Current Event: Mitt Romney's price of success

Original article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204740904577195041656788240.html

This article centers around Mitt Romneys push for the Florida GOP vote, but the issues brought to my attention are more vast. What does it take for a person to be elected as a representative in our government? or even more generally, to find success? Can an honest man succeed?

Using Mitt as an example, I'm going to come straight out and say that Mitt Romney is a politician in the sense that he will say and do what must be said and done to get elected. Though I'd like to believe that a consistent track record, both in and out of office, would earn you the public support needed to be elected, we see in the case of Ron Paul that this is rarely the case.

But does that mean that Mitt isn't honest? well... sorta. Where others see a, "perfectly lubed weather vein," I see a reliable, capable, and decent man simply trying to play the best hand of cards he can to earn a seat at the champions table. I for one have nothing against him for that. There was a time when I'd have thought that a good man couldn't use the weasly tricks of politicians to get elected without losing his integrity but that time has past and I would not call Romney's political strategies dishonest in the least, in my humble opinion he is simply playing the high-stakes game of American Politics. For this reason, I'm relieved to see a man of Mitt Romney's caliber who is also politically savvy enough to understand that sometimes you have to jump a few hoops to be able to make a difference.

The Digital Age: You can take our rights but not our Internet!

How important is the Internet to us? Experience has taught me that being a part of the world is to partake of the Internet – perhaps more appropriately dubbed the Wild Wild Web. The Internet’s awesome power to satisfy appetites of the mind and ability to connect the world has opened that special place in our hearts reserved for things we will fight to protect. This is evidenced by the recent throngs of web users and companies retaliating against SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, which would create an internet blacklist of any site involved in or linking to sites involved in copyright infringement – coining the phrase, "the Great Firewall of America" for its striking similarities to China's questionable internet policies. In a time when Americans are subject to no-knock warrants, unprecedented government intrusion of privacy, and most recently indefinite detention by the military without trial, the internet nomads have begun rallying under the "stop SOPA now!" banner. In the tradition of our forefathers, Americans continue to fight for freedom, but it appears that as our lives have become digital so have the freedoms we will fight to protect.