A Young Voter Schools his Father

Fathers and Sons: The love; the expectations; the independence. We rear our sons to not need us anymore - to become fully functioning and independent people who make their own choices and live with the consequences of their decisions. Tough love in a tough world.

But we never quit being our father's sons. And that matters deeply.

(I have half-jokingly told friends and KSN&C readers that if I were to start a political party in America it would be the Radical Moderate Party. It would insist upon equality for all citizens but would generally reject extremism from the far right as well as the far left. It would court the middle 60 percent of Americans who see both sides of issues. I think Andrew might make a fine charter member.)

This from journalism and economics senior Andrew Waldner in the Kentucky Kernel.

An open letter to my father:

You’ll take your own advice some day

Dear Dad,­

I know you find my Democratic ideas silly and immature. You always say, “One day you’ll be a Republican, just wait and see.” But I don’t think you understand. I don’t think you understand my beliefs and I don’t think you understand the actualities of your own party.

You think the GOP is something that it’s not. It is not, as you think, the party for free-market ideals and do-it-yourself energy. It used to be, but it isn’t anymore. They’ve abandoned that creed for another: Fear. They incite fear in the electorate using social, “family” issues and ride that wave to power. It’s a wonderful short-term strategy and it worked extremely well for a while. It kept them in power for nearly two decades, all under the watchful eyes of people like Karl Rove.

I’m an economics major, so I know how the free market works. I believe in its ability to regulate itself and run efficiently, the recent credit crisis notwithstanding. I believe that if you lower taxes, you can spur consumer spending and investing and improve the economy. These are all historically conservative and/or Republican ideas, but they’ve been put on the backburner.

They haven’t been on the agenda for the last two decades.Today’s Republican “base” is predominantly white, lower-class and socially conservative. As exit polls are showing, the Republicans have slimmed down this base and are now losing nearly all demographics outside of these people. In the latest election, they only won 3 percent of blacks and 30 percent of Hispanics. They lost every single age group except voters over 65. How’s that for a super-majority, Rove?

Rove and his ilk took advantage of the basic fears of these poor, uneducated Southern and Midwestern voters and spun it into getting George W. Bush elected twice. Politically, it was a genius move. Realistically, it was a short-term solution that created a long-term problem. This strategy further marginalized their base and made people like myself, socially liberal and educated upper-middle class whites, even more scared of the goals of the party. Their views on immigration, related to this idea of fearing all “foreigners,” probably cost them just as many votes with other
demographics.

The GOP isn’t the free-market, small-government party it was supposed to be. It’s now, both in practice and how it’s viewed, the anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage and anti-anything not born in America party that focuses on little else. There are good conservatives who have similar views; the Andrew Sullivans, the David Frums, my own father; but they aren’t the ones in power.

The doomed campaign of John McCain is a perfect example. Here you have a moderate Republican who stands for everything good about the GOP and actually appeals to those moderates that you need to win an election. And yet, over the course of the last few years and during his campaign, in an effort to appeal to that base, he’s had to compromise his own beliefs.

Nothing shows this more than the choice of Sarah Palin. I won’t get into attacking her ignorance or “diva” tendencies, because it’s irrelevant. The important thing is that she’s nothing like McCain. He’s a relatively non-religious moderate and he’s forced to choose a hyper-religious neo-con as his vice presidential candidate. I don’t buy the arguments that she ruined his chances. In fact, I think she gave him the only chance he ever had at winning. Joe Lieberman or someone else would’ve just turned off the base and handed Barack Obama the presidency.

But, to moderates and liberals, she represents everything that’s wrong with the party. She has little policy knowledge and doesn’t seem interested in learning, she just wants to thrust her family and moral values on the rest of the country; real policy and issues be damned. Just like Bush, she seems to be an empty vessel that fundamentalist forces can work through to keep their belief systems in power. Rather than work to make the country better for its citizens in realistic ways, they want to control and remake their citizens into their ideal, “true” Americans.

So sorry Dad, but I can’t bring myself to join such a party. This GOP that basically ignores real issues like health care, taxation and the security of our nation just to wage an ideological holy war against Democrats and the rest of the world isn’t something I want to be a part of. The Democrats aren’t perfect. I don’t buy into some of their economic proposals, Nancy Pelosi is an evil succubus and they have their own nutty members to deal with. However, they’ve been smart and have begun to move towards the center away from their crazier tendencies. They also haven’t played into the most basic, religious fears of some of the poorest, least-educated people in our country just to keep in power.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m not saying that you or anyone that thinks like you is evil.

Being conservative is and should stand for the belief that people make their lives and fortunes on their own hard work, that we should carefully and skeptically embrace change and that the government shouldn’t give handouts. It shouldn’t mean controlling people’s lives, marriages, bodies and who knows what else. So if you’re a true conservative, defend yourself and take back your party. If you’re a fundamentalist Christian, that’s fine too, just remember that “fundamentalist” does not equal “conservative,” it’s something entirely different.

So for now, unless something big happens, I’ll continue to be a moderate Democrat and be happy with it. On a side note, I voted for Obama and would have done so wholeheartedly whether a registered Republican or Democrat, and I couldn’t be more thrilled that he won.

Someday, hopefully, the GOP will sort itself out and become the party of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan again; not the party of Bush and Rove. Until then, I cannot, in good conscience, be part of the Republican Party.

So don’t worry Dad, I believe in you. Someday you’ll be a Democrat, just wait and see.

Congrats Kernel

This from the Kentucky Kernel:

The Kernel won the 2007-08 Pacemaker award, the prize commonly referred to as the “Pulitzer Prize of college journalism.”

The award, presented during the weekend at the Associated Collegiate Press annual convention in Kansas City, Mo., is given based on five issues of the Kernel published during the last school year.

The contest was judged by editors at the St. Petersburg Times in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Other daily newspaper award recipients were: The Daily Iowan of the University of Iowa; the Northern Star of Northern Illinois University; The Daily Northwestern of Northwestern University; the Indiana Daily Student of Indiana University; The Harvard Crimson of Harvard University; The State News of Michigan State University; The Daily Tar Heel of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and The Battalion of Texas A&M University.

Kernel adviser Chris Poore said he was proud of the students who work at the state’s only daily college newspaper. He said the Kernel was in good company among the top newspapers in the nation.

“These guys love working at the Kernel and wouldn’t trade it for anything,” Poore said. “So it’s nice to have them recognized by professionals as one of the top newspapers in the country.”

Keith Smiley, editor in chief for the Kernel during the 2007-08 school year, said while he knew the Kernel staff did an excellent job during the year, it was nice to have the validation that comes from national recognition.

“I think for me and for all of us, it was a culmination,” Smiley said. “I think we knew we put in a lot of good work. But it’s nice to have that recognition, not just by us but by the judges from these professional newspapers.”

UK Students protest Kentucky Kernel cartoon

The Kentucky Kernel reports:

More than 100 students gathered outside the Grehan Journalism Building on Friday afternoon to protest a Kernel editorial cartoon that likened UK's Greek system to a slave auction.

The cartoon, which ran on Friday and was drawn by staff cartoonist Brad Fletcher, depicts a black man in chains on an auction block being bid on by three fraternities, "Aryan Omega," "Alpha Caucasian" and "Kappa Kappa Kappa."

The caption reads "UK Greeks lead the way on integration with this year's new bids."

"I didn't care about the 'purpose' - I cared about this man in chains, I cared about the KKK," said broadcast journalism senior Chaka Buraimoh. "I felt disrespected as a black woman."More than disrespected, I felt hurt," she said.

Editor in Chief Keith Smiley said an apology will run as the top story in Monday's Kernel and that editors failed to discuss the cartoon before it was published. The column was posted to the Kernel's Web site on Friday."I support my staff totally, and we make mistakes, but this should not have gone to print," Smiley said.

"Sometimes it's necessary to offend to get your point across. This wasn't one of those cases. I think in this case any message was lost because of the cartoon's offensiveness."

Fletcher apologized in a column that will appear in Monday's Kernel. It was posted to the Kernel's Web site on Friday."It was never my intent to garner this reaction or to convey the message that I have," he said in the column."In hindsight, it seems obvious to me why the cartoon has upset so many people," he said. "The images are harsh, dramatic and unnecessary."

Outside the Grehan building, students held up copies of the paper with the cartoon circled in marker with phrases like "Why this?" written beside it. Students passed out copies of the paper to passers-by. Reporters from the Lexington Herald-Leader and local television stations interviewed protesters. The TV stations recorded video of the cartoon, and the Herald-Leader requested permission to reprint it. The Kernel declined, saying it didn't want to allow the republishing of a cartoon that it had decided was inappropriate to publish initially.

A group of about 10 to 15 students went to the Kernel office to speak with Smiley and requested that the Kernel print a front-page apology.

Smiley said that the cartoon should not have run and that the Kernel would examine its editing process."Obviously, it's not rigorous enough right now," Smiley said in an interview later."We're going to get the whole staff involved in a discussion over the weekend, and in the coming weeks and months," he said.

Smiley said he doesn't expect personnel changes at the Kernel, and that "there's no one person at fault here." He said he wants the staff to discuss diversity and to encourage dialogue with other campus groups.

After the meeting with Smiley, agricultural economics sophomore Josh Watkins addressed the crowd outside.

"We will not let this situation go away, because action without longevity is not action," Watkins said. "We expect not only an apology and to admit that you were wrong, but we want to shed light on the issue of what has been created by this. We want people to know certain things, want people to think before they talk or before they publish."

After the protest at the Grehan building, students, faculty and staff spoke in an open forum in the Free Speech Area outside the Student Center.

"Not being taken seriously (in the Kernel office) really hurt me most of all," said Phi Beta Sigma President Ramon Juanso in the Free Speech Area. "I'm let down by this university, and I'm let down by the Kernel."

At their regularly scheduled meeting on Monday, UK's Panhellenic Council and Interfraternity Council will draft a letter to the Kernel addressing the cartoon, said Panhellenic Council President Brooke Perrin.Perrin declined to comment until the council has met and the letter has been written.

James Harris, one of the students who organized the protest, said students upset about the cartoon will continue discussing how they'll respond."We'll have everyone think of ideas over the weekend, and we'll have a meeting on Monday," Harris said. "We'll have a definite plan of action then."