive ones.

When a country hosts a World Cup, the traffic is usually increased to unbearable levels and violence has been known to break out over a game ruling.

In Honduras, during the 1969 qualifier for the 1970 World Cup, tensions grew so high between Honduras and El Salvador that they escalated into a full-fledged war between the two nations.

Some say that when construction takes place in countries as they prepare for the World Cup, it can have an extremely negative impact on the environment.

All of these are extreme circumstances. First, the “soccer war” that arose from tensions between Honduras and El Salvador was quickly quelled and both countries have since admitted to the hastiness of their actions.

Also, it is true that the traffic is increased in cities during the FIFA World Cup, but due to this traffic increase, the host country can also see a gigantic benefit in terms of their economy.

Ninety-One percent of the South African hosts predict that they will see an increase in tourism, which leads to more money and a better economy for the host country.

The World Cup can also lead to an increase in jobs. This can be especially beneficial for regions where jobs are scarce, like South Africa where their unemployment rate was 22.9 percent in 2008. Although the environmental impacts are noticeable, the economic benefits are worth it.

The World Cup is not simply a soccer tournament. It is a chance for the people of the world to come together, forget their problems and see which country has what it takes to be the best.

What amazes me the most about the tournament is not the fancy footwork that I see some players pull off, or the goals that are scored. It is the fans.
These are people that come from all different walks of life and manage to put aside their differences to enjoy what they love.

If we could replicate the effects of the World Cup when it is not happening, it would not solve all the world’s problems, but we would definitely be closer than we are now.

After all, when you really think about it, we may be on different teams, but we’re all shooting for the same goal of peace.