In the March 24 edition of The Dickinsonian, Joshua Sack composed a response to my editorial, and he relied misrepresented statistics, out of context information and faulty logic in an attempt to justify his original argument. I fully believe that each person is entitled to their own opinion and beliefs, however, when you must mislead others in an attempt to support your opinion, you do yourself and your readers a great disservice.

Sack began his response by criticizing me for using, what he deemed, spotty information but never once explaining what information he classified in this way, nor did he provide evidence that any of the information or quoted articles could be deemed as spotty. However, if Sack was referring to the two articles I quoted and got my information from, I am honestly confused. These sources are the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize winning websites Politifact and the Huffington Post.

If Sack was referring to these sources as spotty that would be extremely hypocritical as in the next paragraph he admits his statistics were “based on the same Politifact that I used to get my figure of 68 percent,” which was, interestingly, from the article titled “Spot check of Hillary Clinton’s Senate record fails to support bipartisanship claim.” Sack, in defense of his statistic, says that “[he] purposely chose to exclude legislation that was never referred to committee,” admitting that he had to alter the statistic to fit his needs. However, by making the assertion that “as a senator, Secretary Clinton had a remarkable record of bipartisanship,” while saying his evidence of such is directly out of an article claiming her Senate record fails to support bipartisanship is not only irresponsibly misrepresenting the facts, but it proves the fallacy of his argument.

When Sack made reference to the time Governor Kasich referred to spanking Britney Spears for bad behavior he failed to provide any context. He failed to explain it was made in jest, and he failed to explain in the same sentence Governor Kasich also asked if the parents or all of them should be spanked for the extremely inappropriate behavior.  We can again see that Sack purposely removes the context in an attempt to fabricate situations beneficial to his argument. Sack again omitted context when discussing the Governor’s plan to create a government Agency that will help to promote Judeo-Christian Values. He didn’t tell you this agency would focus on four regions of the world: China, Iran, Russia and the Middle East, and as the Governor explained, “[The Agency] would beam messages around the world about the freedoms Americans enjoy. It means freedom, it means opportunity, it means respect for women, it means freedom to gather, it means so many things.”

Lastly, Sack used circular logic when he criticized Governor Kasich for having pro-life beliefs. He claimed that having a pro-life view made Governor Kasich too far to the right to be a qualified candidate. However, his own advocated candidate has the same type of views but to the left with pro-choice. Just because he doesn’t agree with the viewpoint, it makes one candidate too polarizing to be president. However, when the viewpoint aligns with his own beliefs, he has no issues overlooking it.  We see Sack yet again rush to praise Clinton without applying the same level of scrutiny and standards that he applies to other candidates.

In the conclusion of his argument Sack asked me to explain what my candidate offers. I think the better question is what does my preferred candidate believe. I support any candidate who believes their position as president is a limited one. When we ratified the Constitution in 1788, our founding fathers created a Republic of States. As Alexander Hamilton explained in the Federalist Papers, this was because the State Governments would be closer and more responsive to the will of the people living in each individual State.  The primary issue I have with a candidate like Hillary Clinton is they too often advocate for one country with one large federal State where the Federal Government makes decisions of ideology and policy and forces the 50 states to conform to their belief and values, when traditionally almost half of the country doesn’t agree with the president’s stances. My preferred candidate understands that there is one country and 50 individual States.

Now, let me explain I am not advocating we return to a time where each state had its own military and its own currency but rather when it comes to matters of individual policies such as education, voter ID, abortion, etc., the decisions should be decided at the state level so they can best reflect the beliefs of those living in each individual state. By now it is clear that I don’t agree with Sack’s political views, or at least not his preferred candidate, but I want him to be able to choose to live in a state where like minded people elect officials who pass policies that are consistent with his beliefs so long as those policies do not violate the rights guaranteed to citizens in the Constitution. I want him to be able to move to a state that reflects his views if the one in which he currently lives does not. I want him to be able to live in a country where if the opposing political party comes into power they don’t force conformity to ideology and policies that don’t reflect his belief. I believe that we are one country with 50 states, and I want my president to believe this as well.

I would like to offer to openly debate Sack on the role of the President and who would be best suited to sit in the oval office as the 44th President of the United States.