Published since 1915 by the students
of Xavier University
Published since 1915 by the students
of Xavier University
— STAFF EDITORIAL —
November 7 is fast approaching, and the political attack ads have been fully unleashed.
These cutthroat tactics have become a very popular trend in recent years, with candidates pouncing on any potential flaw in their oppositions’ history.
You’ve seen them on TV: dark gloomy screen, black and white photos of the opponent, accusations fading in with bold text while a guy who’s way too serious tells everyone why this candidate is bad news.
Suddenly, the sun shows up, the screen is awash in color and the smiling face of the “right choice” beams at you. “Don’t you want what you deserve?” says Mr. Too Serious. “Vote for this guy.”
In the Ohio Senate race, Republican incumbent Mike DeWine recently pushed ads accusing Democratic opponent Sherrod Brown of failing to pay unemployment taxes of $1,700 from his 1992 congressional campaign until 2005.
However, Brown has proven that the debt was paid in 1994, so the GOP reissued the ad, saying that Brown didn’t pay up until he was forced by the courts (a statement Brown hasn’t refuted).
This seems to be quite a desperate move by DeWine, and one that probably proved to be more harmful than beneficial, since the initial allegations weren’t true. The main problem, however, is why this is relevant.
America should be about moving forward, not about getting wrapped up in events that happened over a decade ago. People make mistakes, and if the mistakes are habitual, then maybe there’s something to worry about, but people can also change.
The candidates should be focusing on the change they plan to bring to our country, not their opponents’ misgivings (a term used lightly, since sometimes those misgivings aren’t even real).
What has the political system in this country come to? Candidates are no longer able to get votes because of what they plan to accomplish, but rather because they’re not as bad as the other options.
Perhaps they should try a new strategy: raise a bunch of campaign money, use the majority of said money to do something useful such as to help poor people and then use the rest to make an ad about what they did. Heck, at least we could believe they were capable of something good, not just trash talk.
The saddest part about this whole situation, however, isn’t the tactics that political candidates use, but the reason they use them. We live in a society that is so dependent on confrontation that these negative advertisements are needed to get people to care enough to fill out a ballot. Now, people vote against a certain candidate rather than in favor of the opponent.
In the long run, our political decisions should be educated ones about what’s best for our country, not based on which candidate would win on MTV’s “Yo Momma.” Everyone can appreciate a good diss, but the Newswire would appreciate more direction for the nation.
Matt Finger
Op-Ed Editor
It’s 6 a.m. on a Wednesday. You’re safe, warm and, most importantly, carefree as you nuzzle your sheets in darkness. But, unbeknownst to you, things of a very important nature are going on.
Somewhere around Xavier’s campus, there are footsteps. The concrete rumbles and the silence of the morning breaks as a shadow of tradition moves quickly through the streets.
Down Dana Avenue and into the dawn comes a group of students running as one. But don’t confuse them with ordinary students, like me and you. These students already have a job.
They aren’t concerned about job interviews and applications, not now at least. The stripes on their chests serve as the only resumé they need.
If you hadn’t guessed it already, I’m talking about Xavier’s Army ROTC program, and those students are your friends and classmates. They are also the people who will fight for you, even if you don’t ask them to.
So why then does ROTC and the members of the United States military encounter such opposition, and in some cases genuine hate, from the general population?
I don’t really understand that. Now, I realize that most (around 64 percent) of the country does not approve of the job that the current administration is doing. That is understandable. But what do the men and women in digital camo have to do with that?
Basically what I am getting at is why do people who don’t approve of the conflicts we are involved with find it logical to hate our soldiers? I don’t see how the troops are vicariously attached to the decisions made by men in Washington.
Last semester Rev. John Dear, S.J., an activist for peace, visited Xavier to preach his beliefs. During his visit, the ROTC program was holding its annual Military Ball.
Well of course Rev. Dear, who has been arrested over 75 times for his protests, found it necessary to block the entrance to the ball and protest Xavier’s long standing tradition of officer training.
Dear claimed that Xavier, a Jesuit institution, should not be involved in military, and should instead pursue a mission of peace.
I think that attitudes like that are unappreciative and naïve, especially coming from someone with the education that Rev. Dear has, which is a degree from Duke University and a master’s degree in theology.
But Rev. Dear isn’t the only one who doesn’t know what is going on. There are countless people out there, and on Xavier’s campus, considering that Rev. Dear was accompanied by several students at his protest of the Military Ball, who think that hating the troops is the same as hating the government.
Obviously these people are spending too much time in their shanties (which they don’t actually stay in) and not enough time thinking. The people who risk their lives for our freedom and our lives are saints.
They’re little saints with guns and we should all recognize the fact that the thousands of American troops located in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq and all over the world are giving you the chance to live in a society which faces obesity and traffic as its major problems, not rebel raids and cluster bombs coming in the middle of the night.
Let’s face it, we need our troops. They’re the ones who keep Korea from exploding and Bosnia from anarchy, and they’re the ones who lay down their lives every time they get out of bed.
So, Xavier, don’t hate the players, hate the game, because the players are the ones who keep the bad guys on the other side of the ocean instead of on the other side of the street.
As selected by the Newswire staff
1. Physical Plant - Whether its trimming the bushes, setting up tables or just getting rid of your trash, the Xavier Physical Plant workers are the most reliable and diligent employees of this university. They never disappoint.
2. Cintas Crew - From the wee hours of the morning to the wee hours of the next morning, the Cintas Center crew sets up, tears down and polishes up the main venue on campus. Who did you think set up the stage, gnomes?
3. Cafeteria Workers - These people feed you, and just that is a mountain of a job. But they also make sure that you’re enjoying your meals, not just eating them. On top of that they put up with you all day, and that’s a challenge.
4. The Janitors - Whether it’s the Gallagher Center, Alter Hall or the Publications House, our janitorial staff is great. Working horrible hours through the dead of night, these champions of the vacuum keep our campus clean.
5. Library Staff - These are the only people who know the Dewey Decimal System. Moreover, they keep our precious books in line, so whether you need Machiavelli or the basic principles of chemistry, you can rest assured that your book is where it is supposed to be.
Why Neo-Nazis are being shafted by the Ohio gubernatorial race
Patrick Stevenson
Assistant Op-Ed Editor
“Governor’s race turns ugly: Blackwell campaign links Strickland to predators, hints he’s gay,” screamed the top headline of the October 18 edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer.
I am incapable of ignoring a headline like this, so I picked up a copy and dove into the article that detailed how Republican Ken Blackwell, an enormous underdog to Democrat Ted Strickland, alleged that Strickland knowingly employed a pedophile, as well as vacationed in Italy with said pedophile, and is a homosexual because he vacations with pedophiles.
The liberal media, as usual, ignored the real problem that these allegations caused: “Who are the Nazis supposed to vote for?”
Many people agree that the two groups of people who have been persecuted most often throughout American history are African-Americans and homosexuals. In fact, many non-secret organizations, such as the American Nazi party, the Ku Klux Klan and the National Vanguard, have made the continued persecution of blacks and gays their primary function.
Traditionally when breaking down an election, organizations espousing the doctrine of “White Power” determine who to vote for by figuring out which of the two white heterosexual candidates is more racist and homophobic than the other. Using this method, a white supremacist could figure out who to vote for in the Virginia Senate election in roughly .02 seconds (George Allen makes it very easy for them).
However, this year in Ohio a black guy is running against a guy who might be gay. I mean, seriously, why are we in such a hurry with this whole social progression thing? Just over 40 (!) years ago, it was basically illegal to be a black person in the state of Alabama, and gay people couldn’t identify themselves without significantly increasing their chance of being murdered. Now, there’s a gubernatorial race between a black person and a possibly gay person! The white supremacists can’t possibly be expected to keep up with all of this social progress.
What have white supremacists ever done that has been bad for this country? Besides, of course, slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation, the Three-Fifths clause, a myriad of racially motivated murders and lynchings, retarding the country’s intellectual development, preventing some of the greatest athletes, musicians and artists of all time from showcasing their talents at the highest levels of their profession and countless other things that have had intangibly detrimental effects on society as a whole?
White supremacists even got to run their own country during the 1860s, and look at the great job they did! It existed for almost five years! In a row!
A lot of really intelligent people (who seem to exclusively drive pickup trucks) proudly display that country’s flag to this day. Some of these people are even literate!
All of these progressive thinkers will have you believe that we need to have social programs like affirmative action and welfare in order to help repair all of the damage that was created by decades of racist and homophobic policy. These progressive thinkers will throw fancy statistics at you, like how, according to the Sankofa Project, over the last decade, for every one black man who went to college, there were six thrown in prison.
I guess statistics like these are somehow supposed to support the practice of making college admissions more accessible for African-Americans, but this logic is obviously flawed. What we should do is make it harder for blacks to attend college. If there’s a 6:1 ratio of black men in jail to black men in college, and the number of black men in college is reduced, then according to the ratio, the number of black men in jail will go down. This is just another example of the irrefutable thinking that sets white supremacists apart from everyone else.
There’s probably a zero percent chance that you have not become a full-blown sympathizer of the “White Power” movement after all of the convincing historical facts and social theories I have presented, but here is the pièce de résistance, straight from the website of the American Nazi Party:
“The year is 2025; white people HAVE become a MINORITY in America. On our streets hang Aryan men who refused to accept the “New Way,” or perhaps they just looked too white.”
HOLY CRAP. I was so startled by this prophecy that I had to verify the part about white people becoming a minority in 2025. Most experts project that white people will actually become a minority in 2055 (this is probably the first time in history that Nazis have made an innacurate statement), but still, HOLY CRAP. Obviously, the Nazis’ assumption that the new non-white majority will immediately engage in mass public executions of the white minority is a completely logical connection to make. The Nazis don’t have to explain their incredibly sophisticated logic to anyone.
So, when you consider who to vote for in the Ohio gubernatorial race on November 7, take a second to consider the plight of the white supremacist. All they want is to arbitrarily oppress members of an imaginary social construct.
Matthew Finger 
Op-Ed Editor
Pat Stevenson
Asst. Op-Ed Editor
The Xavier Newswire
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