7
October 19, 2011
OPINIONS
The Merionite
Sam Mark
Class of 2012
America is fighting a war much closer to home than Iraq. In this war, some localities report as many as 130 violent deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, a rate 25% higher than anywhere else in the world. This war
isn’t happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the Middle East at all; it’s across the Rio Grande in Juarez. This is what a real war on drugs looks like. For the last 40 years, America has been locked in a futile struggle against both narcotics and reason, practicing a prohibitive policy best suited for the Dark Ages. As policymakers in Europe and Canada make progressive strides towards better drug policy, America continues to shoot itself in the foot, locked in an economically costly and woefully ineffective system. America spends 500 dollars every second fighting drugs. Collectively, that comes to 15 billion dollars every year, without factoring in state government spending (more than 15% of the total budget in many states). Our cash-strapped government continues to hurl money at a problem many see as a personal issue, as opposed to a legislative one. We aren’t simply being deprived of the money spent on this cause; drug dealers profit from it. Money being spent intercepting shipments of narcotics makes traffickers jobs more profitable. As Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman and 500 other economists in favor of drug reform argue, reducing supply without reducing demand increases profits. Interception and destruction of narcotics simply makes selling them easier and more profitable. While dealers profit, there are two groups put at a distinct economic disadvantage. The first are farmers in developing countries that produce crops like coca. Flying planes over rural areas to destroy coca plants with herbicides destroys everything. Farmers in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia are
literally starving as a result of America’s international arrogance. The second body harmed by such reckless spending is public schools. Schools and prisons are two areas of a state’s budget that compete with one another for funding. The incarceration rate in America has quadrupled since the War on Drugs was first declared in 1971. These policies have lead to both the prison overcrowding disaster and the public school funding crisis in states like California. The War on Drugs has been one of economic attrition, and due to its inefficacy, it’s a war we won’t win. Massive costs are one thing; massive costs that achieve no results are quite another. A two-year study conducted by the RAND Corporation concluded that attacking the supply side of the drug economy had little to no effect on drugs coming into U.S borders. The same study concluded that focusing spending on treatment as opposed to aggressive prohibition was 23 times more effective in terms of stopping drug use. Some progressive countries have discovered this and have been greeted with enormous declines in addiction rates. Seven years after Portugal’s decriminalization policy was instituted, the rate of new HIV patients decreased 71%. When policy focuses on treatment as opposed to strongarm prohibition, real progress occurs. In America, however, every illegal narcotic with the exception of opium has seen an increase in use since its prohibition. The results seem to contradict that policy. America’s history fighting wars against abstract concepts has been a rocky one. We’ve declared on poverty, terror, crime, and drugs with similar results. None of these elongated conflicts have gone on to help anything but fledgling political careers. Dividing the world up into two categories, good and bad, and declaring war on one is not the type of nuanced policy that improves countries. It’s the type of policy that destroys rational debate and blinds us to a complex view of a complex world. Perhaps it’s time we see the benefit of rehabilitating users as opposed to imprisoning them. Perhaps we should acknowledge that people are better at determining what goes in their bodies than the government is. It’s certainly time for some sort of change, preferably one from the 21st century.
Wall Street protestors, occupy a job Three weeks ago, protestors descended on the financial capital of the United States. Demanding that the rich pay their fair share, they “occupied” Wall Street. This has turned into the go-to cause for supporters of such mainstream causes as the
Class of 2012
The war on reason
Patrick Scott
abolishment of capitalism, forgiveness of all debts (obviously with the condition that they get to keep whatever they acquired debt to buy), an elimination of currency, and decreasing the Jewish influence on Wall Street. Unfortunately for these protestors, to speak truth to power you need to be true, and being the loudest is not equivalent to speaking the truth. America has a very specific method by which people can change the government: they can vote, they can volunteer for political campaigns, they can even run for office. One thing they cannot do is take to the streets, in a rabble resembling some combination of a lynch mob and Woodstock, chanting, “this is what democracy looks like” and “we are the 99%.” Unfortunately for them, that is not what democracy looks like. And even so, as anyone who has taken a basic class on American history can tell you, America is not a democracy; it is a democratic republic. Our Founding Fathers specifically did not make us a democracy so that even if 99.9% of people wanted to do something, they would still need to respect the rights and liberties of that last 0.1%. Perhaps their arguments would be taken more seriously if they expressed a fundamental understanding of how American government works. About the claim that the protestors represent 99% of America, first off, the sheer arbitrariness of it demands a closer look—once someone makes it into the top 1% of income earners, are they suddenly the enemy? Furthermore, this categorization is fundamentally flawed, because it assumes that economic status is the only social divider. There are so many more factors: religion, ethnicity, geography, personal philosophy, and others. A recent Rasmussen poll found that only 36% of Americans view the Occupy Wall Street
protestors favorably, while 41% view them unfavorably. Apparently not all of those 99% know they are at war with the entire financial system. Perhaps the reason that so many Americans missed the memo that they are supposed to hate bankers is that they were too busy depending on them. Anyone who owns a house or car likely had to take out a loan at some point. Anyone who wants money fast depends on banks for ATMs—the alternative is carrying around your savings in your back pocket. Then again, that would require having a job, something that anyone who can spend three weeks protesting obviously isn’t well versed in. The problems with these protests go deeper though. The sanitary conditions are disgusting, with reports that the ground is littered with condoms, cigarettes, and trash and these freedom fighters have resorted to non-traditional means of using, or not using, the bathroom. Many protestors are downright obnoxious; residents in the area have complained that drum playing wakes them up in the middle of the night and they can’t walk outside without seeing public lewdness and open drug use and being harassed by the protestors. Admittedly, some of the protestor’s concerns are legitimate. Opposing the amount of influence corporations have on politics is perfectly reasonable. However, their modus operandi lacks common sense, it lacks respect, and frankly, it lacks cleanliness. Even if you look past what can only be described as a common sense deficit in the way these protestors are conducting themselves, their arguments still lack merit. For one thing, many of the requests lack a basic understanding of economics. To function a nation needs a financial system, much the same way it needs industry and agriculture. Strong banks are essential to allowing business growth. And they support the government too. In fact, one-third of New York’s tax revenue comes from Wall Street: tax revenue that pays for things like roads, education, sending police officers to guard three thousand people, who decided it would be fun to camp out in the middle of the city. There’s a Beatles’ song that goes “We all want to change the world, but when you talk about destruction, don’t you know that you can count me out” and until those occupying Wall Street realize that most Americans hold this viewpoint they will never receive respect, they will never receive credibility and they will never receive their demands.
Catching up with college: Story of a senior Class of 2012
For the first half of senior year, the majority of discussions amongst the senior class undoubtedly deal with college applications.
Andrew Gehlot
The three most frequently asked questions that I have received are “Where are you looking to apply?” “What are your SAT/ ACT scores?” and “What’s your GPA?” Colleges are becoming so standardized in applications that test scores and GPA appear to be all that matter. Sadly, there are other, more essential aspects of an application that should be focused on. Go visit a college and they will give you a presentation about the application process. Over my total of seven visits, six of the colleges asserted that the first two things that they look at in an application are GPA and standardized test scores. In fact, I personally talked to an admission representative for a university who stated that the university
would often neglect students essay, trends, skills. By the time you’re a senior, your or any other piece of their application after focus on schoolwork has probably changed witnessing their scores. immensely since freshman year. GPA fails Anyway, why is a focus on scores such to show this major variation. Since GPA a bad thing? If the SAT is only an average, it shows truly had the power to no presentation––or rather exhibit each and every misrepresentation of all of student’s full capabilities the hard work and immeain an identical method--it surable effort that you have put wouldn’t be. However, into your high school career. this is intelligibly imAll four of those painstaking possible with tutoring, years just for one, misleading strategies, sheer luck, number. and even cheating. Not There are many other, only is the SAT unmore important, characstandardized, but it teristics of an application also barely shows a stuthat, sometimes are not dents college readiness, even touched upon. The which, according to Colmost important aspect in an lege Board, is the whole application is the trend in your point of the SAT. Honestly, academics and grades on your when are you ever going to Art by Galen McMullen transcript. While it takes longer have to write an essay for a than looking at a single number– college class in 25 minutes? –your GPA––it is a way to see how a student SAT’s aren’t the only flawed evaluation progressed through his or her high school of a student; cumulative GPA is misleading career, which is far more important than as well. GPA tries to equate your entire an average. The student essay also needs a high school academic career into one higher priority in an application because it single number, and that number is usually represents you as a person. The submitted unrepresentative of your current academic essay gives the admissions experts a taste of
your character traits and personality, both of which are aspects that are important to how you function at a college and show what new ideas you will bring to that college. Finally, they should look closely at what you want to study, because the main point of a college or university is to help you succeed in your area of interest. If this was the case, imagine all of the time, effort, and money that you would save, all for a better outcome. The stress of taking standardized tests would be greatly relieved. The money necessary to pay for the test along with tutoring could be put toward your application instead of towards a number. Your application would truly represent you as a person, including your strengths, weaknesses, growths, and interests, The college or university would get a holistic view of you and an impression of how you would succeed in your area of interest at that institution, even if you’re undecided. The limitations and standardizations that colleges have set in terms of admissions have students so anxious and concentrated on getting into a college that they fail to focus on the more important detail of what they want to pursue in and after college. This could easily be alleviated if colleges made the admissions process a little more forbearing.