American Conservative Youth Union http://acyu.org Minors with major opinions. Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:16:30 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.1 en An Answer to The Democratic Dilemma http://acyu.org/2008/08/12/an-answer-to-the-democratic-dilemma/ http://acyu.org/2008/08/12/an-answer-to-the-democratic-dilemma/#comments Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:16:30 +0000 Alex Hubbard http://acyu.org/2008/08/12/an-answer-to-the-democratic-dilemma/ The primary season for the Democratic Party has turned out to be the most interesting and unpredictable series of events since at least 1980, the year President Jimmy Carter was challenged by Massachusetts Senator Edward M. (Ted) Kennedy. Kennedy took ten primaries from Carter and cast some doubt on the nomination of the sitting President, but eventually cooler heads prevailed as public opinion turned back toward Carter. Whether this year’s version of theater is similar in any degree is somewhat debatable, but the level of disorganization and bickering offered up from the Democratic ranks is a spectacle worth following.
One of the largest, perhaps the largest, conflicts that has arisen is the battle between the two states who were punished for holding their primaries too early and the Democratic party, who punished them. These two states, Florida and Michigan, have been actively looking for ways to have their primaries be counted and their delegations seated at the party convention. Of course, the conflict has found its way to the candidates. Hillary Clinton wants the contests to count. This is mainly because she was the winner of the meaningless votes. Barack Obama, who obeyed the candidate agreement to avoid campaigning in those two states, does not support the counting of the contests or any attempt to have another primary.
Even if all parties were to agree to have a do-over primary in the two states, there is another debate about how to go about doing it. Disputes over funding, logistics, and authenticity are all valid arguments that have been raised. Everything from a mail-in primary to various formulas on how to allocate the delegates based on the original primary results has been discussed. One particularly unique idea, editorialized in the Boston Globe recently, would consist of a caucus-like group of voters who would attend a Lincoln-Douglas-style debate between the two candidates and base their vote on what they learned from the debate. This particular idea is the best one in terms of actual logistical reality, but the majority of the population is unfamiliar with Lincoln-Douglas debate and would likely find the various rules confusing.
There is, however, one idea that has had little attention paid to it. It is not necessarily the easiest, and it certainly will not satisfy everyone, but it is probably the most fair and authentic of all proposals. It’s most significant downfall is that it would require both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton to agree to the idea.
The plan calls for funding of the primary by the two campaigns. Funding the two primaries would be extremely expensive, especially for just two Presidential campaigns with realistic chances of competing in November. Due to this, if the campaigns wish to enlist the support of private sources for donations, they should be free to do so. There will be two main stipulations. To insure fairness and voter freedom, the primaries will be funded with equal portions of the Clinton and Obama campaigns. In other words, the campaigns will sponsor half of each of the primaries, with complete disclosure of the money’s original source. This insures that voters feel no pressure to vote a particular way because of an imbalance of funding between the candidates. The other stipulation is that the candidates will not seek nor accept any funding from any national or state party or committee. This too will allow voters to have no allegiance to anyone or anything other than their preferred candidate. Finally, the Democratic parties of the two states will handle the logistics of the contest, such as whether the primary will be handled in normal polling places, by mail, or any other method. The staff needed to carry out the primary will be paid by the party, through the funding of the two campaigns. This would avoid, for example, a polling official’s wages being handed out by a particular campaign, thus opening the contest to manipulation. All other expenditures will be handled in the same way.
For the moment, this plan is no different than any other; it is just a proposal up for debate. It does address the most urgent and fundamental questions though, which is something some other plans do not. Whether the candidates can come together long enough to get to the point of setting up a do-over primary remains to be discovered, but that is not to say that they cannot or will not. When and if they do, however, they have plenty of ideas to choose from.

]]> http://acyu.org/2008/08/12/an-answer-to-the-democratic-dilemma/feed/ Obama Cannot Transcend http://acyu.org/2008/08/12/obama-cannot-transcend/ http://acyu.org/2008/08/12/obama-cannot-transcend/#comments Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:15:59 +0000 Alex Hubbard http://acyu.org/2008/08/12/obama-cannot-transcend/ At the outset of the Presidential campaign, Barack Obama transmitted the sense that he was, or was going to be, America’s favorite candidate. Sure he was inexperienced compared to his opponents. Of course he had little foreign policy understanding. According to Senator Obama, none of this mattered, and it really didn’t have to do with being President anyway. He maintained that most of it had to do with rising above political partisanship and Washington mind games. For a time, it seemed America bought this sunny idea, and many Americans still may, but it is becoming increasingly clear that Obama is a politician above all, and he cannot bridge any gaps or rise above it all.
Coupled with his idealistic political message, Senator Obama spoke of racial harmony. He spoke of peace and justice, and how it can be obtained. Not only could he overcome politics, he could overcome racial barriers and change the thinking of many. He was raised by a white, middle-class mother. His father was a black native African. He was college educated at the best educational institutions the nation has to offer, yet he was not above recognizing poverty. Instead of working in corporate law, where his intelligence would have been handsomely rewarded, Barack Obama, the seemingly well-off young man of a relatively privileged upbringing, sacrificed all that to become a civil-rights activist. In a sense, according to Obama and his supporters, he had the very best of both worlds, if the best was to be had in at least one of those worlds.
The need for an end to racially-motivated thinking and political agendas is extraordinarily needed in this country. There are few people within mainstream society, of any school of political thought, who would disagree with that. The idea, however, that one person can change all of the misfortunes of this country simply by becoming president is misguided and unrealistic. All of that aside, Barack Obama has shown America why he is not the solution, and why he will likely never be the solution, either on his own or within a group.
Barack Obama discovered that his associations with certain people were actually subject to some scrutiny. Surely this was a shock to him because the mainstream media has, for the most part, been on bended knee for him. Nevertheless, when it was disclosed that Barack Obama associated with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, a minister who has made many controversial remarks about America and race, the Obama campaign was set back for the first time in many months. Obama was in a fix. Not only did SenatorObama know Mr. Wright, he attended his church for twenty years, and Wright married Barack and his wife, as well as baptized the Obama children. The Obama campaign could not shrug this off.
There is no good way for a politician to get out of a situation like what Mr. Obama has found himself in. In many ways, it is not what the candidate has done, but how he or she deals with the crisis that makes or breaks a campaign. Obama could have, and should have, publicly apologized for allowing himself to be portrayed in such a light, and then explained his exact thinking as to why he allowed himself and his family to listen to such angry rhetoric. Then, Senator Obama should have condemned Jeremiah Wright for such Anti-American speech, recognized that Wright’s comments were just as bigoted as those made by any white supremacist in the past, and rejected any notion of returning to the church. Making such a speech still may not have undone the damage, but it would be a much better shot than what Obama did do.
Barack Obama suddenly became a clear-cut politician. His nervousness was apparent as he attempted to speak about the issue in a speech in Philadelphia this week. He rejected nothing in particular and tried to make the issue more about overall racial tensions than his association with such a controversial figure. There were no specific condemnations of his minister’s comments, such as the aids virus being invented by the government for genocidal purposes, or Wright’s quote, “God Damn America!” Instead, Obama tried to make the issue more about racial tensions that, for the most part, do not exist In America today. In short, Barack Obama deflected the issue, just like a politician, rather than dealing with it. He walked a fence. He justified without justifying. He changed the subject without changing it, and he failed.
Barack Obama’s masterless performance in Philadelphia proves that he will not be an accessory to harmony. He is a politician after all. What is most disturbing, especially in a world like today’s, is that Obama proved he cannot face a problem head on. He ducked. He panicked. Most of all, he solved absolutely nothing.

]]> http://acyu.org/2008/08/12/obama-cannot-transcend/feed/ Conflict and Compromise Within the Constitution http://acyu.org/2008/08/12/conflict-and-compromise-within-the-constitution/ http://acyu.org/2008/08/12/conflict-and-compromise-within-the-constitution/#comments Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:15:35 +0000 Andrew Dotson http://acyu.org/2008/08/12/conflict-and-compromise-within-the-constitution/             The United States Constitution has been a product of numerous counts of conflict and compromise since its very creation. With the crucial need to revise the Articles of Confederation because of their intrinsic weaknesses, the Constitutional Convention was the first event which spurred such examples of argument and negotiation into running. A multitude of plans were suggested at the convention, in the endeavor to procure adequate means of instituting fair ruling in the new constitution. These plans possessed both supporters and dissenters which unfurled the extended clash of rivalry and concession. This provides the very concrete infrastructure for which the Constitution was founded upon.

            The Great Compromise was an arrant instance of this subject. Although it won with the five states Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and North Carolina in favor, the states Georgia, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia stood opposed. With Massachusetts remaining split down the middle, New York’s departure and New Hampshire and Rhode Island’s absence, it was a very narrow victory for the foundations of the constitution our government practices and utilizes today. The compromise ultimately rested on the decisions of forming a house of representatives consisting initially of 65 members apportioned among the states roughly on the basis of population and elected by the people, and also settled the decision of forming a senate consisting of two senators from each state to be chosen by legislatures. The matters of this compromise were called into deliberation because of the lack of equal representation of the states on a federal level.

            The subject of equal representation was further argued within the Constitution with the 3/5ths Compromise. Some states, especially southern states, were preponderant with slave populations and these certain states desired the highest amount of representation on their total population in congress. Black-Americans were heeded as inferior beings at the time of this compromise, so it was decided that instead of amounting to one whole count for each person, the bulk of African-Americans would count as 3/5ths of a man, thereby allowing the southern states with better representation. With the support of the inhabitants of the southern states for a better-than-nothing amount, abolitionists and humanitarians opposed the 3/5ths Compromise because of its dehumanizing and debasing effect, manifesting the government’s notion of blacks being inferior to white-Caucasian Americans.

            Another example of a conflict and compromise focal point is Unites States voting requirements. In the genesis of this country’s independence, white men who owned property were only permitted to vote with the exception of having freed slaves able to legally vote in four select states. Nowhere in the Constitution did it mention the right to vote, so each state developed its own idea of limitations and standards of the franchise. Four years After the civil war and the abolition of slavery, the 15 amendment of the Unites States Constitution allowed black men to vote which had its share of dissidents especially among the cohorts of old-school confederates and pro-slavery advocators. It wasn’t until 51 years later in 1920 that the 19 amendment was passed by congress to allow women to vote with some numbers of men viewing women as too lax, indifferent or ignorant to know how to vote. The federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 ultimately allowed all nationalities of U.S. citizens to vote without literacy tests or other statewide limits. The requirements of voting within the Unites States have drastically changed over time through the propulsion of the development of the Unites States as a nation. It is astounding that only forty-one years ago a major amendment was drafted to ensure the equal opportunity to vote, taking hold of the Democracy which is supposed to be a main basis of freedom within our nation.

            In conclusion, through our nation’s history, the Constitution has been involved an egregious amount in dealing with conflict and compromise. The different stages of the Unites States throughout its development have all had their share of circumstances and impending matters of consideration. From the implantation of sufficient modes of conducting government, to the value of a citizen, and to the ability to take part in the system of Democracy which the Unites States was founded upon, the Constitution has whirled itself into an excessive bout of controversy, confrontation and steadfast mandates in the attempt to attain the most fair and quintessential guarantee of freedom and liberty to the common American citizen.

]]> http://acyu.org/2008/08/12/conflict-and-compromise-within-the-constitution/feed/ Border Stalemate http://acyu.org/2008/05/16/border-stalemate/ http://acyu.org/2008/05/16/border-stalemate/#comments Sat, 17 May 2008 00:05:00 +0000 Andrew Dotson http://acyu.org/2008/05/16/border-stalemate/ Many Americans find it a bemusing issue to contemplate an impediment in the flow of illegal aliens entering our country. This being said, it is equally bemusing to witness the modes of installment our politicians (both Republicans and Democrats) have formulated. How could an 8-foot wall possibly keep out the influx of thousands of immigrants per day infiltrating our country? Does one really think that a wall is going to halt illegal immigrants’ determination to achieve the superlative living conditions America offers? Conservatives everywhere are in dire need to come up with more practical, cost-efficient methods to maintain safety, law and order on the 2000 mile stretch of border, because, depending upon the decisions of Congress will be a long-awaiting matter.

It is then that one questions the attempt to attain safety and all other qualities which need be purveyed in the border debate that one starts to go off on a tangent. How could the legislature possibly enact reform on the border for the better of the immigrant’s wellfare and for ensuring legitimacy in entering our nation in legal process? It appears quite patent that the only way to achieve these means is internal discouragment.

A tight statute must be implemented to ensure that all buisnesses in the free-enterprise system, monitor the legal status of all employees. Such statewide propositions have been voted for numerously in local elections, but perhaps, because of the circumstantial, pressing importance of this quandary, stronger, more emboldening propositions should be slated for votes. With each passing day, American citizens are witnessing the denial of financial aid on both state and federal levels while illegal aliens are granted their benefits. The unwillingness to defray taxes by many illegal aliens is making our economic status more and more sluggish, especially while we are currently passing through a recession.

Reform has to take place where, strict levels of screening and approval are issued to illegal aliens in order to nip both the nominal aspect and economic drags which illegal aliens are causing our nation. Until such reforms can be instated, a stalemate will remain on our border line, still deliquescing the finances of our country and corrupting the legal standpoint of fairness in our nation.

]]> http://acyu.org/2008/05/16/border-stalemate/feed/ The Integrity of america http://acyu.org/2008/01/19/the-integrity-of-america/ http://acyu.org/2008/01/19/the-integrity-of-america/#comments Sat, 19 Jan 2008 13:54:08 +0000 Alex Hubbard http://acyu.org/2008/01/19/the-integrity-of-america/ There comes a point in the natural life of anything, whether it be a living thing or a society, that the quality of its existence brings into question its own integrity. It is a frightful time to those who watch the often slow erosion of integrity. It is a slow bleed that leaves all crying for help that seems slow in coming, if it makes an appearance at all. I am afraid that our society is experiencing such a bleed. For years, our country has been a revered patriot of honesty. For many who stepped to our shores, our country offered a second chance. It was a chance that offered a good standard of life provided one work for it. Ellis Island has become legendary for its place in American -immigration history. The island, located in New York, was the place many immigrants fell to their knees to kiss American soil before gaining legal entry through proper identification and paper work. These people became full-fledged Americans with voting capability. They raised their children as Americans, and many of the children of immigrants fought in American wars. (more…)

]]> http://acyu.org/2008/01/19/the-integrity-of-america/feed/ The Success of the Minority http://acyu.org/2008/01/19/the-success-of-the-minority/ http://acyu.org/2008/01/19/the-success-of-the-minority/#comments Sat, 19 Jan 2008 13:52:04 +0000 Alex Hubbard http://acyu.org/2008/01/19/the-success-of-the-minority/ The past year marked a massive change for the Republican party. For the first year in over a decade, the GOP found itself the minority party in both houses of Congress. Since the midterm elections of 1994, the Republican Party retained constant control of the legislative branch. Coupled with the two elections of President George W. Bush, The Grand Old Party was in firm control of Washington. For many Republicans in Congress, this is their first time in the minority. These lawmakers began their legislative careers in the 1994 elections or the subsequent elections that kept Congress in similar alignment. Considering the lack of experience in this matter, and the force leveled against the GOP by the Democratic leadership, the Republicans have a great deal to be proud of. Not only did they prove to be a formidable opposition, they were able to achieve significant victories. (more…)

]]> http://acyu.org/2008/01/19/the-success-of-the-minority/feed/ The Wrong Agenda http://acyu.org/2008/01/19/the-wrong-agenda/ http://acyu.org/2008/01/19/the-wrong-agenda/#comments Sat, 19 Jan 2008 13:49:58 +0000 Alex Hubbard http://acyu.org/2008/01/19/the-wrong-agenda/ The race for the Democratic Party’s Presidential nomination has heated up between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Much of their time has been spent bantering back and forth about each other’s experience on dealing with various issues, chiefly foreign policy. Recently, however, things have gotten slightly messier. Once again, the Democratic Party has proven that a single election cannot go by without race being brought into the fray. (more…)

]]> http://acyu.org/2008/01/19/the-wrong-agenda/feed/ Why Hillary Clinton Is The Wrong Choice http://acyu.org/2007/12/21/why-hillary-clinton-is-the-wrong-choice/ http://acyu.org/2007/12/21/why-hillary-clinton-is-the-wrong-choice/#comments Sat, 22 Dec 2007 01:08:51 +0000 Alex Hubbard http://acyu.org/2007/12/21/why-hillary-clinton-is-the-wrong-choice/ As the primary season fast approaches, the Presidential race has heated up. Several individuals have become quite engaged. Such disputes include Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani against Romney, and John McCain versus the rest of the field. With the possible exception of Huckabee and Romney, the race that has proven to be the most unpredictable is the Democratic race between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Just a few months ago Democratic insiders seemed resigned to the idea that Hillary Clinton would be the party’s candidate for President. Despite leaving as much room as any other candidate for criticism, in some cases more, Clinton has maintained a constant lead. According to Gallup, at one point she was nearly thirty points above Obama, her closest competitor. Clinton, though maintaining her lead, appears to be weakening. (more…)

]]> http://acyu.org/2007/12/21/why-hillary-clinton-is-the-wrong-choice/feed/ The War in Iraq, Revisited http://acyu.org/2007/11/26/the-war-in-iraq-revisited/ http://acyu.org/2007/11/26/the-war-in-iraq-revisited/#comments Tue, 27 Nov 2007 06:48:52 +0000 Katelyn Sills http://acyu.org/2007/11/26/the-war-in-iraq-revisited/ I’d like to begin with some words from our President:

“The Government of Iraq crossed a new threshold of noncompliance… when it repeatedly blocked attempts by U.N. weapons inspectors to enter certain Iraqi government facilities. The investigators from the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM)… believe Iraq may be hiding information on its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs.”

This statement was not made by President Bush, but by President Clinton in a 1996 letter to Congress. (more…)

]]> http://acyu.org/2007/11/26/the-war-in-iraq-revisited/feed/ GeNO!cide http://acyu.org/2007/10/14/genocide/ http://acyu.org/2007/10/14/genocide/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 18:38:30 +0000 Retro Republican http://acyu.org/2007/10/14/genocide/ War is a staple of human life, with men savagely destroying each other since the days of tribes. Genocide is a development in warfare, a more catastrophic and calculated way of eliminating enemies. For all of human history, there have been tales of entire civilizations disappearing, men and children being killed, and mothers raped to cut off their father’s bloodlines. Before we can take action, it is important to realize that genocide has always been and always will be. “Never again” is a false promise because of its premises. It’s tragic, but it’s the truth. (more…)

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