Opinion
TECHNICIAN
PAGE 6 • THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2018
No, both parties are not the same The past few elections have been divisive, highstakes and extremely consequential. This election cycle proves to be no different, with the stakes feeling higher than ever for a midKevin term election. These elecMoye tions appear to be deciding Staff Columnist our country’s direction on a host of different issues, foremost being its moral direction. With so much at risk, it is time that we do away with the notion of “both parties being the same.” The narrative of “both parties being the same” is a false equivalency with little to no merit to it. When it comes to the most substantive policy issues, the contrasts between Democrats and Republicans are night and day. One party accepts the overwhelming consensus of scientists in their acceptance of climate change, while the other still hesitates to accept its cause as fact. A study reported on by the New York Times showed that, nationally, only around 31 percent of Republicans believed climate change was
mostly caused by human activity. While Republicans still muse over the veracity of these scientific truisms, the climate continues to be greatly affected by our out-of-control emissions. Recent reports have estimated that humans only have until 2030 to curb our contributions to climate change; otherwise, we will reach the climate point of no return. That’s a reality that our generation will be primarily in charge of adapting to, and it’s clear which party will pass policies now to help alleviate that burden. Health insurance has become another hot-button issue where the difference between the two parties is clear. Nationally, Republicans dropped their initial idea of “repeal and replace” for a description I believe to be much more accurate: repeal and –. Legislation that would kick millions of Americans off their health care plans without a replacement was proposed numerous times in 2017, but all attempts ultimately failed. North Carolina Republicans have shown similar intentions with their ploy to roll back the preexisting condition element of
Obamacare, one of its most widely popular features, which ensures that health insurance companies can’t discriminate against sick people. The North Carolina Republican Party, just like many other Republican parties throughout the United States, is not interested in creating bipartisan policy; they are interested in creating a partisan policy that allows them to hold on to power as long as possible. An area where we can see this latest power grab is in one of the offices on the ballot this year: the North Carolina Supreme Court. Most North Carolinians who have voted in the past will be surprised to see that North Carolina Justices now have party affiliations attached to them this year. That is because Justices of the North Carolina Supreme Court have not been in partisan races since 2002. In a last-ditch effort to consolidate power within the Republican Party, defeated Gov. Pat McCrory signed Senate Bill 4 into law, which put partisan labels on the ballot for appellate judicial elections. By adopting this legislation, McCrory and Republican lawmakers have
effectively demonstrated their preference for partisan victories over an impartial judiciary. Republicans in North Carolina have brazenly shown their disregard for democracy in their attempts at voter suppression. Not satisfied with the already grossly gerrymandered districts they produced, Republicans have taken it upon themselves to disenfranchise swathes of the North Carolina voting base too. Of course, Democrats are not perfect, but they at least have the decency to allow for legitimate elections to take place. To voters that have bought into the myth of both parties being identical, I urge you to take in-depth looks at the policies the two parties are proposing. Democrats in their current iteration are by no means what we should settle for, but they have maintained a standard of human decency that the Republican party has lost. It is up to voters now to recognize the difference between the parties through their vote. If not, then the Republicans will continue to make it clear through the abhorrent policies they have forced on North Carolina.
Importance of diversity in education “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela This quote sums up the utility of education to society. Education helps in Paritosh the growth and developGaiwak ment of an individual and Staf f Columnist makes him or her useful for the society. A well-educated person is an asset for the society in any form of social structure. Although a specialized education is required for almost every field, the overall impact is generally the same: a person who, in their own ability, makes the world a better place. However, one important question is, what should be the structure of the education that helps to shape a skilled individual? What are the factors which have the highest impact on education? The way I see it, education cannot be complete if it is limited in any form, be it race, religion, language or something else. One of the aims of education is to build a fair and just society, and unless education transcends all these barriers, it cannot achieve this goal.
For this reason, it is extremely important to incorporate diversity in education. Programs at NC State like the recent Diversity Education Week help to highlight the variety of ways diversity appears in the university community, as well as how the university can try to be more inclusive of people from diverse backgrounds in its educational programs. As an engineer, diversity in education ha s a n effect bot h on t he lea r ni ng a nd implementation of t he k nowledge that we have acquired through our education. Engineering would not have existed if science had not evolved, and if scientists from all over the world had not contributed to human knowledge the way they have. In this sense, every engineer is indebted to diversity, which made innovations global instead of limiting them to different regions. Moreover, when I, as an en-
gineer, am a part of a group with people from different backgrounds, I realize how there can be multiple approaches to a given problem. These approaches are generally offered by people who are quite different from each other, in terms of nationality, religion, language or a combination of these factors. Diversity helps an individual to realize that every person, whatever their background is, is an independent entity, and must be respected as such. Unfortunately, such a realization cannot take place once a person’s thought process has been firmly established and they have become used to perceiving things in a fashion based on their stereotypes. Hence, this understanding must be developed while one is still in their formative years, and it is an important part of understanding how people who are a
“A well-educated person is an asset for the society in any form of social structure.”
product of some form of social system or hierarchy behave (or do not behave) in a fashion. Another important aspect about diversity in education is that it helps solutions to one problem to be translated to an analogous problem from another entirely different field. For example, I am working on a research project that will enable me to apply machine learning methods to understand how genes interact. I hope to ultimately solve farmers’ issues present in my home country by introducing more robust plants in farming. The people I am working with belong to different nationalities, and had it not been for diversity, I would probably not have this opportunity. Diversity leads to an inclusive education, where every individual has an opportunity to grow by honing themselves in a globalized environment. This is beneficial both for the society and the individual. As engineers, we should see diversity as an opportunity to develop robust solutions which can be applied in a variety of situations and social structures, which will ultimately help us make the world a better place to live in.
