We have heard a lot recently about a return to core conservatism being, necessarily, a return to social conservatism.  Many within the party have reacted to the failed 2008 Republican Party and have adopted the view that the failure of the McCain-Palin ticket was a combination both of the continuation of George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism,” and the moderation taken to social issues by Senator McCain, and by extension his family and his campaign staff, publicly.

The general view of the Republican Party as the party of white, religious and wealthy men has been joined recently by what appears to be conclusive evidence of the importance of social conservatism to minorities (including blacks and Hispanics in California who voted on California Proposition 8).  Thus, Republicans are told that it is in their best interest, moving forward, to buy into social conservatism in order to retain votes, and secure new ones.

But, as proper conservatives, we should not buy this.  Issues that, in the end, come down to the cultural are difficult to solve or moderate, and even to articulate.  For example, a conservative conscience should tell us that in the abortion debate, when questions of life are at issue, life supersedes liberty.  For many of us this is the case, and yet other Republicans are proponents of the basic protections of Roe, admirers of Reagan’s nominee Justice O’Connor and supporters of Emily’s List congresswomen.

Consistent with conservative logic, we should approach the death penalty with the same manner of caution:   that caution over life should supersede any political action to be taken.  Isn’t this the most morally upright, conservative and conscientious objection to capital punishment?

Cautiousness should be taken where even one innocent may risk execution, in recognition of the irrevocability of death which conservatives often use as a feature of the abortion debate.  But the death penalty for many is an irreplaceable feature of an American system of justice, and leaders from Ronald Reagan to Mitt Romney have supported the continuation of its measures.

Moreover, this year GOProud, a newly formed gay Republican group replacing the Log Cabin Republicans, has chosen to co-sponsor CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, to some notable controversy.   And The Advocate is on record as referring to the McCain family as “notoriously pro-gay.”   We should learn from this that it is impractical to seek to exact a position statement on any one of these cultural issues, and declare it a part of the Republican Party platform.

This will prove to be to the continued failure of the Republican Party, and in my mind, is what has been behind much of the failure of the Democratic Party historically:  that when you strip away the social liberalism, there is nothing left to Democrats.  When you strip away the social conservatives from the Republicans, you have yet an understanding of the individual and his right, and control, of what he creates, a logic to governance, an understanding of debt, spending, and public service and merit-based pay and opportunity.  It is Republicans that fundamentally value independence from government, responsibility for success and failure, limited taxation, and by extension the fundamental nature of liberty itself.

Finally, Rachel Maddow, of all people to cite as an authority, speaks to the issue of Democrat party hesitancy, promise-breaking and yet still self-acclaimed libertarian righteousness—“when it can be said that the Republican Party is being equally as vigilant as the Democratic Party on equal rights, namely here gay rights, and not be laughed out of the room, there is indeed a Democrat problem.”

What you have in the Democrat Party’s policies of social conservatism is bigotry, and also guilt and irresolution.  The “soft bigotry of low expectations” that President George W. Bush spoke of before the NAACP in reference to affirmative action is one example of the first.

The Democratic Party’s guilt, and not just white guilt, completes the party’s platform on racial progressivism, since never before historically has it positioned itself on the correct side of the race issue when it could have made a difference (neither was it the party of Lincoln’s emancipation, nor the party of Eisenhower’s integration).  Ann Coulter, of all people to cite as an authority, brought this to issue in How to Talk to a Liberal.

Many will argue that “party realignment,” as if that term itself is a squelcher of any logic behind the party’s positions on race, can be said to account for this.  But, doesn’t this make the point itself?  By and large: people are not buying social conservatism, nor should they.  It divides, it makes familiar and activates as something useful a government’s willingness and ability to determine a nation’s culture or cultural values.

Social conservatism is not the same as religion or moral governance.  Social conservatism crosses the line, treats as policy what should govern and be governed in conscience.  Meghan McCain is often lauded for being Ann Coulter’s younger, more moderate opposite in what I refer to as the “political entertainment” industry.  Yet I cannot imagine either of these women running the country.

Social conservatives should stand down—you have been standing up for too long.  Do not hitch your stars to Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee; if you must hitch your star to a homegrown, small-town “country” politician, choose Alabama’s fifth district Republican Representative Parker Griffith.

The International House and Multicultural Center merger has done more than spark debate.  In some students and student groups the issue has unleashed deep-seated anger at an administration seen as unresponsive or un-engaging of student concerns.

This concern arose primarily as a result of what was viewed by the student body this past November as administrative indifference, and decision-making made behind closed doors regarding minority students’ campus resources.

The virtual termination of the Multicultural Center (MCC) by merging it with the International House (I-House) should be a topic for student concern, and as the campus’s Republican Party president, I was approached numerous times with suggestions on how I can best support the administration and speak out about such a necessary budget cut.

After all, we would be Republicans In Name Only (a designation feared by many conservatives these days) if we were not foremost smart-money conservatives with our finances, and unafraid to cut programs that do not work.  But when it comes to minority student resources on campus, such as the Multicultural Center, the notion of cutting funding is particularly delicate.

It appears to me that the administration would be remiss if it cut a resource such as the Multicultural Center.  It must be said that this merger appears to be a termination of the MCC, merely disguised as a merger, and merged with a highly technical and in reality unrelated organization in the International House.  The MCC seems the most logical, when comparing these two groups alone, to cut.  Therefore, it is not unrealistic to assume that a merger with the I-House would leave us not with an I-House/MCC, but with an I-House.

It is not my belief that dire financial circumstances have led the administration to think of ways to cut back in this economic downturn.  Dr. Airall spoke against this as the notion behind it in her forum held on the subject November 16th.

The Duke Endowment as a protective net for the university is certainly dwindling.  DUMAC’s website cites that the endowment has reduced to $4 billion at the December 2008 mark, going in to fiscal year 2009.  This, from around $6 billion earlier in the year, wherein “endowment and investment declines and a projected slowing of other revenue streams, Duke officials are working to close an estimated $125 million budget shortfall over three years.”

But 4 million in our endowment coffers is nothing to scoff at—in fact, if it can be easily liquidated, this should adequately shield my graduating class from any severe downturn if it were to occur, and the same for many more graduating classes down the line.

The endowment may not be doing what it is intended to do—namely, grow exponentially—but it is still there in good form and promising status in case of future emergency.  Building moratoriums established this past year are small assurances that our endowment is entrusted to individuals seeking to maximize its return.

But what will the firing of two high-profile MCC employees, of whom I only hear positive things from cultural student group leaders and minority students on campus alike, bring?  What does the “merger” as a whole seek to accomplish, if not budget cutting?  It does not appear to my young and simplistic accountant’s mind that this merger is an advantageous money-saving technique in the least.

The only other answer to the “why” question, then, must be related to the “Global Cultures Initiative” alluded to by Dr. Airall which appears, at least in my mind, to be a curious idea. The vision for this new “Global Cultures Center,” an umbrella for the newly merged IH and MCC, is designed, The Chronicle reported in November, to “fit more cohesively into the University’s vision of an international education, bringing together domestic students from multicultural backgrounds and international students.”

But, I do not believe this to be very cutting-edge.  The implication that international students and domestic minorities have the same needs, grievances or mission seems not just a little silly.  While I believe organizations that teach differentiation by minority group are unwarranted, especially in a nation which can admiringly boast of an elected black President, our first declaration in favor of such cultural unity should not be that all non-whites are culturally related to all foreign transfer students, both answerable to a single “Global Center.”

At any other time, I would argue that differentiating minorities by group perpetuates the racial profiling and stereotyping they seek, at the same time, to abate, but merging the interests of minorities with internationals is a wrong way of going about such unity as a first step.

For now, it does not appear to me to be a totally ridiculous move to have cultural groups and multicultural centers on campus, and where we can cut back, I propose that we do.  But, I am content in my non-involvement with multicultural centers and yet, with respect enough for their existence, I understand when a needless termination is taking place.

The administration asked for this response when they tried to force out the MCC under students’ noses, and should have expected nothing other than pushback at a place like Duke.

Financial expert Suze Orman, alongside serving her tenure as a longtime idol of my mother, sometimes says some very true things.  At the close of every show, she reminds viewers: “People first, then money, then things.”  As conservatives, we should use our heads and realize which cuts are worth making, and which fights are not worth fighting.

By Justin Robinette

It was reported Wednesday that the Board of Trustees will soon be presented “a proposal…asking for $75,000 to study the feasibility of a 150-bed addition to [Keohane] quad” by “several top administrators.” The article cited Dean and Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education Steve Nowicki, and asserts that “adding residence space” and potential dining options to Keohane Quad will be funded in the following manner (Follow this logic!): “Duke would likely borrow money to construct the dorm and repay it over time using housing revenue, Nowicki said. If the project is paid for in this way, Duke’s moratorium on new construction projects will not apply. The construction moratorium only applies to building projects that require new money to be generated from sources such as the endowment or charitable giving.

We are particularly confused by the notion that the moratorium on new building spending does not apply to projects such as this.  Any new project is constrained by the moratorium; it is cheating to suggest otherwise.  Repayment in the form of future “housing revenue” becomes the students’ burden—read: Board fees, quad dues and possible tuition hikes to offset discrepancies will, as Nowicki admits by prohibiting the use of donations for ambitious building projects, shoulder Keohane’s construction.  Especially given the current state of affairs in Duke finance, and following the virtually coerced retirement of 295 employees as of June, we question the very suggestion that additions to one of the campus’s newest dorms is necessary in order to “really bring out the potential of McClendon Tower.”  This is particularly offensive on a number of fronts: firstly, to any semblance of responsible budgeting.  Secondly, any of those 295 “retired” employees (many of them housekeeping) would hardly agree with the compassionless claim that a space’s marginal “potential” comes at the expense of their job.  Students forced to live without housekeeping on weekends would also question whether their campus’s future “potential” outweighs their campus’s daily upkeep.   This is, finally, offensive to students forcibly shunted, year after year, to Central Campus’s ghetto-like atmosphere of disrepair, low police enforcement and shoddy facilities.  150 beds will not solve the problem of deplorable Central Campus living conditions for independents.

The only way Keohane construction will be paid for in the administration’s rationale, and by their own admission outside of charitable donations and endowment funding that are tenuous, unpredictable and on the decline, will be to hike tuition directly, or cut student services.  For some reason it is acceptable for the literal spending freeze on building to be overruled because students, and not benefactors, will be the ones ultimately footing the bill.  Keohane construction is a direct violation of the moratorium on building.  New spending on money borrowed, to be replaced by anticipated revenue, and on a campus dorm that needs no renovation is reprehensible Recession behavior—the building moratorium is in place for a reason, and Duke’s shameful commitment to coerced retirement of its employees, the cutting of weekend cleaning, and continued indifference to Central Campus’s disorder is an outright disservice to student welfare and campus life—we would little care for spending on McClendon Tower if we were to spend at all.  We request that the university also investigate the nature of this new addition:  If Keohane’s Memorial Grove—the six trees planted in memory of the six Duke alumni who died in the attacks of 9/11—will be built over, demolished or in any way bulldozed upon or around, this will be patently unacceptable to the student body.

I get renewed amusement every year our campus erupts in reference to anything unpleasant which appears on the East Campus bridge.  Each time, participants always include a) the Honor Council, b) any given angry race or sex-oriented advocacy group, and c) any given administrator with the power of email blast, most recently Dr. Airall.  Unfortunately, the vandal himself is almost entirely ignored in favor of condemning, rather, the symbolic nature of the message itself.  The vandal is also somehow conflated each time not with a random criminal act or a pervert with too much time on his hands, but with a universal message of hate waged at a group in its entirety, and almost always connected somehow to Duke itself.

Bridge vandalism is always considered Duke-on-Duke crime, when we know very well by experience that frequent (and almost exclusive) violent crime at Duke is waged Durham-on-Duke.  This precedent should suggest that vandalism (a form of property crime) which appears on the bridge not be applied in knee-jerk fashion to Duke students, but instead to those who are most often waging violent crime against us.   I would not bet my life, but possibly my lunch money, that a non-Duke affiliated student vandalized the East Campus bridge following the Pride parade in September.

Secondarily, what is so offensive about what was written that it deserves this much notice?  We forget all the lewd messages and images left publicly on dorm door whiteboards, the posters week after week that advertise themed parties, sex toy exhibitions, sex worker shows, and we should not downplay finally recent porn in the privacy of our own library—with images standardized as art that adorn what I now refer to as “Perkins Library’s Porno Wing” at the entrance to my Major department.

My favorite line during the most recent Bridge shenanigans was from Random Student XYZ’s October 7th letter to the editor in The Chronicle, entitled “Hate speech should not be tolerated.”  This statement sums up the misinformation and disjunct which exists for those who foamed at the mouth over the most recent bridge vandalism; I laughed out loud.  The very definition of tolerance is predicated on hate; for me to be tolerant, I must necessarily hate your way of life or the very thing that you are doing.  If I do not hate it, I cannot tolerate it.  If I do not hate it, I have accepted it instead.  I must hate it, but willfully choose to permit it for the greater purpose of free speech, in order to “tolerate” it. Post hoc ergo propter hoc, hate speech should be tolerated, but never labeled as acceptable.

There is something innately wrong with putting such garbage up that appeared on the bridge following Gay Pride, and also in taking it down.  It is thoroughly un-American to, as a recognized campus group, be seen censoring (read: actively covering up) speech that should by definition be “tolerated.” What is especially offensive on this front is the fact that the bridge was painted over, and marketed so by Duke administration, by a recognized student group to the tune of blast-email support of the university against the wishes of the Honor Council.

Grafitti and vandalism: the ancient Greeks did it, so did the Egyptians, so do bored Duke students or angry Durhamites.  What do we have in the painting over of hateful words to the tune of university displeasure?  Cowards validating the work of other cowards.