Alex Collazo

For me, freshman year was dark. I lived in the tiniest John Jay single on a floor of randomly selected people with whom I was mostly incompatible. My closest friends were, in retrospect, passing acquaintances; my academic interests, entirely boring. And when northern winter swept in through my thin California clothes, soggy snow tripped me down stairs and into people, and the sun disappeared for weeks at a time, it seemed as if there was little that could redeem this frigid school and the cold people who attended it.

Last Tuesday's election served to highlight the incredible breadth of political philosophies that the Columbia community contains. We have our loyal Republicans and Democrats, but the major U.S. parties define only the smallest slice of a much larger ideological pie. At Columbia, you will find anarchists, libertarians, conservatives, reactionaries, militarists, socialists, communists of all stripes, and even a few students who are, in substance if not in self-identification, fascist. These opposing views often come into conflict in the classroom and in structured forums like this page. But in a social context, they are only occasionally discussed—except in November. The period around Election Day brings politics to the forefront of even idle chatter, replacing discussion of weather with talk of polls and pols and giving us a moment to ponder the relationship between our political and personal lives. It is sometimes said that discussing politics should be avoided in social settings, especially if the involved parties strongly disagree. Though this aphorism is rarely followed among groups of student peers, especially among loquacious Columbians, there is still a sense that two people can and should be able to quarrel as political animals without influencing their social relationship. It is claimed that the political and social spheres are, and should always be, separate. It is claimed that Republicans and Democrats can and should be able to discuss abstract issues of national importance without coloring their perception of each other as people. To some extent, we all know that the firewall is far from perfect. Many people have a political event horizon—an issue or position that they could never countenance in a friend. Very few Columbians, for example, would knowingly strike up a friendship with a neo-Nazi. Certain views are simply so antithetical to one's own that one must view a person who holds them as fundamentally flawed. Even the most politically detached Columbian has at least some such nonnegotiable notions (in the above-mentioned neo-Nazi case, "Hitler was wrong"). When we encounter a person who rejects our fundamentals, we see the politics as simply a symptom of an intrinsic moral turpitude. In this way, we might use ideology as a gauge of personality: "A Republican who does not support a woman's right to choose has an unacceptable paternalistic streak." "A libertarian who does not believe that emergency rooms should be required to treat even those who cannot pay is callous and lacking in empathy." "Anyone who seriously espouses racism, misogyny, or homophobia is intellectually and morally deficient." Sometimes we can overcome our revulsion of the horribly wrong and become quite close with someone who is in every way our political opposite. Sometimes we cannot. Regardless, we must acknowledge that our view of a person's politics colors our view of that person. How, then, does an intellectually diverse place like Columbia remain collegial and civil? How do we remain on good terms even with those who we know to be deeply and fundamentally wrong? The complete separation that is suggested by formal etiquette is not possible. The judgment of character by politics, which I discussed above, functions subconsciously and automatically. It can be overcome but not eliminated. It is also questionable that complete separation is even desirable. Part of the benefit of a diverse campus is the sparks created when opposites collide. To avoid political discussion with the other side is to avoid an education in poor thinking that might, perhaps, help one avoid the same pitfalls. For a college student, having a healthy discourse with someone who holds a wildly divergent viewpoint may be the ultimate test of maturity. To contest extreme ignorance without descending into anger and acrimony is difficult, especially for the convicted and passionate type of student that Columbia attracts. Perhaps the best way to approach odious ideological opponents is to acknowledge and accept their flaws, resign oneself to them, and focus on their capacity for redemption. Yes, the man or woman before you may have beliefs that betray a fundamental immorality, intellectual weakness, and unpleasant character. But, as much as it may seem these flaws are permanent and intractable, Columbians must have faith that they are not. If those who are incorrect can be corrected, if whatever caused the interlocutors to think horrible thoughts was a function of upbringing or lack of information or brainwashing, then perhaps the situation is salvageable. Maybe you can change their opinions, or maybe, just maybe, they can change yours. Alex Collazo is a Columbia College senior majoring in creative writing and economics-philosophy. He is the president of CIRCA and a former Spectator head copy editor. I'm Just Saying runs alternate Mondays. To respond to this column, or to submit an op-ed, contact opinion@columbiaspectator.com.

For all of human history, there have been wise buzzkills encouraging others to put future health before immediate pleasure and happy hedonists advertising the reverse. Unlike some social issues, the battle of the abstinents and libertines isn't moving in a clear direction. Laws regulating consumption have oscillated between prohibition, discouragement, grudging acceptance, and outright encouragement for as long as there have been laws regulating consumption. On Friday, Spectator reported two skirmishes on different fronts of this ageless argument: New York City took a significant step toward prohibiting large sodas and the University rolled back its alcohol prohibition in first-year dorms. Perhaps the former could take something from the reasoning of the latter. The people behind temperance movements are almost always well-intentioned. So too is Bloomberg's soda ban. Its advocates are justly disturbed by the level of obesity in the city. They correctly identify sugary drinks as an important culprit. They rightly view government intervention as the solution. I agree with the pro-ban advocates completely when they say that there is nothing intrinsically "overreaching" about a government dietary ban. When members of your community are suffering at their own hand, it is a great wrong to simply turn your back and murmur some platitude about "freedom" or "liberty" because you are too cowardly to intervene against a person on their own behalf. So it is not Bloomberg's ends or the rectitude of the chosen means with which I might take issue. My concern is for the effectiveness of prohibition versus its alternatives. Columbia's alcohol policy provides an interesting example in the opposite direction. The University administration is obviously on the side of the law when it comes to underage drinking, but it has a larger interest in the safety of its students (out of liability mitigation, and possibly also genuine caring). Columbia understands that its charges are college students that can and will drink, regardless of age. So it hews to a more practical standard. If your desire is to lessen the effects of drinking, prohibition can only go so far. I am not foolish enough to think that bans do not diminish the amount of consumption—they do, and there will now be a few people drinking in first-year dorms who would not have under the old policy. But a strict ban undermines and is undermined by education programs and health services designed to make drinking safer (If we aren't supposed to do it, why are you teaching us how? If we aren't supposed to do it, could we get in trouble for calling CAVA?). Those programs and services are the only way to help those people who (in an environment where enforcement resources are limited) will inevitably break the rules. Thus prohibition always decreases consumption, but, if it gets in the way of mitigation programs, may also make the effects of that consumption worse. With last week's change and the general swing away from strictly punitive regulations, Columbia has obviously decided that the benefits of these programs outweigh the costs of a slightly looser prohibition. The debate over the soda ban is presently playing a valuable educational role. Simply hearing on the news that serious institutions believe large sugary drinks ought be prohibited may be enough to convince some people to control their intake. But if sodas larger than 16 ounces become illegal on March 12, what then? Five years down the line, when the controversy is long since dead and gone, will New Yorkers even remember why their sodas are smaller? Or will they simply chide the restaurant for being stingy, walk down to their local supermarket, and pick up a bunch of two-liter bottles? Bloomberg's ban only affects (really, can only affect), places that receive grades from the health department. Private consumption in the home remains entirely outside the city's influence. With a ban that porous, effort might be better spent on mitigation and education. Why not put a "smoking kills"-style label on sugary drinks? Why not education campaigns for the obese similar to Columbia's programs for alcoholics? Bloomberg's ban will decrease the amount of soda drunk, but one wonders if there might not be cheaper, more effective ways. Of course, there is an argument against any ban of sugary drinks and alcohol: They're fun. For some, the immediate positives of consumption may outweigh the long-term negatives. I feel this way about alcohol on occasion, but never soda. Arguing for the universalization of my tastes, however, requires more inches than this column has. In any case, the entire debate will be soon be irrelevant. The problem's long-term solution is clear. Alcohol, sugary drinks, cocaine, meth, LSD: All are fun things poisoned by ugly side effects. As we speak, pharmacologists labor to extract the good and purge the bad. There's no reason the drugs and foods of the future can't be healthy and fun, meeting the needs of temperate and intemperate alike. Alex Collazo is a Columbia College senior majoring in creative writing and economics-philosophy. He is the president of CIRCA and a former Spectator head copy editor. I'm Just Saying runs alternate Mondays.

Columbia's Navy ROTC program proceeds apace. As discussed in these pages last Friday, the military has gone from total exclusion to a permanent Lerner office. I and many others opposed ROTC's return then and now, but (for the time being) it looks like the program's presence is something we will have to accept. The question then becomes: How do we minimize the damage to Columbia, Columbians, and the unfortunates caught up in America's military machinery? If ROTC is to be a part of our campus, what can be done to make it less harmful, perhaps even beneficial? To answer these questions, one must first revisit the reasons why ROTC was opposed. Many people made many arguments at the time, but the most compelling to me are these: First, the U.S. military is still a fundamentally discriminatory organization. "Don't ask don't tell" was often cited as the reason ROTC was not welcome on campus; its repeal was often cited as the reason for ROTC's return. However, the focus on "don't ask don't tell" ignores the military's continued and explicit discrimination against women, who are forbidden from combat roles. The suggestion that women are somehow incapable of combat would be offensive enough, but the prohibition does not even succeed on its own twisted paternalistic grounds: In wars like Iraq and Afghanistan, where the frontline is impossible to define, women have often found themselves in combat and conducted themselves admirably. The policy serves only to exclude women from more prestigious jobs and combat pay. I restrict myself here to official sexism: I won't even go into the disturbingly high incidence of rape that commanders seem unwilling or unable to address. Second, the U.S. military is the world's largest instrument of imperialism. During the debates over ROTC, advocates of return often said that Columbia was not an inherently pacifist institution and that the administration should remain neutral in that debate. However, Columbia is also not inherently supportive of U.S. foreign policy. By providing education, training, and material support to the American military, the University provides direct support to the reprehensible actions the military carries out overseas and takes the American side in any conflicts. Any semblance of neutrality, any pretense that Columbia is a impartial place in which to debate academic issues of international relations, disappeared when the administration started granting credits and offices to Navy ROTC. Finally, ROTC is bad for Columbia students. The model of exchanging scholarships for mandatory future service is fundamentally exploitative, tempting high school seniors with money and a rose-tinted, video-game version of military service. Once committed, escape is extraordinarily expensive. If a Columbia education changes a student's view on war generally or U.S. war in particular, too bad: Unless you can pay back the entire scholarship, you must serve. The career of soldier (perhaps more accurately: professional murderer) is one with weighty moral implications. A system which requires graduates to follow their high-school senior selves into battle is not something the University should encourage. But these arguments fell on deaf ears. Now that Columbia has committed itself to the Navy, we should try to mitigate the effects of that poor decision. I propose that the University do what it does best: educate. The Navy, or at least the officers we provide to it, must be made to fall more in line with the principles Columbia holds dear. The administration has decided to give course credit for instruction in murder. It should also provide instruction in the consequences and context of that act. The Core provides a good starting point, but a required course or courses for midshipmen, more sharply focused on the military's special concerns, is also in order. Students in ROTC should be asked to consider, in an academic setting, the sorts of concerns that kept Columbia from having ROTC for four decades. The officers we produce should be the sorts of men and women who will end problems like institutional sexism, imperial interventions, and exploitative marketing of war. They should understand the deep flaws in the organization to which they have devoted themselves and have the tools to fix it. They should leave, in short, with the sort of political education a drill sergeant will never provide. If enough universities required classes of this sort, one can imagine a different sort of officer corps: one that is tolerant and inclusive, one that does not try to sell its morbid duties, one that is unwilling to follow clearly immoral orders into clearly immoral wars. I am not a pacifist, but the U.S. military as it stands right now is no fit partner for our University or any university. If the administration is determined to support the Navy, it ought to at least provide a forum for discourse with the other side, a slight inculcation against the militarist training midshipmen will surely receive. Alex Collazo is a Columbia College senior majoring in creative writing and economics-philosophy. He is the president of CIRCA and a former Spectator head copy editor. I'm Just Saying runs alternate Mondays. To respond to this column, or to submit an op-ed, contact opinion@columbiaspectator.com.

At the dawn of human civilization, humanity's science consisted of fire and the stone-hewn spear; humanity's art consisted of crushed berries smeared on the walls of caves and pregnant women whittled from tree branches. We've come a long way since then. The arts and sciences are both extremely progressive—each step building sequentially on the ones before to create a composite whole more complex and nuanced than what was. Yet, K-12 education, the Core Curriculum, and introductory survey courses at Columbia and across the nation treat the millennia-long flowering of human art and science in very different ways. The history of science is skimmed to reach a privileged present. The current state of art is ignored in serfdom to a privileged past. Through reforms of the Core Curriculum, Columbia could take steps towards addressing these issues and gesture at a happy middle ground—one that puts before students both the steady accretion of human knowledge and what we have built on those layered foundations. The claim that the arts and sciences are progressive is not without a certain obviousness and a certain controversy. On the one hand, any person who has thought creatively, as an artist or scientist, understands the cumulative nature of creative inspiration. We look at and rely on, consciously or not, the work of those who came before. Building a car, coding a computer, writing a novel, painting a portrait—each requires a close understanding of techniques used before, successfully and unsuccessfully. The artist imitates in the form of his composition, the scientist in the setup of her experiment. The controversial aspect of the progressive claim is the implication that the arts and sciences of today are better, or at least more complex, than those of yesterday. This argument is almost invariably made about art—what Columbian has not heard the familiar refrain, "It all goes downhill from the ‘Iliad'"? In the visual arts, "older is better" is a hard argument to make. There is a clear improvement in the control artists have over their vision as they move from handprint painting, to crude wood brushes, to fine hair brushes, to the pixel-precise digital paintbrush of the present day. The bulbous doll-like sculptures of the Indus Valley Civilization hold no candle to the stunning bronze statuary forged in a neighboring region 3,000 years later. But with literature, progress is less obvious. Part of the blame must go to translation, which cleans up some of the ambiguities and incomprehensible references of the original text. But there is also a flaw in the way the texts are presented—through a dense and sophisticated critical eye, with the weighty label of "classic." We see these texts through layers of thorough analysis by modern scholars, and with the assumption that appreciation of these works will somehow make us better, more tasteful people. We approach these works in a way the authors never intended, in a societal context they could never imagine. What we are discussing and hearing in class is not the text itself, but an impromptu work of modern criticism layered over it. Literature Humanities typifies one side of the problem. The class purports to be a class in literature, but it would more accurately be called a class in the history of literature. The most modern text on the syllabus is nearly 100 years old and the majority of the year is spent at least a millennium before the present. The syllabus accurately charts the development of a medium, but it ignores where this development has brought us. A narrative of chained inspirations is often explicitly articulated, each text referenced by the next, but the story is left unfinished. What were the fruits of our artistic project? What great insights into the present human condition did our countless years of collective toil gain us? As I write and you read, profoundly talented writers use the wisdom of the ages to comment on the world we live and breathe in, but Lit Hum does not tell their story. The history of literature is not useful by itself—we need literature's present as well. Science education provides the other extreme. The history of science is an unfortunately fallow field at the Columbia undergraduate level, and professors in the sciences (especially when teaching major-track classes) often seem to forget that their continuing project of observing and articulating the laws of the universe is an inherited one, passed down from thinkers in the primordial human generation. When the history of science is taught, it is presented as a more limited version of science's present: We learn Newtonian mechanics before general relativity not, we are told, because one leads to the other, but because it is easier and an acceptable shortcut in sufficiently human-scale circumstances. The relationship between the links in humanity's unbroken chain of scientific knowledge are not described; rather, the past theory is demoted to a cruder, simpler, easier-to-learn version of the present theory. Frontiers of Science and other introductory science surveys could take a lesson from Lit Hum and trace the genetic material of ancient theories through to those of the present. The arts should look from their past to their present. The sciences should look from their present to their past. If Frontiers and Lit Hum met somewhere in the middle, then perhaps we would get a better Core. Alex Collazo is a Columbia College senior majoring in creative writing and economics-philosophy. He is the president of CIRCA and a former Spectator head copy editor. I'm Just Saying runs alternate Mondays. To respond to this column, or to submit an op-ed, contact opinion@columbiaspectator.com.

'Tis the season for Fox News to proclaim a War on Christmas and Jon Stewart to make fun of them for it. As a godless socialist, it has always saddened me how little actual fighting there is. Sure, a few nativity scenes get dismantled and "Happy Holidays" signs erected, but Christmas itself, both the celebration of the birth of Christ and the capitalist orgy that surrounds it, is rarely challenged directly. Even at atheist-liberal Columbia (quoth Bill O'Reilly "University of Havana-North"), even in this place that ought to be a forward operating base for anti-Christmas forces, here the war remains largely unfought. My fellow godless Columbians, I charge you with dereliction of duty. Take up your Dawkins and Marx, shrink your heart three sizes this day, and charge the eggnog-swilling legions of Santa. Declare war on Christmas! Why bother, you ask? There are many good reasons, but one in particular stands out to me. Here is the sordid story of how a Grinch named Christmas crept down the chimney and smothered calendar reform in its cradle. Consider our calendar. The 365 days of the year (or 366 in a leap year) are divided into 12 months. Then these 365 (or 366) days are divided into weeks, which means that there are 52 and one-seventh (or 52 and two-sevenths) weeks in a year. For this reason, every holiday pegged to a specific date (like Christmas) will happen on every day of the week over the course of a 12-year-long cycle. What is striking about these numbers is not how imperfect they are but how close to perfect they are. 13 months of 28 days would account for 364 of our 365 (or 366) days. Four time-spans of 91 days would do the same. Fifty-two weeks would also fit perfectly into 364 days, meaning that an event that happened on a fixed date (like Christmas) would always happen on the same day of the week. All we need to do is remove one day (or two days) from the cycle of weeks and months. Many reformers have noticed this and proposed a variety of calendars that take advantage. The World Calendar divides the year into four equal quarters of three months with an intercalary day after December and another on leap years after June. The International Fixed Calendar has 13 months, with the same intercalary days. Both have advantages over the current system: The former fits well with quarterly business, the latter has perfect four-week months, both have consistent days of the week, both stay the same year after year, and both can be expressed in a one-page chart form. But these calendars were not adopted, and Christmas is, in part, responsible. Both of these reforms have been proposed many times in Western history. But as the League of Nations heralded a new, revolutionary age of internationalism, these reforms were advocated under the names above in the early 20th century. And both were crushed at the time by religious objections. Christmas is celebrated by many churches on Dec. 25, and Epiphany is celebrated on Jan. 6. In between these dates are the Twelve Days of Christmas, a season called Christmastide on many Christian liturgical calendars. Add in an intercalary day and you have 13 days of Christmas, which was a deal-breaker for many churches. This objection was connected to a larger objection about the days of the week. For the Western monotheistic religions, the intercalary day broke seven-day worship cycles (other religions often already had a separate liturgical calendar and so were less concerned). That there would be eight days between two Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays was unacceptable to Islamic, Jewish, and Christian religious organizations, and they insisted that they would move their holidays (including, for Christians, Christmas) in alignment with their days of worship. The prospect of a civil Christmas being split from the liturgical Christmas or having Christmas shift around about Dec. 25, and general vehement opposition from religious communities, caused Western nations to give up the plan. Since 1955 there has been no international attempt to reform the almost 500-hundred-year old Gregorian Calendar. Though our decrepit system of timekeeping is a serious problem, Christmas has many more insidious effects that reasoned Columbians should oppose. The giving of gifts instead of money is inefficient and wasteful—think of all the thrown-out or unused gifts you've received over the years. Studies by various economists, following from Joel Waldfogel in 1993, have evaluated this loss in the billions of dollars. And there is also the inherent inefficiency of having a "lucrative holiday gift giving season" in the midst of winter, which requires the hiring and firing of workers and makes some retail businesses more vulnerable to bad weather. But the example of calendar reform is particularly powerful because of how obscure it is. It shows how the deep penetration of a holiday into a national psyche can get in the way of innovative thinking and interfere with the lives of even those who do not hold the faith. And so I urge Columbians to wage war on Christmas but not only by tearing down nativity scenes. Fight Christmas and Christian influences on our culture not with petty appeals to our flawed and ancient constitution, but with practical, common sense changes that religion would rather us never even consider. Columbia, bastion of secular academia, is the perfect place for this sort of thinking. If we do not fight Christmas, who will? Alex Collazo is a Columbia College senior majoring in creative writing and economics-philosophy. He is the president of CIRCA and a former Spectator head copy editor. I'm Just Saying runs alternate Mondays.

A variety of seasonal diseases haunt Columbia's halls, but the worst by far has to be election fever. Clipboard-wielding volunteers prowl along College Walk, University voter registration instructions creep into inboxes, politically inclined students labor for campaigns without pay, and the pages of Spectator are full of election-related commenting, bemoaning, and exhorting. All this bustle may appear a good thing, a symptom of civic-minded engagement with the world in which we study. But make no mistake, election fever is a dangerous disease of the delusional variety. The problem is that it promotes the idea that the United States is a functioning representative democracy. The United States is not. Columbia's political junkies should turn their obsessive focus on our broken system, not which particular combination of corporate centrists will be selected to sit atop it. The U.S. government is systemically incapable of reacting to the desires of its citizenry. By this I mean all citizens. Our politicians have certainly perfected the art of propagandizing and manipulating and—very occasionally—"reacting to the desires of" a small crust of undecided but still interested voters. They give no thought, however, to the will of the vast majority: those who choose not to vote, those who are forbidden from voting, those who vote in a state or district where a significant majority disagrees with them, those who have on the ballot no candidate that represents their views, those who are dedicated to one party or to the defeat of the other. Why would politicians care about these people? From the president down to the mayor, we live in a single-member district, first-past-the-post system, where the victorious politician needs only a plurality to win. The more liberal wing of the Democratic party can't break off because then the Republican would win. The more libertarian wing of the Republican party can't break off because then the Democrat would win. These libertarians and liberals and a huge swath of other factions are only slightly less annoyed with "their" candidate than they are with the offerings from the other side of the aisle. But because there are only two parties and only one winner, the vast majority must always be dissatisfied with the result. The problem is structural. Mitt Romney says he does not try to appeal to the 47 percent who pay no income tax because they will never vote for him, but, since the end of the primaries, has he appealed any more to the 30-odd percent of hard-core Republicans who will come out to vote for him no matter what? No, and why would he? The electorate is a sea of lost causes and sure things, and—in a good year—the entire electorate is only about 40 percent of the population. And of course, if you live in the wrong district, there's a good chance you are "represented" by someone whose opinions you loath (I spent most my life in the district of David Dreier, House Republican). The socialist outside Vermont has not had her voice heard in the halls of national government for decades. And then there is the question of responsibility. If you don't like what happened in the country in the past two years, who do you blame? The Democratic president? The Republican House? The Democratic majority-but-not-supermajority Senate? Separation of powers means that no one is actually in charge, and no one is actually accountable. No one's agenda becomes policy unscathed, and so the success and failure of policies cannot be accurately assessed. Our government is incoherent, unstable, and irretrievably deadlocked. In an environment like this, making informed decisions based on experience is difficult if not impossible. The fault lies not with the politicians, but with the system in which they operate. Checks and balances are and always were fundamentally inefficient and antidemocratic, designed by rich white men afraid of government by the unkempt masses. The masses are supposed to be in charge now, but the checks and balances still exist, working as designed. My solution: a unicameral sovereign congress elected by party-list proportional representation. I would abolish the office of the presidency and use the formulation of party lists to make the new Congress representative of different income brackets and gender (every five candidates on the list has one representative from each income quintile; male and female have to alternate). Proportional representation would encourage smaller, more focused parties, allowing people to vote for what they actually believe in. Congress would be organized into ideological blocks, not gerrymandered geographic divisions. The benefits of such a system are more than can be enumerated here, but, ultimately, it doesn't really matter if you agree with my solution. The important point is this: These are the sorts of issues Columbia students should be talking about. Columbia's political class must not allow horse-race election coverage or lack of imagination to restrict its attention to the latest gaffe or poll. It must not succumb to election fever. It must instead read the Constitution critically, and not let practicalities keep it from wildly altering it. The underlying structure of our government has been largely unchanged for more than two centuries, but it is not permanent, and it is very far from perfect. The end of the current system is a question not of if, but when. When that time comes, what will replace what served so long but now serves so poorly? We had best start working on an answer. Alex Collazo is a Columbia College senior majoring in creative writing and economics-philosophy. He is the president of CIRCA and a former Spectator head copy editor. I'm Just Saying runs alternate Mondays. To respond to this column, or to submit an op-ed, contact opinion@columbiaspectator.com

I recently emerged out of the Columbia bubble and found myself in a drear northern outpost called Boston. Struggling through frigid weather and trolley-based public transportation, I eventually reached and toured the USS Constitution. The ship itself was very interesting (it's, like, old and stuff) but perhaps even more arresting was the commentary provided by our guide, an enthusiastic active-duty seaman. In a charismatic, clearly well-practiced spiel, he told us the U.S. Navy history of the USS Constitution: "Once upon a time, poor young America was being harassed by Libyan pirates (the same Libyans who are attacking our embassies now!) and bullied into giving them ransoms for our sailors. Now, there are two ways to react to bullies: paying them off, or fighting them. But what do bullies do when you give them what they want? [Guide turns to the troop of actual, uniform-wearing Boy Scouts in the audience.] That's right, they just ask for more! At the time, there was only one navy in the world that could stop these pirates, the British. But we had just kicked their ass, and they are sore losers, so they wouldn't help. [Brits in audience chuckle awkwardly.] But America (being scrappy and ingenious) decided to build its own navy, and one of those ships is the one we are standing on. After sweeping the Mediterranean of Libyan bullies, it went on to win all 33 engagements in which it was involved, particularly in the War of 1812, during which the U.S. fought the British navy to a standstill." I must admit that I was mildly surprised by the jingoistic simplicity of the tour guide's rant. Even ignoring the gloss of the complex and heterogeneous relationships—between the early U.S., the wartime United Kingdom, the various North African "Barbary" states, and their Ottoman protectors and sometimes suzerains—the connection of late 18th century pirates to terrorists in modern Libya (a situation at least as complex and centuries removed) is patently unwarranted. Nor did the U.S. military do anything but lose the War of 1812. The war ended without territorial changes, but for broader diplomatic reasons, not because the sides were evenly matched. The Royal Navy, in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars, still managed to establish an effective blockade, sinking or capturing 1,593 American ships and placing significant strain on the young American economy. Washington, D.C. was sacked, and there were more than twice as many casualties on the American side. This description of my harsh contact with the world beyond our gates is offered by way of contrast to what we have within. Columbia's geographically diverse student body provides an extremely interesting battleground for competing historical narratives. No period is untouched, not even obscurities like the War of 1812. In my years here, I have encountered Americans who toe the Navy's line, Harper-supporting Canadians who say 1812 was an American invasion repulsed by courageous Canadians, and Brits who ask "What war was that again? We fought a lot of wars back then." Even 200 years later, the history of this relatively minor event remains unsettled—and nowhere is this more evident than Columbia's campus. Many of our present's greatest conflicts have to do with questions of undecided history. Israel vs. Palestine, the Diaoyu/Senkaku dispute, Federalism vs. states' rights—today's headlines were yesterday's headlines only yesterday. Each student brings their own interpretation of these pressing issues, their own understanding of what came before. Ask a LionPAC member how the Six-Day War began and you will get a very different answer than you would from a Student for Justice in Palestine. These are not different opinions—they are competing sets of facts about the past. The dispute is not only a collision between different sets of ethics and philosophies—it is a collision of worlds that were. And when histories meet on the rhetorical battlefield, the result is beneficial for all sides and spectators. It is important that we as Columbia students ask and tell about the worlds from whence we came. For the short time we have together, we have the opportunity to exchange our histories and get a feeling for where ours diverge from those of others. We must take full advantage of this moment—outside Columbia's warm embrace. The world is not nearly so nuanced. Alex Collazo is a Columbia College senior majoring in creative writing and economics-philosophy. He is the president of CIRCA and a former Spectator head copy editor. I'm Just Saying runs alternate Mondays. To respond to this column, or to submit an op-ed, contact opinion@columbiaspectator.com

Student government elections began yesterday, a humorous ritual that holds an unflattering mirror up to American politics and "democracy." Those of you who didn't immediately delete the announcement probably had a few questions: Will the results of this election impact my life? What's different between the candidates? Should I care? After three years here, the answer to all three seems to be: not much. Columbia student government is afflicted by the same deep structural problems as most local governments in America. Candidates are selected by a small pool of eligible voters (fewer than 5,000), a small fraction of whom actually vote (turnout for CCSC elections is generally about 35 percent; turnout for U.S. municipal elections is generally around 30 percent; turnout for class council elections can dip beneath 20 percent). In small, nonpartisan local government elections, very low turnout is shown to cause candidates to shift focus from winning over informed voters to haranguing voters who have never heard of the opposition. The discourse is pushed from policy discussions between interested parties to demagoguery and name recognition. In the real world, low turnout also decreases interest, oversight, number of candidates, and turnout at the next election. There is no reason to believe that these effects are not at play in similarly sized student government elections. Low turnout, knowledge, and interest makes the politics of Columbia College student government uniquely boring, which in turn decreases interest, knowledge, and turnout. Attending a debate is like watching someone talk to a mirror. One side really likes student groups. Shockingly, so does the other. One wants to change "the culture of (blank)." Guess what? The opposition isn't opposed! This party will advocate on behalf of undergraduates against the nasty administrators, so will that one ... and that one ... and that one. It's incredible to see how quickly Columbia's young political class soaks up the habits of our nation's politicians. The empty, meaningless campaign promise is in full force—which might be entertaining if everyone wasn't making the same ones. Consider these common CCSC election talking points: e-forms, East Campus turnstiles, a unified space booking system, more space for clubs, more school spirit, preserving/returning JJ's Place to its former glory. These are all things that have been promised by almost every candidate since my first year. Only two are possibly in the offing (e-forms and turnstiles), and one is patently immeasurable (increased school spirit?). The failure of these proposals is not for want of trying. It's just that CCSC (and student representatives generally) have little power over how housing, dining, University Events Management, Student Affairs Central Business Office, and the administration generally conduct their business. This doesn't stop candidates from promising what they should know they can't deliver. The vast majority of debate seems to be consumed by promises to lobby with the administration for things outside student government's direct control, rather than discussion of how the candidates would do the jobs that are theirs and theirs alone. The sad truth is that CCSC and the class councils do have an important power: Funding @ Columbia University. A significant portion of our student life fees and the allocation of every student group passes through the hands of this panel of elected students, sometimes (as seen last year) with disastrous and disruptive results. Yet F@CU is barely mentioned in campaign discussions. The process was mentioned only once at the CCSC executive board debates, in response to a question from the audience. In Columbian politics, as in American municipal politics, the significant issues are swept away by in a tsunami of perfumed word vomit about things that are entirely out of the purview of the office in question. Take a speech from any recent CCSC election. Substitute "freedom" for "school spirit," "jobs" for "space," "good schools" for "turnstiles," and "shit bricks" for "F@CU." Read it. The result will be a passable imitation of most mayoral stump speeches—and you will not have cursed. This is not to say that the Columbia student government elections are vacuous because the candidates intend them to be. All of the candidates I know are kind, honest, competent people. They are just unconsciously emulating America's disturbed local political culture, acting out their role on a tiny version of the swampy stage most eventually hope to occupy. But I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for more. With an electorate as intelligent as Columbia College, what's stopping the candidates from taking bold stands on policies that they can actually implement? There probably are important differences between the candidates (one biased toward SGB, one towards ABC, perhaps?) but they aren't being talked about, and we'll never be able to fish them out of the depths of the blather-bog. But hey, at least most CC elections are competitive. There are fascist dictatorships in which the voters have more choice than SEAS kids do. Alex Collazo is a Columbia College junior majoring in creative writing and economics-philosophy. He is the treasurer of CIRCA and a former Spectator head copy editor. I'm Just Saying runs alternate Tuesdays.

With the Supreme Court set to reconsider the landmark Bollinger affirmative action cases, the man himself spoke regarding the possibility of a ban on affirmative action. "It would be a tragedy for all of higher education and I think for society generally," he stated. Bollinger is right, but he doesn't go nearly far enough. A conservative overturn of Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger would be a national tragedy, but we must not let concern over that potential catastrophe blind us to the weakness of the polices and precedents currently in place. Preserving the status quo is not enough. Affirmative action needs to be dramatically expanded, beyond even its original civil-rights era promise. Unfortunately, existing precedents already prevent Columbia from doing so. To me, the philosophical argument for affirmative action is simple and obvious. Imagine a world with perfect equality of opportunity: a world where individuals truly are judged by the content of their character, where society does not stereotype certain interests for certain types of people, where economic status is not correlated with any social category. If one believes that gender and race have no genetic effect on academic ability or ambition (something long ago proven to be true), then one must accept that in this hypothetical world, each demographic would apply to university in numbers exactly proportional to their population and with exactly equal average achievements. But this world, though closer to our own than ever before, is still a distant fantasy. Somewhere between conception and application, some groups are pulled back and some are pushed forward. Affirmative action is a simple way to correct inequalities of opportunity and to prevent their effects from becoming cemented in the job market. Note that my argument does not mention redressing past wrongs or correcting specific imbalances. This was certainly the primary argument for early affirmative action, but it has become a liability to the cause today. If affirmative action exists only to fix a unique, present-day disproportion in educational attainment, then an endpoint for the program is implied. A line in Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger majority opinion typifies this logic: "We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today." But affirmative action is about much more than redressing past and current wrongs—it's about preventing future injustice. By ensuring equal educational attainment (for all groups, not just those historically disadvantaged), affirmative action can help prevent any one demographic from becoming an institutionalized underclass. Current affirmative action precedents do not allow universities to achieve this goal. Universities were barred from setting racial quotas in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), though race could still be considered a "plus" in admissions decisions. The Bollinger cases, while affirming that diversity in the classroom was a "compelling interest," rejected a formulaic, point-based system of racial preference in favor of race as a factor in a larger, vaguer "individual consideration." Acceptable affirmative action admissions had to be "holistic" and have "no policy, either de jure or de facto, of automatic acceptance or rejection based on any single 'soft' variable." The Bollinger cases thus muddied the water significantly and made affirmative action policies almost impossible to implement at schools with mechanistic admissions systems. Overturning Bakke and Gratz, permitting a simple quota-based system, would be a step in the right direction. Sadly, this does not seem to be in the offing. But even a return to civil-rights era practice is not sufficient. To begin with, all groups must be protected. A national university like Columbia should seek to mirror the makeup of the country in its student body. A demographic profile of the entering Columbia College class should read like a demographic profile of 18-year-old Americans (with a percentage set aside for international students and reflecting international demographics). To accept anything less is to tacitly endorse a structural advantage or disadvantage in society. We come closer to proportionality than one might think, but there's still significant room for improvement. Student Affairs' class of 2015 profile indicates that non-white Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites are underrepresented while Asians (even discounting international students) are overrepresented. There are other disproportions, but these are the most extreme. However, it may be difficult for Columbia to fix this without risking a lawsuit under the Grutter v. Bollinger precedent. Can a proportional student body be created without using race as the deciding factor? How would one prove what was or wasn't the deciding factor in a holistic admissions process? It may be that the quota system, forbidden 34 years ago, is the only way to resolve these issues. Someday, I'd love to see Columbia's incoming class profile match exactly with the society from which it was drawn. I'd love to see an incoming class made perfectly proportional to college-age America in race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. Unfortunately, even if the Bollinger cases are left untouched, this is a result I am unlikely to see for quite some time. Alex Collazo is a Columbia College junior majoring in creative writing and economics-philosophy. He is the treasurer of CIRCA and a former Spectator head copy editor. I'm Just Saying runs alternate Tuesdays.