Virtues of the Federalist

This is the last post I'll put on the Georgetown Federalist blog. From here on, I'll let the youngsters take over blogging duties. I'm sure they'll do as good a job with the blog as they've done with the rest of the paper. I can't promise I won't leave crazy anonymous comments from time to time, but I'll try to keep them to a minimum. If anyone has grown accustomed to my diatribes and wants to read more of them, I'll be posting exclusively on the New Madisonian from now on.

As a last post, I'll talk a little about why I encourage anyone reading this to get involved in the Georgetown Federalist and campus organizations like it. It's easy to underestimate the effect of a college political paper. There were lots of campus publications when I arrived at Georgetown as a freshman and there are still plenty of other campus newspapers. What is the effect of one paper more or less? People can get campus news from the Hoya and they can get political commentary of just about any philosophical or ideological faction from a multitude of online sources.

To me, there are two resounding counterpoints to that line of reasoning. First, above the cacophony of partisan talking points, there is a real clash of ideas that permeates the decisions any society makes. Much like the Trojan War described by Homer, the philosophical battles which determine the course of a university, city, state, country, or world are fought throughout the different strata of society. While President Obama and Republican leaders in Congress might seem like Olympian gods whose will trivializes anything we can do, our contributions are real and can occasionally be the deciding factor. Back when wars were decided by things like cavalry charges, one proverb said that for want of a nail, a shoe was lost. For want of a shoe, a horse was lost. For want of a horse, a charge was lost. For want of a charge, a battle was lost. For want of a battle, a war was lost. The point here is that we can't know the extent to which our actions eventually effect national discourse. Every time a student, professor, or online visitor reads our material, we have nudged the political mood to some unknowable degree.

Of course, everyone who writes for the Federalist at some level writes in the hopes of affecting opinion at some level. We want to improve Georgetown itself as well as the broader community we're in by promoting the right ideas and policies. In this case, doing the community a favor pays off for us as individuals when we prosper from the implementation of better policies at every level.

This is only one of the ways in which we profit by the Federalist as individuals. I can definitely say that I know more about organization, writing, and the latest ideas of governance now than I did when JP, Jared and I filled out the first issue three and a half years ago. Writing articles and blog posts forces you to test your ideas, turning them into an unconquerable bastion. Some writing is also just plain fun: I had a hell of a great time writing counter-counter points (or, I should say, facilitating guest counter-counter points from people like Genghis Khan and King Henry VIII.)

Finally, in addition to honing persuasive skills, solidifying personal philosophies, and affecting our community's politics, institutions like the Federalist provide a venue to meet and associate with people who share values and passions. Growing up in Massachusetts, I had never experienced an organization of conservative/libertarian thought as vibrant and rewarding as the Federalist. Every time some professor spouted banal leftist talking points or suppressed dissenting opinions, I knew there was a group on campus that I could count on to understand the burden of standing up against the myriad leftist forces native to the university setting. That function of the Federalist -- a rallying point to bolster the dispirited defenders of the right -- by itself, without taking account of the other virtues of such an organization, more than justifies its existence and the time each participant puts into it.

In short, keep up the good work, Georgetown Federalist. Keep showing the Georgetown community the strength of our ideas, and continue to make me proud.