Today's Event

Today, we welcomed Cato policy analysts Ted Galien Carpenter and Justin Logan to our campus. We had a great turn out to our event (over 50 people, with good questions and an open ear), and we have made a great impression! They have promised to spread the word about our club, and our campus in D.C.! So, thank you and thank God, we had a great turn out, more than enough food, and great discussion.

If you were at the event and have a comment and opinion please send us an e-mail. Or if you want to you can write a small opinion piece for our blog! If you missed the talk, but want to know the details, we'll up date the blog with a small summary within the next week.

If you are interested about finding out more about these speakers, or if you have speakers in mind for next semester please e-mail me! We love to get more people involved and organizing events! Also don't forget to join our facebook club if you haven't yet: http://pepperdine.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2324194878. Thank God, we have had a good semester. I also want to thank Erin Shimata, Robert Ramos, Dr. Chris Soper, Dr. Stan Warford and ICC for all their help! You guys are great.

Below is a recap of all we have done this year. If you are interested in taking a more hands-on position e-mail me. We want to fill up more offices for next year. And with this, looking forward to next semester and to fomenting political understanding with you guys, I wish you a Merry Christmas!

-Sara Benavides
FPU President
Sara.Benavides@pepperidne.edu

FPU- Fall 2007 Mayor Achievements

• Fulfilled the requirements to become an official club at Pepperdine
• Started the year learning more about smaller parties, in specific for this semester the Libertarian view
• Started our blog: http://forumforpoliticalunderstanding.blogspot.com/
  
• Participated in the Iraq Week events
• Created an information poster
• Provided fliers with information for the events
• Helped with the advertisement
  
• Obtained backing from some of the mayor think tanks: Heritage, Cato, AEI and hopefully more next semester.
  
• Semester event: Beyond the Red and Blue: a talk with Ted Carpenter and Justin Logan
  

Thank you!

This Week

This week has been crowed as "Iraq War Week" and SGA along with the FPU will be hosting a series of events. Though the week formally ends on Friday, on Monday the FPU will be hosting on campus Dr. Ted Carpenter and Justin Logan from the Cato Institute. Below you will find information on the events during this up coming week. As far as, Monday goes:

What: Beyond the Blue and Red: Libertarian Foreign Politics, Re-thinking Iraq and Iran
Who: Cato Institute's Ted Carpenter and Justin Logan
Where: Pepperdine CCB 140

A small reception to follow.

For the Iraq week, the FPU made a poster with public opinions and essays on Iraq. Also, pleas stop and voice your opinion on the freedom wall.

Iraq War Week Schedule:

All week
The Freedom Wall, Tyler Campus Center

Read the arguments. Express your opinions. Respond to others.

Monday, Nov. 26
Iraq War Panel and Discussion (CONVOCATION)
7 p.m., Smothers Theater
Dr. Dan Caldwell, Distinguished Professor of Political Science
Dr. Robert Kaufman, Professor of Public Policy
Richard Nye, Seaver College student and Iraq War veteran

Hear the experts. Debate the issues. Earn Convo credit.

Wednesday, Nov. 28

Pepperdine flag will be lowered to honor the fallen troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Thursday, Nov. 29

Civilian to Soldier: writing words of encouragement to U.S. troops overseas
6 - 8 p.m., Sandbar

Encourage U.S. troops. Fellowship with friends. Grab some Jamba Juice.

"Saving Private Ryan" - A screening and discussion of America's past and present military role overseas
10 p.m., Elkins

See the film. Know our history. Discuss the connections.

Elliott Jones on Abortion

I want to begin by stating that I am against abortion, but I do not argue that it should be illegal. I know that it's going to happen regardless of its legality and should happen in a safe, legal environment and not some janky backdoor abortion clinic (which is what would have to happen if it was illegal). What I'm basically arguing here is that abortion should be not be viewed as empowering or feminist. It should be viewed as it is: despicable, murderous, and irresponsible. We should approach abortion as a last-ditch measure, an unfortunate and heavy-hearted conclusion. It's been said that 50 percent of women that get an abortion are not doing it for the first time--and it seems like it's no wonder why. With the way that pro-choice campaigners tend to present the issue, it looks like women are marching up the clinic and getting abortions left and right, to show Mr. Man just who's boss. Is that really how it is? More importantly, is that really how it should be?

Pro-choice and/or pro-abortion should not be a feminist position. It's actually ANTI-feminist! (And I'll say here that I know that many pro-choice supporters are not "pro-abortion," and that in order to support one's position it's often necessary to take an extreme stance just to get your point across, or whatever, and that's what some of the campaigners are doing, well, whatever. It's still terrible.) The idea of being "pro-abortion" reinforces and perpetuates the idea that a man can help conceive a child and not need to take any responsibility for it, since it's not his body and since he doesn't have to carry it, and we can't tell a woman what to do with her body, etc. Well, remember: it takes two people to create a child--not just the mother.

Every time two people have sex, they are knowingly engaging in an act that runs the (very high) risk of creating a child. Supporting the pro-choice position supports men who think with their penises, who believe that giving child support or (worse,) paying for an abortion is all that's required of them, that they can have as much sex as they want with as many people as they want and not have to take responsibility. Does that sound feminist, sound empowering to you?

The reason that we have so many single mothers in this country isn't because women are actually stupid and don't know how to take the pill or use protection, or that they're actually sluts and have sex with so many people they don't know who the father is, or whatever. It's because of a societal norm that says that men aren't responsible for the children that they create. Pro-choice campaigners help perpetuate this norm by putting all of the weight of deciding whether to abort on the woman, when she isn't the only one who created the child.

Now before anyone blasts me for being male, and for not knowing what I'm talking about, let me tell you: I've been there. I have had a pregnancy scare. I had to make a choice--if she was pregnant, what would we do? I decided that if we were pregnant we were going to raise the child. And yes, I do get to take part in that decision, not just my then-girlfriend, because by being a willing participant in the act we both, together, had to accept the responsibility that if we conceived a child as a result of said act, we would be responsible for raising it. Basically, I'm not going to sit around and let her kill my baby. It was as much my child as hers.

Our entire judicial system is based on the idea that if you perform an action you are responsible for the consequences. Why should sex be any different? Being pro-choice or pro-life isn't even looking at the real issue. Don't have sex if you don't want a kid. This goes out to women as well as men. We're both the problem.

I guess what I'm saying is: we're skirting around the issue. Women (and men) shouldn't be campaigning for pro-choice or pro-life. They should be campaigning for RESPONSIBILITY. Teach your friends, neighbours, children, that having sex creates children. That's how sex was designed. Supporting a loophole that protects MEN, more than women, from dealing with the responsibility of child-bearing is not feminist, not empowering, and overall not responsible.

Thoughts?

Meeting Times and Exciting New Happenings

This year we'll be holding our meetings
Tuesdays at 6:30 (just enough time to get to UM afterwards) in AC 215!

Second, this year we'll hold a graphic contest for a Pepperdine FPU logo. So, heads up if you are interested.

Welcome Fall of 2007

So, we are off to a new year! You can feel the excitement every where in campus. Yet soon enough, old and new students will have to face to inevitable question: Where do I belong?

The club fair will be September 5th, and some will join clubs that will help them answer that question: academic clubs, language clubs, service clubs and of course, political clubs. Therefore, it is now the time to be the most active for us. As our mission implies, our work is hard and complicated. Everyone who sets out to change the norm will face difficulties, but I can't help but wonder how amazing it will be when we start seeing change around campus. It will be amazing to have well educated students enter a political debate armed with the knowledge that there are more than two answers to every political question, and that sometimes multiple answers are okay.

So, if you are a student at Pepperdine University and want to be part of this change from the beginning please be sure to contact us at political.understanding@gmail.com. We are always looking for people to step out and be ready to create a change.