Yesterday, the new editor of The Primary Source ran an op-ed in The Daily explaining why he felt it was important for Tufts to have a conservative publication on campus.
Tufts does need a conservative voice on campus. Although The Source has consistently shown itself to be incapable of handling that responsibility appropriately, it is a void that is often left unfilled. If Austin Berg and his new staff can get the new publication to adequately represent that voice, then I wish them all the best in re-establishing Tufts' "Journal of Conservative Thought."
Sometimes, there are even issues where I'll agree with The Source. They do have reasonable points with regards to unionization, divestment and constitutional interpretation. But this reminded me of another point issue: Every so often, I'll mention in conversation to a friend or acquaintance my acceptance of some portion of a conservative message, and they will use that as a springboard to ask why I can't support a Republican. (Scott Brown was often the example used last year.) And the answer is simply this: Despite how conservative you are, no American should support the Republican Party at this time.
Now, the Democrats, or as a friend once described them to me, "those folks who are good on social issues but want to bankrupt me to fund retirement programs that I'm never going to get," aren't particularly great either. But I cannot see how any conservative could intellectually justify supporting the Republican Party after what they nearly did in July 2011 and what they're threatening to do now in October 2013 with the debt ceiling.
A U.S. naval admiral who commanded our strategic nuclear arsenal was demoted and fired last month after an investigation revealed that he was gambling with fake chips. Sound familiar?
The Republican Party knows that they cannot let the country default on its debt, yet they have been willing to cause pain and hurt to millions of furloughed employees and contractors, as well as to those they help, to try to push through political positions that they could not otherwise. (They want, depending on when you ask, a delay of mandatory health care coverage or significant cost cutting to social insurance programs.) Their threat if things don't go their way: economic meltdown.
On CNN, there's a countdown clock that is ticking down to tomorrow, Oct. 17. Although that is when the government will be unable to borrow more money, it is not the start date of an economic calamity. But rest assured (or not) - by the end of the month, the government must either default on its debt or immediately shut down all non-debt related payments.
The latter includes Social Security payments to the elderly; Medicare and Medicaid payments to doctors and hospitals; pay to military and civilian employees and obligations to all government contractors. Essential personnel might be asked to work anyway (with the hope that eventually we might pay them later), but the Treasury Department literally does not have the technical capacity to pay only some bills and not others. In addition to that being completely illegal, noted leftist hippies such as Goldman Sachs and the American Enterprise Institute have made it clear that trying either this or defaulting on our debt would destroy any economic recovery we have had since 2009.
So, campus conservatives, you do your thing. If I'm not going to convince you that society has a moral imperative to provide extra for the poorest among us or that large corporations need greater oversight, fine. But find a way to back those positions without necessarily pushing us to support the Republican Party. Because right now only one party thinks the normal political process involves credibly threatening to destroy the world economy, and it isn't the Democratic one.
BhushanDeshpande is a senior majoring in quantitative economics. He can be reached at Bhushan.Deshpande@tufts.edu.
