A normal voting experience for an Amherst student seems to be a case of ordering "the usual." Even when we open our ballots to unfamiliar candidates, we still order the usual political Happy Meal with all the little (D)s. We probably look right past the (L)s, the (C)s, the (G)s, and non-aligned, only stopping to gag slightly over Romney, Ryan and other (R)s on the menu. In a world of options, we see only two, and even then still only pick the same.
I’m slightly obsessed with elections, so I found out about the election complaint when I checked to see if the results were up at midnight Saturday morning (it displayed a short message entitled “Election Complaint”). Unlike the candidates at issue, however, I wasn’t able to secure any of the then-classified information on the subject, instead finding out the details in the early-released article in The Student.
Leaders face numerous challenges. One challenge that seems to escape the glamour of recognition, however, is the challenge of giving up one’s own leadership. This is one of the toughest challenges any leader can face, and it is the final struggle. After he has battled all the external forces that prevent him from achieving his goal, this leader realizes that he himself is an obstacle to progress.
Healthcare was a bad idea. Does this sound ludicrous and insane? Well … it is. After all, this country did need some form of health legislation. I’ll be specific: the bad idea was to present universal healthcare legislation to Congress in the midst of the worst recession in the U.S. in decades. It is often said that presidents are able to get the most done immediately after they’ve been elected. Universal healthcare is something Democrats have repeatedly championed. The president was looking to pass a bill Democrats hadn’t had the opportunity to pass for some time.
What if John McCain had won the last presidential election? An infrequently considered point is not so much what this would have meant for the United States, but rather what it would have meant for the world at large. What would the people of the world have thought about the new Commander-in-Chief, and how would they have reacted?
It is Sept. 14, 2011, and we are at war. I’m not talking about the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan; the secret CIA-lead wars in Yemen, Pakistan, or Somalia (and who knows where else); or even the “War on Terror.” No, the United States is in the middle of a civil war — a political civil war, ironically fought along many of the same geographic, racial and ideological lines that still stem from the last. Although the consequences are perhaps not as clear-cut as the physical division of our nation, they are nonetheless grave.
What was interesting to note about President Obama’s speech last Thursday night was that it was perhaps more partisan than any speech he’s given so far. There were both direct and indirect, subtle and obvious attacks on the Republican Party and the Tea Party. The President attacked openly the theoretic foundation of the Republican movement with his talk about the reduction of the size of government. Moreover, his tone was sterner and more aggressive than in previous speeches. He was defiant...why?
