Liberal College Kid

Greetings and Happy Holidays.

A funny thing happened over the last month, perhaps you noticed that we didn’t post anything at all… Believe it or not, one of our internet security programs decided to boot everyone of our users!  Because of this it has been impossible for anyone to log in to LCK, much less post on it.  You will be happy to know, however, that this has been fixed and that we at LCK can finally begin posting a new.

On a final note, there are two things you have to look forward to here at liberalcollegekid.com.

1. The year in review LCK style which will be posted soon

2. My official New Year’s resolution is to not let my classes depress me to the point that I don’t think its worth blogging.  In other words: to post more frequently on LCK!

Thanks so much for your support of LCK, and check back more often because we will most certainly have content up!
Take care,
liberalcollegekid

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The article from yesterday produced such a pronounced response I thought rather than post in the comments section I would just make another post to address some of the questions posed and positions taken. I must say, however, I am continually surprised how many conservative readers we have on a site called liberalcollegekid.com. Go figure.

There were several great points made and I thank everyone who contributed. I want to first address:

What would you do if there was no federal government programs to invest in social issues ? Would you take the responsibility for your less fortunate neighbors, and family members ? Would we do a better job of working together, care for one another more, think about our communities more ? . Do you believe people are basically good, with some flaws, or are basically evil and need to be coerced into doing what is right ?

The first thing that comes to my mind when I ponder this question is Locke’s social contract theory. The idea that in order to have a functioning society we must give up some of our “natural” rights. I think this is the best way to understand why we pay taxes, it all stems back to Hobbes’ theories about how we form a society. So, no, I don’t think we would do a better job of taking care of one another if we were not compelled to; its not natural. If there were no government we would not have society, we would all exist in our own private reality devoid of meaning and community with no reason to even attempt to take care of one another since we have connection to each other.

As for human nature being good or evil, I don’t think that’s even something worth pondering. Human “nature” deals with things like eating, pro-creating, shelter, etc. I realize this is a very post-modern position but I just don’t see any point in deciding if we are innately good or bad, we’re not innately anything.

<- Future Posters for 08?->

I thought it was funny that people brought up the idea of a Kucinich/Paul ticket. I think its easy to tell from my article that I like a lot of what Dr. Paul has to say, but perhaps there can be a better comparison drawn here.  As a Democrat, I’m constantly talking to my fellow leftists about Kucinich because he is the only person in the race with a peace-loving, truly progressive platform.  I think in many ways the only real Republican in the 08 race is Ron Paul.  The Republicans have moved so far away from their base that they almost seem like a third party.  Here’s what I mean:

The whole idea of being “conservative” is being resistant to change, wanting to keep things the same or return to the way they were.  So less government spending, programs, involvement abroad, participation in international organizations, interfering with people’s health and life decisions, taking rights from the states etc. would all then not be conservative  The whole concept of a “hands-off” or laissez-fare government is exactly what the Republicans once preached.  Let’s look at the Bush administration though: We’ve got troops all over the world, trying to build nations, we’re involved in all kinds of international trade organizations, he wants to restrict what a woman can do with her body, he’s imposed education legislation that has given the federal government a choke hold on what state’s can do with their own money in their schools…  All of this while spending more than any President ever has in history, combined.  What’s conservative about spending us into the ground so that we need a hostile Chinese government to bail us out?

Ron Paul is different, the real conservative stance should be anti-war and anti-government influence in people’s lives.  The real split in the parties can be best understood by examining the two best representatives: Kucinich and Paul.  Kucinich wants to use the federal government to make life better for every American, Paul wants the government to stay out of the lives of every American.  That’s really the only difference, so why aren’t we seeing news story after news story discussing the Kucinich vs. Paul debates?

I have an answer to this question, and its an uncomfortable one:  Americans no longer care about real issues.  We have a political system in which a person’s opinion on homosexuals is enough to make them register with a particular party.  And if that issue doesn’t get someone into a camp, ask them about abortion.  These are not political questions, they’re personal quetions that should have nothing to do with even local government, let alone the federal government.  Kucinich and Paul talk about real change and real issues.  I just wish the rest of the candidates, on both sides of the aisle, would start doing the same.

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Hello everyone, I am sorry for my absense from the blogosphere and my site’s absense as well.  For those people who have continued reading or checking out the site I can’t thank you enough and I would like you to know that you are the reason that I am back at it blogging again.

The original vision for this site was that it would be a group of college students from all over writing about the events of the day from our perspective.  A perspective, in my opinion, that is lacking in the mainstream media.  Obviously this perspective would be liberal in nature and hopefully the readership would grow among people our age as well.  This, however, did not happen. 

What did happen is that myself and a few others wrote regularly to a hostile, conservative, and older audience.  This resulted in the numerous comments about “once you get to the real world you’ll understand,” and other such ridiculous comments that demeaned myself, my writers and our intentions.  At one point I decided I was fed up, and around that same time my good friend Jake Barnes stopped writing as well.  It seemed as good a time as any to put to rest the project of liberalcollegekid.com.

Of course, the site remained my homepage and I checked the page views regularly.  I was surprised to see that there were still a lot of people visiting everyday.  In some cases there were even more visitors than when we had new posts every day.  This has to mean something, and I don’t think its simply advertisers or people trying to leave us spam comments, because frankly since August we’ve received only four.  Instead, there were people who were reading the articles, some commenting on older material and others just reading.  This is what has brought me back to the blog.  Those readers, and starting today we will begin having daily postings from liberalcollegekid.com.  Thank you for your patience and continued support. 

And for all of you older neo-con, intollerant, Republicans out there… Liberal College Kid is back, and I’m not playing nice this time.

 Yours,

liberalcollegekid

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I suppose, as they say, all good things must come to an end. I started law school (which has thus far failed to be, as I had been led to believe, nothing more than drinking, debauchery and all around tomfoolery) recently and haven’t had the time to post anything. I’ve also stopped posting because I have almost no contact to the news anymore (that may be a bit too extreme of a statement, but it’s nowhere near the level it was before) and, because of this, haven’t had any brilliant ideas for a post pop into my head.

The one thing that I have been thinking about lately, though, is the recent assertion that Congress may have inadvertently given the President the right to spy on Americans on American soil. I was listening to an NPR broadcast and they were talking about how in a year or so local police departments will be able to request the usage of photos taken from spy satellites over U.S. soil. The argument went that if a hurricane were approaching or if there had just been an earthquake, then the local emergency response units could use these very recent images (as opposed to say Google Earth which has images on it that are years old) to plan evacuation routes and gauge damages.

That may be all well and good but let me introduce you to another scenario that is, in my mind at least, all too likely:

The federal government is looking at LA and trying to evaluate how the city would respond if there were a terrorist attack at the Port of Los Angeles. In order to get an honest assessment of how the city would react and how first responders would be able to access the scene they turn a stack of extremely high resolution spy satellite pictures over to the LA County Sheriff’s Office.

While the Sheriff’s staff is pouring over these photos, marking up entrance and exit routes to the port as well as checking to see if it has any glaring weaknesses in terms of security one of their younger staffers sees something in the corner of his eye that catches his attention. “Looks like this house has a serious grow operation going on in its back yard” he says, as a joke (after all he’s just a file clerk who got dragged into looking over these pictures because everyone else was busy off fighting crime). One of his superiors hears this and snatches the photo from him and takes it to her boss who agrees that, yes, there is a modest grow operation going on in the back yard of a home near the port.

This is where it gets dangerous. The Sheriff’s office realize that they can’t get a warrant to search the home because it came from these spy satellites and the grow operation is located behind some 8 foot walls making it out of plain view from the street. The Constitutionally protected right to privacy prohibits a judge from issuing a warrant in this case because the operation (lets assume the Sheriff’s officials don’t see any actual plants, just the obvious components of a grow op.) wouldn’t have been viewable from the street. Do you think, even for a second, that patrols around the home in question wouldn’t triple over night? The Sheriff (wanting to rid the evil that is a back yard pot farm from his community) would almost certainly do everything in his power to get an officer in a position to get a view inside that house (even if it’s only through a gate or door opened for half a second as someone entered or exited the house) so that the officer could then obtain a warrant claiming that he saw pot (which the Sheriff’s office already knows is sure to be found upon execution of the warrant). Eventually an officer would be in position to see something and the entire operation would be closed down, mark up another victory for the good guys.

Sure, maybe it’s not so bad that there are 50 less pot plants growing in this country as a result of the hypothetical situation I posited above but what about our right to privacy? There is absolutely no way that the government or local police departments should be able to use American spy satellites to look at Americans. The ethics of it are horrific and the results of such action will do nothing but strip away more rights from American citizens. So there it is, my last rant (for a while at least).

Before I go (my torts book is calling to me as we speak) I just want to say that it has been an absolute privilege to write for this blog. I hope that LCK will continue to grow and evolve and serve as a place for discussion of current issues. I hope that the site will welcome its critics because I believe that talking about and debating our differences is what the study of politics comes down to in the end. I also want to extend a warm thanks to everyone who has read and commented on my posts in the past. No matter what you thought about my politics, my writing, or my views on the world today, you took the time to read what I had written. Thank you.

Hopefully I’ll be able to stop in from time to time and post about events in the news or, if people would want to hear it, law school. Until then, thank you again to both the readers and Liberal College Kid for giving me a chance to express myself on this wonderful site.

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Greetings all, and first and foremost: SORRY!!

I spent the last two weeks plus traveling in Greece, Ukraine, and Turkey. I returned with many post ideas, so please know that our huge decrease in posts is not a permanent phenomenon.

That said, the night before I left I made a comment on a small blog written by a man named Gary Foust on a post he had written about liberal college campuses. Of course, I left the country and wasn’t able to participate in the dialog that took place there after, but you can read the comments here.

Following that a woman named Susan Baldwin picked up on the post from Gary’s site and responded with her own responses which she has titled the Liberal College Kid trilogy where she thinks being liberal is naive. You can read that post here. I’m actually really bummed I wasn’t around to mix it up with some of our conservative readers, but I’m sure the chance will spring up again.

Here is my response to Gary’s initial post:

First, it is not un-American to protest the government. In fact, that’s how a democracy is supposed to work. For centuries universities and colleges have served as places where democracy can be truly seen as people from all sides of every issue are able to participate in the market place of ideas. The fact that there are groups who are anti-American is in and of itself what is so great about living in a society that protects freedom of speech.

Next, as far as liberal professors go; you should know being on a college campus that there is a direct correlation between education and tolerance as well as education and liberal leanings. It seems, the more people know the more they care about other people, thus making them more liberal. That being said, the idea that we should question professors is a fine and noble idea. However, these people have the academic background that qualifies them to instruct in a collegiate setting, thus they should in fact be trusted and their opinions do carry an added amount of validity. It is very possible to learn from people who are from a different political party. Otherwise, someone like me could never have taken economics.

I have not met a single person who has entered a classroom a conservative and left a liberal or vice versa. That’s not where political ideologies are formed, its where they are discussed and the sooner the radical right realizes this we can move on from this war on progressive professors and start talking about things that matter: like healthcare and Iraq.

Thanks for your continued reading and I promise to not have another dry spell like this again. Later today I’ll post my first reaction piece: What the Ukraine Really Thinks about the Soviet Union.

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Hey all,

A brief piece of information.  The sidebar to the left now has a wonderful Pajamas Media Netowork (PJM) button along with a few new ads as well.  We have been a part of PJM for a little while now, but we had some coding problems that prevented us from putting up their logo earlier.

Pajamas Media’s blogs in large part have a decidedly conservative slant (Michelle Malkin for example).  This is part of the reason that they were excited for us to join as they try to balance themselves out.  An organization that is trying to move to the left is alright in our book and that is why we joined PJM.  I would like to take this moment to dispel any worries you may have about this change.  In no way will this effect the quality, style, or outright bias exhibited on our site.  We are still left-wing radicals on a mission from a secular being to empower young people and give a progressive voice to our generation.

Thank you for your continued support of LCK, and GO Kucinich!!

-the liberal college kid team

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Hello All,

We at liberalcollegekid.com would like to apologize for the deplorable comment spam that plagued our site today.  Today we received more than 70 spam comments, all of which were vulgar and had nothing to do with this site, college kids, nor politics.  We are sorry for anyone that was offended, or met with nasty comments on any articles they were reading.

Measures have been taken to block spammers from being able to post comments, however, if things do not improve we will be forced to require users to register in order to comment.  As of now, we hope that won’t be necessary.

Thank you for your understanding and support for liberalcollegekid.com.

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From the WTF, Are You Kidding Me? category: I’d just like to point out that there are 10, that’s right 10, Republican candidates debating tonight… where did these guys come from? The candidates are: Sam Brownback, Jim Gilmore, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo and Tommy Thompson (in case you care). I do have to admit that the GOP is going to garner some huge “We Have Bigger Balls Than The Democrats” points by allowing MSNBC to host the debate AND by allowing readers from politico.com to submit their own questions. I don’t really have anything substantial to write on this as I’m still trying to get over the shock that there are 10 GOP candidates and that they’ve all agreed to go to California and debate on the same channel that is home to Olberman… wow, this really is too much to process all in one sitting.

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Poor Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister of Israel already had an approval rating in the single digits and now this. A recent report conducted by a committee to which Olmert appointed the members has asked that he resign because of his handling of last summer’s war with Hezbollah. While we can’t learn how to manage an image crisis from this situation (Olmert is effectively ignoring the calls for his resignation) we can learn a little something about accountability.

Israel conducted and investigation into the start of the war, searching to find whether or not the conflict was justified. Now there’s a novel idea. The commission, although appointed by Olmert, is fiercely independent, as I’m told by NPR most Israeli committees are. Huh, now that’s something I hadn’t thought of before, a committee that prides itself on being above political infighting, interesting concept there. The investigation found that Olmert was too quick to jump into a war with Hezbollah after they attacked an Israeli patrol and captured two soldiers. Our war in Iraq is, of course totally different because Bush was completely justified in attacking Sadam after he… well… wait, wait, don’t tell me… oh, right, he didn’t do anything to provoke a war. Finally the committee decided that the decision to go to war was wrong and called for Olmert’s resignation. WOW, actual accountability!

The war in Iraq has, to put it as politely as it can possibly be put, not gone according to plan yet Bush and the Republicans act as if questioning the war equates to siding with the enemy. Why shouldn’t we question a war which has cost tens of thousands of innocent lives and has thrown an entire country into turmoil? How is it unpatriotic to want to analyze that would be best for the country? It’s time to stop letting the right’s argument of “we’re there now so you’d better go along with this war” ride roughshod over the need for accountability and responsibility in this country.

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You’ll have to forgive me, I’ve been out of the country for 5 months, and I think my geography is a little rough. But apparently, Texas is the biggest state in the US.

Or so, that’s what the lady with a thick drawl from Texas was telling her Vietnamese guide at the Temple of Literature in Hanoi, Vietnam today. She apparently doesn’t consider the vast lands of Alaska “the United States.”

She then went on to ask, “Do your people (the Vietnamese) like George Bush?”

To which, both the Vietnamese guide and myself secretly dropped our jaws. Has the lady from Texas no perception of how the rest of the world sees George Bush, especially a Vietnamese woman old enough to have lived through a particularly recent and bloody war with George Bush’s homeland? Perhaps because the Texan knew George W. dodged the Vietnam Conflict and didn’t actually DO any fighting in Vietnam, the Vietnamese people would be thankful to him. I’m still doubtful. Whatever the Texan assumed about George Bush’s universal popularity was shattered when the Vietnamese guide shook her head and said “no” quite vigorously.

The Texan then explained that, “In America, we like Bush, but we hate Gore.”

Ah yes, I remember seeing those popularity figures in, “I’m a redneck-retard Gallup Poll.”

This kind of ignorance is only acceptable because the Texan is making an attempt to see other cultures, though how she got as far as she did without discovering the great territory of Alaska, I have no idea.

Oh, I might have forgot to mention she is a Bush family friend; or at least that’s what she claims.

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