A Good Verdict From ASCMC's Election Committee With Update

Isayas sent out an email to all of us campaigning saying the following:

Just to provide you all with a quick update, the elections committee met tonight to address a concern that was brought up about the interpretation of a part of the constitution. The line in question goes as follows:

"Candidates may not use any online social networks (for example, Facebook, or MySpace) to encourage others to vote for themselves or to vote in general."

Prior to our meeting, we chose to interpret the use of online blogs under the blanket of social networks or media. After our deliberation, we have decided to allow the use of online blogs because they are not exactly a social network. This does not change anything about the use of social networks, no Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc.

Also, news publications will be following the campaign, so feel free to submit a statement if and when your are contacted.

ASCMC has no control over publications that do not receive ASCMC funding. So there is also a chance that certain publications will blatantly support one candidate over another. Although the likelihood of this happening is minimal, it is always a possibility.

Hopefully the remainder of this election goes smoothly and remains stress free.

Remember, you may not begin campaigning until Thursday at 6:30pm when you turn in your signatures and campaign money.

Good luck to you all, and see you in front of Collins.

Today ASCMC's Election Committee handed down a great decision that will allow me to post my platform for this election cycle. I had petitioned the ASCMC Election Committee for a redress because of their then-standing interpretation of the ASCMC constitution that bans campaigning on so-called "social media." Unfortunately, the way several ASCMC Election Board members had interpreted that decision was that this section of the ASCMC Constitution banned all media on campus, including this -- and every other -- private website on campus. What some members of that Election Committee wanted was that only the Forum could comment or run things discussing the race -- something I found inadvisable and unconstitutional.

My thanks to everyone that participated in the discussion and my condolences to the newspaper editors that were present but then asked to leave. I guess that's just another thing that ASCMC can change going forward.

The way it went was that I gave my speech, took some questions from the ASCMC Election Committee and then left the room for some time -- almost thirty minutes or so afterward -- and then they issued their decision. I would like to personally thank Isayas, our current president, who guaranteed a timely turnaround for this decision.

The substance of the decision is that I now have the right to post my platform on this website, and that independent school publications can cover the election as they see fit. Unfortunately, school websites and/or newspapers that do receive funding cannot endorse a candidate, but they are free to hold debates and cover the race, so long as they do their best to be neutral between the candidates.

The ban on Facebook currently stands and I will be deleting this blog post from my Facebook crawler as soon as I can. (I have a corporate finance exam tomorrow and will be off to the library up at Mudd.)

PSU: Ethics of Abortion Debate

The Ethics of Abortion

Rose Hills Theatre, 8pm

February 25^th, 2010

Given the perpetual nature of the debate over abortion in the United States waged between two equally impassioned and highly partisan sides, the PSU has decided to approach the topic of abortion in an event this spring. Abortion is a sensitive issue that permanently remains on the national stage, whether as a litmus test in the elections of public officials, discussed in its own right, or within the context of contemporary legislation, such as the most recent controversy over its inclusion in health care reform efforts in Congress. The PSU believes that this staple of contemporary politics merits thoughtful consideration through an event on campus. While the consensus on campus has settled in favor of reproductive rights, the issue of abortion nonetheless features prominently in American politics and has not lost its potential to inflame opinions in the greater public. To address this controversial topic, the PSU has invited two prominent academics to take part in a debate. The event will investigate the topic of abortion through moral and ethical perspectives to illuminate the deep-rooted philosophical arguments of the pro-choice and pro-life movements. It will take place February 25^th in Rose Hills Theatre on the campus of Pomona College.

Patrick Lee

Dr. Patrick Lee is the John N. and Jamie D. McAleer Professor of Bioethics at Franciscan University of Steubenville, and the Director of the Institute of Bioethics. His best-known book, Abortion and Unborn Human Life, is a comprehensive examination of the moral and ethical foundations of the pro-life position. He also authored Body-Self Dualism in Contemporary Ethics and Politics, and has published numerous articles on such philosophical and ethical topics as human nature, marriage, abortion, euthanasia, and metaphysics. His articles have been published in The National Review, Reason Magazine, The New Atlantic, The Public Discourse, and he regularly delivers lectures at universities across the country.

David Boonin

Professor David Boonin is Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he teaches on applied ethics, ethical theory, and the history of ethics. He is the author of A Defense of Abortion and The Problem of Punishment, as well as a number of articles spanning a wide range of topics, including same-sex marriage, euthanasia, the moral status of animals, race, affirmative action, and hate speech. He has published articles in Public Affairs Quarterly, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Environmental Ethics, the Journal of Applied Philosophy, and the Journal of Social Philosophy, and is the co-editor of a popular philosophy textbook.

For More Information:

Please contact Greg Carter at gregory.carter@pomona.edu or at (202) 316-7678. To learn more about our other upcoming events and to sign up for our mailing list, please visit psu.pomona.edu.

Nick George's Response to My Writings on Him

Nick George, of TSA fame, is complaining that I buried him in a comment thread related to a post I wrote about him. Seeing as there are three comments in that entire thread, this doesn't strike me as a particularly deep burial, but then again, perhaps Nick's not particularly deep, given his attack on special needs people and Sarah Palin. (Really, how trite.)

Here it is in full:

I originally wrote a much longer response that went point by point down Charles Johnson's piece, but when I finished, I realized something.

This is the wrong discussion. The discussion shouldn't be about me, what I think about Glenn Beck, what my major is, or how long my hair is. (Or my past contacts with the Communist Party of Bulgaria. Mr. Johnson failed perhaps to notice that the quoted facebook account also as me pictured as a cat, the quotes to all other fields being "meow." A rather unimaginative prank made by a friend sophomore year. But I guess we can't all understand satire as well as Sarah Palin.)

Here's the thing: I have no interest in defending myself. All these arguments breakdown at the moment when they determined that I had no contraband and posed no threat to airport security. That was before they arrested me. Thus, I believe I can sum up my argument briefly.

Black's Law Dictionary defines "probable cause" as “[a] reasonable ground to suspect that a person has committed or is committing a crime.” First off, what's the crime? Terrorism? Really? Is anything Charles Johnson mentioned in his article reasonable ground to suspect that I'm committing or have committed terrorism?

It's not about me. It's about the law. When you cuff somebody and put him in a jail cell for learning a foreign language, you've crossed the line. Anyone who argues in favor of arrest without probable cause needs to take a good hard look at their definition of 'radicalism.' My case is about upholding the Constitution, a value any good conservative must hold.

(Finally, I add parenthetically that regardless of what language Dan Rubin chose to use in his article, I did not "hem and haw" when asked about 9/11. I said it was terrible. I'm sorry I didn't immediately go into a Glenn Beck at the mention of 9/11, but I was taken completely aback by a law enforcement officer from my own country agressively [sic] implying that I was either complicit or at least sympathetic to the worst terrorist attack on American soil. Neither my patriotism nor my morality should be questioned because I study Arabic.)

Allison- you look great in that picture!

I told Nick that I'd be responding point by point to his response. So here's my response.

It's a shame that Nick won't go line by line telling me where I'm wrong. My suspicion is that he cannot do it. If Nick had read the post I wrote for Big Government, he'd realize that my mentions of his views of Glenn Beck, his major, and his shortened hair were all related to the claim that he may or may not be radicalized. (The point I made about his political views was more than a bit tongue and cheek-- although one has to wonder about a guy who jokingly refers to belonging to the Communist Party of Bulgaria, a group which murdered thousands of people.)

But instead of answering the charges as to why he might have been perceived suspicious, he ignores them -- which is fine, but it doesn't make it any easier for TSA to do its job. A part of that job is to evaluate threats and Nick wasn't a threat, we know that now, but put yourself in the position of the TSA. Nick had visited half a dozen Muslim countries, one of which is on the State Department's list of terrorist sponsors. The TSA probably thought, "hmmm... why would somebody be visiting a war zone?" -- a thought which isn't all that unreasonable. (Hence the reasonable part of his search and seizure.)


And I don't have a hard time believing that Nick "hemmed and hawed" given that he's already changed his story about what he said to the TSA. To The Student Life Nick said he didn't know what his view point was on 9/11, but to The Philadelphia Inquirer he said that he was against it. Which is it?

He says he didn't "immediately go into a Glenn Beck at the mention of a 9/11, but you don't have to be a talk show host to say that 9/11 was a horrific attack. Really, you're in an airport being interrogated by the TSA and you're going to get political? How smart is that? Why does he have to politicize the murder of 3000 people? Couldn't he just have easily said something more forceful?

Nick quotes something from Blackstone about arrest, but what he lives out is this: the police can hold you for up to 24 hours without charge in police custody. When it comes to terrorism cases, the courts can authorize an extension of up to 28 days in police custody.

Remember, if Nick's to be believed, he was held for five hours. The Constitution, which Nick seems to have discovered now that it suits his ACLU lawsuit, allows for reasonable curtailments of people's liberty. The Constitution is not a suicide pact.