“We Do Not Apologize.”The Conservative Voice on Campus

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An Independent Publication

The Cornell Review

Let us begin this article by mak-ing one thing plainly clear: I

am a conservative Republican. This newspaper is written from a conser-vative point of view (except for our new sports writing!). This is why the masthead reads “The Conser-vative Voice on Campus,” and not “Fair and Balanced” or “Indepen-dent Since 1880.”

At the Cornell Review, we know what we are, and we feel strongly about what we believe. As the in-coming Editor-in-Chief, it is my responsibility to provide an outlet for conservative values and view-points—and it is the responsibil-ity of our writers to provide well-researched, fact-based arguments that may oppose the mainstream line of thinking here at our great university.

Now that that’s out of the way, let me be frank: if you are a senior at Cornell University, this article is not for you. The same goes for juniors, some sophomores, faculty, and ad-ministration. Should you fall into any of these categories, feel free to move on to the next article—or stay, as it is still (currently) a free country.

This article is intended for one audience only: our new Class of

2017. So, let’s chat.How are you guys holding up?

I’m sure it’s been a rough couple of weeks for all of you. Everything happens so fast; the move, meeting new roommates, finding your way around. For me, the biggest chal-lenge was communal dining. I’m still trying to get comfortable with that.

And in the end, that’s what all this—the college experience—is about, isn’t it? Experiencing new things, finding one’s self, and doing things that in later years you will look back at and say “what the ac-tual f*** was I thinking?” Sure, you may not like everything, but at least by trying it, you can say that you have a sound foundational reason for not liking it. Like communal dining. (What can I say, I just don’t like other people watching me eat, and vice versa.)

So what does all this have to do with the Cornell Review?

In the next several months, you are going to hear a lot of new ideas and viewpoints, from many differ-ent outlets. You’ll be told that your professors are politically open-minded (they generally are not), and that they teach with respect for both sides of the political spectrum (they damn sure do not).

You will be told that the Cornell

Sun is apolitical (it is not), and that it includes a diverse set of voices which present contrasting opinions from all walks of life (nope). You will also be told that your opinions and viewpoints will always be re-spected. (This will primarily de-pend on what your opinions are.)

It may sound as though I think that there is something fundamen-tally wrong with our university. I promise this is not the case—on the contrary, I think this is exactly the kind of environment for great debate, and the perfect place to discover where your true political leanings lie.

Let’s get to another uncomfort-able fact: this country, as a whole, is becoming more and more sepa-rated. There are a number of rea-sons for this, but the two I tend to single out the most are cable news and the Internet. I’m not saying that these things are bad (you will also be told that all Republicans despise technology and/or science: not only false, but laughably so), but they do afford people the opportunity to hear only what they want to hear, and filter out all opposing views. This is the world we now live in, and it’s tearing us apart, one news cycle at a time.

Not to put any more pressure on

September 7th, 2013vol. xxxii, no. i

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Big Red Sports NetworkNew site devoted to Cornell sports launches

Interview: Ulysses Smith, Student Assembly President

History of Cornell ConservatismThe final chapters

Tucker CarlsonTalks about marriage, weed, and the class of 2014

And more of the best opinion, campus and national news writing at Cornell University!

An Open Letter to the Class of 2017 Mike NavarroEditor-in-Chief

Continued on page 9

THE FRESHMAN ISSUE2

The Problem with DetroitWhat the hell happened to the Motor City?

Welcome, #Cornell2017

2 September 7, 2013

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Campus

continued from the front page

Source: Egypt Independent

Meet Ulysses Smith, Your S.A. PresidentLast spring, Ulysses Smith was

elected President of the Cornell

Student Assembly in a close and

controversial election. After his

victory, the Cornell Review sat down

with Mr. Smith to learn a little bit

more about his thoughts on the

election, the challenges he expects to

face, and how envisions the role of the

S.A. in the lives of students.

How would you explain

the controversial end to the

election? What are your feelings

about one of your opponents'

disqualification?

That was a terrifying experience!

We all were kept in the dark about

what was occurring at the time. All

the other results came out and we

were forced to live in suspense while

all of this was happening. This was

all due to challenges being filed.

When a candidate or any student

feels that a candidate has violated

the election rules, they can file a

challenge against that candidate.

Every candidate was made aware

of the rules. We sat down like third

graders and read them aloud at

the mandatory meeting, so we all

knew what they were and we had

a responsibility to uphold them. It

is unfortunate that someone was

disqualified, but I do think that

decision was made at the end of a

very long and fair review process.

If candidates were permitted to

break the rules publicly, jeopardize

the fairness of the election process,

and receive no repercussions, many

students would likely feel less

enthusiastic about the SA as a whole.

It would just seem like another

corrupt, resume-padding group. In

the end, I respect the process and

the outcome. All the candidates had

great ideas and great platforms, and

I really hope that they will continue

to stay involved with the SA going

forward.

What will be the first thing you

will pursue in your new position?

What is priority number one?

My term technically [began on]

the first day of June, but we are

already looking at bringing about

some structural changes to the SA

this year in preparation for next year.

The first couple of things will be

internal—we are cleaning house. We

are going to change our committee

structure and do some consolidating.

The goal is to eliminate unnecessary

or redundant committees and create

committees that can attract a broad

range of students. This also cuts

down on the number of committee

chair positions on the SA. With fewer

job titles available, we can put more

representatives out amongst their

constituents. That will be followed

by an education process this year.

I think you would be hard-pressed

to find even five SA members who

have read our Charter or our bylaws.

That will change this year. Having

members who do not understand

that our mission is to be an effective

voice for students and who do not

understand the various processes

that we have in place to fulfill that

mission is a disservice to the student

body. Neither EVP Balik, nor myself

are tolerating that anymore.

How will you fulfill the

promises you made over the

campaign?

We have a fantastic group of

people who got elected this year! The

beautiful thing is that we all ran on

similar platforms. We may disagree

in method or how to get there, but for

the most part we have very similar

goals. My big goal is to improve the

student experience for all students.

That means from the moment you

step on-campus during Cornell

Days, Diversity Hosting Month, or

the Pre-freshmen Summer Program

all the way until you graduate. That

means everybody—not just the

people with whom we agree and

not just the people with whom we

get along. My job as President is to

coordinate all of the efforts of our

representatives and to make sure

that they are engaging all students

to the best of their abilities. We want

to see, not just more inclusive policy,

but more informed policy. I also

must be the advocate for students

in all settings, especially with

upper administration. I think many

students feel that the administration

often makes decisions without

adequate student input. A lot of

us feel that some administrators

are very disconnected from the

student experience—they aren’t on

the front line—and that results in

flawed policy. I plan to introduce the

various perspectives of students to

the administration and to make sure

that the SA is the bridge between

the student body and a largely

disconnected administration. In

order to do that, we have got to

overcome this culture on the SA of

talking to a select few people and not

really trying to learn what differing

perspectives actually exist.

What is the biggest challenge

that faces the SA?

Our biggest challenge is ourselves.

We have to overcome a culture that

is filled with resume-padding. We

have to overcome the stigma of a

bureaucratic nightmare and a waste

of time. The reality is that many

SA representatives do a lot of great

work that goes unnoticed because

it is overshadowed by the presence

of this idea that we are useless. Our

reputation precedes us, negatively.

To be honest, we will never prevent

self-interested individuals from

getting elected to the SA. That being

said, we can certainly make them

work when they get elected. I am

not willing to tolerate the idea that

representatives can sit back and do

nothing while various groups are

dealing with major issues. We are

students too. We did not get elected

to sit on Mount Olympus, enjoy a

few perks, and pass judgment. We

got elected because enough people

believed that we each had the ability

to effectively bring about positive

change in this campus. That is what

we are charged with doing, and that

is what we are going to do.

What should the average

student expect now that you are

President?

You all can expect a more

noticeable SA presence; not in the

sense that big government is taking

over, rather that our members

will be doing a lot more grassroots

activities. You will notice more

representatives actively soliciting

your opinion. You can also expect

that I will not compromise on my

stance regarding active engagement

of our constituents. You better

believe that I will still be as open

and, sometimes painfully, honest in

my critiques of the SA as a whole. If

we are not performing the way we

should be, or the way the student

body at-large thinks we should be,

then we will change that. The only

difference is that now I am in a

position that allows me to critique,

change, encourage, and lead the

SA in a different direction. I expect

the students to hold me to that. I

expect the SA to hold me to that. I

expect students to keep us busy and

accountable to their needs.

Karim Lakhani is a senior in the

College of Hotel Administration. He

can be reached at kml248@cornell.

edu.

Karim LakhaniColumnist

September 7, 2013 3

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Campus 33

Jim KellerJerome D. Pinn

Anthony Santelli, Jr.Ann Coulter

Founders

The Cornell Review is an independent biweekly journal published by students of Cornell University for the benefit of students, faculty, administrators, and alumni of the Cornell community. The Cornell Review is a thoughtful review of campus and national politics from a broad conservative perspective. The Cornell Review, an independent student organization located at Cornell University, produced and is responsible for the content of this publication. This publication was not reviewed or approved by, nor does it necessarily express or reflect the policies or opinions of, Cornell University or its designated representatives.

The Cornell Review is published by The Ithaca Review, Inc., a non-profit corporation. The opinions stated in The Cornell Review are those of the individual author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or the staff of The Cornell Review. Editorial opinions are those of the responsible editor. The opinions herein are not necessarily those of the board of directors, officers, or staff of The Ithaca Review, Inc.

The Cornell Review is distributed free, limited to one issue per person, on campus as well as to local businesses in Ithaca. Additional copies beyond the first free issue are available for $1.00 each. The Cornell Review is a member of the Collegiate Network.

The Cornell ReviewFounded 1984 r Incorporated 1986

The Cornell Review meets regularly on Tuesdays at 5:00 pm in RCK 183.

E-mail messages should be sent to cornellreview@cornell.edu

Mike NavarroEditor-in-Chief

Laurel ConradPresident

Bill SnyderCampus News Editor

Roberto MatosNational News Editor

ContributorsMichael Alan

Kushagra AniketCaroline Emberton

Andre GardinerAlex Gimenez

Michael Loffredo

Emeritus MembersNoah Kantro

Alfonse MugliaKarim Lakhani

Faculty AdvisorWilliam A. Jacobson

Board of DirectorsChristopher DeCenzoJoseph E. Gehring Jr.Anthony Santelli Jr.

The Cornell Review prides itself on letting its writers speak for themselves, and on open discourse. We publish a spectrum of beliefs, and readers should be aware that pieces represent the views of their authors, and not necessarily those of the entire staff. If you have a well-reasoned conservative opinion piece, we hope you will send it to cornellreview@cornell.edu for consideration.

Copyright © 2012 The Ithaca Review Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The Review welcomes and encourages letters to the editor. Long, gaseous letters that seem to go on forever are best

suited for publication in the Cornell Daily Sun. The Review requests that all letters to the editor be limited to 350 words.

Please send all questions, comments, and concerns to cornellreview@cornell.edu.

Matthew ProvenzanoGuest Columnist

Big Red Sports Network Launches

Over the last few years, Cor-nell University’s athletic teams

have been amongst the top in the Ivy League, and in some cases, the nation. But just how much do you know about the Big Red, and their accomplishments across sports in intercollegiate play?

Sure, there are the storylines you may have followed last season. For instance, Kyle Dake’s success-ful quest of four wrestling National Titles across four different weight classes in four years, a feat that had never before been accomplished. Or the Men’s Lacrosse team’s run at a National Championship that came up just short in their semi-final loss to Duke.

But did you know that the Men’s Soccer team was the champion of the Ivy League last season? How about Bruno Hortelano-Roig’s suc-cess both at Cornell and Internation-ally as a sprinter? Or the Women’s Ice Hockey Team who dominated college hockey with a star studded roster?

Chances are you only heard about one or two of the previous Big Red storylines from last year. That will change starting this semester with the launch of Big Red Sports Net-work, Cornell University’s first com-pletely student run sports media organization.

Building off of the success of pilot program Cornell At Bat, a coverage program dedicated to providing top notch baseball coverage, Big Red Sports Network will cover 11 varsity sports at Cornell this year, including Men’s and Women’s Soccer, Sprint Football, Men’s and Women’s Ice Hockey, Men’s and Women’s Basket-ball, Men’s and Women’s Lacrosse, Baseball and Softball. Coverage of these sports will include play-by-play broadcasts, in-depth analyses, interviews, online articles, social media updates and more.

“Our goal is to change the way the extended Cornell community follows Big Red Sports,” said BRSN’s President and Co-Founder Alex Gimenez. “We realized that there was a niche to be filled here when it came to the student-run sports media market, and our goal is to fill that niche through all inclusive cov-erage of student athletes by students themselves.”

In addition to the sports spe-cific coverage teams, BRSN will provide coverage of all Cornell sports through a brand new web-site called bigredsportsnetwork.org and through their social media outlets. Two new radio shows will be launched in the coming months with a focus on all things Big Red Athletics. Both will include show appearances by athletes, coaches, alumni, and even faculty and staff of the University, to tell the stories of the athletes and teams in a way that has never been done before.

“We want to tell the stories that even people who aren’t sports fans can relate to,” Gimenez said. “By telling the stories that go on behind the scenes everyday, asking athletes about the pressure of performing on the field and in the classroom or talk-ing to a professor about the history of Cornell sports, we can provide content that anyone can appreciate.”

Another benefit of BRSN’s cov-erage is that it will be provided free of charge while other compara-ble broadcasting programs charge monthly and yearly fees for access to their coverage. Because the organi-zation is entirely run by students on a volunteer basis, they can do things that other organizations cannot.

“Our operation would fail com-pletely if it wasn’t for a large un-tapped pool of talented students around the University who got in-volved to gain experience in the field and in some cases, are just avid sports fans,” said Gimenez about the BRSN team, which in just a few weeks, has exceeded 40 members.

The Network did benefit from some generous donations through an indiegogo campaign, and sup-port from the SAFC and Athletic

Communications has allowed BRSN to grow in many ways.

Partnerships are a big part of the organizations brand. BRSN recent-ly announced its major partner-ship with CornellRadio.com, a new online radio station that is set for launch later this fall and is run by WVBR. By combining the coverage team of BRSN and the production capabilities and station at Cornell Radio, the partnership allows for creativity and flexibility in the way sports are covered.

BRSN expects to announce more partnerships with other student or-ganizations in the coming weeks, and will also be providing sports coverage for the Cornell Review for the 2013-2014 academic year.

“We have realized that many or-ganizations at Cornell have some-thing to offer us and we have some-thing to offer them. In many cases our staffs overlap so it became a no brainer to combine resources to re-ally make something special,” said Gimenez.

With ambitious goals, a lot of hard work, and incredible teams to work with, Big Red Sports Network is in a position to follow its motto of “Bringing You Big Red Sports Like Never Before.”

“Our focus is on the athletes, they put in all the work in practice, per-form well in the classroom and rep-resent the University well in athletic competition as we’ve seen over the last few year. It is time to give them the sports coverage they deserve."

Matthew Provenzano is a sopho-more in the College of Arts and Sci-ences. He can be reached at mjp294@cornell.edu.

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The Cornell Review: Inception And Rivalry

Fast forward from the 1970s, and the Reagan Era led to an out-

burst of conservative newspapers across the country. The unheralded success of the Dartmouth Review at Dartmouth College inspired con-servative students at other institu-tions to found similar newspapers. The Institute for Educational Af-fairs, founded in 1978 to assist con-servative academics, created The Collegiate Network in 1984 to offer these groups technical and financial assistance.

Jim Keller, a Government major, founded The Cornell Review in the spring of 1984. Ann Coulter, an un-dergraduate in the College of Arts and Sciences, edited the paper in the same year. The Review soon became successful as an outlet for students disaffected by the university's per-ceived leftist slant. The paper drew immediate and critical attention for its discordant rhetoric and "shock journalism."

During the 1980s, The Review as-sumed a socially conservative stance while attacking affirmative action and communism. It notably criti-cized university-sponsored ethnic-ity-oriented residential communi-ties, known as "program houses," as segregationist. While embroiled in several controversies, it continued to defend free speech through out-spoken journalism and creative sat-ire. In 1986, leftists voiced their op-position to the paper by seeking out and shredding nearly every copy of one issue at a multitude of locations on campus during the early morning hours after delivery.

Later, The Review's social con-servatism started mellowing, and it ran articles in defense of homosex-ual marriage and abortion as well as articles opposed to those practices. This prompted the inception of a rival publication called The Cornell American in 1992. Craig Hymowitz, who was the chairman of the Cor-nell College Republicans and who had a troubled history with The Re-view, is credited with the original vision for the publication. In Janu-ary 1992, Hymowitz, Jonathan Bloe-dow, and Hartley Etheridge founded The American Society, an indepen-dent organization formed to "ad-vance classical American values, and to publish a journal, The Cornell American."

The first issue, entitled "The En-dangered American," was pub-

lished in March 1992. It con-trasted with The Review in

appearance and style, but most no-tably in tone—the older paper was known for its unconventional humor and lampooning of campus excesses, inflammatory to its critics. The new publication was even and philo-sophical but pretentious and boring, to fans of The Review. The situation paralleled that of Peninsula and the Salient at Harvard.

The American garnered media attention across the United States with its second issue, entitled "Res-idence Life: Guilty as Charged." This issue made several allegations against the University’s resident ad-visor training program.

While even-toned in style, the paper's ideological development tracked rightward, reflecting so-cially conservative views. It heav-ily criticized the university's health clinic for its links with Planned Par-enthood and the high local abortion rate; the College of Human Ecolo-gy, accused of hostility to tradition-al morality and views of family; and Cornell's ethnic-studies-oriented program housing, which it blamed for left-wing indoctrination and in-creasing racial tension.

The American was unable to se-cure a strong financial base. It was repeatedly denied funds from the Collegiate Network, of which The Review was a longstanding mem-ber, and found it difficult to retain advertisers. It lost momentum after Bloedow's graduation in 1994 and published its final issue in 1996, after which most of its remaining staff joined The Review. The Ameri-can Society persisted until 1998 as a sponsor of speakers and other cam-pus programs.

The Road To The Present

A candle flickers before it goes out. Just before its demise in 1998, the Cornell American Society tried to revive the Cornell American but was unsuccessful. Publication re-sumed only in the spring of 2004 when Ryan Horn, a paleo-conser-vative graduate student attempted to create an alternative platform for the expression of conservatism on campus. Horn was critical of the Re-view, which had become too moder-ate in tone and too libertarian in its philosophy, and did not provide a strong voice for the right.

From a group of like-minded stu-dents who assembled to form the group "Cornell Literary Society", the first issue of the new Cornell American emerged in March 2004, titled Unholy Matrimony. But un-like the first rivalry, in which the Review's treatment of the Ameri-can was bemused (even publishing

a satirical issue entitled The Cornell Canadian) and the American stead-fastly refused even to acknowledge the existence of the Review, the two publications now spar openly.

However, despite the rival-ry, which preceded the merger of the two newspapers, the age of the American was most noted for a con-troversy over a proposed Academic Bill of Rights at Cornell.

The Resolution on Academic Freedom - based on David Horow-itz's Academic Bill of Rights - was introduced by a bipartisan coali-tion of Cornell students, including the editors-in-chief of The Cornell American and The Cornell Daily Sun. The resolution stated that the "SA affirms the principles of aca-demic freedom and intellectual di-versity". These principles were the following:

(1) Students should be graded on the basis of their reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge of the disciplines they study.

(2) Curricula and reading lists in the humanities and social sci-ences should provide students with dissenting viewpoints where appropriate.

(3) Faculty should not use their courses for the political, ideolog-ical, religious, or anti-religious indoctrination.

(4) All faculty should be hired, fired, or promoted and granted ten-ure on the basis on their competence and appropriate knowledge in the field of their expertise.

(5) Selection of speakers and allo-cation of funds should not discrimi-nate on the basis of political or ideo-logical affiliation.

(6) The obstruction of invited campus speakers, destruction of campus literature, or any other ef-forts to inhibit the civil exchange of ideas should not be tolerated.

The debate on the Academic Bill of Rights started on May 6, 2004. At the beginning, the SA representative Michelle Fernandes tried to eject Ryan Horn from the meeting. Horn, who was a well-known conservative journalist on campus, had brought a digital camcorder to the event to re-cord the debate. Fernandes raised an objection to Horn's presence say-ing, "Point of privilege. I want [him] to stop videotaping." Horn replied, "Respectfully, no." Nick Linder, president of the SA, then ordered, "As chair, I have to ask you to leave the meeting. It's my duty to uphold that. Turn that off or leave"

Horn expressed outrage and cited his First Amendment rights. He de-fiantly ignored Linder's decision, re-mained in his seat, and secretly vid-eotaped the entire affair.

Following the camcorder fiasco, Cornell Democrats president Tim Lim—thinking he was speaking off the record—slammed the Academ-ic Bill of Rights as "a publicity stunt [by] neoconservatives such as David Horowitz." Lim then went on to claim that promoting academic free-dom was a part of a partisan con-spiracy engineered by the College Republicans.

Then the assault on freedom came in the form of amendments. Leftist Brennan Veys amended the resolu-tion by removing two key phrases from the bill: (i) "students should be graded on the basis of their reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge of the subjects" and (ii) "all faculty should be hired, fired, and promot-ed, and granted tenure on the basis of their competence." He claimed that including these clauses in an Academic Bill of Rights was an "in-sult" to Cornell's faculty.

When Veys was confronted with certain facts - namely that 97 per-cent of Cornell's faculty are Leftists and that 21 of 23 government de-partment professors are registered Democrats - he shook his head dis-missively. Ross Blankenship, a co-sponsor of the bill, asked Veys, "How comfortable do you think a Cor-nell student is in writing an essay in support of President Bush?" At this question, the Democrats laughed hysterically, indicating that Blan-kenship was paranoid.

When the votes were tallied (8 in favor, 9 against), SA president Linder announced his final judg-ment, "The chair will cast a vote in, uh, the negative." He then smirked at the co-sponsors of the bill, waved them off, and said, "Have a nice day." And with that, the Academic Bill of Rights died at Cornell.

Thus, citing the document's ob-jectives as "redundant," "irrelevant," "insulting," and "objectionable," the SA determined that academic free-dom was unimportant to the cam-pus. Besides, banning Horn from videotaping the meeting was re-quired to ensure that the resolution failed under a cover of tolerance. The Left’s inclination to resort to censorship and intolerance for intel-lectual diversity became apparent at that moment. Indeed, an important part of the mission of the Review since then has been to resist such totalitarian instincts to silence and censor diverse political opinions, and defend the most basic of our freedoms—freedom of expression—within the student community.

Kushagra Aniket is a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at ka337@cornell.edu.

Campus

Kushagra Aniket

A History of Cornell ConservatismParts III and IV

September 7, 2013 5

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Opinion

Puerto Rican Statehood: Do You Believe in Democracy and Equality?

My home, Puerto Rico, has been an unincorporated territory of

the United States since the 1898 trea-ty that ended the Spanish-American War. Island residents became Amer-ican citizens with the enactment of the 1917 Jones Act. Nonetheless, as the United States Supreme Court has confirmed, Puerto Rico is sub-ject to Congress’ plenary powers under the Constitution's Territory Clause.

As a result, my fellow Puerto Ri-cans and I do not live in a full de-mocracy. We cannot vote for the President, even though we serve in large numbers in the U.S. military and have won five Medals of Honor. We lack two United States senators and five voting members in the U.S. House of Representatives. Instead, we are limited to a single, non-vot-ing delegate in the House. In other words, we do not have a vote in the government that makes our national laws.

This colonial and anachronistic state of affairs contradicts our na-tion’s fundamental democratic val-ues. The principle of representative democracy simply does not apply to the 3.7 million Americans (more than the population of 23 states) currently residing in Puerto Rico.

Moreover, this territorial status opens the doors for the federal gov-ernment to treat us unequally under the law. The Island receives roughly half of the federal funding it would receive if it were a state, resulting in

the economy of Puerto Rico lagging far behind the rest of the country.

Many federal programs—such as Medicaid, Nutrition Assistance, and Supplemental Security Income—treat Puerto Ricans worse than our fellow citizens in the 50 states. For instance, in 2010, Puerto Rico re-ceived about $1 billion in federal Medicaid funding, while Oklahoma (a state with a similar population size) was granted nearly $3.5 billion. Also, our workers pay full federal payroll taxes, but obtain only some benefits under Medicare, which is partially supported by those same taxes. As American citizens, we do not deserve such discrimination.

This inequality has had a severe impact on our quality of life, as well as on Puerto Rico’s ability to devel-op economically. For example, since 1976, the Island’s unemployment rate has averaged 15.5 percent—while the U.S. national unemploy-ment rate has averaged less than 6.5 percent. Our current poverty rate is 45.1 percent, more than twice that of Mississippi, the nation’s poor-est state. In addition, Puerto Rico’s $18,689 income per capita is one-third the national average and half that of Mississippi.

Consequently, during the last de-cade, Puerto Rico has experienced a massive population exodus. About 4.8 million Puerto Ricans now live in the continental U.S.—one third of whom were born on the Island—which is far greater than the 3.7 mil-lion who still reside on the Island. Most of these individuals would prefer to remain in Puerto Rico, but given the current unfair political

structure, relocation is the only way to enjoy the full benefits of U.S. citizenship.

Last November 6th, the people of Puerto Rico made history, express-ing their desire to leave behind ter-ritory status. The local government, under the leadership of former Re-publican Governor Luis Fortuño, held a two-question referendum on its political status. Of 1.8 million vot-ers, 54 percent said that they did not wish to continue under the present territory condition.

Furthermore, among the three valid non-territorial status options (independence, free association, and statehood), out of the 1.4 million voters that chose an option, 61 per-cent voted in favor of statehood. We made our voice heard loud and clear.

In light of this, Puerto Rico’s con-gressional representative, Pedro Pierluisi, on Wednesday introduced H.R. 2000—a bipartisan bill that sets forth a process to admit Puerto Rico as the 51st state of the union. Now the next question is: Will Washing-ton listen?

A myriad of congressional leaders have been longstanding proponents of equality for Puerto Rico. For ex-ample, in recent weeks, prominent Democratic leaders like Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and se-nior Congressman Jose Serrano (D-NY) voiced their support for resolv-ing Puerto Rico’s political status problem.

At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, President Obama included in his budget proposal $2.5 million to establish voter education initia-tives and conduct the first federally sanctioned plebiscite in Puerto Ri-co’s history.

Similarly, Republican leaders have historically been advocates for Puerto Rico’s statehood. President Ford believed “that the appropriate status for Puerto Rico is statehood.” President Reagan argued that he looked forward to “welcoming Puer-to Rico with open arms.” Also, both the elder President Bush and his son have stated their support for state-hood. More recently, conservative

Modern public discourse, or at least the discourse I would

like to see more of, is typically re-lated to data in some way shape or form. Most TV pundits build their arguments around statistics like changes in the unemployment rate, corporate profits, or college debt. This doesn’t change very much at the college level, only data presenta-tion, is hopefully grounded in higher level knowledge about analysis, cau-sality, and uncertainty. Unfortunate-ly, debate at all levels of society fre-quently ignores the inherent flaws in the data that we build our argu-ments around.

Public policy analysis is marred by inefficiencies in data collec-tion and poorly done surveys. Last semester, I worked on a research project with Professor Rick Ged-des on NYS liability law. As part of our analysis, we collected industry data segmented by state and sec-tor. We learned through our data

collection that the bureau of labor statistics does not keep segmented data for a lot of states due to bud-getary reasons. These types of data deficiencies inhibit our ability to ef-fectively analyze policy outcomes; a startling misallocation of funds, especially in light of the fact that the government keeps track of vari-ous data oddities. For example, the US Department of Agriculture col-lects very detailed global commodi-ties data, including Taiwanese milk consumption statistics.

Additionally, there are numer-ous inaccuracies within the data available to us. For example, a large body of research is dedicated to the disparities between the number of people the government believes is eligible for enrollment in food stamps and the number of people actually signed up. While there are numerous reasons for the differ-ence, a less talked about one is that the government overestimates the number of people eligible through its survey methodology.

Outside of data deficiencies and inaccuracies, there are also issues of interpretation related to valua-tion. For example, the Financial Ac-counting Standards Board (FASB), a private entity related to the SEC, is responsible for setting accounting standards. FASB accounting valu-ation standards make it extreme-ly difficult to understand financial documents. For example, fair value accounting methodology, which deals with the valuation of assets using market prices, differences be-tween government sponsored enti-ties, insurance companies, and the financial service sector. As a result, a mortgage backed securities held by Fannie Mae can potentially have a different value than if it was held as AIG or Bank of America.

With that in mind, it is important to be skeptical of all data oriented studies and policy proposals. Not only are data sets chalk-full of er-rors and standardization issues, it is all too easy to manipulate data sets through the exclusion of “outliers” and pure fraud.

In my mind, the most important tool in policy analysis is a strong understanding of microeconomics

in a policy context. Microeconom-ic theory on supply and demand, taxes, and incentives are impor-tant when looking critically at to-day’s problems. While microeco-nomic theory should not be applied blindly, for example, analysis of minimum wage increases yield less negative consequences than mi-croeconomic theory would dictate, knowledge of theory can result in more efficient policy solutions. In the case of assisting the working poor, the earned income tax credit is a superior policy solution to the minimum wage, with a more cred-ible ground in economic theory.

My suggestion to all students- incoming freshmen most impor-tantly- is to question data, and relate policy proposals back to mi-croeconomics theory. Balancing data with theory allows us to build solutions that both maximize util-ity and deal with the realities of our inefficient world.

Andre Gardiner is a sophomore in the College of Human Ecology. He can be reached at apg58@cornell.edu

Learning to CountAndre GardinerColumnist

Julio A. Cabral CorradaGuest Writer

Continued on page 9

6 September 7, 2013

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Exclusive

To start off, could you tell the readers about the Daily Caller, and the office’s culture?

Tucker Carlson's Advice to Cornellians Political commentator Tucker Carlson is a pretty cool guy. And no, I’m not

just saying that because he was my boss this summer. (Although I’m sure it

doesn't hurt.) Impressively, he joined CNN as its youngest anchor ever, and later

co-hosted Crossfire, where he and Jon Stewart got into a memorable and heated

confrontation. Today, he is a co-host on Fox and Friends and serves as the Editor-

in-Chief of the popular and successful news website, the Daily Caller.

Interning for Tucker is a college student’s dream. Just to name one perk, the

Daily Caller’s break room includes a bar, keg, and a Ping-Pong table. This summer,

he even let a 16 year old high school student named Gabe Finger attend an official

White House press conference. The intern caused a stir in the media just by daring

to ask Jay Carney a question critical of Obama.

As an intern, I remember Tucker mentioning several times that he loves giving

“unsolicited life advice.” One afternoon, I decided to solicit some life advice

especially for the readers of The Cornell Review. He obliged, and we spent an

incredibly candid interview talking about his attitude on politics, drugs, early

marriage, his brief stint on Dancing with the Stars, and more. Calling it candid is probably an understatement. To see for

yourself, check out the Review’s exclusive interview with Tucker Carlson below!

Would you describe your own style as libertarian?

"Yes, completely. I’m not necessarily an ideological Libertarian, which is to say I’m not debating my neighbors on privatizing the sidewalks. But I can’t stand the idea of being bossed around by the government."

Recently, you've received criticism by other members of the press for sending a 16-year-old intern to a White House press conference. Why do you think they reacted this way?

"I have no idea. This is a meritocratic office, I don’t care

how old you are, where you’re from, or what you’ve done

before. I’m interested in what you can do and what you are

doing at the moment. I thought that Gabe Finger asked a

better question than anyone else in the briefing room that

day. We were proud to send him, and proud of the work

he did while there. So if he’s disqualified because he’s not

old enough or doesn’t have a journalism degree from some

stupid graduate school, that is ludicrous to me. I don’t even

understand the critique. We sent someone who asked a

question that no one else was asking, and good for us."

"The Daily Caller has been around for three and a half years. I started it with my college roommate, Neil Patel, who worked for Dick Chaney for eight years. At first, we started mostly out of frustration at media coverage of Obama and with the election, which we thought was appalling and entirely one-sided. The office culture is dif-ferent from most other places I have worked, and that is by design. We wanted to improve upon offices that we’d been in over the years. I would describe it as Libertarian with high standards. We don’t give a lot of direction to our employees, and we aren’t micromanaging them. But, we expect that they will perform at a high level and be super productive. In effect, you have an office where not everyone thrives. It’s an environment where some people do great work and others just can’t handle the lack of supervision and lack of hand-holding."

"Getting high is like going

to the bathroom in the

middle of the movie."

September 7, 2013 7

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Specifically for Cornell Review readers, imagine that you are convocation speaker. What words of wisdom would you have for the Cornell Class of 2014?

"Don’t delay adulthood any further. That would be the theme of my address. You will be tempted to hide out in some graduate school, acquiring a degree you don’t need at great expense. But, you should keep in mind that life is finite. You will die, and perhaps sooner than you think. The real sin is wasting time, so don’t do it."

On that note, what is a reality of life that you think that Cornell students will face that they are not expecting yet?

"Well, for people who relish in the idea of making their own decisions, adulthood is much more rewarding than school. I think that work is inherently meaningful and inherently dignified. Again, there is something inherently dignified in supporting yourself. In my experience, and I can only speak for yourself, I found post-college life instantly more meaningful and more rewarding. I expect that a lot of Cornell graduates will have the same experience- those who embrace it. But, a surprising and distressing number of 22 year-olds appear to want to put off personal responsibility as long as possible. That is my impression, anyway; and that’s a shame because happiness comes through duty and responsibility. So my advice, always, is to put yourself in positions where you’re forced to achieve things you wouldn’t achieve unless you were forced to. So, take a job for which you are not fully qualified. Get married younger than is fashionable. Have more kids than you can afford. Put yourself in positions where you have no choice but to excel. Many people are lazy people who don’t push themselves, and won’t push themselves unless they are forced to."

You mentioned getting married young, which is something that you yourself did. What convinced you that this is a great idea?

"I got married at twenty-two. You’ve got to marry the right person! I’m not espousing a reverend-moon indiscrimi-nate marriage scenario. I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’m also not espousing an arranged marriages, although they do, I think work fairly well. But that’s not what I’m advising. I just think that there’s a ton of data on this question; married people, and especially married men, achieve more and report higher levels of satisfaction in their lives than unmarried men. Marriage is good, especially for men. A lot of young men are convinced that it is a trap, and something to be avoided at all costs, something by which they’re pushed into by women, and I think that is totally false."

Exclusive

Switching topics, what made you decide to go on Dancing with the Stars? How did you so gracefully take the criticism?

"Well, I did it out of pure recklessness. I’m not a good dancer, and

never have been. I knew that I wasn’t going to be and I knew that doing

it on live television would likely be humiliating. But, I also thought that

it would be interesting and the kind of experience that would enrich my

life in some way.

I’ve never thought about my career—I just make each decision ad hoc.

I choose the most interesting option available at the moment, always.

That’s how I’ve lived my life, and its worked for me. So I’m glad that I did

it.

As for the criticism, if you allow people you’ve never met to control

over your emotional state, you’re an idiot. I have four or five people

whom I love and trust have my best interest at heart, and I pay very close

attention to their views. I try to pay no attention at all to the views of

everyone else. Because, why would I? I think that it’s one of the great

inhibitors of success, actually. The idea that the mob has something

useful to say to you; I just don’t believe that. So if one-hundred thousand,

or a one-hundred million people on Twitter are mad at me, it doesn’t

mean anything to me. If the four people I care about are mad at me, that

means everything to me. So, if they didn’t like me, that’s ok!" More Tucker on Page 10!

8 September 7, 2013

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Why is Detroit suffering today? Let’s consider:

The Over-Reliance on a single industry (1945-1973):

Detroit's policy makers were too one-dimensional in their approach to sustaining economic stability be-fore 1970. They had spent decades over-investing in the profitability of auto manufacturing, instead of di-versifying. In the atmosphere of out-sourcing, high oil prices and emerg-ing market competition that plagued the 1970s, they ought to have awo-ken from this state of dependency and turned to an alternative model of market diversification—one less burdened by costly commitments to super-high priced labor benefits. In-stead of re-modeling, business and government continued to finance huge benefits-packages at enormous expense, paving the road toward fis-cal insolvency. D-town’s current failure can be attributed to its past success.

The Good Old Days:Detroit’s urban middle class

families—which produced an entire fleet of specialized professionals, from attorneys, doctors, engineer-ing technicians and middle-manage-ment workers during the early 20 century—were the oil that greased the motor city’s mighty engine. While working class laborers were the backbone of the city’s economy, the middle classes had driven mass-market consumption for generations and served as the engine of robust productivity for non-automobile in-dustries throughout the city. As the backbone of the city’s prosperity, they helped secure Detroit’s place as the city with highest median-house-hold income of any city in the US. Detroit’s financial coffers benefit-ed handsomely from their presence and prosperity, since the sum of their payment of property, sales and income taxes helped sustain public financing well into the 1950s.

The Brain Drain:But the mass exodus of the afflu-

ent and highly-trained professional classes during the 60s and 70s pre-cipitated Detroit’s ruin.

Besides de-industrialization (which we’ll address later), alarming social forces drove these families to the exit doors. From steadily mount-ing taxation, to failing public infra-structure (decaying schools, roads, utilities and parks), to growing racial tension, many white-collar profes-sionals lost a sense of security. The subsequent emergence of an aggres-sive criminal class exacerbated their alarm. These forces gradually ren-dered neighborhoods uninhabitable for the urban professionals. They

followed job-producers out the door in the “white flight” of the 1960s and 70s (which is now

the stuff of legend). They fled to the suburbs for more occupationally fa-vorable opportunities and more so-cially familiar environments, leaving the skyscrapers behind and their old neighborhoods to decay. Hence, city planners lost their prime source of reliable revenue. The absence of ad-equate revenue has left coffers dry for city bosses. Thus, maintaining the safety net apparatus and pub-

lic infrastructure has become all the more impossible.

The Depressed Inhabitants:The remaining masses of under-

educated, under-trained and materi-ally deprived residents, consumers and laborers could not have possibly maintained the city’s infrastructure, business establishments, education centers or public utilities. Only 1/3 have jobs. These current inhabit-ants, lacking marketable job skills, are largely dependent on state pro-visions and entitlements to main-tain their livelihood and have failed to serve as an adequate tax base to finance the city’s public projects. Disgruntled, impoverished and in-creasingly pessimistic, many of the inhabitants have found crime to be a more profitable venture than per-sonal investment in their human capital through professional and educational pursuits. Furthermore, in an atmosphere plagued by fear, mutual suspicion and distrust, the social capital desperately needed to maintain Detroit’s civic fabric is too scarce to make improvements.

The Entitlement System’s “Model City” Cracked:

In response to this intensifying civic dislocation, ambitious social engineers among Detroit’s policy makers have sought to create new elaborate safety net. Through the 60s, Detroit became ground zero for Great Society reformers. Detroit residents and commercial actors became increasingly dependent on funds from municipal, state and fed-eral bureaucrats, who issued direc-tives and promised to meet the city’s healthcare, housing and educational needs in exchange for votes, dona-tions and full cooperation. Entitle-ment schemes have failed to raise

standards of living and have done little to improve the quality of life. They have also failed to increase the willingness of inhabitants to remain in Detroit, as one can gather from the decline of the city’s population from 2 million in 1950 to 700,000 now.

Under LBJ’s Model Cities Pro-gram during the 1960s, Detroit may-ors dramatically expanded the mu-nicipal government’s role in housing and educational policy. They part-

nered with the federal government to embark on massive public hous-ing construction projects for desti-tute inhabitants. Central urban plan-ners poured 490 million dollars into a 9 square mile zone for construc-tion. In much of the city, bureaucrat-ic officials called the shots - they de-termined what could be built, where it would be built and what business-es would be closed or remain open.

After 4 decades, the public hous-ing grants and subsidies have little good to show for, largely because residential populations have plum-meted severely and management-ac-counting failures have rendered the programs fiscally insolvent. Many of the public and private houses in D-town now stand abandoned in des-olate ghost towns. D-town has over 78 thousand vacant houses now. The average price of a home is 5700 dollars due to mass flight and un-checked crime. Plummeting real es-tate value keeps D-town altogether uninviting, even in the broadest of commercial terms.

Moreover, despite their sour-ing expense, educational overhauls have failed to deliver as well. The heavily-funded Detroit school sys-tems spend $11,100 per student, compared to the national average of $9,600, yet Detroit students enjoy a graduation rate of only 25%. Aca-demic records remain abysmal de-spite astronomical levels of funding to enhance programs.

Meanwhile, incredibly power-ful teachers unions command im-pressive wages and haven't given an inch during negotiations, re-fusing to make concessions which might contribute to reduced defi-cits and greater educational divi-dends. Merit-based pay, increased

student/teacher ratios, teacher-tar-geted incentives and school-choice programs have been steadfastly op-posed. The public expense associ-ated with teachers unions benefits has handicapped fiscal policy mak-ers and exacerbated deficits. Mean-while, it is now widely purported that students have a better chance of ending up in prison than they do of graduating high school.

The Chains of Labor shackle the Hands of the Auto Industry

Admittedly, the captains of the American car industry failed to adapt to emerging market competi-tion posed by the Japanese and Ger-man makers, who have brilliantly seized entire shares of the U.S. auto market since the 70s. They grew complacent, rigid and unwilling to sleek down their models, and were therefore overtaken by more effi-cient and adaptable competitors.

But their demise was hastened by another factor. The cost of doing business, especially the expense as-sociated with high-priced labor, for auto-companies has proved so crip-pling that decades of outsourcing and fiscal shortfall are hardly dif-ficult to explain. In the first place, automobile company leaders, since the mid-20th century, have com-mitted themselves to financially un-sustainable contracts with labor in-terests. In the second place, unions have greedily demanded excessive benefits and wages. Even during un-favorable economic conditions, the UAW rarely makes wage and benefit concessions. Apparently, the threat of auto company bankruptcies and potential mass layoffs does not faze them during negotiations.

Instead, even during the most severe of recessions, the UAW has seen to it that even unemployed workers enjoy full wages through access to “job banks”, which has left some unemployed U.A.Workers living comfortably while non-auto workers in the Detroit area suffer under awful wages. The UAW has also forced managers to agree to 7 weeks paid vacation. These work-ers also receive 74 dollars per hour in salary and benefits, whereas for-eign competitors offer about 40 dol-lar per hour wages to their workers, enabling them to free up capital for investment, innovation and expan-sion. Unions forced GM to pay 100 billion dollars in healthcare and pensions to former employers in the last fifteen years alone. With busi-ness and local government provid-ing such enormous entitlements, it is little wonder that they experience constant fiscal shortfalls. Predict-ably, federal governments have con-tinued to bail them out.

This mounting cost of conducting car business has been transferred to burden consumers, who have to pay an extra 1200 dollars - in order to cover employee benefits - when pur-chasing, extra they wouldn’t have to

National8

Roberto MatosNational News Editor

How the Motor City’s engine finally seized-upThe 'Paris of the West' Dies

Continued on page 9

September 7, 2013 9

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National

Campus

you freshman, but it’s up to you to save this country.

Fight back. Debate. Seek out contrasting viewpoints. Most im-portantly, if you hear something you don’t agree with, say something and stand up for yourself. This country is filled with people who disagree with things that their chosen party does, but they go along with it out of a sheer sense of party unity.

It is OK to disagree. I’d go so far

as to say that disagreeing is one of the most patriotic things you can do outside of voting. One of the things that made this country great was that we would not always agree; we would argue, yell, scream, and fight. But the end result was some-thing that included the best ideas of both sides—something that actually helped people. We didn’t complete-ly disregard the opinions of entire segment of the population simply because it wasn’t our party’s idea.

But that is where we are now.

My party throws tantrums and stubbornly refuses to work on any-thing coming from the president. Democrats take every opportunity to cast Republicans in the worst possible light. Neither side is ever willing to admit to fault, and neither side is willing to come together. Those that do are quickly shunned by their respective parties as “not being __________ enough.”

It has to stop. As incoming fresh-man, you all have the opportunity to initiate change—to get us back

on the right track. You have all of the advantages that we have now—cable news, the Internet, world perspective—plus the advantage of youth, the ability to see where we went wrong, and how to fix it.

The Cornell Review is not here to provide you with a balanced per-spective. It is never that easy. We are here to provide you with a con-servative voice to balance out the liberal voice you will hear across most of this campus. It is up to each one of you to hear both, and then make a genuinely informed deci-sion. In doing so, it is my hope that you will fix what is broken, and make this country great again.

Mike Navarro is a senior in the College of Agriculture and Life Science. He can be reached at mln62@cornell.edu

An Open Letter to the Class of 2017Continued from the front page

leaders like Rep. Peter King and Grover Norquist have embraced the state-hood cause as well.

All of these leaders understood that perfecting our union is a process. We abolished slavery after the Civil War in 1865, recognized a woman’s right to vote in 1921, and decided that separate was not equal in 1954. Under our Constitution, there is only one way to ensure full self-government and equality for the people of Puerto Rico, and that is through statehood.

As Rep. Pierluisi remarked at a recent event cosponsored by Cornell in Washington, “The struggle for statehood is a fight for civil rights and a fight for human rights.” This issue transcends partisan politics; it is about right and wrong. After 115 years of inequality, it is past time that we have the same rights and responsibilities as our fellow American citizens.

Now I ask you: Do you believe in democracy and equality?

Julio A. Cabral Corrada is a 2013 graduate in Business and Government. He can be reached at jac553@cornell.edu

Continued from page 5

Puerto Rico Statehood

pay if the bought a foreign car. Thus, union demands make both Ameri-can cars and labor too expensive for American producers. American car makers are thereby handcuffed by a labor force which is unwilling to ap-preciate fiscal sacrifice in the wake of a market downturn. The cost of labor is too high for automakers to free up funds to invest in lower profit margin smaller cars that might save them in the wake of cutting edge for-eign competition. For decades, the auto companies offered competitive wages and their market dominance remained the envy of the industri-alized world, but their generosity is now serving to destroy them. D-town’s contraction is largely their doing. Finally, although they enjoy as much as 100,000 dollars in yearly earnings and benefits, workers in D-town have contributed to their own undoing as well over the decades. Since 1970, millions of layoffs of blue collar workers have occurred, coin-ciding with the declining standard of living of working class people in the mid-west.

The Municipal Profligacy

As we’ve seen, business and gov-ernment are chained to fiscally un-sustainable demands which have

burdened them. Accountability is scarce, since both business leaders and municipal officials have grown accustomed to receiving bailouts when their troubles become partic-ularly acute. This overreliance on external rescue has spawned a cul-ture of irresponsibility. In this way, these commercial and political elites are comparable to their personally irresponsible constituents, but the consequences are far greater for the big wigs.

It is little surprise, then, that the knee jerk reaction of public officials is yet more profligate spending and budgetary outlays, and not fiscal re-evaluation. The city has $20 Billion in unpayable debt. The city engaged in 10s of millions of dollars worth of unaffordable borrowing. It has spent 100 million dollars annually since 2008. Some tax dollars have not been used to cover the cost of social services, but instead have diverted to funding generous municipal pen-sions and health benefits.

Compounding this, much of the revenue generated is immediately diverted to municipal bondholders who helped finance the profliga-cy in the first place. Appropriately, the credibility of municipality-is-sued bonds has reduced, since the

bankrupt Detroit will have difficulty paying its long line of angry credi-tors. Clearly a great deal of pub-lic and private pain will be experi-enced in the ongoing bankruptcy proceedings.

The Anti-business climateTo make matters worse, from

the 1970s onward, in the wake of failed attempts to revive consum-er demand through endless stimu-lus, through overhauling education, bankrolling schools and through meager job skills programs, the city government has failed to create an attractive environment for entrepre-neurs and technically skilled, com-mercially savvy innovators. Besides municipal bonds, premium invest-ment opportunities are few and far between, while the supply of skilled labor is too thin.

Curiously, Detroit policy mak-ers have responded by undermin-ing the few businesses that remain, turning to burdensome payroll and sales taxes and confusing regulatory codes. They act as if these were vi-able solutions to the already sinking economic prospects. The ongoing forced unionism also made the des-tination less attractive to non-auto industries, making market diversifi-cation difficult.

The Crime Needless to say, the criminal el-

ement in the city has operated

unchecked and has been met with only nominal resistance from the authorities. This is partially because the only sector which has been met with fiscal austerity Detroit’s law enforcement workforce, which has suffered cutbacks, layoffs and slash-ing. 7 out of 10 murders go unsolved and its murder rate is 5 times the na-tional average. With units that take almost 60 minutes to answer routine emergency phone calls, the police force is, at this point, little more than a national laughing stock.

The culture of corruption of De-troit’s political class and the civic ap-athy of its citizenry have left observ-ers bewildered, and for good reason. One need only turn their head to find that a new D-town politico has been prosecuted. While our sympathy should be extended to the poor peo-ple of Detroit, we should admonish its voters for reelecting scandal-rid-den and misguided economic-policy makers generation after generation. Detroit has appropriately become the tragic poster boy of an intel-lectually exhausted and bankrupt (pun-intended) approach to urban reform. Perhaps future generations will heed the lesson.

Roberto Matos is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at rlm387@cornell.edu

The 'Paris of the West' DiesContinued from page 8

10 September 7, 2013

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In Richmond, California, politi-cians have reawakened the con-

troversial issue of state power ver-sus private property rights through their attempt to use eminent domain to acquire underwater mortgag-es. The government is attempting to forcibly acquire mortgage loans from investors, in order to refinance the mortgage rate and reduce princi-pal for the benefit of select residents. Property owners in debt would pay back a portion of the original loan, and investors would be compensat-ed at a supposedly “fair market” rate for the current value of their invest-ment or security interest. Interest-ingly, in the Richmond case, the ma-jority of the mortgage loans that the city is planning to acquire are per-forming loans—meaning that the homeowner is timely paying their contractual principal and interest payments, which is the primary ob-jective of the mortgage investor. But is this a proper or an abusive use of eminent domain?

Like most constitutional dis-putes, the devil lies in the details. The Fifth Amendment of the Con-stitution states that “…private prop-erty [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation.” Richmond’s government officials would argue that the government, by paying in-debt mortgage owners, is confiscating property and com-pensating the owners and the inves-tors at a “fair” price. In addition, the town’s economy would benefit be-cause homeowners would remain in their homes and repay their loans at a more manageable level.

However, there are several prob-lems with this scenario. Firstly, the government is providing a relatively

arbitrary—and likely improp-er—definition of what is fair.

Most distressed individual mortgage loans trade in a wide range of values, and it is unlikely that the investor would receive fair or just value. In addition, Richmond’s timing is very suspect in that the real estate mar-ket is improving, and it appears that the city is attempting to garner large property write-downs for select res-idents early in the housing recovery at the expense of the investor. In the Richmond case, the majority of the loans are performing, and therefore, the underling value of the mortgage property is really irrelevant, as the mortgage property is simply collat-eral “in the case” of a default or non-payment by the borrower. It could reasonably be argued that the in-vestors are entitled to their original principal on “performing loans” as fair or just compensation.

Homeowners and investors made a contractual agreement, in which the investors negotiated a loan at a given point in time. Changing con-ditions does not mean that the value of the contract is void. Further-more, if the government can seize and change the value of the loans arbitrarily, how can investors effec-tively negotiate with homeowners? The government’s actions would set a precedent that the value of an

investment is conditional on the government’s notion of fairness or equity rather than the contractual obligations of the instrument and economic merits of the transaction. This policy would make investor risk evaluation problematic and cer-tainly will raise the cost of mortgag-es for all homeowners as investors price into future homeowner mort-gages rates the costs of eminent do-main usage.

Secondly, what constitutes as “public use”? Historically, the gov-

ernment has used eminent do-main to acquire land for infrastruc-ture related projects, such as roads or public buildings. “Public use” meant that the government could seize property for the use of goods and services that everyone would very often or absolutely need to use. However, Richmond government officials have defined public use ex-traordinarily broad to include very select private benefits that Rich-mond suggests will benefit its com-munity. It might be true that pro-viding select mortgage relief would benefit areas of Richmond. Howev-er, where would we draw the line in this area of private benefits for select individuals to benefit a government? It might also be true that residents who did not have to pay all of their credit card bills, hospital bills or possible even Cornell’s tuition bills

might benefit a city. It might be in the best interest of Richmond’s se-lect residents that all of their other private contracts be offered cents on the dollar such that Richmond’s city is a more vibrant place. However, that would raise costs on everything and would generally be unfair to other citizens who would pay higher rates to subsidize these government payouts.

The problem is that Richmond is using an arbitrary use of eminent domain that could and likely would

be used in an abusive manner in the future. This generalized defini-tion of eminent domain allows the government to selectively seize pri-vate property unnecessarily. These types of policies won’t only hurt big Wall Street bankers but average Americans that have long-term in-vestments. And the logical result of such government policies will only increase interest rates on every citi-zen. You don’t have to look far to find historical examples of the govern-ment abusing eminent domain (look up Berman v Parker if you don’t be-lieve me), so perhaps it’s best not set a precedent for further terrible governance.

Bill Snyder is a sophomore in the Col-lege of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at wjs254@cornell.edu.

Would you share your ad-vice on drugs with Cornell students?

"Yeah; stop smoking weed! Weed makes you stupid. That’s not just an academic opinion; that’s a hard-earned opinion. I used to smoke it a lot, so I know. I think that it’s an ambition zapper. I know that it’s terribly uncool to say that. No, I don’t buy into the drug war. I think it’s stupid. I’m probably for de-criminalizing marijuana. But my views on whether or not it

should be legal are very differ-ent from my views on wheth-er or not you should smoke it. Again, it’s a time waster. Em-brace reality. Embrace adult-hood. Embrace responsibility, and risk, and even danger, and excitement. And all of the amaz-ing things that life has to offer. Don’t numb yourself—why would you want to miss a sin-gle moment? Again, my whole worldview proceeds from one fact, which is that we’re all going to die. And so, why would you ever want to spend one

second numb? You don’t want to spend it. You don’t want to miss it. You don’t want to go to the bathroom in the middle of a great movie, do you? No. Get-ting high is like going to the bathroom in the middle of the movie. You miss the best part; don’t take that risk."

To wrap up, do you think that you’ll ever lose the repu-tation as the man in the bow-tie, despite no longer wear-ing bowties?

"Probably not. People truly hate bowties, and the men

who wear them. So, when you wear a bowtie, it’s like wearing a middle-finger around your neck. It’s an act of provocation aimed at the world, and people respond in-kind. They shout obscenities at you, they despise you instantly. And, I don’t think the shame of that ever goes away. It really is a permanent stain. Luckily, I don’t care!"

Laurel Conrad is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at lrc54@cornell.edu.

National

Tucker Carlson's Advice to CornelliansContinued from page seven

The Case Against Eminent DomainBILL SNYDERCAMPUS NEWS EDITOR

“The government is attempting to forcibly acquire mortgage loans from investors.”

September 7, 2013 11

CR

Exclusive Online Content

Blog.TheCornellReview.com

In an exclusive interview, the current bane of Panhellenic’s existence, CornellFetch.com, revealed to the Cornell

Review that it is tracking if users vote for or against girls in a specific sorority. The site also revealed that it even intends

to release this data in the future.

The good news is that while they do intend to “release

summarized data in aggregate charts,” they clarified that

they will not release individual voter information.

The website, which allows visitors to show preference for

one Cornellian over another, has become popular since

its emergence on August 12th. It has certainly caught the

attention of the Cornell community, but perhaps not in

a positive way. According to Cornell Fetch, its creators

have received “multiple death threats, harassment emails,

threats to reveal doxxed information, organized spam

campaigns against our servers, and multiple MySQL

injection attacks against our databases.”

Check out our exclusive interview below to find out more

about the controversial website:

CR: Why did you start Cornell Fetch?

CF: CornellFetch gathers data on voting behaviors of users when presented with choices from a niche network. It

monitors how users react when given certain incentives.

CR: Who are the creators behind the website?

CF: No comment

CR: Do you feel that Cornell Fetch benefits the Cornell community? If so, how?

CF: CornellFetch does not have a special purpose other than possible data analysis. Part of the experiment was to

monitor how Cornellians vote in certain situations. In fact, CornellFetch purposefully excluded any directions on how a

user should vote. Any inferred instruction is made by the user. Not CornellFetch.

CR: Can I infer, then, that you are interested in seeing if users vote for girls in a specific sorority, or vote against

girls in a specific sorority?

CF: Correct. Additionally, we measure how users will alter their vote choices and voting delays when given certain

incentives (ex. points).

CR: Do you plan on releasing the data on how Cornellians vote in certain situations. Or is that for personal use

for the creators of Cornell Fetch only?

CF: As of now, we plan on releasing the data we gather at the end of our experiment.

CR: Finally, how often is the top 10 updated, and how is it compiled?

CF: The table is generated by a program that counts the selection percentage of a profile based on over 300,000

votes. It will be updated once every few days. So far, we have only updated it twice.

Interview with Creators of Controversial Website, CornellFetch.comPosted by Laurel Conrad

12 September 7, 2013

CR

Wisemen & Fools

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When it comes to telephone calls, nobody is listening to your telephone calls. That's not what this program is about.Barack Obama

You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.Scott McNealy, Co-founder of Sun Microsystems

The bottom line is we're not broke, there's plenty of money, it's just the government doesn't have it.Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.)

I cannot write in verse, for I am no poet. I cannot arrange the parts of speech with such art as to

produce effects of light and shade, for I am no painter.

Even by signs and gestures I cannot express my thoughts and feelings, for I am no dancer. But I can do so by means of sound, for I am a musician.W.A. Mozart

A state cannot be made out of any and every collection of people, so neither can it be made at any time at will. Hence civil strife is exceedingly common when the population includes an extraneous element, whether these have joined in the founding or have been taken on later.Aristotle, The Politics

When Arab statesmen insist that Israel withdraw to the pre-June, 1967, lines, one can only ask: If these lines are so sacred to the Arabs, why was the Six-Day War launched to

destroy them?Golda Meir, My Life

Beyond that, I think every president in the intense media environment we have now, certainly every two-term president, gets to a point where the American people stop listening, stop leaning forward hungrily for information. I think this president got there earlier than most presidents. And I think he's in that time now.Peggy Noonan, on BarackObama

I didn’t set a red line.Barack Obama

If we know anything, it is that weakness is provocative.Donald Rumsfeld

If by jingoism they mean a policy in pursuance of which Americans will with resolution and common sense insist upon our rights being

respected by foreign powers, then we are ‘jingoes.’Theodore Roosevelt

We Americans are a primitive people. We do not have discipline. Our moral standards are low. It shows up in the private lives of people we know—their drinking and ‘behavior with women.’ It shows in the newspapers, the morbid curiosity over crimes and murder trials. Americans seem to have little respect for law, or the rights of others.Charles A. Lindbergh

Change change change change change change change change change change change change change change change change change change change change changechanBarack Obama