This past week, citizens of the granite state of New Hampshire did a great job in reinforcing the state’s nickname: in a blockheaded, nose-picking Cro-Magnon fashion, nearly 40% of New Hampshirites traveled en masse to their polling stations and voted for Mitt Romney. In a distant second place was Ron Paul, resident libertarian crank whose absurd vision of the future rivals that of a Dali painting. And in a typically meek manner, Jon Huntsman finally poked his silvery head of hair in the upper echelon of GOP candidates with 17% of the New Hampshire vote.

In Huntsman’s subsequent speech, he vowed that his campaign would “go south” from New Hampshire. While he may have meant South Carolina, the next stop on the conservative candidates’ tour de force, another—and more accurate—interpretation would be that he was referring to the direction of his future support in the polls.

What modest “momentum” Huntsman gained—if it can even be called that—in the already fiercely independent state of New Hampshire was not nearly enough to catapult him into the frontrunner status he will need in order to successfully navigate the waters of the snake handling, reason loathing, and science shunning states of South Carolina and Florida that await next in the GOP primaries.

And let’s be honest: even if Huntsman had placed second and managed 20% or more of New Hampshire voters, he wouldn’t stand a chance in the vaudevillian spectacle that is the GOP primary race. Despite the fact that 2008 Obama campaign manager David Plouffe dubbed Huntsman as the sole Republican who made him “a wee bit queasy” about Obama’s 2012 race, Huntsman is sadly incapable of garnering a modicum of support. Here’s why:

1. He speaks a language other than English—and it’s not even Spanish

Adding Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese Hokkein to his already impressive resume via a two-year mission trip to Taiwan, many Americans view Huntsman’s linguist leanings as a threat to American culture and the English language. He even has a Chinese name: Hóng Bópéi. In a country where fewer than 10% of Americans are fluent in a second language (compared to Europe’s near 50% proportion), being bilingual will grant you few favors. As one of the GOP’s more paranoid members stated in a blog post, “If he were to run the country… we will be speaking Chinese by the end of his term.” If only.

2. He believes in science

Taking to Twitter after Rick Perry’s dismissal of evolution as “just a theory that’s out there” and climate change as data manipulation for dollars, Huntsman made the characteristically innocuous comment that he believed in evolution and trusted scientists on global warming.

He was even willing to let others call him crazy for it, and rest assured they did: 4 in 10 Americans believe in strict creationism and the majority of those believers identify themselves as Republicans. And as the percentage of Americans concerned about global warming continues to drop to abysmal lows, Huntsman has only succeeded in pushing himself further toward the lonely outskirts of the bell curve.

Among the many problems plaguing contemporary American politics is the proliferation of sound bite politics. The purpose of a sound bite is to capture the essence of a larger issue in the form of a single word or phrase; to simplify otherwise complex issues into quotable, easily-digestible buzzwords. Unfortunately, one need not look any further than the current GOP debates to see examples of this political pollution.

The recent GOP debates have provided fertile ground for the cultivation of various sound bites and buzzwords. Herman Cain branded himself with his “9-9-9” comprehensive tax reform plan and strategically plugged it into many of his speeches and debate responses. Championing the initiative not only for its simplicity and transparency but also for its effectiveness in reducing taxes, Cain and his litany-like recital of its principles actually ignored larger socioeconomic factors that necessitate a more nuanced tax code; in fact, economists have concluded that 9-9-9 would raise taxes for the majority of Americans .

And that is why sound bites are so problematic: there is an inherent contextual neglect. Take for instance Sarah Palin’s shameful 2009 attempt to malign federal health care legislation by coining the buzz term “death panels.” The term deliberately distorts the proposed legislation and erroneously evokes poignant images of government bureaucrats determining peoples’ health care options based on their social worth. Moreover, this arrant appeal to voters’ emotions signifies a designed contextual neglect—an intentional misinterpretation—that exposes an obvious anti-Obama agenda.

But this is the standard in Republican politics. Ron Paul is virtually inseparable from the phrases “sound money” and “end the federal reserve.” Rick Perry and Mitt Romney chatter incessantly about a “strong America” or the “American century,” and sadly the phrases “states’ rights,” “lower taxes,” and “increased military spending” sum up most of the debate content pretty accurately. So what happens when sound bites become the primary medium in which political opinions are transmitted?

As politicians continue to speak in nothing but buzzwords and sound bites, the American political psyche undergoes some subtle but substantial changes. In accordance with our consumer-based economy, politicians have commodified themselves, thus forcing voters (consumers) to shop for their favorite politicians. It’s like a supermarket shelf featuring several brands of the same food: the companies must make their brand stand out, so they place a giant sticker on their product that says “no high fructose corn syrup!” even though the food had none to begin with. Likewise, politicians vacuously attempt to market themselves through the empty branding of sound bites, desperately playing into the political proclivities of their respective base.

Thoughtful politics have no place in a political arena that functions like a business or like a supermarket. This means that the responsibility of thought lies in the voter. By informing one’s self and casting an incredulous eye to the media, voters can begin to parse reality from delusion—voters can read a politician’s list of ingredients rather than the fraudulent sound bites designed to make them sell.

But does the American public really want to take the time to fully immerse themselves in a particular issue? Or, in the drive-thru, instant-gratification, Internet era are Americans too apathetic to care beyond the abridged, sound bite version? While it could be argued that it is the media’s job to untangle these contextually negligent sound bites, it is often the media propagating them. With the 2012 election looming on the horizon, the American public must make the effort to listen beyond the sound bite and understand the context in which politicians make their claims. Because, really, it’s the difference between reality and a concocted American utopia that can never exist.

A homeland security degree has to prepare you for a lot of things, though coincidentally a big part of the curriculum is “everything not on the curriculum.” You have to expect the unexpected and then – and this is the important bit – deal with it in a sensible way. The whole point of a homeland security degree is to be a useful human being in a security or crisis situation, and that’s a lot more difficult than you might think.

But even a Time Lord with extra training by MI5 and GI Joe couldn’t have expected some of the crazy things that happen in the real world. That’s why we’ve found some extra things you need to watch out for with a homeland security degree.

Karma

We like to imagine a huge battle of good versus evil, but it’s usually more trained people versus idiots. It turns out terrorism doesn’t attract the stablest or most productive members of society and the sort of person prepared to walk around with a pile of high explosive isn’t doing it because he got bored waiting for NASA and the Playboy Bunnies to call him back. These people have nothing else worth doing with their lives, and a big part of that is “not very good with complicated tasks. Like detonators.”

A Chilean anarchist got entirely too acquainted with chaos and disorder when he tried to plant a time bomb on a local bank. You know how sometimes when you’re setting the alarm and it starts screaming right then? And how you’re not a lunatic, so it doesn’t blow up and take your hands and eyesight? You know twice as much as he does now.

Cosplay

Those with homeland security degrees need a sophisticated blend of paranoia and common sense. While almost anything could be a bomb, the fact we still exist means that most of them aren’t. This distinction was subjected to interplanetary strain in Chicago, where the Millenium Park was evacuated because of a Doctor Who fan’s sophisticated costume and props. The Whovian had built a “doohicky”, a classic science-fiction kludge of wires and machinery and you can already understand why this caused a public panic when he left it next to a monument, can’t you?

Idiots

If the world could erase evil or idiocy, we’d be far better off getting rid of the stupid. Movies tell us that most of the truly evil are outright geniuses – if we could just convince them to create patents for their nuclear moon lasers instead of trying to use them, we’d be living in the space age and they’d all be billionaires (just like they always wanted.) Anyone with a homeland security degree will quickly find out it’s the idiots who are the real risk. Taking dangerous items into a crowded area requires evil, intent, planning and careful preparation, or just being too stupid not to and casually breezing in without a care in the world.

It’s the latter group who are the real risk, because they don’t look suspicious. They genuinely don’t know they’re doing anything wrong. One such man was arrested at Sacramento International Airport for trying to bring a loaded handgun on the plane. And yes, it was loaded when they found it in his backpack, meaning that he was an idiot before he got anywhere near the airport. And whoever trusted him to store a gun wasn’t so bright either.

In proof that stupidity cancels out self-awareness, the man specifically talked to local reporters to make sure people knew he’d forgotten about the gun, that he wasn’t stupid enough to intentionally try and bring a gun on a plane. No, he’s stupid enough to forget he’s carrying a live weapon!

As if the cheers that followed Rick Perry’s pro-death penalty stance weren’t alarming enough, the recent GOP debate on foreign policy provided even more reasons to believe that today’s Republican candidates may have a lot in common with the Spanish Inquisition tribunal. When asked their stance on waterboarding, it was only candidates Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman who agreed that it is in fact torture and should not be used under any circumstances. Suffice it to say that the proceeding yee-haws were very few. It wasn’t until Michele Bachmann made the rather specious claim that as President she would implement waterboarding for its “effectiveness” in gaining critical security information that the rather torpid audience burst into uproarious applause.

With Herman Cain’s recent statement that he “isn’t supposed to know about foreign policy” and Bachmann’s absurd claim that the ACLU runs the CIA, it is wholly unsurprising that the majority of GOP candidates, none of whom have much foreign policy experience (save for Jon Huntsman, the apparent candidate non grata) displayed such arrant ignorance throughout the debate.

Regardless, what Cain may not understand about Obama’s intervention in Libya or what Mitt Romney may misinterpret regarding United States relations with China pales in comparison to their unnerving endorsements of waterboarding. The fact that a “serious” presidential candidate would vocalize his or her support for waterboarding in hopes of strutting his or her bellicose conservative swagger is much more indicative of our own immorality and lawlessness than an alleged enemy’s.

Catholic Barbarism And The Modern GOP

Despite its many headlines in the past decade, waterboarding is not a novel concept nor is it an ever-innovative American method of gaining intelligence from supposed enemies. Rather, its origins can be found in 15th century Spain as a torture method utilized by some rather combative Catholic monarchs during the Spanish Inquisition. Formerly known as la toca, the hapless victim’s mouth was stuffed with a cloth and eventually filled with water as it spilled from a jar to simulate drowning. While the Spaniards claimed that la toca had religious significance, they also conceded that it was torture. After all, that was why they did it. Yet some 500 years later, many foolhardy American leaders still do not come to the same conclusion.

As such, what the United States relationship with waterboarding lacks in consistency it gains in hypocrisy. In 1852, many American dignitaries deemed it “hydropathic torture” yet the US Army utilized it in the 1898 Spanish-American War in the Philippines. In the 20th century, American court tribunals tried and hanged several Japanese commanders that used water torture against Americans during World War II on the grounds that it was a “war crime.”

Waterboarding: The Damage Springs Eternal

While the United States’ stance on waterboarding is mercurial at best, its effects are not. Physiologically speaking, the potential damages are numerous and severe. Many have cited brain and lung damage due to oxygen deprivation and in some cases death.

According to Allen Keller, Director of the Bellevue/New York University School of Medicine Program for Survivors of Torture, waterboarding is “an utterly terrifying event that […] can result in significant long-term post traumatic stress, anxiety, and depression.”

To the chagrin of the conservative pro-waterboarding base, Keller cannot be written off as some psychoanalytic sap: he has treated the victims himself. One of his patients who underwent waterboarding now suffers from constant flashbacks where “every time he [showers], he panics.” Another panics any time he is short of breath—even if only exercising. The experience, Keller says, is often ineradicable.

Policing a legal non-violent protest, presented to you by the same good folks who gave you the Wall Street Democratic Party and Joseph Lieberman!

As the American presidential election looms in the not-so distant future, political polarization has thrust formerly functioning parties into the depths of dysfunction and replaced them with vengeful factions that are fueled only by the other’s failure. It is not about fixing the economy anymore; it is about fixing the stage for the next election. While our economic fate may have already been sealed due to the political paralysis that has dominated the legislative scene, its exacerbation or amelioration hinges on the results of the 2012 Presidential election.

Heterogeneous and drawing from a panoply of activist groups, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has gained formidable power since its inception in mid-September. Despite Obama’s efforts to identify with OWS and mimic their fervor in his stump speeches, gravity has pulled the Obama Administration from campaign ambitions and dragged down Obama’s popularity in the polls. The fear, as John Nichols so aptly stated in a column in The Nation, is that the “movement might well develop into a virtual primary challenge for Obama.”

Because of Obama’s limited powers to enact the changes the OWSers so adamantly demand, bipartisan disenchantment and manifested outrage concerning current problems have largely distracted the left from how much worse things could be in the future. Thus, the stage is set for the emergence of appealing third party candidates at a juncture of extreme uncertainty. If history is to serve as any kind of guide, casting votes to emergent third parties leads only to the opposite of what political break-aways want.

1844 marked one of these pivotal Presidential elections. Largely divided on the issue of slavery, a sect of northern abolitionists did not seek to gradually abolish slavery; they demanded it then and there. With roots in the Second Great Awakening scene in New York, the Liberty Party canvassed the city and used then-modern media like the printing press to champion their cause throughout the state. Analogous to the Occupy Wall Street movement, Liberty Party members were often subject to violence throughout their work.

Despite being dubbed the “Great Compromiser” by many and an “ideal man” by future president Abraham Lincoln, the Liberty Party was disenchanted with Whig Henry Clay’s moderate stance on slavery. To them, he was not active or vehement enough in abolishing slavery in spite of the inconvenient reality that the executive branch at the time had little constitutional power to combat the issue directly. Thus the Liberty Party’s unrealistic goals of immediacy resulted in a significant vote for James Birney, which, as many speculate, cost Clay the state of New York and the election as a whole.

By voting directly against Henry Clay, the Liberty Party indirectly voted for a man whose ideals were the antitheses of their own. These individuals instead cast their ballots for James K. Polk, a pro-slavery expansionist who sought to annex Texas as a slave state even if it meant manipulating grounds for war, as was the case in the Mexican-American War. In his later years, Civil War hero and President Ulysses S. Grant called it “one of the most unjust wars ever waged by a stronger nation” and also “[followed] the bad example of European monarchies.” As a consequence, there was no immediate end to slavery, but rather a seemingly boundless extension to the West via his argument to extend the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean and territory gained from the Mexican-American War. Polk’s policy of expansion at whatever the cost did not result in the mending of sectional schisms but the promulgation of policies that would eventually lead the nation to Civil War.

The 1844 Presidential Election resulted in a national hangover and tragic irony reminiscent of the 2000 Presidential election. Bored with the soporific speeches of candidate Al Gore and even more leery of George W. Bush’s specious Southern drawl, many voters found Green Party presidential hopeful Ralph Nader appealing. While Nader held tight to his party’s platform of nonviolence, social justice, and ecological wisdom, many were entranced by Ralph Nader’s rhetoric and goals concerning campaign finance reform, universal healthcare, and liveable wages that seemed unattainable within the two party system.

Despite receiving under 3% of the general election vote, Nader voters indirectly aided Bush’s ascension to the presidency. As a result, the tenants of their party as well as the focuses of Nader’s 2000 campaign were pushed that much further into the distance. During his presidency, the Bush administration refused to sign the global climate change combater, the Kyoto Protocol, under the auspices that it would “hurt the American economy.” Yet he continued trickle-down economic policies and championed the government deregulation that’s largely responsible for the derelict economy that many on the left complain about today.

Now as the American people stand at yet another precipice in our nation’s history, this pattern of good intentions followed by tragic outcomes may indeed manifest itself in the 2012 election. Much like the Liberty Party, OWSers have taken to the streets to demand immediate and drastic changes that cannot be realized solely through the executive branch. As such, many Americans’ support of the current political system has waned, and so too has support for both major parties. Libertarian OWSers advocate for the abolition of the Fed and the return to the gold standard, more liberal occupants champion increased regulation and wage increases, and then there is a good portion of protestors who are generally estranged from the American political and economic system.

The result is a movement that can impact the 2012 Presidential election in a few ways. The first and most effective use of its power is that its members can work to realize their idealistic goals by voting en masse for the Obama administration that is known for its pragmatic approach to progress and has recently made the effort to resonate with the protestors. The next option would be the opposite of the above: continued existence on the political fringe and exclusion from political processes, especially within the Democratic party. In effect, the OWSers would choose not to engage with a system viewed as corrupt and broken, and thereby abstain from participation. The third option, and perhaps the most fatal, would be the emergence of a third party candidate.

The Occupy Wall Street movement and groups across the world have recognized the succession of government failures and policies that resulted in the worldwide recession that we now face. They may now choose to unite and manifest their power directly by leveraging their influence onto the only administration that seeks to address the reasons behind as well as solve the disparities of wealth that have compelled so many to take to the streets. Conversely, they may be so outraged with the present state of America that they neglect to acknowledge the uncertainty of the future and more importantly, the predictive power of the past.

If Occupy Wall Street fails to do so, they will squander their efforts and indirectly allow the same broken system to continue — this time with the monopoly of the executive and legislative branches. We’ve seen civil war; we’ve seen ceaseless wars overseas; we now see global recession. If the movement does not unite for a realistic and common cause and for the administration that promotes it, what we will see in the future is much, much worse.

Savannah Cox is a Foreign Languages/International Studies and Political Science double major at Bellarmine University, and has recently returned from the University of Granada, where she studied Spanish and Political Science. She has interned for the World Affairs Council of Kentucky and Southern Indiana as well as Congressman John Yarmuth. In her free time, she enjoys reading, strumming a ukulele, and consuming large amounts of salty carbohydrates.

As the conscious of America seems permanently mired in economic worries, it is nearly impossible to find anything worth smiling at, let alone cheering for. However, in a recent GOP debate, Rick Perry was able to rouse a seemingly comatose audience not only into consciousness but also rousing applause. He didn’t do it by lambasting Obamacare or proposing a fiscal policy to get Americans out of the proverbial hole; he did it by saying nothing.

While asking Governor Perry’s opinion on the record number of executions that occurred under his watch in the state of Texas, moderator Brian Williams was unable to finish his question before the audience began to yawp and clap their hands as one would during the final thirty seconds of a basketball game. After the audience’s heartbeats finally slowed, Perry went on to state that Americans have a keen sense of “justice,” and that “if you come into our state and you kill … you will be executed.”

The ancient Hammurabi-esque similarities do not go unnoted. This institutionalized bloodlust is rarely practiced in democratic and industrialized countries, but is fairly common in nations like Iran and Saudi Arabia, two countries that certainly do not claim to be international vanguards of liberty and human rights like the United States so often does.

However modern and civilized the United States tries to present itself to the world, capital punishment is one of the ugliest aspects of the American system, and is something that many leaders try to conceal when patrolling the globe and insisting on others’ adherence to human rights. However, as the contentious execution of Troy Davis ignited international outrage, it is a flaw that many around the world can plainly see and one that has consistently contributed to others’ doubts about the United States’ role as a champion of modern justice and progress.

Yet at home, support for the death penalty is very public and popular. To make matters more difficult, it is impossible to point the finger at a single perpetrator: Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike have favored the practice throughout the years despite its many proven failures and weaknesses. As a consequence, the self-injected and macabre fascination with capital punishment in the American bloodstream is something that has reduced the United States’ already slothful pace toward universally compliant judicial systems and human rights to that of a snail’s crawl.

According to Scott Henson, a criminal justice blogger, Rick Perry has picked up on the popularity of capital punishment among voters and has tried his best to take as much credit as possible for every single execution administered during his time in office. To date, there have been a whopping 236 executions. While Perry’s attempts to show strong ties between the governor’s office and the capital punishment process are a bit misleading, his position is emblematic of a cowboy-style approach to justice in America.

Since 1608, over 15,000 people have been executed in the United States and its preceding colonies. In 1608, the man first recorded as executed on American soil was Jamestown colonist Captain George Kendall. Accused of being a spy for the Spanish government, a score of bullets kissed Kendall a final adios.

As means of further separation from the British Crown after the Revolutionary War, legislators tried to remove the death penalty as punishment for a majority of crimes. In 1846, Michigan took the title of being the first English-speaking government in the world to abolish the death penalty for all crimes except treason. Yet in the midst of the sectional schism of the American Civil War, Vermont legislators transferred execution authority from local to state government, and many other states soon followed suit. According to historian William McFeely, this was done in hopes of restraining overzealous “hanging judges.” However, the opposite happened: Vermont’s upward transfer of the power to execute set the stage for the institutionalized practice that many Americans clap about today.

After the conclusion of World War I, nearly all of the nine states that had previously abandoned the death penalty toward the end of the 19th century began to re-embrace it. Consequently, lynching and false accusations of crimes committed by African-American men largely helped define the post-World War I judicial scene. However, many white and corrupt state governmental bodies used legalized execution as yet another way to manifest their racism, as evidenced by the fact that the two largest mass executions in United States history were administered to Native Americans and African-American soldiers.

Especially prevalent in the South and only pardoned posthumously, states executed many African-Americans and those who dared to aid them in their pursuits of equality. Setting the standard for backwards politics and general barbarism, in 1825 South Carolina was the last state that utilized the antiquated practice of burning someone at the stake as a valid execution method. Additionally, in 1859 a South Carolinian male named Starling Carlton was executed for aiding a runaway slave, while in 1860 Alabama, three African American slaves committed the then-capital crime of protesting against slavery. And as Southern justice would have it, they paid with their lives.

In the 20th century, African-American George Stinney became the youngest person to be executed in the United States. Despite the lack of evidence and rumors of being promised ice cream by the police if he confessed to the crime, Stinney was accused and convicted of killing two young white girls in South Carolina in 1944. Barely able to fill the seat of the electric chair with his 95-pound body, Stinney’s 14-year-old life ended before it could even begin.

Largely coinciding with the anti-Vietnam movement opposition toward government-funded killing, the effects of the Civil Rights movement finally made their way to the highest source of change, the United States Supreme Court. By reviewing the consolidated cases that comprised the Furman vs. Georgia ruling, the Court rendered the death penalty to be a violation of the Eighth Amendment, as it constituted “cruel and unusual punishment.” However, the decision did not abolish the death penalty altogether, but rather essentially stated that a lack of enforceable and equitable standards might lead to selective sentencing on behalf of the state. And as Justices Stewart and Douglas expressed, these selections could potentially be the result of racial discrimination.

Still unable to satiate the grisly American desire for “justice,” many states quickly instated and adjusted their own death penalty statutes to comply with the Court’s decision. In order to appear “fair” and therefore constitutionally permitted to deliver their fatal condemnations, certain states mandated the prescription of the death sentence for those convicted of certain forms of murder.

Contrary to the Charlie Daniels Band’s lyrical legend, the devil never left Georgia: only four years passed since the Furman v. Georgia verdict when Georgia and several other Southern states’ morbid impulses returned to the halls of the Supreme Court. In 1976, it was in the form of the Gregg v. Georgia case. This time, five defendants engaged in an ultimately futile attempt to get the Supreme Court to extend its Furman ruling and declare capital punishment as unconstitutional once and for all.

However, the more conservative Court used the precedence of the Furman case only in its determination of administrative fairness in the states’ death penalty statutes, not to decide if the death penalty was constitutionally legitimate in the first place. Subsequently, the Court upheld the Florida, Texas, and Georgia death penalty statutes as constitutionally sound, and thereby ended the fledgling four-year moratorium on the death penalty.

As a result, the heavily disproportionate presence of the African-American male as a death row inmate is entirely unsurprising. Despite comprising only 13% of the general population, African Americans make up 41% of the people on death row. In fact, the non-partisan U.S. General Accounting Office found “a pattern of evidence indicating racial disparities in the charging, sentencing, and imposition of the death penalty.” In a similar 2007 study conducted by the Yale University School of Law, the results revealed that African-American defendants in Connecticut courts receive the death penalty at three times the rate of white defendants in cases where the victims are white.

Even less shocking, of the 37 states that have legalized executions, the majority of them take place in southern states like Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Texas, all of which help comprise what is known as the “Death Belt.” Equipped with confederate and racist roots, the number of executions in these four states alone constitutes over half of those administered by all 37 participating states since Gregg v. Georgia’s reopening of those fatal floodgates.

Furthermore, as a result of the re-examination of certain death sentence prescribed cases and the influence of more modern times and technology, 138 death row inmates have been exonerated on the basis of possible innocence since 1973. And as expected, over half of those released were African American.

Despite the combination of deeply entrenched yet visible roots of racism in the American prescription of capital punishment, the scientific and legislative advances that have resulted in the reversal of fates, and the explicit concern from nationally renowned and reputable organizations like the American Bar Association, capital punishment still remains popular among Americans. In a 2010 Gallup poll, those who supported capital punishment in cases of murder more than doubled those who did not. And even when life in prison without parole was listed as an alternative in a similar 2001 poll, a majority (albeit a narrow one) of Americans still favored the death penalty.

It is safe to say that scientific evidence does not matter to most Americans; improved societal norms do not matter; state and federal legislative progress do not matter, nor do the opinions of accredited legal experts. And as evidenced by the Troy Davis execution, the movements and opinions of international organizations and communities especially do not matter to the majority of Americans and their elected officials. They rarely have.

In spite of its permanent membership with the United Nations, the United States only signed the UN-adopted International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights with ostensible reservation in 1992. The covenant, rather dated at this point, was originally adopted in 1976. And as expected, the United States’ diplomatic dip-set came in response to Article 6, which stated that the ultimate objective of the agreement was to abolish the death penalty.

In 1997 Bacre Waly N’diaye, a UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Execution, accepted an invitation on behalf of the Clinton Administration to examine claims of arbitrary and racist application of the death penalty. Upon his arrival in D.C., however, his requests to meet with the President and various members of his cabinet were denied. And as a later and typically American response, Senator Jesse Helms publicly chalked N’diaye’s requests as insulting and nothing more than another “absurd UN charade.”

Together, the federally permitted Troy Davis tragedy juxtaposed by the warm praise generated by audience members in regard to capital punishment at a recent GOP debate represent all that is wrong with the American justice system and why the United States cannot continue to spread the lie that it provides equal justice to its citizens. Until these institutionalized and internal wrongs are rectified, the United States should be not regarded as a global moral authority. If the country chooses not to change, its international legitimacy will perish just as its many citizens have in the past: by the government’s own accord.

Savannah Cox is a Foreign Languages/International Studies and Political Science double major at Bellarmine University, and has recently returned from the University of Granada, where she studied Spanish and Political Science. She has interned for the World Affairs Council of Kentucky and Southern Indiana as well as Congressman John Yarmuth. In her free time, she enjoys reading, strumming a ukulele, and consuming large amounts of salty carbohydrates.

In twenty-seven years, Rick Perry has never lost an election.

His opponents have described him as lucky, but Perry makes his own luck. He campaigns relentlessly, surrounds himself with exceptional talent, and he keeps his mouth shut. He is the perfect candidate.

Perry the man is likable and loyal. His posse is composed of his betters: men and women of privilege who admire his moxie and inexhaustible sense of humor. Many of them were once his foes and Perry’s ability to charm and disarm his enemies makes him one of the most successful politicians in America today. Kinky Friedman wants his ashes scattered in the Governor’s good hair when he dies.

He may not be popular — recent polls in Texas show Governor Perry losing to Obama or barely beating him, and most of the GOP kingmakers have rallied to revile him — but he is incredibly effective. Karl Rove, the architect of Perry’s swing to the right in 1990, has demonstrated a very odd tone-deafness by aligning himself with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie over his former Prince Charming, despite the fact that Christie has said he will not run.

Rove’s miscalculation is the same one that his enemies on the left make when it comes to Perry: they look at him and see a rube. It’s an easy mistake to make, as Perry has inadvertently cultivated an aura of shallow and callow. He blew up a toilet in his dorm at Texas A&M with an M-80. He plays with his balls in public so much that he earned the nickname “the Crotch”. He was a cheerleader. But everyone who bought the narrative of Perry as a lightweight has finished with their ass in their hands and a mountain of campaign debt. And they usually end up in his corner explaining to everybody else why Rick Perry is the last great hope for a strong America.

This is not to say that Perry is deep, he just doesn’t have the time to waste thinking things through. He has a brain trust that he trusts, and once they deliver an opinion, he usually runs with it. However, he can and will swim against the current, both within his trusted circles and the Republican norm. As Governor of Texas, he issued an executive order in February 2011 mandating that teenage girls in Texas receive the HPV vaccine. He was close to a woman dying of cervical cancer, Heather Burcham, who had been a nanny to a Houston area developer and longtime Perry supporter, Craig Wilson. As she neared the end of her life, she convinced the Governor that he had a role to play in preventing the deaths of thousands of women by mandating one of the biggest state-wide public health efforts since the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918.

Michele Bachmann learned how dangerous it is to take Perry on. While she may have won points during the Tea Party Express debate for opposing his stance on vaccinating pubescent girls against HPV, the calculated leaks from his side have buried her in a pile of “Bachmann wants your daughter dead” rhetoric.

Perry 1, Bachmann 0.

And herein lies quite a tale. Perry crushes his competition. Only a fool would go up against him, not that there aren’t plenty of fools. The GOP upperclassmen have been pushing Romney as the more electable candidate, which is true in theory, but Obama and Romney are practically interchangeable on policy and Obama has a much more polished delivery. Romney doesn’t campaign well. He is awkward and out of touch and couldn’t crack a joke to save his life. If Romney has ever had a strong emotion, he’s managed to hide it from public view and while that may appeal to the pundits, it’s useless for rallying the base. In addition, Perry doesn’t give a shit what the talking heads think of him. He only cares about the small percentage of people who actually bother to vote. That’s a very attractive trait to the huge number of extreme conservatives who are cycling between rage and fear. It makes them feel powerful.

Perry 1, Romney 0.

The real question is how well Perry could do against Obama. To Obama supporters, the idea that Perry might win the presidency is about as difficult to comprehend as the belief in UFOs and jackalopes. His positions are so extreme and his “Texas Miracle” is so cruel that he appears almost insane. He passed a law mandating that women seeking abortions had to be shown pictures of the fetus and listen to its heartbeat which has since been struck by a judge. Luckily for Texan women, doctors are still required to perform a sonogram by inserting an electric array transvaginal transducer through the cervix, with no exemption for rape or incest.

His state has some of worst poverty rates in the country and Dickensian levels of public assistance. The EPA estimates about 1,000 Texans die each year from pollution while countless others are made ill. And he called Social Security a Ponzi scheme. What progressives and moderates fail to understand is that none of this matters. What matters is that Perry has Dave Carney and Obama doesn’t.

Carney is probably the most skillful political operative in the country and Perry is now his favorite project. The results have been spectacular. A long time member of the Governor’s team, Carney presided over a 10 point rise in three months of Perry’s favorability rating against Obama from 34% to 44%. In 2002, Perry defeated Tony Sanchez by almost 60% and with barely one-third of the spending. He is efficient and ruthless: “Our theory is if someone has a better idea, we steal it. The point of the campaign is to win, not relive the great hoorah. We adapt to putting resources, time and effort into those tactics that are successful in reaching voters and getting them to be more supportive and to turn out.”

Perry 1, Obama 0.

The real race will come down to voter turnout. Obama won the White House because he got his people to the polls. Young voters, minorities, the poor, the LGBT community – every category of 10 percenters in fractured America participated in record numbers. The challenge he faces in 2012 is whether he can get them off the couch again or if they will simply curl up in a ball and whimper. The GOP understands this and have been concentrating on ginning up their base. In North Carolina, a referendum to amend the constitution defining marriage as between a man and a woman has been added to the 2012 ballot, despite the fact that the state has already banned gay marriage.

It’s a wedge issue and it will drive conservatives to show up in a state that Obama won by just .4%. Twenty-three other states have approved referendums on all of the major issues that push the right values voters to the polls: abortion, term limits, property tax, public funding of religious institutions, gay rights, immigration, prayer, banning affirmative action, guns, and health care mandates. Pennsylvania is exploring joining Maine and Nebraska in using gerrymandered congressional districts over the popular vote to determine how to award their electoral vote.

If Perry and Carney can ride this all the way to the general election, they have a real shot at the White House and if there’s one thing the boy from Paint Creek knows, it’s how to stay in the saddle.

Above is a mathematical analysis of predicting voting habits developed by William Riker and Peter Ordeshook in the 1968 article A Theory of the Calculus of Voting. They predicted the likelihood of voting as a combination of several factors: probability that a vote will make a difference, perceived benefit gained from a vote, plus the duty to participate, which must be greater than the perceived cost of voting.

Voters are a rare thing in the United States. They mostly come out for Presidential and national elections, while rarely for local polls, and almost never for primaries. Typically, voters are well-educated, well-off, and well-ripened.

As expected, African-Americans, Hispanics, women, and other minority groups voted heavily for Barack Obama in 2008, as did those under 30. Unexpectedly, however, the difference in voting pattern between the younger voters and older voters surpassed any seen before. According to Pew Research Center, “… 66% of those under age 30 voted for Barack Obama, making the disparity between young voters and other age groups larger than in any presidential election since exit polling began in 1972.”

To be clear, 66% of voters under the age of 30 voted for the Democratic Presidential candidate in 2008, with more young people identifying with the Democratic party. These demographic trends presented the GOP with a challenge: change political direction, hold onto current political beliefs at the expense of future elections, or work to marginalize the political impact of non-Republican demographics. They opted for voter suppression.

In Maryland, Wisconsin, and other states, Republican-affiliated PACS and action groups used robocalls to tell Democrats to vote on the wrong day. They are pushing for voter ID laws to intimidate immigrants and keep the poor out of the voting booth. They are even proposing that only those who pay income tax should be allowed to vote. And then there’s “stacking, packing, and cracking” in Texas:

Stacking is when low-income minority populations are put in districts with higher-income Anglos whose voting turnout is stronger and overpowers the minority groups at the ballot box. Packing is a term for putting more minorities into a political district than is necessary for them to control the outcomes of elections. And cracking is when a community is split between two or more districts to dilute its influence on election outcomes.

The Department of Justice is now going after states that don’t comply with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. They have heavily targeted states that fail to provide registration forms at Department of Social Services/Health & Human Services offices which Project Vote has estimated “… could add two-to-three million more voters to official rolls a year, based on the Food Stamp program alone. In 2005-2006, 21.2 million people sought this benefit nationwide. States that settled litigation over this section of the law — Illinois, Tennessee, Missouri, Ohio — have shown between 10 percent and 20 percent of public assistance clients will submit voter applications if asked by state employees.”

The DOJ can do little, however, against the pump-and-dump voter suppression campaigns financed by the Koch brothers and carried out by covert organizations that only exist around elections. But, as Art Levine points out, “Unfortunately, progressives have tended to pay more attention to Election Day dirty tricks and to electronic voting machines than to a more systemic threat: the Republican campaign to suppress the votes of low-income, young, and minority voters through restrictive legislation and rulings, all based on the mythic specter of voter fraud.”

The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights will begin hearings on September 8th on, “New State Voting Laws: Barriers to the Ballot?”. It is not likely that either Justice or the Judiciary Committee will be able to reverse what has been a decades-long effort to subvert participation in democratic processes, but it signals a growing awareness of the fact that millions of Americans are being systematically denied the right to vote.

The right has a very good reason to resort to such tactics. Although more American voters identify themselves as conservative than liberal, voters actually disagree with Republicans on pretty much every single major issues. In many ways, the American public tends to be more progressive than the Democratic party: “Nearly 58 percent said government should be doing more, not less; and 59 percent agreed that government has grown because the country’s problems have grown.” The demographics show this divide is getting wider:

Defense of Marriage Act? Don’t Ask Don’t Tell? Climate change? Corporate taxes? Medicare? Social Security? Education? Republicans are the in minority opinion on each. Similarly, 82% of American voters would return Barack Obama to office if he raised taxes on the rich. In fact, most Americans would agree with Obama when he wrote in The Audacity of Hope: “I believe in evolution, scientific inquiry, and global warming; I believe in free speech, whether politically correct or politically incorrect, and I am suspicious of using government to impose anybody’s religious beliefs – including my own – on nonbelievers.”

The swing to the hard right by the Republican party in the last decade is stark especially given how much young voters are moving towards center and center-left position. In the short term, such far-right positions may help Republicans drive the most dedicated to the polls in a Presidential election and solidify it’s base with the middle class and whites, but given the shift in demographics and party affiliation, extremist politics and voter suppression will only doom the Republican party in the long run.

Aine Farrell lives and writes in Baltimore, MD. She is obsessed with all things political, issues of social justice, and cultural memes. She once cooked Julia Child a chicken, which was well-received.

Recently, Paul Krugman began a New York Times column on the anti-science and anti-intellectual stance of today’s GOP by quoting Republican Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, wherein he stated that the Republican Party is quickly becoming the “anti-science party.” Most people haven’t heard of Huntsman, Republican pariah-in-residence. And even if they do, they probably won’t listen to him. Why? Because he’s reasonable, and there is simply no room for that trait in the Tea Party movement’s hellish and destructive crusade within the GOP.

As the Tea Party has gained momentum, reason has evaporated into the ether and has been replaced with polarizing rhetoric often with a religious flair. We’ve seen this with Sarah Palin’s spurious “death panel” remarks during the debate over Obamacare, Rick Perry’s prayer-based solution to a Texas drought, and Michele Bachmann’s more recent claims that, no matter how much she tries to palliate them with shrill and off-putting laughter, God has had a substantial role in the recent earthquakes as well as Hurricane Irene. Digging a bit deeper, former President George W. Bush, the Connecticut-coddled kid with a specious Texan drawl, kindled the polarization flame again with his famous 2001 appeal to the US Congress where he stated, “either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” And then with the nightmare that was the debt ceiling “talks,” we’ve witnessed a party willing to drive its country into the dirt over something more powerful than reason: their beliefs.

In this unfortunate political arena, reason — the pesky little tool that separates us from flea-picking baboons — has no place. What we see unfurling now in the Republican Party and in the remarks of its primary presidential frontrunners is not the result of reason, but rather Christian fundamentalists who pit their God against science and research in a fight they are determined to win. And that, like Krugman said, is terrifying. But it is also something that, for better or worse, is not new in the American story; it is part of our tradition.

When wondering how something in the United States got to be so screwy, it often helps to think back to our beginnings with those nettlesome Puritans. Fleeing England due to religious persecution, they set sail to the future U.S. of A., taking their austere garb and convictions along for the ride. Recoiling at the thought of anything remotely royal (and naturally so given their sordid history with the British crown), they were suspicious of those with authority, and by extension, intellect. For instance, in Puritan John Cotton’s “The Pouring Out of the Seven Vials,” Cotton claimed that “the more learned and witty you [be], the more fit to act for Satan you will [be].” Surprisingly, not all Puritans felt this way, and oddly enough some of those dissenters went on to found prestigious academic institutions like Harvard and Yale, both of which would produce future highbrow heathens like Barack Obama and John F. Kennedy.

In the Puritan quest for that “beacon on a hill,” a canonical concept whose biblical roots have been echoed in political stump speeches for centuries, the implementation of their dogma—secular governors accountable to God, women being born with more original sin than men, and the divine duty to punish wrongdoers—caused the climate of this “ideal” society to be rife with not only cod and barley but also intolerance, largely based upon apocryphal cries of bored tweens, as evident with the Salem Witch Trials. Singling out those who didn’t seem to fit the mold of their provincial norms, it didn’t matter if the claims didn’t make a scintilla of sense, or if the source was legitimate. All that mattered was what they believed to be true. Belief, then, not only superseded reason; it was its enemy. And that antagonistic relationship haunts us to this day.

Fast-forward a couple centuries. The United States defeated that evil British Empire, and we were able bodied. We were one nation under God, and we had the one-two punch to prove it. We were a plucky people whose knowledge was more empirical than theoretical. Who needed philosophy books when you had hands and a heart in the “right place,” anyway? When writing about Indiana, for instance, Reverend Baynard Hall scribed that “we always preferred an ignorant bad man to a talented one […] and attempts were usually made to ruin the […] smarter one; since smartness and wickedness were […] generally coupled.”

And so, in a typically nonsensical American way, we elected incompetent and wicked jingoes like Andrew Jackson that are remembered largely for their abuse of power and attempts to rid the country of an entire race of people. And why did we do that? We liked their humble, log cabin beginnings. We liked that they seemed like “us.” And so we continued to spread our divine “destiny,” oppress and enslave in the name of God, and ignore the increasingly conventional wisdom in half of the country that the other half was wrong, plain and simple. And largely because the South’s inability or unwillingness to acknowledge truths other than their own, the United States imploded and went to war.

Cue the Evangelical Populist Movement. After the Civil War had ended, instead of using reason to reconcile and dig itself out of the rubble, the American South survived on resentment and clung desperately to its archaic beliefs. Manifesting these ill wills in the KKK and Jim Crow laws, this entrenchment only compounded the economic and educational disparities that still make Southerners so angry today. And make no mistake, some GOP leaders know that and capitalize on it.

Now, take a look at the current scene. Not too much has changed, at least with popular faces of the GOP. Michele Bachmann is an Evangelist who interprets the law under a biblical lens, doesn’t seem to care much for history or facts (just ask her about Lexington and Concord), hides from and campaigns against the increasingly empowered and represented homosexual population, and claims that God caused recent national disasters as well as her decision to run for President. And to this I say, if God does exist, he certainly is a malicious one. Hearkening back to our Puritanical roots (oh, how I’d love to see her in a bonnet and collar), Bachmann has also suggested in interviews that a committee inquire into the lives of politicians to determine if they are pro- or anti-American. One might wonder what being pro-American even means. But don’t worry about meaning. After all, Michele doesn’t.

You also have Rick Perry, Eddie Bauer model with a Texas twang, who calls evolution “just a theory” with “a lot of gaps,” despite, as Krugman states, nearly all of the scientific world’s consensus to its veracity. He’s also added that global warming is just a scheme so scientists can get more money “rolling into their projects.” Projects which, given how damning his diatribe is, must be atheistic in nature and therefore God hating. Perry has also been surrounded by a bevy of reason-free radicals in some of his speaking events, these zealots hailing from the neo-Pentecostal sect known as the New Apostolic Reformation. A group that, according to Texas Observer reporter Forrest Wilder, seeks to “infiltrate politics with government” and believes Christians are “destined to have dominion over the government and the ‘Seven Mountains,’” which “[include] media, arts, and entertainment.” And to think we’re afraid of Sharia Law.

And then there’s Mitt Romney, innocuous Mormon male who seems to be in the throes of a perpetual identity crisis, evidenced by the video below from June of this year:

And yet a mere 2 months later, Romney was on the fence on human-driven climate change:

“Do I think the world’s getting hotter? Yeah, I don’t know that but I think that it is. I don’t know if it’s mostly caused by humans. What I’m not willing to do is spend trillions of dollars on something I don’t know the answer to.”

Similarly, his 2006 healthcare program in Massachusetts was the archetype for Obamacare, and he formerly believed in man-made climate change. Though when questioned recently, as Krugman points out, Romney ducked and covered. But honestly, who can blame him? Reason clearly isn’t popular with Tea Party voters, and you’d have to be either an idiot or the paragon of courage to stand up against an angry Evangelical pointing a finger. And we all know that Mitt Romney is neither.

While none of these candidates have reason or courage going for them, they’ve got (at least Bachmann and Perry) that je ne sais quoi likability factor. And despite America’s founding fathers’ Plato-esque dreams of philosophical types leading the country, these presidential hopefuls realize that it is more important to be liked than it is to be logical. 1988 Presidential candidate and loser Michal Dukakis confirmed that. Long-faced John Kerry did as well. The truth is that if you seem cold to Americans, the bottom of your ballot bin will be, too. And let’s be frank, if it weren’t for Clinton’s “sax” factor and down-home Southern drawl (despite his Rhodes Scholar pedigree), he may not have fared so well in his impeachment. And lest we forget, former President George W. Bush was so charming that he avoided impeachment all together.

From all of this, reason and one’s religion may seem mutually exclusive in today’s tumultuous environs, and perhaps are even eclipsed by one’s charisma. Though there have been many in the past and present that have been successful in balancing them, even resulting in a certain symbiotic relationship of the two. Old names like John Locke, a particular American favorite, come to mind. Or for newer names, maybe even Jon Huntsman. You just don’t hear about them too much today because, shockingly enough, being “fair and balanced” tends to lead to the same kind of thoughts, none of which will land you much time on a network with the same catchy phrase.

Nevertheless, what we see and read in the headlines today is terrifying. Nothing good can come from radical Republican rhetoric and religiosity combined with a drought of reason. And if these ideologues were elected, the things that could come would be even scarier. The resurgence of God as a “decider” in political thought is not the mark of an enlightened and progressive politician, but rather that of a provincial Puritan who would burn others with whom they disagreed at the stake. Nor is it a sign of the future but rather the simultaneous warning and reminder of our dark past; one that we, thanks to reason, science, and intellect, have been somewhat successful in striving against. To be blunt, these candidates would have our founding fathers, ardent lovers of science and reason, rolling in their grave. And if elected, we must make room for a new body in the National Cemetery: the American intellect.

Savannah Cox is a Foreign Languages/International Studies and Political Science double major at Bellarmine University, and has recently returned from the University of Granada, where she studied Spanish and Political Science. She has interned for the World Affairs Council of Kentucky and Southern Indiana as well as Congressman John Yarmuth. In her free time, she enjoys reading, strumming a ukulele, and consuming large amounts of salty carbohydrates.