Fed-up landlord Vanessa McCants, angry that her tenant was not paying rent, decided to take matters into her own hands –she took a can of spray paint and wrote “DEADBEAT TENANTS” on her own building.

The story, according to WBTV, is that McCants rented the property (what appears to be a single family home) to Shanae Jackson for $1300 a month without trouble until June 1, when Jackson began deliberately not paying rent while still living in the home. The deluded Jackson claims that she cannot afford rent and moving expenses at the same time, and furthermore, claims that her security deposit “should cover the rent” — even though the security deposit, as the name implies, is money for damages to the property, not for rent. McCants alleges that Jackson is refusing to pay rent because Jackson may know that McCants is being foreclosed on by her bank, which allows Jackson to levy both a plausible legal gray area and already incredibly lenient (if not coddling) tenant-friendly laws in NC in order to avoid paying the rent she owes.

After Jackson missed two payments (I’m presuming one for June and one for July), McCants decided to get her back by spray painting her name and “DEADBEAT TENANTS” on her own property. Jackson called the police after this happened, but the police correctly informed her that McCants was within her rights in spraypainting her own property.

Hilariously, some commentators are claiming that Jackson is somehow in the right because McCants is being foreclosed upon — but this is irrelevant information. Certainly, the fact that McCants is being foreclosed upon is interesting to note, and it may indicate her own financial issues (and ironically, her own lack of ability to pay what she owes to whom she owes it to), but this does not somehow exonerate Jackson from paying her rent. So far as Jackson is concerned, until the bank comes into control of the property, McCants is her landlord, and she is subject to the terms of the contract, regardless of if she “can” pay or not. McCants is not required or obligated to use her security deposit to pay her rent simply because Jackson does not want to/feel like paying.

Though obviously spray painting her own house may be shooting herself in the foot, I think what McCants did was wholly acceptable. After all, Shanae Jackson is a deadbeat.

For some strange yet supposedly valid reason, a coalition of groups — including Action NC, Bonilla Community Services, Immigrant Solidarity Committee and St Peter’s Catholic Church – rallied in Charlotte on Thursday to protest Arizona’s immigration law. According to some of the organizers, the Arizona laws on the books are “racist”, and they “unfairly criminalize Hispanic people”. In lockstep with the recent (and somewhat obtuse) ruling in federal court, the protesters also argue that the law violates concepts of federal preemption.

Allow me to make a few comments.

First off, let me say that as a general rule, I don’t like protests. Arguing against things you do not like is fine, and protesting is sometimes a valuable tool that is conducive to argumentation. In the modern era, however, most protests seem to be more about chanting and obstinacy rather than actual debate. Going out in the middle of Charlotte and chanting with signs does very little other than harass local citizenry and make the participants feel better about themselves. As a general rule, well worded, much quieter arguments tend to be the most potent.

But allow me to address the law itself.

The Arizona immigration law is a tough law to discuss because the contours of it make it difficult to grasp for the average person. On one hand, militant Republicans are willing to fight tooth and nail to defend it without fully understanding that parts of the law are decidedly weak and problematic, virtually begging for repair. On the other hand, however, militant Democrats lob words like “racist” and “exclusionary” at the law without even reading it (or the requisite amendment), making grandiose presumptions about the nature of the law without truly understanding what it entails.

Before I begin discussing the finer details, allow me to provide a very simplified synopsis of Arizona immigration law and pertinent Federal immigration law:

• According to federal law, legal aliens over the age of 18 in the US have to carry papers (specifically, registration documents) with them at all times. This is common practice for many countries — I was required to do this in Japan, and ironically, it is required in Mexico.
• The Arizona Law (Arizona SB 1070) makes it a misdemeanor to be an alien without carrying these documents.
• During a “lawful stop, detention or arrest”, police are to, when possible, check the detainee’s immigration status, specifically when they have “reasonable suspicion“ that person is an illegal alien.
• Anyone who is arrested will have their immigration status checked before they are released.
• Arizona HB 2162 amended this legislation shortly after the SB 1070 bill came out, specifically requiring that “prosecutors would not investigate complaints based on race, color or national origin” and emphasizing that officers could only investigate immigration status based upon a “lawful stop, detention, or arrest [...] in the enforcement of any other law or ordinance of a county, city or town or this state”.

Naturally, the best thing you can do is to simply read the bill (and the amendment) and skim over the relevant Wikipedia entry, the latter being naturally somewhat academically questionable, but sufficiently controversial to warrant some degree of credibility.

Okay, let’s address this thing straight on.

The Arizona Law is clearly intended to put a system in place to allow police officers to check the immigration status of citizenry whom they feel may be illegals. This is a fairly reasonable desire on the part of Arizona lawmakers — one can easily imagine that there are many instances in which the Arizona Police Department(s) suspect an individual is an illegal alien, but cannot do something to stop it. However, obviously to ensure that police officers do not stomp around carding everyone in sight, the law requires “reasonable suspicion” and a “lawful stop, detention, or arrest”. To furthermore vouchsafe against race-based harassment, the amendment clarified that investigations would not be held based on race/color/origin, basically meaning an officer cannot demand information simply based on the fact that someone appeared to be Latino and had no papers.

As many Democrats point out, there is possibly an issue here: this law leaves a considerable amount of power in the hands of police officers. The issue arises from the nature of the conditionals placed upon the officer — specifically, the nature of a “reasonable suspicion” and a “lawful stop, detention or arrest”. These conditionals appear to indicate that a police officer, with a “reasonable suspicion” that someone is an illegal, could arbitrarily stop/detain/arrest that person and require papers — which would have been a plausible scenario under the original copy of SB 1070. However, this presumption is invalidated by amendments via HB 2162, which emphasize clearly that the stop is to be made “in the enforcement of any other law or ordinance of a county, city or town or this state” — meaning, basically, that an officer can only check for immigration status if the person in question is being stopped or detained and the officer has “reasonable suspicion”, or if the person is arrested (in which they are investigated regardless of suspicion).

So the long and the short of it is that the Arizona bill requires that the suspected illegal in question has to be detained for something specifically other than being a potential illegal in order for police officers to have the right to investigate their immigration status. Most Democratic pundits (and uneducated/unwilling protesters) who argue otherwise have either simply not read the bill or are not aware of HB 2162, which was passed on 30 April 2010.

This does not entirely clear up the race issue, however — the “reasonable suspicion” issue still stands. According to United States v. Brignoni-Ponce and Arizona v. Graciano, because of the high percentage of illegals who happen to be Mexican (especially in Arizona), the appearance of Mexican ancestry can be a factor (but obviously not an exclusive factor) that would compel a police officer to check an alleged illegal’s immigration status. While HB 2162 specifically notes that “prosecutors would not investigate complaints based on race, color or national origin”, it does not entirely exclude the possibility that an officer might use race, color, or national origin as one of a few reasons to comprise “reasonable suspicion”.  This, though it sounds racist, is actually fairly logical in application — like it or not, statistically, especially in Arizona, the majority of illegals are going to be of Hispanic/Latino appearance, meaning that, given other evidence, appearance may be a persuasive factor. Much more vague “reasonable suspicion”s are used in justifying frisking a suspect in an average terry stop (Terry v. Ohio).

So, here’s the million dollar question: would this impose an unfair burden on legal citizens? The answer is possibly. Let’s address some hypothetical situations.

One of the major arguments is that it is unfair for Arizona to expect legal immigrants to carry “papers” at all times. Ironically, this is not an Arizona law:

“Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him pursuant to subsection (d) of this section.” USC: Title 8, Chapter 12, Sub Chapter II, Part VII, SS 1304

So that argument is entirely off the table. Arizona is simply acting based upon established federal law.

However, a more plausible argument exists — what if a legal alien (or a normal citizen) is detained as a result of not having proof of identity? The detainee could possibly sit in a detention center for days waiting for the federal government to send citizenship information.

While this argument is plausible, it does not entirely hold up to scrutiny — all of these immigration checks are required to be done in addition to a stop/detention/arrest resulting from (the possibility of) another crime. This means that to get into such an unlucky situation as what I mentioned, a citizen would have to be suspected of a crime (or otherwise stopped pursuant to a law or a crime) AND not be in possession of relevant paperwork proving his identity. For legal aliens, lacking this paperwork is illegal anyway, pursuant to the Title 8 law cited above. Even for legal citizens, in most realistic cases, after being stopped regarding the possible violation of a law, lack of relevant identification — particularly if the citizen was stopped while driving — would be questionable.

Even if a citizen did manage to screw himself into such a horrible situation, HB 2162 specifies that “[t]he court may award court costs and reasonable attorney fees to any person[...] of this state that prevails by an adjudication on the merits in a proceeding brought pursuant to this section” — meaning, in short, that the person detained would not only be allowed to bring his case to court, but he or she would also be compensated for doing so, pending the citizen won. This argument also presumes that the federal database would take a significant amount of time to return immigration status to Arizona. If a police officer can check immigration status remotely at a traffic stop, we can safely presume this process takes only a few minutes tops, meaning prolonged detainment as a result of bureaucratic slowness is unlikely.

There are other fairly valid arguments against the law. Some stipulate that the law violates the Supremacy Clause by attempting to bypass federal immigration law, which was one of the main arguments held by the federal court. This seems like an interesting argument, but a highly tenuous one — while there are doubtless good arguments on both sides, it seems strange that the law would be considered a bypassing of immigration law when it largely seems to attempt to enforce federal immigration law (specifically the requirement for identification and the ability to check immigration status with the federal government). Also, some have argued that the law violates parts of the Fourth Amendment vis-a-vis unreasonable search and seizure — an interesting argument, but yet again one possibly invalidated by the requirement that those investigated be suspected of another crime. Some additionally argue that the law violates the Fourteenth Amendment by means of being “impermissibly vague” — something that is at least cognizable, but really something only trained legal eyes (far beyond my ability) and debate could determine.

But really, there are a lot of terrible arguments. One argument states that the law violates the First Amendment (specifically Freedom of Speech) by scrutinizing citizens based on their speech (i.e. if they speak English or not). Many continue to argue that the law violates the Fourteenth Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause by means of subjecting minorities to stops/detentions/arrests based on their minority status — of course, an argument invalidated by the fact that a stop/detention/arrest would require a core basis other than ethnicity to allow police officers to check for immigration status.  Another argument vaguely implies that the law inhibits the freedom of travel without being stopped/questioned/detained — of course, like the above, being invalidated by the fact that the citizen in question would have to be in suspicion of violating another law in order to be stopped/questioned/detained in the first place. Finally, and perhaps most hilariously, some pundits argue that police officers would be allowed to “harass” minorities based on this law — an assumption invalidated not only by the conditions placed upon the law itself, but also by the fact that the aforementioned minorities would have the legal right to complain (or outright sue) if they had a valid complaint.

So what can we learn from this discussion and analysis? First off, the Arizona immigration bill (at least post-HB 2162) is not that bad of a bill. It is not “racist” or “exclusionary” — it is a tool that allows officers, when detaining someone for a potential crime specifically not related to immigration status, to check for immigration status. It is a defined strike against the plague of illegal immigrants committing crimes. While many arguments against the law sometimes are plausible, the biggest and loudest one — namely, that it unfairly discriminates against minorities and legal immigrants — are not even remotely cognizable. Again, read the (amended) bill for yourself. It is not nearly as scary as you might think.

According to WXII 12, a Bureau of Labor report recently revealed a rather startling, though perhaps not entirely surprising, statistic: North Carolina is the 4th laziest state in the US. With higher leisure times and lower exercise and work times, NC also happens to be tied with Michigan as the 10th most obese state in the US, with 29.4% of our citizens being classified as obese. Naturally, these are frightening numbers.

However, there is something just as important, and possibly much less discussed, to worry about. In my opinion, NC has another issue with laziness — political laziness. It seems somewhat trite to say so, but North Carolinians seemingly have a hard time truly grasping politics or what makes the nation they live in tick. Indeed, many of them can identify the President — they may even have a campaign sticker — but in reality, most of them are too lazy to truly educate themselves about the political system.

Few of my NC friends have any idea who their Congressman or Senator is, who their local representative is, or even who the Vice President is. Most of them don’t vote and simply don’t care to, though they make sure to diligently vote on the latest American Idol-esque TV craze. These friends are not stupid — they are simply lazy and passive. Even the ones who claim to be “politically savvy” only do so from a distance, by reading heavily partisan websites or news tickers and making grandiose assumptions based on what their television tells them. True, critical, active thinking about politics is largely dead in NC.

It’s time we fix that. My generation (“Generation Y” or the “Millennials”) needs to step up and do something — and by doing something, I don’t mean protesting or going to a politically charged concert. We need to think. We need to read, study, and process. We need to stop trying to be told our news in little simplistic blurbs or contextualized via late night talk show jokes. It’s time we got off our couches and did something, before it becomes too late.

According to WXII 12, a Bureau of Labor report recently revealed a rather startling, though perhaps not entirely surprising, statistic: North Carolina is the 4th laziest state in the US. With higher leisure times and lower exercise and work times, NC also happens to be tied with Michigan as the 10th most obese state in the US, with 29.4% of our citizens being classified as obese. Naturally, these are frightening numbers.

However, there is something just as important, and possibly much less discussed, to worry about. In my opinion, NC has another issue with laziness — political laziness. It seems somewhat trite to say so, but North Carolinians seemingly have a hard time truly grasping politics or what makes the nation they live in tick. Indeed, many of them can identify the President — they may even have a campaign sticker — but in reality, most of them are too lazy to truly educate themselves about the political system.

Few of my NC friends have any idea who their Congressman or Senator is, who their local representative is, or even who the Vice President is. Most of them don’t vote and simply don’t care to, though they make sure to diligently vote on the latest American Idol-esque TV craze. These friends are not stupid — they are simply lazy and passive. Even the ones who claim to be “politically savvy” only do so from a distance, by reading heavily partisan websites or news tickers and making grandiose assumptions based on what their television tells them. True, critical, active thinking about politics is largely dead in NC.

It’s time we fix that. My generation (“Generation Y” or the “Millennials”) needs to step up and do something — and by doing something, I don’t mean protesting or going to a politically charged concert. We need to think. We need to read, study, and process. We need to stop trying to be told our news in little simplistic blurbs or contextualized via late night talk show jokes. It’s time we got off our couches and did something, before it becomes too late.

Something hit me today about a statement that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) made recently regarding the automaker bailouts. The quote and video, from Real Clear Politics:

“Isn’t it a good thing today in America that we have an automobile manufacturing sector? If it had been up to them [Republicans], General Motors would be gone. If it were up to them, Ford Motor Company would probably be gone. Chrysler definitely would be gone.”

Allow me to address something — and no, not the fact that Reid was incorrect and that Ford didn’t take bailout money, but a very important (and erroneous) assumption that Harry Reid was making: that nostalgia justifies legislation.

Allow me to sum up the automaker bailouts as simply as I possibly can (read more here if you want). Companies like GM and Chrysler basically imploded upon themselves thanks to a number of bad decisions and a failing economy. The companies that were failing were valuable, just very, very mismanaged, and they quickly fell apart when faced with a new consumer focus on fuel efficient cars (which had supposedly been their loss leaders, whereas SUVs and big trucks were their main profit line). For some indiscernible reason, in an act generally explained away as an attempt to avoid total economic collapse and the mass hemorrhaging of jobs, the U.S. Government provided a huge bailout to these companies, to the tune of over $30 billion (in two main loans, one under Bush, the other under Obama) divided predominantly between GM and Chrysler. Both of these companies went bankrupt anyway. As of recently, these companies have allegedly paid back a good amount of these loans, though reports reveals that they are paying the money back with other forms of federal grants, meaning that a very significant amount of government money continues to be held by largely insolvent car companies today.

So the long story short? The government directly involved itself to prevent the economic destruction of companies that should not have survived. In a sense, these companies were rewarded for their poor decision-making with a coddling from the government, whereas other foreign companies managed to do remarkably well (though they indeed lost sales) due to good old fashioned smart, safe business (and were subsequently not coddled for it). For all intents and purposes, GM and Chrysler deserved to die outright, for their ridiculous business practices, mediocre offerings, and ridiculously huge number of arcane brands (with the same cars just re-branded). Naturally, had the government simply let nature run its course, GM and Chrysler would have quickly become bankrupt (like they did anyway), and other car companies (be they local or foreign) would have picked apart the two carcasses, redistributing parts of the companies to more intelligent owners. It’s highly likely that both brands would still be around, with many workers still able to keep their jobs, the only difference being that the company would be owned by different people who could manage better.

Still, Harry Reid wants you to know the world is better. The US Government now owns a lot of these companies for no real reason, and we’ve effectively managed to keep bad business afloat for no other reason than we feel that it’s a “good thing”. Spoiler alert: in both business and the animal kingdom, it is survival of the fittest, and GM and Chrysler did not survive. If we are to take Reid’s word for it, Republicans would have understood this fact and let nature run its course in destroying mismanaged companies that could not survive — a fate much more reasonable and realistic than keeping these companies on life support. Other than idiotic nostalgia for low-tier brands, there was no reason to keep GM and Chrysler alive — the business world could have handled their destruction perfectly and kept on going. The artificial intrusion into the natural business world that was the involvement of federal funds was a terrible idea. No matter how emotional you get about it, business is business.

So no, Senator Reid, the auto bailouts were not a “good thing”. They were a terrible thing. The government has sent the message that it is willing to reward companies who do not do business reasonably and carefully. It has revealed itself as overly emotional and capricious with its money, ironically in a time when most of its citizens don’t have a time to spare. They are far from a “good thing”.

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has an idea: free market alcohol. And it’s a damned good one, one that North Carolina needs to consider as soon as possible.

Currently in Virginia, much like in North Carolina, alcohol is monitored by the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control — and, like in North Carolina, you can only really get liquor from ABC stores. This essentially means that the government has a monopoly on the sale and distribution of alcohol, a move done to (allegedly) ensure that the government can properly tax and restrict alcohol. This definition is a bit fuzzy, but nonetheless, it stands to this day, and Virginia has had the Alcoholic Beverage Control system for over 75 years. The problem with this is pretty clear to anyone who favors free market economies: the Virginia government is not a really good controller of alcohol. ABC stores really do not in and of themselves curb or halt drunk driving, and their existence really only serves as a way to streamline the taxing of alcohol in Virginia, albeit at the expense of the Virginia Government. Currently, these stores (all 332 of them) draw in about $220 million a year.

Enter Governor Bob McDonnell. McDonnell wants to privatize the state liquor industry, allowing companies in Virginia to sell liquor to consumers directly, subject to monitoring and restrictions by the state. This has some pretty obvious benefits — while the state can still tax liquor at the usual rate (and thus make the same amount of money), privatization of Virginia liquor means that the state does not have to own and operate a huge number of stores, which saves it quite a bit of money. In addition, by making liquor more readily available and removing many of the limitations imposed upon customers, it is very likely that purchases of liquor from stores will increase. In short, a lot of money would be saved, and a lot of needless government intervention into the private lives of citizens would be stopped.

Of course, there are negatives to this plan. According to the linked article, the process of closing down the state’s 332 stores would be fairly expensive in the short term, including $40 million in severance for employees, $15 million in order to close down trucking contracts, and millions spent pulling out of leases for Virginia’s many rented liquor stores. Furthermore, a lot of interest groups, particularly religious and parental groups, claim that the increased availability of liquor would encourage drunk driving and risky behavior — an unproven assertion, but at least a plausible one. On top of it all, many Virginia politicians seem leery about changing public policy unless the change would result in a net benefit for the state, which is difficult to prove given the aforementioned transitional expenditures.

Still, I hope Virginia does manage to privatize alcohol, and I seriously hope that North Carolina considers doing so as well. While I may sound a bit excessively right-wing, I firmly believe that the government has no place intervening into the private lives of citizens, even if it does so in an attempt to curtail crime. ABC stores are little more than a useless vestige of prohibition era ridiculousness, and it makes both economical and logical sense to get rid of them as soon as possible. Drunk driving is not merely an issue of where one buys alcohol — it is an issue of the amount of consumption, of behavior in bars and at parties, and of self-control. The fact that something can be linked to crime does not necessarily require it to be sold exclusively by the state — current gun laws are an excellent example of this. In short, it’s time for Virginia — and North Carolina — to enter the modern era and cast off prohibition era misconceptions about alcohol — our government budgets will thank us.

Throughout the history of US Presidents there have been a number of ridiculous appointments, but this one may very well take the cake: the Obama administration has recently promoted their “Food Initiative Coordinator”-slash-Assistant Chef Sam Kass — that is, the Obama family cook — to the position of “Senior Policy Adviser”.

While this in some cases seems logical (Kass is reportedly fairly intelligent when it comes to nutrition and cooking, to the extent of even having a presence on Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” website as well as next to her during speeches), it seems suspect that he would be promoted to the position he now holds, especially when his salary is explicitly not disclosed.

It may be a smart move for the Obama administration to quell the worries of people like me and release more information about Kass and his work, lest the dreaded “corruption” word get thrown about.

Ask yourself the following question: is it ever right for a state government to, directly or indirectly, endorse a single political party or organization over another? Is it appropriate for the state government to set up methods in which these organizations can get money?

If you said “no”, you should also agree that “Choose Life” plates are inappropriate for the government to make available to the public.

There has been a large stir in NC trying to push the North Carolina legislature to allow citizens to have “Choose Life” plates — license plates for automobiles that advertise the driver’s anti-abortion sentiments. The argument is that, among the plethora of license plates you can have in NC (including everything from square dancing to confederate veteran plates), pro life drivers should have the right to advertise their support as well with “choose life” plates. It seems to make logical sense, in a way — after all, people use bumper stickers all the time for similar communication.

But take the following facts into account, and this issue gets a bit more messy:

1. Specialty license plates pay fees to the organization they depict. For example, my undergrad alma mater Wake Forest gets a cut of every Wake plate, and the V Foundation gets a cut out of every plate of their own. It’s a money making operation.
2. In addition, the state (somewhat) profits from the sale of a custom plate, be it one for Jeff Gordon or the Army. This is listed as a “yearly fee”, meaning that you pay for the privilege, not just the printing, of the plate.
3. Thus, both the state and organization and question make money through the sale of these plates — and, on top of this, in this process, the former implicitly endorses the latter.

So would it be fine for the state to sell “NC Democrat” or “NC GOP” license plates? Well, no. Sure, one could say some of the plates available for sale now are controversial — but none of them are explicitly political. Printing plates like “NC Democrat” or “NC GOP” would not only break new territory (that is, the printing of political plates), but it would do so in a way where the state would be forced to give money directly to political parties, which is a dangerous trend.

There are a multitude of reasons why making “NCGOP” or “NCDP” plates available is a bad idea. First off, it smacks of unfairness for third parties — the state cannot possibly (in an affordable way) print enough plates to cover all political parties in North Carolina. This means that some parties would need to be left out — and an arbitrary cut-off point would have to be made, resulting in some parties getting money simply because of their size or political connections. Secondly, the state giving political parties money sets a powerful precedent that would potentially result in one or more parties getting more money than others — after all, voter affiliations in the state are all over the map, and some parties may have a higher penchant for buying the plates than others. This means the state may end up paying $10,000 to the NCGOP and $10 to the NCDP — unquestionably unfair. Even on a more basic level, the plates could very well become targets for angry voters, or simply politically charged vandals.

In the same way, “Choose Life” plates are political, and they run the risk of all of the above problems. North Carolina should not make plates that endorse one political belief over another — “Choose Life” plates would not even be remotely fair unless accompanied with an opposing plate (“Choose Abortion”?), and maybe even a third option (“Choose Apathy”?). Giving money to one politically charged movement other another is simply not fair, regardless of the movement itself. Furthermore, the plates would clearly be targets for attacks and vandalism, if simply angry honks and middle-fingers, by those who did not agree with the pro-life agenda. No matter how you look at it, the plates are unfair, illogical, and meaningless, entirely regardless of how many other states have them.

But in all honesty, the debate over these plates is just a obtusely coded argument about abortion. Would pro-life protesters get a plate of this type made, they would begin to chip away at the NC Legislature in a way that may enable them to demand more pro-life legislation out of the legislature — a fact many of them are very likely aware of. Though license plates may be fairly innocuous, they may be the first step towards forcing NC towards certain political legislation, which would be a boon for those in support of said legislation. With that being said, however, such a debate needs to be had without the ridiculousness of license plates: the Department of Transportation has no place helping us make political statements, and we need to be able to have debates over abortion without turning to our cars to make points.

I hate to say this, because I support giving anyone the opportunity for higher education, but let me go ahead and say it: giving illegal immigrant kids access to government-sponsored loans and in-state tuition is, for all intents and purposes, illogical, and essentially punishing legal residents of states for the past crimes of others.

Recently, there has been a veritable bevy of articles (such as “Girl who came to U.S. illegally can’t get loans“) about the children of illegal immigrants finding themselves unable to access federal college aid for the obvious reason that they, being illegal themselves, do not have a social security number. Simultaneously, many articles have been written detailing the difficulties of illegal immigrants in the search for in-state tuition permission — as, being undocumented, they are unable to prove their residence in a state, and thus they cannot get the massive tuition write off normally guaranteed to resident students. What this essentially means is that, despite their academic prowess, these students are unable to enter college, as they cannot afford it or even chance it.

Allow me to be absolutely evil: I’m going to address this issue entirely outside of the emotional ramifications. Let me be very clear: I’m not trying to be heartless or cruel, I’m just trying to be factual. It is my opinion that everyone should have access to an education — but the reality is, we have to examine things rationally, not emotionally, especially when it involves money.

First off, let’s be clear: if you are an illegal citizen, you have absolutely no right to federal aid, including but not limited to things like in-state tuition grants. The aforementioned grants and loans are predicated on the fact that you pay taxes — meaning that, for the price of admission as a citizen of the United States, you gain certain reciprocal monetary benefits. In-state tuition grants and federal aid for college is often predicated not only on the concept that you pay taxes (and thus you indirectly paid for these services anyway), but also the fact that the state can usually rely on the fact that, if you complete your education, you will make more money and thus pay more into the system via taxes down the road. It is, for all intents and purposes, an investment in you for the future, a very nice system the government has set up that benefits both parties, if both can hold up their end of the bargain sufficiently. The problem is, however, illegals do not hold up their end of the bargain whatsoever — not only have they never paid taxes before, but they will not in the future. What this means from an economic perspective is that it places undue stress on taxpayers to pay for an investment that will unquestionably fail — that is, there will be no return of the funds or basis of the funds at all, meaning the government will essentially “pay” for an illegal’s tuition from the pockets of others. Even if the illegal pays off the loan with interest, the mere act of receiving in-state tuition is drawing money otherwise earned from the state — and thus, from taxpayers — for the benefit of someone who will not return the favor. It is theft of taxpayer dollars, and it is unfair to legally residing students who would otherwise receive that money.

This is also happening in lower level education as well: no matter how good her GPA is, people like Gladys Castro (from the “Girl who…” article) went to a public school on taxpayer money she had no right to. Her parents, also being illegal immigrants, unquestionably did not put any money into the system (outside of sales tax or something relatively small like that) — after all, doing so would have revealed their status. Thus, she, for all intents and purposes, stole from the government and the taxpayers. As Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation wonderfully points out, the State of California has already had $100,000 stolen from it by Gladys Castro — giving her more education would simply allow her to take more from the government. Giving her subsidized financial aid in addition to in-state tuition would be the literal equivalent of letting her walk into the California State treasury to steal another $100,000. It’s unfair to legal taxpayers, no matter how emotional her story.

The answer to the problem lies not in sending people like Gladys Castro back to her home country, but rather doing something more efficient: the best thing the government can do with people like Gladys Castro is to force her citizenship and make her pay back every dime she stole. Though it sounds somewhat comical to “force” citizenship upon an illegal, I’m quite serious — the answer to issues like this is to put people into the system and to make them pay back for their theft. Rather than being cruel and ridiculous and sending illegals like this back home (where we simply lose the money), the best answer would be to simply treat it like a very very big loan, and to force illegals to repay it like every other American citizen. This is not only in many cases the moral thing to do, but ultimately the economical thing to do. What better way for illegals to show their willingness to repent for their crimes than to make them pay back what they stole as a mea culpa towards the government?

Of course, this is a pretty controversial statement — it’s likely too liberal for conservatives, and too conservative for liberals. Still, in my mind, it is a fairly logical solution. Illegal immigrants cost a lot of money — they drain from a pool of money they do not put into, which puts excess strain on an already tumultuous system. The best way to rectify this problem, in my mind, is to turn leeches into providers — to make illegals rectify the troubles they have caused as payment for the citizenship they want anyway. And, in that way, students like Gladys Castro can go to college with a clear conscience, not one of a thief.

“Net Neutrality” is a popular buzzword nowadays in the political world, yet very few people know exactly what it is or what it means in relation to the internet. But it’s very, very important.

The term “net neutrality” refers to the idea that everyone should have equal and ultimately unrestricted access to the internet, period. It means, ultimately, that no matter where you are, what ISP you have, and how much you pay, you get access to the very same internet, with the same websites, tools, and equipment. Your speed is determined by technical factors only, and the amount of speed you get from your ISP is determined merely by the amount you pay them and the contract between you two. Long story short? You pay for the internet, and what you do with it is your business.

Seems fair, right? Except internet companies don’t like it, for obvious reasons. You see, back 5 to 10 years ago, ISPs (Internet Service Providers, like Time Warner, Comcast, Earthlink, etc) had a pretty good money making machine going — they had a lot of high powered equipment that could easily serve their consumer base. Few people really used their download speed constantly, so they could oversell servers and make a tidy profit by banking on the fact that few people used the internet heavily. The problem is, as you can imagine, people began to use the internet for more and more — gaming, YouTube and other streaming video services, and the like — and such shoddy business practices became unstable.

As a result, ISPs are now gunning for largely any sort of way they can milk money out of the internet-using consumer base. Be it “turbo” additions (for extra down/up speed), “business services”, or other sorts of packages, the idea is to figure out a way to monetize on the internet in a new way. The problem is, the internet doesn’t lend itself to that easily — that is, unless you find a way to make people pay for what they use already. This idea — “tiering”, or artificial control of the internet — would make you pay for using different parts of the internet in order to make more money on what you do. Basically, it’s taking what you have for free now and charging for it.

So, for example, a company might establish a “basic package” that could only access websites like Google or Yahoo, and then a “premium package” that included the entire web, and so on. Or, even worse, they could charge you for using certain services — like online video games — by the minute or the gigabyte. Roughly, it would be similar as if the power company didn’t just provide you power, but if they also came into your house, made an inventory of your electricity-using items, and then charged you $10 extra for having a breadmaker. They might even slow down (or outright block) your connection to websites that don’t pay them a fee. It could even go so far as for companies with specific political ideologies to prevent people from accessing radical websites — for example, they could block this very article because it speaks out for net neutrality. It’s unfair, nonsensical, and really, really corrupt. It would be the same thing as if the government began charging you extra money for using certain state roads rather than others (like a $20 “highway fee” per month) for no other reason than just to make money off of you.

The further worry is that it could very well be a slippery slope into federal control of the internet (ironic, given a good part of the internet isn’t American anyway). Like the horrible, failed, expensive, and terrible Australian attempt to “censor” the internet, this could mean that the government has ultimate control over what you see, read, and even say — and you’d have no idea how it was being manipulated. Once companies have the right to manipulate the data between you and another party on the internet, the government could very well do the same. You could literally be banned from reading websites that complain about the government — Big Brother would be watching.

Of course, these companies like to say this would “never” happen — but that’s absolute trash. The economy does not operate on the “trust system” — we don’t let companies have huge amounts of freedom on the tenuous promise they won’t exploit it. Furthermore, it’s pretty damn questionable, legality-wise — implicitly, by “tiering” the internet, the companies would be profiting off others’ work, particularly in that they would be making money on people wanting to access websites unaffiliated with the company. It would be the outright, unquestionable, unstoppable end of the internet as we know it.

Net neutrality fixes this. If Congress passes a net neutrality bill, it would make it illegal for companies to “tier” the internet at all, or do anything like what I mentioned above. They’ve already begun to try to “prioritize” (“tiering” lite) the internet, and it’s not going to get any better any time soon. It will essentially set a very clear standard for internet use that makes it similar to other utilities, like water or power, allowing companies to control your usage and charge you for it, but not how you use it. It sure as hell may not be super-profitable on the side of the ISP, but it’s ultimately fair, and it makes everyone play by the rules.

Therefore, when you hear idiots like Michelle Bachmann call Net Neutrality an “Obama administration plot” to “censor the internet”, ignore her, she has no idea what she’s talking about whatsoever. Net neutrality is freedom — it is inherently anti-censorship, anti-monitoring, and pro-freedom. It allows everyone equal ability to say anything they want without any sort of corporate or political censorship. No matter the party, you should support it — your right to even read this website depends on it. Republican or Democrat, demand that your Congressman/Senator pushes for it — it’s fundamentally rooted in your right to say anything at all.