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.

According to the News & Observer, all of North Carolina’s federal representatives voted against the possibility of a Congressional pay raise except for one person: NC-12′s Mel Watt.

The bill, HR 5146, would for all intents and purposes entirely prohibit a Congressional pay raise in January, which is usually standard procedure to accommodate cost of living changes. The salary amounts, according to the News & Observer:

[...] $174,000 for rank-and-file members, $193,400 for the House and Senate majority and minority leaders and the Senate president pro tempore, and $223,500 for the House speaker. Other top federal salaries are $400,000 for the president, $230,700 for the vice president, $223,500 for the chief justice, $213,900 for associate Supreme Court justices, $199,700 for Cabinet officers, $184,500 for appellate judges and $174,000 for district judges.

In colloquial terms? A whole big chunk ‘o change. Of course, that doesn’t mean most Congressmen are rolling around in cash — between having two residences (one back home, which is required, and one in DC) and having to pay for typically expensive DC food all the time, typical Congressmen typically don’t have exorbitant amounts of cash on hand. However, when the economy drops (like it’s been doing now), Congressmen can live like kings — after all, things become cheaper. That’s not even considering the fact that most (not all) Congressmen usually have significant nest eggs from prior jobs (as most were well paid before they became Congressmen), meaning they do pretty well for themselves. No matter how you twist it, though, $174k is a lot of money — why does Watt suddenly want more, especially when there is no inflation to adjust for?

And, thankfully, everyone in NC, on both sides of the aisle, voted for the block — that is to say, they refused the pay raise. Except for Mel Watt. Watt’s not poor by any stretch — he attended Yale Law and practiced law for over 20 years. Watt’s also pretty notorious for being pretty shady with money — just last year, he ran seriously afoul of Rep. Ron Paul after cutting out lots of parts of a Federal Reserve auditing and transparency bill, which he edited to protect shady practices on the part of banks (many of which comprising his campaign donors).

I have no idea what Watt’s rationale for voting for a pay raise is — by all means, it likely doesn’t matter, as it has already passed the House and the Senate. Still, I’d like to know why in the world he thinks $174k isn’t sufficient pay when a huge percentage of his state doesn’t even have a job in the first place.