Opinion

In 2008, Barack Obama featured one of the most innovative and attractive campaigns ever launched. His fresh-look propaganda, proper cause, even those who were pledged to the red side of the political spectrum were showing their support. College students especially were showing great enthusiasm about Obama’s campaign and his election featured one of the highest young-voter turnouts in history. Fast-forward to 2011 and nearly four years of his run in the president’s seat and things look quite different. Students who once were avid Obama supporters are less excited for the upcoming campaign, myself included.

Rhetorical language has its place. However, the exaggerations used by Aminah and the argument put forward hardly constitutes anything constructive. A key to constructive writing is unwavering cogency — that is, it must make sense.

The term apartheid is mostly identified with the 1948-1994 apartheid system in South Africa, where the white minority subjugated the black majority to a brutal system of oppression, stealing their land and depriving them of their basic human rights. It was a system that was condemned by the whole world. Apartheid, as defined by the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime and Apartheid, is “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.”

There is not doubt in my mind that if someone walked into Congress and presented the very bill that would get us out of this horrible debt crisis with enough money to spare to give everyone free ice cream for a year, the U.S. population would still not be as engaged as they are in Kim Kardashian’s life.

Thomas Hobbes is the essential creator of the social contract: the idea that each individual gives up a significant amount of freedom to a greater entity in order to receive security and benefits that alone one individual can not receive. The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments about whether the Fourth Amendment was violated when a police officer attached an electronic tracking device onto a suspect’s car without a warrant.

“If you want peace, prepare for war.” This Latin phrase sums up Mitt Romney’s plan for halting Iran’s nuclear program. Although it reeks of the typical American machismo response to foreigners, there lingers a scent of pompousness.

“Love the game no matter what.” This is the slogan that the Jordan brand has decided to go with for its latest ad campaign. Its new commercials depict a trio of superstars balling it up in a variety of locales — at a local pickup game, a retirement home and even a park in Beijing.

It’s really no surprise that, yet again, the University of California, Berkeley (Cal) is at the heart of some political controversy. This time is different though. Instead of this ruckus being about students protesting budget cuts, carbon emissions or how many types of granola are available at the cafeteria, it was actually the Cal police who were at the center of this uproar.

“We are the 99 percent,” they cry — the mother of four, the husband working multiple jobs, the college grad crippled in debt. They cry of financial hardship, of how they live from paycheck to paycheck, barely scrapping out a living of long hours and meager wages. They cry of injustice, how the richest 1 percent of America is currently in possession of approximately 40 percent of the nation’s collective wealth — an influence that they then allegedly abuse and exploit to their benefit.

Fueled by an Occupy Davis rally Tuesday, Nov. 15 that drew approximately 2,000 protesters, students at UC Davis shifted their focus to occupying campus buildings. After being foisted out of their one-night stint in Mrak Hall, UCD protesters regrouped Thursday night, setting up camp in the Quad in protest of the 81 percent four-year fee hike. The news of what happened next has been splashed across front pages, covered by national news outlets, editorialized on our Facebook newsfeeds, retweeted, reblogged and viewed on YouTube millions of times.

Let me start out by saying that it’s very rare of me to support “big government’s” laws forced on the little guy. Legislation telling me how much of a tax I should pay, or how much carbon my car can poison the Earth with, or what drugs I can and can’t use for my mild insomnia are not my favorite.

The United States is known for its generally apathetic electorate and low voter turnout. Compared to other democracies, we just don’t seem to care all that much about self-governance. To counteract this, some advocate compulsory voting.