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The Student News Site of the Latin School of Chicago

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The Student News Site of the Latin School of Chicago

The Forum

Electiontorial: Why So Liberal?

Anthea Fisher Election day is quickly approaching, and Latin could not be more obsessed with the 2012 presidential election. As a school with about three token Republicans (shout out to William Pritzker), there’s been a lot of talk in support of President Obama and against Governor Romney. Whether it be sending links to PaulRyanGosling.tumblr.com so that your friends can laugh as they’re reminded why Paul Ryan is disgusting, or trying to understand why Mitt Romney felt the need to get a heinous orange spray tan for prom — oh, sorry, I meant for “Meet The Candidate” — Latin students are generally pretty Democratic. As a student taking Honors Politics trying to accurately portray a member of the Romney campaign, I became more aware of this than ever. Even Mr. Greer, our supposedly “non-partisan” teacher (I use quotation marks because his Twitter says otherwise), couldn’t keep it completely unbiased all the time. So why is it that the majority of our school is so blatantly liberal? I have a few theories: 1. Being liberal is “cool” and “hip”, and generally it’s super lame to support someone whose running mate is a guy with a widow’s peak. 2. The majority of Latin students think The Daily Show is straight news and no one really knows the facts. And finally, 3.  Barack Obama hangs out with Jay-Z and Beyonce, which makes him awesome. I have a couple other ideas, but they mostly stem from the fact that Ms. Hennessy openly supports Obama and the majority of our school wants to be her. So if being liberal is so great, why is this even an issue? Answer: because it creates a boring political environment in our school. Weirdly though, no one finds this worth fixing. Maybe it’s because nobody believes that, like a flock of geese or a pack of wolves, a “binder of women” is a legitimate way to refer to a group. Maybe it’s because guys like Todd Akin are everything wrong with the Christian-Right. Maybe it’s because Joe Biden is charismatic and hilarious and has a dazzling smile and the real question is why isn’t he running for president? But, let’s not get off topic, because I could talk about Biden for days. There are many ways to analyze our school and why it is the way it its, but the bottom line is that our school is seriously homogeneous in the politics department, and there has to be some way to change it. And, if the freshman class has taught us anything, it’s that this is Latin, and if we’re not diverse then we have to find a way to be.]]>

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    abalmuthNov 2, 2012 at 2:54 pm

    Your theories are valid, Anthea (unlike Alejandro’s “first” comment), though I think the roots of liberalism go deeper. Educational institutions are often hotbeds of liberal thinking–though more diverse political opinion would be nice, I think William Pritzker voices his opinions loud enough to encourage political discourse (which is great, thanks Pritzker (this is not sarcastic)).

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    ablackNov 1, 2012 at 8:25 am

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Electiontorial: Why So Liberal?