At a 1992 vice presidential debate, former Reform Party candidate James Stockdale began his opening statements with two key questions: Who am I, and why am I here?

Two years ago, I never would have considered myself politically inclined. Even as one of the most consequential presidential elections in recent memory unfolded before my eyes, it was all background noise.

But as the 2016 election heated up, I began to dig deeper into the issues. I grew fascinated by the complexity and history of the United States government and began weeding out which policies I believed were effective and which weren’t. After going through my own ideological discovery process, it became clear to me that I am a conservative.

When people hear someone self-identify as conservative, there’s often an immediate assumption that they defend all of President Donald Trump’s actions as some form of extreme MAGA propaganda.

This is not me. I have beliefs that align with the president’s and beliefs that don’t. For example, while the president has expressed interest in repealing DACA, I believe there should be a path to legal status or citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. But there also needs to be an increase in border security — regardless of whether or not that means building a wall — to discourage further illegal immigration and aid in reforming the visa lottery.

Political correctness is also a growing issue, especially on college campuses. While boundaries exist, hypersensitivity has limited society’s ability to discuss important issues in depth and has stunted our ability to use logic and reason in certain situations. True boundaries can’t exist if only the most sensitive can decide what they are, so it’s important that efforts are made to reduce which conversations are labeled off limits.

And as a journalism student, it was important to me to find an outlet to express my political opinions without censorship, and The Daily Orange seems to be the best place to do it.

But even more important to me is to challenge an orthodoxy present at universities across the country. Conservative students exist at Syracuse, and they’re growing in numbers despite the student body’s clear liberal tilt.

In a landmark debate last semester between the College Democrats and Republicans, the audience was particularly hostile toward the Republicans, many of whom got booed and shouted at while making their points. Yet cheers were plentiful for the College Democrats.

This is not a complaint about the tilt on campus, but it’s a fact that makes me want to write this column. I want to challenge liberal conceptions for the benefit of the student body, so that in their exposure to the other side they can further evaluate where they truly stand on the issues that matter most.

Brandon Ross is a freshman broadcast and digital journalism major in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. His column appears biweekly. He can be reached at bross02@syr.edu.

Published on January 17, 2018 at 10:33 pm