Colin+B’s+2017+OpEd+Article

__On Politics and My Experience with Hamiltonian-Jeffersonian Conflicts __ //By Colin F Boyle// Sensational journalism doesn't sound that great to me honestly. I haven't come up with a really interesting passionate thesis, especially since Geib told us specifically not to talk about Trump. But that leads me to issues that are bigger than President Trump. Ever since I came back from summer vacation and all throughout the first half of junior year, I've changed drastically and realized how incredibly one-sided and full of bullshit I used to be before. I have good reasons for my political opinions when I say that I'm really glad that America won not just this election, but that America won America back. However, the former part of our great country's name, "United States", is unfortunately completely false. We're not united at all really; we're not even trying to tell ourselves that we are. Okay, I'm not saying we're going to have Civil War II, but it's probably going to take a long while before we really reconcile after the absolute shitshow that was the election. But the election only reinforced some major themes an issues that our country has been facing since before Obama, before Reagan even. Social justice v. economic dynamism, border security, immigration, "minority rights", go back as far as Hamilton v. Jefferson; but I'm not gonna ramble on about them: I'm just gonna say what I feel is right and hopefully vent most of my frustrations through it.

I don't care what gender you say you are, or what "race", or sexuality: I just want you to know that if you think that leftism or socialism is going to solve your problems, you're probably going to end up being exploited. By whom you might ask? Perhaps the $80M yearly salary earner Robert Downey Jr., or the hundreds of other celebrities who will tell you what to think. Don't believe me? Maybe [|this] will change your mind. It's pretty obvious that some of the most respected people in this country are not afraid to admit that they have enough influence over the general population. If the world really is going to end up like '1984', like so many people say it will be soon enough, then that video will surely make for an excellent example; telling people that you know what's right while leaning heavily to one side.

 Besides that, everyone wants to say they're fighting for equality; however, too few Americans actually uphold these principles. Racism is rooted in something some of us might call "unconscious biases", which is what UCSF's Office of Diversity and Outreach describes as "social stereotypes about certain groups of people that individuals form outside their own conscious awareness". This sounds more like a way to blame people for "inherent racism" and take advantage of race boundaries: which might I bluntly add, is precisely what a hefty portion of the political left are doing currently. Large economic structures and foundations are using 'race' and 'sexuality' as a means to receive more praise for their humanitarian and equalitarian efforts; if they really cared about your skin color or orientation, then they probably wouldn't use mention it directly nor use it as the cornerstone of their message about equality. Remember, actions speak much louder than words, people.

Another thing I want to bring up, as the title would suggest, is political correctness and this new Progressive movement that's been rising recently. Okay look, from the beginnings of our existence there have been certain things that have been deemed unacceptable in the world, and here in America, our first Amendment rights allow us to have freedom of the press, and of speech and religion. There is however, something that must be acknowledged when talking about this amendment: it cannot be used as an excuse for everything. If I shout outside about how much I hate a certain business, or religion, or skin color, I absolutely maintain the right to do so: but that doesn't excuse the fact that people can get upset at that, or that I can get in serious trouble with people I love or friends. Political correctness is, similar to unconscious bias, an effort to have the right to have anything offensive removed. This is unacceptable, but I don't say that as an opinion, it's an American standard to maintain the right to a say in the world To the left is a picture of my few friends making a human swastika. I first thought that this picture was pretty well done and a clever idea; however, so many Americans and people in general would find this incredibly offensive and rooted in hate.

This isn't like many Middle Eastern countries where sharia law exists and forces people out of the country, all because someone merely claimed that another person wasn't meeting Allah's standards and decided to exterminate their opinion and violate his/her basic human rights? That's another problem, and so many Americans are apologetic towards this way of life - no, sorry, way of death. For the life of me, why do we invest so many of our taxpayers' dollars on which bathroom a transgender person should use, when Europeans, Canadians, children and even Americans are being killed for the sake of killing non-believers? This is, as Woodrow Wilson would put it, a threat to our democracy and way of life.

Another thing I'm fed up with is seeing the whole Orlando shooting aftermath. The next image is fairly self explanatory, as it chooses to focus on an issue that was not the core of the problem, that being that the nightclub stood for prideful homosexuality, as opposed to tackling the real issue: the danger of terrorism in its scariest of forms. Instead the human, who might I add is parading in Soho, London, decides to do the complete opposite, by "passively" resisting the fight against the horrid system of oppression I've previously touched on. So this wave of "identity politics" where nearly everything has to do with race, gender, orientation or whatever, as I mentioned in the second paragraph, is totally destructive of all of the progress we've made as a country we've made over the past two-hundred and forty one years of being a "United" States.

My previous partner and I often talk about how things have changed with me; about how I'm not a raving Bernie supporter ( although Bernie still has a special place in my heart ) anymore, and how my views on things such as abortion and immigration have changed. They once told me they didn't like Pence and Trump because they thought their "LGBTQ rights" were going to be "revoked" by their new administration. Where they even conceived this, I have no idea, but one thing's for sure, and that's that there are no "LGBTQ rights" nor are there black rights, or women's rights, or white rights or trans rights or whatever: there are HUMAN RIGHTS and they are the supreme authority in determining our identities, especially as Americans. No "marginalized groups" or whatever should have special rights that distinguish them from another "group"; to be honest, groups shouldn't even exist: it's just another way to infringe upon our dignity and our sense of individualism. I've been told by protesters that I'm "blinded by white privilege", but there really isn't such a thing. Even if there were such a thing, how on Earth could "LGBTQ rights" be considered "rights"?

The truth is, we all want to blame someone at some point. Some of the largest evils in the world ( you already know I'm gonna talk about Hitler ) have risen because of blame of classes they call "privileged". The most successful families in Germany by the 20's were Jewish, and Hitler used his combined rage from his own failures, the failure of Germany in WWI, and his hatred for the economic "elite" to convince the German people that the old ways of the ineffective Weimar Republic and the Jewish were to be eradicated and replaced with a hyper-nationalist, economic-right, militaristic empire. With the exception of the ideas of fascism, the left-leaning radicals in the world today seem to be similarly leaning towards some kind of totalitarianism, where "bad facts" and "bad opinions" are negated for the sake of the oppressed minority.

Okay enough with the heavy stuff. I got so into this topic I even wrote a song about it. But I did ignore one part of the title until the end, the two key figures in our history: Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. These men shaped the divide between the major political ideologies and parties today, and they both deserve a little more justice that what the Broadway Hamilton gave them. Everything I've gone off about on this weird embarrassment of a muckraker article really comes down to these two men, who I'm sure seem familiar. Are Hamilton's economic policies indicative of the Gilded Age and the modern Wall Street monopolies, and if so, is that good for the American system? For Jefferson, is the states' rights battle still being fought? Who has won? All unanswered questions, but in conclusion, no opinion nor fact that I can explain will help America right now. We all just need to be more aware of what's happening in the world, and importantly, what's good and bad, not what's right and wrong. Opinions will change, as have mine, but we've existed as a country for almost 2.5 centuries and we've worked together long before even the Articles of Confederation were written. A toast to America, a nation with many problems but hundreds of millions of us who will not rest until the world is a better place. And I honestly couldn't ask for more.