Op-Eds

Whistle blowing versus fighting windmills

Even if you don’t regularly keep up with the news, it would still be pretty difficult to have not heard about the recent WikiLeaks fiasco. Hundreds of thousands of documents have been released, on everything from personal assessments of foreign leaders to the names of informants. To those who are opposed to the wars in […]

The TSA does not care about you at all

We’ve all seen those YouTube videos of Transportation Security Administration officers molesting and groping passengers, or by now have experienced it first-hand on the way home for Thanksgiving break.  Why have we all of a sudden given up on our civil liberties for a false sense of “security” and “safety”? Getting on a plane now […]

Why our foreign occupations will not work

A strong military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan is not going to hinder terrorists. On the contrary, it will only strengthen them, while costing us American lives and dollars. President Obama needs to end the occupation of both countries as soon as possible. I fear that even the quickest withdrawal won’t be soon enough though, […]

Nations should fight wars, not contractors

An article published last week, “The uses of an extra-jurisdictional army,” argued for wider use of private military groups like Xe (formerly known as Blackwater). While I agree that unacceptable violence against civilians occurs worldwide every day, mercenaries are not the answer. Relying on private military contractors, or PMCs, will only put more lives at […]

The common misconceptions of Walmart

“I refuse to shop at Walmart because they underpay their workers.” This is often the common reaction when one thinks of  Walmart. Not only that, but they have low labor standards, they have horrible environmental standards, they wipe out local businesses, etc. These are  just a handful of reasons why some people refuse to shop […]

History shows women don’t vote their gender

Every time a prominent female Republican candidate (not a Democratic one) comes out of nowhere to win a nomination for a prominent office, the talking heads go gaga. They talk about how appealing she is to women, and how female voters will flock to her because of her message and enthusiasm. The only problem is […]

The conscience of a political moderate

Last Tuesday, the Democratic Party took a “shellacking” from the GOP, which enjoyed the largest House victory since 1948. Most governorships went Republican, too, while the Senate came nail-bitingly close to a 50/50 split. “On fiscal and social policy, polling data shows a major overlap between the Tea Party and the middle class, UR English […]

Child labor and world economic progress

Recently, I’ve been bombarded with endless arguments against free trade, and one popular argument is that it leads to lower labor standards. In most parts of the world where the manufacturing sector has increased in size, child labor is employed to do much of the work in factories.  More often than not, “child labor” brings […]

The uses of an extra-jurisdictional army

A group of teenagers are celebrating a birthday party. They hear a crash, followed by a hail of bullets. The party-goers lay dead in a pool of blood. This was the scene in Ciudad Juárez last month. These were the latest victims of a drug war that has claimed 28,000 lives since 2006. I was […]

The real American Express: the government

This past Saturday, I attended the Republican Rally on campus. The rally was replete with refreshments, American flags  and great candidates. Of those candidates, one really impressed me with his speech. His name was Joe DioGuardi. As a  CPA that had been in Congress during President Reagan’s second term, DioGuardi was our lone, but well-qualified, […]