Mob mentality still rules policy
Furrah Qureshi
Issue date: 4/3/09 Section: Ed-Op
It's time America took a stand and stopped letting the angry mob run its policy, particularly because that's a misnomer. With examples like Iraq and the AIG bonuses, it may seem like the government was pandering to the public, but really what the government did was play off of public outrage to contort public policy. There are other legal methods to get the money back that do not include an unclear and unconstitutional 90 percent tax. Frankly, why are we trying to fix the problem of corporate greed on such a flimsy and small scale? How about, we change the rules, so taxation always applies to everyone? How about we demand that our government sit down and put their Ivy League education to work? The AIG bonuses are a reflection of an unequal society that needs a lot more fixing than this tax will do.
This is one of the reasons I'm a supporter of President Obama. Despite pressure from the right to abandon his goals of educational reform and a cleaner more efficient health care system, President Obama has made it clear that he will continue to reform many aspects of our country - because he understands that they are all related. Many fiscal conservatives have said that funding in the stimulus bill that was allotted to creative educational programs based in music and art are a waste. If you can't understand the importance of creative education, then you clearly never had any. It's a bad time to be an English major, or a communications major, or to be majoring in film, or history or sociology. But hundreds of thousands of students across the nation still are - because they are thinking clearly. Life isn't too short, it's actually an absurdly long scope of time in which you will watch people die and watch people be born. And so, you have to think in terms of having a long life. Think about the big picture, make an informed decision, and don't let a passionate, angry moment let you make a decision that will have repercussions larger than you can handle, like they have in Iraq.
Furrah Qureshi is a sophomore majoring in English. She is the Op-Ed editor, and can be reached at furrah@thetriangle.org.
This is one of the reasons I'm a supporter of President Obama. Despite pressure from the right to abandon his goals of educational reform and a cleaner more efficient health care system, President Obama has made it clear that he will continue to reform many aspects of our country - because he understands that they are all related. Many fiscal conservatives have said that funding in the stimulus bill that was allotted to creative educational programs based in music and art are a waste. If you can't understand the importance of creative education, then you clearly never had any. It's a bad time to be an English major, or a communications major, or to be majoring in film, or history or sociology. But hundreds of thousands of students across the nation still are - because they are thinking clearly. Life isn't too short, it's actually an absurdly long scope of time in which you will watch people die and watch people be born. And so, you have to think in terms of having a long life. Think about the big picture, make an informed decision, and don't let a passionate, angry moment let you make a decision that will have repercussions larger than you can handle, like they have in Iraq.
Furrah Qureshi is a sophomore majoring in English. She is the Op-Ed editor, and can be reached at furrah@thetriangle.org.
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