“The correct answer is: none of them,” he’ll tell the unsuspecting cousin of mine as he or she is taken aback by his stark correction.

Now, Uncle Frank doesn’t mean that there are no decent newspapers in America, or in the world for that matter.

What he’s trying to instill in us is that no newspaper reports the whole truth. No news outlet has all the answers or a perfect scope on a story.

I’ll explain with an example everyone can relate to: George Washington. He is adored perhaps as the one of the greatest leader in American history.

During the Revolutionary War, Washington led troops to victory at Trenton on Christmas day in a surprise attack against British mercenaries. It has been captured by the famous painting, “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” by Emanuel Leutze.

The painting portrays the patriots and their leader majestically crossing the ice-jammed river, on their way to win the battle that very well may have won them the war. It’s a very inspiring image.

But, if you check into other sources, you realize that Washington and his men killed foreigners who didn’t speak English, were fighting to support their families back home and were defenseless while visions of sugarplums danced in their heads.

I love George Washington for what he did that day, but  should Leutze have painted him and his compatriots the way he did? While many prisoners were taken, taking this into account takes away some majesty of the grand painting.

My point is that there are too many Leutzes out there now painting their own masterpieces on current events, but they do it to further their own policy agendas and those of the officials they support.

And it’s by no means just one party. Sure, one can say, “Blah blah Fox News is so biased blah blah,” or “The New York Times is so left-leaning,” and they’re absolutely right.

That jaded argument is beyond the point. The point is, as Uncle Frank says, “You’re favorite newspaper should be all of them.” If you’re a liberal, read The Wall Street Journal every once in a while and be open to different opinions.

If you’re conservative, turn on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” to switch from the usual dose of smugness you receive from Bill O’Reilly and get it from somewhere else for a change.

This will be difficult, maybe even impossible, but the news outlets and media are never going to change. They’re going to keep polarizing themselves to appeal to the stalwarts on both sides of the spectrum.

The only thing that can change to reverse this increasing polarization that will tear apart this country, that George Washington himself warned of in his farewell address, will be your willingness to come to the middle. It’s not as bad as you think.

Thanks Sean and The CN, and good luck

So what is all this dissension over between the Catholic Church and defenders of the Obama administration’s federal health insurance mandate that includes birth control coverage?

It’s simple logic really.

Because every United States citizen will be required by law to purchase health insurance from a private provider, citizens will have to indirectly pay for birth control for others.

Now, if the Catholic faith condemns artificial birth control, would forcing Catholics to buy into a system that funds others for that very product which their religion specifically tells them not to support be illegal? Doesn’t that make them do something that is against their religion?

Simple logic says yes.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” should be ringing in your ears.

It reminds me of the largely unpopular breach of civil rights in France nearly two years ago with President Nicolas Sarkozy’s ban on Muslim women’s wearing of veils in public places, even though their religion mandated them to do so, for the sake of national security.

Could you imagine the uproar if this happened here? Sure you would have some conservatives claiming it’s for security purposes, and then some liberals saying it’s facist.

We are known as the land of the free because we allow people to practice their religions. Yes, people are prejudiced, but at least the Constitution is on the side of the victim.

This mandate is a clear violation of the Bill of Rights. There is no going around it.

I’m not arguing about the mandate being a violation of states’ rights or it being a growth of the federal government.

I am simply saying it is a violation of religious freedom to force someone to pay for birth control if their religion condemns it.

It calls into question the worth of the Constitution as the governing document of the U.S.

The argument is not whether you are for or against the use of birth control, but the forcing of someone to do something against their religion.

There are some truly good things about the mandate that could fix some very significant problems in the country.

Even having birth control covered by the provider would be beneficial to some. Almost 40 percent of all births in the U.S. are out of wedlock.

However it’s simple logic to see that the mandate forces people to go against their religion and help pay for something that they are religiously obliged not to partake in.

All this does is set a new standard of what it means to have “freedom of religion.”

We’ve always been a country that has supported the separation of church and state. Whether you’re liberal or conservative, Jewish or Muslim, or even Catholic, it is clear to see the logic in this argument.

If the GOP wants to finally start building party unity and momentum, Mitt Romney’s victory in Florida should be the signal fire for those who actually care about building strength for the presidential election (which is now only a surprisingly close 10 months away).

And this is why:

Romney can stop dividing his party by ending his carpet-bombing of Gingrich with negative ads. Romney spent over $9 million in Florida, whereas Gingrich spent only $3.8 million.

To be frank, as much as I dislike Gingrich, there is not much honor in resorting to a relentless campaign of television and radio ads tearing apart your opponent (one TV commmercial ended saying “If Newt Gingrich wins, this man would be very happy,” as a picture of Obama showed on the screen).

In 2008, Romney also led all candidates in Florida by spending $5.6 million, followed by Rudy Giuliani at $3 million, and Sen. John McCain at $2.1 million.

McCain, despite spending the least on advertising, still won.

Romney learned from his mistakes and spent more. Not only did he spend more, but he spent more on negative advertising than self-promotion advertisting.

So what does this say about our political culture?

Last week, for those of you who read, I talked about how boring the candidates have become and how the race has almost lost a sort of integrity that past races seemed to have.

This year, especially in Florida, mud-slinging has been rampant. It’s always been present, but Romney may have just clinched the nomination with this looked-down-upon tool.

But, Romney is running by legendary Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis’ famous motto, “just win, baby.”

Romney stepped his finances and advertisements into high-gear, causing the American people to question where to the draw the line on how we should advertise politics and perhaps even how much money we should spend on campaigns.

Should we condemn Romney for his somewhat dishonorable tactics to win Florida then? Romney himself acknowledged that his negative ad blitz was working very well leading up to the primary.

We should not – yet at least. Perhaps this was a necessary evil. Perhaps Newt was hurting his party by hanging on, delaying the inevitable and hurting Romney in the process.

This could create a huge push forward for Romney against Obama. But if he does not live up to his promises, Romney will be branded as a power seeking mud-slinger.

Instead of resorting to mud-slinging to bring down his fellow Republican candidates – and thereby divide his party – he can aim his guns at Obama, which he already started in his victory speech after clinching Florida, “Mr. President, you were elected to lead, you chose to follow, and now it’s time to get out of the way.”

Whatever the case, the GOP needs to make their decision now.

But for me, there seems to be a common thread which rounds them up and sews them together – confusion.

Republicans were dismayed Tuesday morning by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s decision not to run for the presidency when they have three (at the minimum) other candidates that seem to take week-long terms as the party’s banner carrier.

Protesters have swarmed the financial district of New York City for the past three weeks, claiming grievances and declaring demands against the government and corporations while they have no leader or formal organization – or what seems like a definitive, rational plan.  The numbers of moderate Republicans and Democrats in Congress is shrinking with every elected Congress, leaving the political middle ground a barren wasteland.

Even the commander-in-chief himself seems panicked in the last year of his term, proposing large-packaged legislation that must be passed entirely as is, or not at all, in an effort to prove to voters in 2012 that they can remain confident in his ability to pass legislation. Obama has even grayed considerably since assuming office. The “hope” sentiment of his campaign is more than just gone, people seem to have forgotten the iconic slogan.

According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, 75 percent of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track, while 19 percent believe we’re on the right one, opposed to last year at this time when 35 percent had a positive outlook – which are still not great numbers.

A phrase from literature that has been the center, which ironically has been the centerpiece of my education this semester, comes storming to the front of my mind: “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” Macbeth says as the end is nigh for him.

America needs a slap in the face. It’s not just Republicans, corporations, Obama or Democrats. With the presidential election a mere 13 months away, it’s important to stay informed on who to vote for. But it’s even more important to realize that whoever is elected to office isn’t going to change everything right away.

We shoot ourselves in the foot with this idyllic naïveté that is evident in the protesters on Wall Street, whose intentions are good, but demand very irrational reforms while lacking any knowledge of how simple economics work: money and the solution to economic and social problems don’t grow on trees.

By selecting a new favorite candidate every other week, the Republicans show how they want a knight in shining armor to come and save the country that they perceive as the sinking ship from the storm that is the Obama administration. This division and uncertainty, “this tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,” must stop and can stop. And we can’t rely on others to come along and save the day for us.

As John F. Kennedy said in his inauguration speech, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

Known as the “Increase Diversity Bake Sale,” they are charging different races different rates. $2 a cookie for whites, $1.50 for Asians,  $1 for Latinos, $0.75 for blacks, and a quarter off for every woman.

It is incredibly racist – and the students running the sale will be the first to tell you so.

They are using the sale as a political satire of sorts in protest of California Senate Bill 185 that would allow the University of California and California State University to consider “other relevant factors” in selecting students for admission. In other words, the bill gives permission to state universities to take into account race and gender during the admissions process.

The sale is seen as a direct metaphor by the students as how they, and many others, see the bill. Goods or services are being offered to others based solely on race and gender. They, in turn, are doing the same thing with their “Increase Diversity Bake Sale.”

Although the sale might be an extremely clever and accurate satire, the only argument I can think of against it is it may not work effectively as they may want.  Instead of the spotlight being on Senate Bill 185, it will be on how a bunch of conservative college kids protested in a socially divisive manner.

I do not believe it should be interpreted as so, but I do understand why it is seen that way by a majority of people.

But what is admirable about this is this student group had the gall to do this on a very liberal college campus.  Seeing conservative activism is nice for a change – a breath of fresh air in the not-so-diverse political culture surrounding the average college student. Conservatives are incessantly portrayed as ‘the Man” by our demographic, politicians that only care about big corporations and oil.

Yet these young conservatives have chosen a noble fight that is truly an injustice.

Now, true, there are high school students applying to schools that are short on funds should receive some financial aid. Whether they get in or not should not be based on solely their sex or ethnicity. That is an injustice, akin to separating whites and blacks from the same drinking fountains during the Civil Rights era.

Diversity is often a misconstrued concept, especially on college campuses. Forcing diversity is in effect doing the opposite of what is intended – it divides and creates injustice.

Of course there is nothing wrong with being white, black, a woman, gay or hispanic. Giving preferential treatment to any of those is as unjust as denying any of them rights you would give to any of the others.

These students and their university, for allowing it to happen, should be applauded for recognizing the validity behind the bake sale’s point in a world forever increasing in unnecessary political correctness.

“It is wrong that in the United States of America a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay higher tax rates than somebody pulling in $50 million,” Obama said Monday during a speech at the White House – a more than reasonable proposal.

But is that really the case? Do higher-income Americans pay lower rates than lower-income Americans?

A study by the Congressional Budget Office begs to differ. In 2007, households in the lowest fifth of income paid 4.7 percent of their total income in taxes. The second fifth paid 10.8 percent, the third, 14.8 percent, the fourth, 18.3 percent, and the fifth, 26.8 percent.

According to this study, higher-income Americans pay a much higher rate than lower-income Americans.

Another report by Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan, private research firm in Washington, D.C., points out that 46.9 percent of Americans in 2009 had a zero or negative individual income tax liability, which – in lay man’s terms – means  that 46.9 percent don’t pay any sort of income tax, or are liable for so many deductions that cancel out any net gain from the income tax.

1.5 percent of households making over $1 million did fall under this category.

So, yes, there are a few high-income Americans who some how do not pay income taxes.

But that 1.5 percent looks a whole lot less of a problem juxtaposed to the fact that 58.3 percent of Americans making less than $75,000 don’t contribute to the income tax fund.

“I reject the idea that asking a hedge-fund manager to pay the same tax-rate as a plumber is class warfare,” Obama said on Monday. “This is not class warfare. This is math. The money has to come from somewhere.”

So where is the money coming from Mr. President? There’s a 1.5 percent chance that a hedge fund manager making more than $1 million a year is paying less than a plumber making $35,000, assuming that plumber isn’t in the 47.5 percent of Americans making between $30,000 and $40,000 that don’t pay taxes.

Ideally, should everyone be paying the same tax rate? I think everyone agrees that the poor should not pay higher than the rich, and a few believe the rich should pay higher rates than the poor.

Does this deficit reduction plan bode for a bigger debate than deflating the deficit?

Is Obama’s statement purely political and aimed at getting him re-elected for 2012?

Should rich Americans share a larger percentage of the load than their lower-income countrymen? Maybe, maybe not, but the money has to come from somwhere.

When I saw that Rod Blagojevich and Sarah Palin’s respective forays into reality television in the past couple of years, I thought it was an anomaly that would never be seen again. But then I started following Michelle Bachmann’s bid for the Republican bid for the presidency.

Bachmann’s campaign for the nomination has become a reality show. At least it has become that way for me. And it seems she would have it no other way.

Tuesday, Bachmann told Fox News Channel that the HPV vaccine that Rick Perry pushed as a mandate for young girls in Texas causes mental retardation, claiming a woman told her that her daughter suffered from it after getting the vaccine. All the while, Bachmann claimed she had no scientific proof, and that she “was not a doctor.”

While trying to expose what seems to be the front runner for the candidacy of her party to have left-leaning ideals although it would take a miracle for her to win the candidacy, she has successfully made herself a star in the media. Could it have been her plan all along? Why is a candidate that has said something as ridiculous as this be regarded as a serious contender for the nomination?

So this leads to ask why she would try to sabotage Perry. One option is that she is acting out of pure spite, which is most likely not the case. Secondly, she may have some conspiracy-like agreement with Romney to get him elected, and thereby receive a Secretary of State-esque position. This just seems like a bad side-plot to “The West Wing,” and also isn’t very plausible.

What I believe she is doing is simply basking in the spotlight. Any publicity is good publicity for Bachmann, but it isn’t necessarily for her hopes to win the nomination. She is creating her own reality TV show, and she’s the star.

This isn’t the first we’ve seen of “The Michelle Bachmann Show,” though. It has been running for years. Past episodes include her claiming in 2009 that “there isn’t even one study of carbon dioxide being a harmful gas.”

Or more recently this summer when she told people from her home town of Waterloo, Iowa, that she was had the same attitude of fellow-Waterloo native cowboy actor John Wayne. Turns out she was two-thirds correct on that point. She got the “John” and the “Wayne” part right, but was missing the “Gacy.” The infamous serial killer lived in Waterloo before committing his gruesome crimes in Chicago.

It just goes to show, I guess, what we accept as a legitimate candidate for the presidency of the United States. Has our thirst for drama spilled into our thirst for politics? Sure it has. Look at the publicity Monica Lewinsky received after the Clinton scandal.

The difference – she wasn’t running for the presidency.

The first is how incredibly proud I am to be American. Most of us have our roots in different countries, celebrating our heritage as being Irish, Italian, German, Swedish, etc. But, in truth, we are American, first and foremost. To think of what has been suffered so that we may live the lives we do as Americans, causes one to stand in awe.

The second is resiliency. They taught me to take experiences that were difficult to swallow with a grain of salt and to move on. To grin and bear it.

During these past 10 years since Mr. Kerwin told my sixth grade social studies class that both Twin Towers had been destroyed, a lot has changed, for better and for worse. Yet we as Americans have survived. America has survived. We still have a future to look forward to.

We have survived because of that trait which makes us distinctly American: resiliency.

Sept. 11 was not the first of America’s tragedies; we’ve even seen worse.

Ripples still remain from the Civil War, where a little over 500,000 people were killed, and, even more disturbingly, we did it to ourselves. Fortunately, we survived that and we stand on firmer ground because of it.

It’s difficult to stomach the thought of the storming of Normandy. You can imagine Dwight Eisenhower ordering Operation Overlord and saying, “We’ll be able to get over this.” Almost 40,000 American soldiers died during that battle, 20 times that of Sept. 11.

The resilient spirit of America can also be found in unlikely places.

In Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, there was a story about an investment banking firm, Keefe, Bruyette, & Woods Inc., that lost 67 of their 171 employees on Sept. 11, including the CEO’s son who was interning at their headquarters on the 88th and 89th floors of the south tower.

Today, they nearly tripled their highest pre-2001 revenue. The employees interviewed say they try not to talk about what happened to their co-workers 10 years ago. “There’s an appropriate time and place to remember,” said an employee who’s father died while working for KBW. In the resilient American spirit, KBW has taken their tragedy with a grain of salt and survived.

Sept. 11 was one of those “everyone remembers where they were” moments. Everyone has a story of how they found out, what they felt, and how strong our response was to it. We’re still responding to it. Osama bin Laden was killed last May. We still have a strong presence in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The question becomes, what will be the breaking point? Will there be a time when we as American’s just can’t endure it? No one knows, but we can look back on how we’ve dealt with tragedy and be proud of what we’ve pulled through so far.

For now, Fred and Chuck would be glad to know that it still moves.

I ran into the room, turned on the news, and watched NBC’s coverage of the announcement that, and I saw that, yes indeed, we had finally taken care of bin Laden. Now the pretty unanimous feeling about the event was (and still is) a euphoric one, with college campuses erupting with choruses of “God Bless America,” and politicians releasing statements about the great work of the U.S. Special Forces and the leadership of President Obama.

But for me, I didn’t immediately feel the need to burst into sudden rejoicing like the rest of the country over the death of the mastermind of  9/11, who had killed almost 3,000 Americans on our own soil. To tell you the truth, I felt an almost somber feeling.

I think I felt like this because I did not understand what it meant right away. The man we killed over the weekend was not the same man he was almost 10 years ago, the one behind the attacks on 9/11. I’m not saying he somehow was void of his responsibility for them anymore, but rather that his significance had certainly been lowered. Bin Laden may have been the figure head, the face of al-Qaeda, but he was not calling the shots of the terrorist network at the time of his death, nor had he been for nearly a year.

He was nothing more than a symbol when he was killed in his max-security compound in Pakistan. Terrorism did not suffer a heavy blow, it was nothing more than a moral victory for a nation that was wronged by him. But what is important, why this may be the biggest news story of the year, and perhaps even since 9/11 or the Iraq War, is that his death marks the end of an era.

It seems like yesterday that Mr. Kerwin, my social studies teacher in grammar school, broke the news to our sixth grade class that our country had been attacked. It was the beginning of the age of modern terrorism, the new terrifying global reality. Osama bin Laden had taken over the “most evil man in the world” title. Terms like “jihad” and “militant Islam” were thrown into everyday vocabulary, often misunderstood and causing much harm. It was an entirely foreign and frightening experience for Americans.

What bin Laden’s death doesn’t signify is the avenging of those he killed. In fact I’m sure he felt that if he was killed, he would have felt even more glorified, more infamous, which is exactly what he would have wanted. Americans avenged the death of those 3,000 people themselves by soldiering on after 9/11, and not giving in to the fear that he tried to instill in us. That was our revenge.

What his death does signify is the end of the post-9/11 era. Terrorism is not new and foreign to us anymore. Just like the Red Scare faded into the past, the initial frightening blow of what bin Laden had accomplished is now done. That chapter of American history has been closed. May God bless America not for killing one evil man, but for what she has endured for the past ten years, and that she shows the same bravery and resiliency in whatever the future holds.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has all but announced his intent to seek out the nomination, while Mitt Romney, the ex-governor of Massachusetts announced he has formed an exploratory committee just this past week. Even businessman Donald Trump has said he has intentions to capture the nomination, claiming he is Obama’s “worst nightmare” in regards to his re-election in 2012.

The names keep swirling, and Republican leadership still remains in question.

So, Republicans, why not Barack Obama for the party’s nomination in 2012? He’s agreed to a budget that, in his own words, is “the largest annual spending cut in [American] history.”

Some of his proposals include cuts to Democrat favorites such as family planning and, again in his own words, “the costly new year-round Pell grant” for low-income students. He’s delving into  entitlement programs like Medicare. This must be music to the ears of Republican law makers and supporters of the party across the nation, right?

Most of his concessions were made to avoid the shutdown, but why was he the one to give in? Why did the Democrats get the short end of the stick on the spending agreement?

The reason is as simple as Obama wants to be re-elected in  2012, but I hate to break it to you, not under the Republican ticket.

He has agreed to slash the spending on programs traditionally supported by the Democratic party: funding for education, health care and environmental programs. But he remained true to his party’s ideals on important issues like repealing the Bush tax-cuts for the wealthy, and a refusal to cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood. “Some of the cuts we agreed to will be painful,” the president said. “Programs people rely on will be cut back; needed infrastructure projects will be delayed.”

By not abandoning these core liberal beliefs, but appearing to agree with Republicans on cutting the $38 billion makes him look like the greatest budget-cutting president in history. Check that, it does make him the greatest budget-cutting president in history. The president and Speaker of the House John Boehner apparently had a $30 billion deal in the books, until Boehner surprised him almost a week before the shutdown was supposed to go into effect with a new $38 billion proposal. Why in the world would Obama agree to that when the prior agreement was already on the table?

As the campaigns for 2012, the president will use this action filled with a suprising amount of bipartisanship as ammo to propel himself towards re-election. He certainly won’t back down from health care and the other issues while campaigning. But for now he’ll take these pills that are a tough swallow.

Lose the battle, win the war, right Mr. President? For his sake, hopefully he’s right.

Last week, I wrote about Newt Gingrich’s divisive comments about how he believed America was going to be “dominated by radical Islamists.” Dominating the news this past week is Rev. Terry Jones of Gainesville, Fla., who followed through on his threat to burn a Qur’an, albeit almost a whole year later.

Riots have flared up in Afghanistan over this spotlight-seeking zealot’s implementation of freedom of speech, resulting in the death of U.N. workers stationed in the pre-dominantly Muslim country.

Now, the world is pointing their fingers at Jones as the one responsible for, in his own words “stirring the pot.” The degree to which the First Amendment extends is back in question, and it’s all because of the handlebar-mustached leader of the Dove World Outreach Center.

Should Americans allow for someone to do this? Is it a hate crime? The man should be punished when he intrudes on someone else’s rights, but if he wants to go burn a book that he believes belongs to a religion of hate, then let him. “We’re not very well-educated,” Jones’s son, Luke, said. “We’re just simple people trying to do the right thing.”

Jones said he was spiritually inspired by a poster of Mel Gibson’s “Braveheart” that hangs in his office. This is not a man that should be taken seriously. Not just by us, but by Muslims as well. I consider myself a Catholic, and if someone who said he/she wasn’t very well educated, I would laugh at them for their actions rather than take what they said to heart.

Why hasn’t the international media condemned the actions of those extremists who killed the U.N. workers as much as they have Jones’? Those are the people who should be punished. Jones did not intrude on their rights, he did not kill anyone, he simply made a statement against their religion. The majority  places the blame only on Jones.

Of course I recognize the man’s actions as ridiculous, uneducated and bigoted. Yet, in no way shape or form did he do anything illegal and therefore no one should be able to tell him what he can and can’t do. Why was there not as much fury over Newt Gingrich’s comments last week? Gingrich’s statement is scary because he may have power (once again) some day.

Jones looks to press his views on other ignorant Americans. The media gave him what he wanted – to be in the spotlight. I’ve seen more coverage on television news outlets of the 20 dead in Afghanistan attributed to his actions than the 300 plus killed in the ongoing conflict in Ivory Coast this past weekend.

Jones released a video that he said he hoped, “For some [Muslims], it could be an awakening.” And, hopefully it is, but not in the way that he intended. I hope it awakens the ability of people to educate ignorant people of the consequences of bigotry rather than condemn a “not very well-educated” man for his ridiculous statements.

Now imagine a candidate of his stature, his majesty with the unconditional support of the American people, telling the press that he believes that he sees America becoming “a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.” All that cheering would turn to crickets before you could say “U.S.A.”  Well, that’s what former Speaker of the House and presidential hopeful for 2012, Newt Gingrich, told a church in Texas earlier this week.

Now hold that thought. For some time now, my friend Marcus and I have been trying to plan a road trip across America, filming a documentary painting an accurate portrait of American life, proving to the world that America is more moderate than pictured. We want to show the fictitiousness behind the supposed polarization of red and blue states, of progressives and conservatives. We believe this separation to be a creation of the media, who cooked up these metaphorical gladiators to fight to the death for the enjoyment and excitement of their viewers, and confusing many who consume their poisoned product.

Gingrich, or at least the image he is projecting, represents what I believe to be that small faction of America, further polarizing American politics. The moderate America (the largest faction) is not being heard, and it’s because of their quiet, reserved voices.

William Butler Yeats, the great Irish poet, warns in his iconic poem, “The Second Coming”, “things fall apart” when “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

The bloodshed that is American politics is capable of being stopped, if and only if the moderate American (the best that lack all conviction) is willing to have their voice heard. We’re not all Red Republicans and Blue Democrats (the worst full of passionate intensity). Moderate America needs to take the reins of this great country, and truly remind us what it once meant to be an American.

Old Abe would be rolling in his grave after learning what has happened to the country that he worked so hard for and even gave his life to unite again after the Civil War.

George Washington would be equally upset. He warned political parties “may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.” I mean, America’s first president knew what he was talking about, right?

In their plight to vault themselves into political power, politicians have sacrificed American unity. This needs to stop in order to save this great country of ours.

The government beat, tear-gassed, and even killed some protesters. It’s ironic that the Iranian government was supportive of the protests in Egypt, but as soon as it happens to the fascist regime of the Ayatollah and Ahmandinejad, they crush it with an iron fist.

Obama got lucky with Egypt. What would have happened if Mubarak had not resigned under his own accord? Obama was eager to join in on the celebration and congratulate the Egyptians, but was hesitant on what to do when Mubarak wouldn’t back down (he simply asked for a “smooth transition of power”).

I’m not saying he’s taking credit for the revolution by any means, but rather he got lucky that Mubarak stepped down and took care of a massive problem for Obama.

This will not happen with Iran.

So far, the president is taking the same passive stance with Iran. I give him credit for calling out the hypocrisy behind the violent shutting down of the protests, and for providing what he calls “moral support to those seeking better lives.”

It should also be understood he doesn’t want to act because if he tries to prod a revolution in Iran, the regime could portray the recent protests in the region as U.S.-created puppet protests.

Obama cannot back down on this opportunity. If he wants to be the leader that people label him as, this is his chance. He cannot be as tentative as he was with Egypt. Obama has to call out the Ayatollah and Ahmandinejad for the injustices that they have committed over the years.

“Each country is different, each country has its own traditions, and America can’t dictate what happens in these societies,” the president said, and is something with which I completely agree. But when the people clearly do not believe in a government establishment, as the most powerful country in the world, the U.S. not only has the right to dictate what happens in those societies, they have the responsibility.

The president said earlier this week that the situation in Egypt is watching “history unfold,” perhaps the first of a flurry of revolutions in the region. Iran is the crown jewel. Obama needs to expose the facist regime there and help the oppressed people achieve “the better lives” they are seeking (disclaimer: this has nothing to do with Islam, simply the oppressive way Iran governs their people).

I realize Obama has a lot on his plate lately with the budget and working with the Republican House, but this could be the defining moment of his presidency, and he needs to act on it.

Step up to the plate and hit a home run, Mr. Obama.

What President Barack Obama plans to do with his health care plan is to do exactly that. He wants to help people who are short on the buck to pay for one thing that every human should be able to have under every circumstance: health care.

And for that, I give the president a good deal of credit. I do believe that America should work for a social health care system which would provide benefits for those who cannot afford it.

People will blow the whistle on this undertaking as over-the-top government spending, and putting something that is too important into the hands of the inept bureaucracies of the federal government.

But don’t we trust the government with perhaps the most basic and important service of all? National defense has been run by the government for the entirety of this great country’s existence.

Now I do understand that it is a different situation when it is such a personal decision as picking your own doctor, but to say that the government is inept in running a national health care system is a little over the top.

But as soon as the government asks, rather tells us, you must buy what they are selling, that’s when it becomes over the top.

The government serves one purpose and that is to serve the people. Obama wants to make it mandatory to have health insurance, just like it is mandatory to drive with car insurance. If you don’t have health insurance, either private insurance or government, then the feds will pin you with a fine.

I don’t care if it’s 10 dollars or 10 thousand dollars, if you force me to buy something that isn’t entirely necessary, then that’s where you go wrong, Mr. Obama.

The government treads on personal freedoms when it forces you to participate in commerce. The government is given the power to tax in the constitution, but they are not given the power to make people participate in the economy. What if the government went out and told you to buy a car, or else it’s going to impose a fine that costs you half of what that car would have cost you?

It’s comparable to England imposing taxation without representation on America in colonial times.

ObamaCare has many pros: it’s going to allow people with pre-existing conditions to receive health care, and it’s going to help make health care more affordable.

So far, the case has come up in four federal courts across the nation. Predictably, two Democratic judges deemed it constitutional, and two Republican judges deemed it unconstitutional. Hopefully what needs to change will change, and progress can be made on an issue that needs addressing in order to help further us along to our ever-present goal: making America better.

My immediate plan would be to emigrate to the U.S. as soon as possible. So many immigrants have come to the “Land of Opportunity” recently that immigration has become one of the most contested issues on the political stage over the past 20 years. The classic liberal claims (to go along with humanitarian arguments) America was built on immigrants, so what merit did past immigrants have over the present day ones knocking on our door? The classic conservative (popularly caricaturized with the famous line from South Park “They took our jobs!”) is generally against raising immigration levels. I have always felt very torn on the subject, more so after my immersion experience.

I recently watched a presentation by author/journalist Roy Beck, entitled “World Poverty, Immigration, and Gumballs” which gave me a better perspective on the matter. Beck illustrates that, according to the World Bank, 3 out of the 7 billion people in the world make less than $2 per day. Compare that to the average American who makes $120 daily. Each year, the U.S. takes in one million immigrants. Beck believes going as far as doubling this rate would not only be futile in the effort against world poverty, but would actually exacerbate the problem.

When the U.S. accepts immigrants from these poor countries, we are going to accept the highly educated and healthy ones. Obama wants to bring more of these immigrants in from other countries to help boost American competitiveness. I was talking to fellow junior Patrick Burns at lunch the other day and we came to an interesting point. It’s good to be competitive and we should want to be the best nation in the world. But when it’s at the expense of other countries, particularly poor countries, it becomes wrong and rather selfish. Taking the cream of the crop from places like the Dominican hurts those countries and helps only a sliver of their population.

We learned on the trip that the goal of what we were trying to do was to help the people we worked with help themselves. Taking their best and brightest is not helping them help themselves. The idea is not to work for them, but rather with them. Simply giving to the poor doesn’t do anything, nothing is instilled in the culture.

Using immigration as a way to fight world poverty is an irrational and ineffective weapon (and in my opinion, rather pretentious). Poor countries need their best and brightest, bringing them to the U.S. for our advancement is a rather selfish thing to do. As Beck said in his presentation, “They have to be helped where they live.” Find out more at www.numbersusa.org.