UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kanan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of other editors.
March 24.1980
Iran policy ineffective
Last Wednesday the United States received another kick in the teeth concerning the continuing plight of the migrants kid in the U.Embassy in Tehran, Iran.
Iranians began electing the new Parliament last week. The second round of elections to fill the 72nd-governing body is scheduled for April
An Iranian diplomat, who had met with the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomini earlier that day, said that he was told the hostage issue would not be resolved before May 15-194 days after the Americans capture—because the hostage would not be a primary consideration of the new Iranian Parliament.
If this blatantly smug "we've got them, you can't have them" attitude doesn't elicit further, more severe action from the White House, the United States may as well write itself off as politically impotent in international affairs for years to come, if not forever.
President Carter has tried unsuccessfully to passively pave a way to freedom for the hostages. So many words have been spoken and so little has been made. The hostages still are located where they were 142 days ago.
Iranian and American officials alike have made many allusions to progress, or, in this case, illusions that have dismally dissipated in the stark light of reality. By now, Americans surely must have the feeling that their desperate desire to resolve the situation and to bring their fellow
Americans home is being trivially towed with by Iranian officials, who seem to be testing the American government's continued heartache and uncertainty.
President Carter's tail-between-the-legislation tactics have done little to stop or even alleviate this senseless taunting, and the Iranians are using that to their full advantage. Carter has warned of the potential consequences as having serious consequences for Iran if that country persists in its illegal hostage-holding activities. There is no reason why the militants should let the hostages go. They have the United States tied to a chain of officers that match poised to the tinder at all times.
However, any medical authority can attest to the fact that prolonged psychological stress can have very real detrimental physical effects. And no one can deny that the hostages are not likely to psychologically taxing conditions.
Carter could be commended for not doing anything that threatened the hostages physically. There have been isolated reports of rough treatment of the hostages, but there has been no convincing evidence that they are not in relatively good physical health.
But how long will this go on? As things are now, it could last for years. The Iranians obviously aren't in any hurry to free the hostages. They apparently couldn't care less. It should be clear to President Carter from this latest leddown that the situation in Iran has deteriorated far beyond the “crisis” stage to a stage of desperation.
Death penalty poses an insoluble dilemma
May 25, 1979-John Spenkelink, a fresh towel under his chin and a harness and hood on his head, was electricated in a Florida
Jan. 17, 1977—Gary Glilmore, his head tween in a tennis booth and his feet in tennis shoes, was shot dead by squad at the Utah State Prison at Point of the Mountain. His was the first legal death in the United States since 1962.
susana COLUMNIST namnum
prison. Voltage shots singed—then black ened—his flesh. His was the second execution in the United States since 1967.
A death for a death, we clamored in the cases of Gilmour and Spenkellink. The two cases were similar; both averaged victims and deterred the murderer, but also to the restoration of the state's right to trial.
I recool in horror from the cruel concept of execution just as I cringe in despair at the deprivacy of murder. Their twin atractions are inseparable. Jointly, they stand as death affirmation of the new principle of execution "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."
My own reaction to capital punishment is just as paradoxical as it is painful. For example, the Supreme Court ruled in 1972 was "cruel and unusual, or violent of the Eighth Amendment," the States Convention. Now I am not so sure.
ALTHOUGH THE COURT in 1972 categorically invalidated the lethal laws of the land, it the door open for states to acquire the right to a more, "merciful" death penalty laws.
State death statutes, the Court said, gave juries and judges so much discretion that they were unable to determine if an irrational and unjust. Blacks often were put to death in court, but white victims, they could afford a face law. In instances, the same crime resulted in death for a poor man and imprisonment for a rich man.
The 1972 ruling spurred state legislatures
to formulate new laws that they hoped would be more in keeping with the Court's notion of a certified, qualified license to kill
THE FATE OF CAPAL punishment in the United States during the 1970s was stormy and tortuous at best. Lawns were upled, vowed to be vowed and revamped all across the land.
Much has been said about the specter of execution as a deterrent to crime. Despite all the statistical and scientific matterings from lawmakers, law enforcers, and corrections officials, we will never find another the fear of death can prevent murder.
The theory of deterrence, although it all stings of stark legalized murder, is beside the point. It will be forever fruiting to try to define, quantify or predict what causes one human being to snuff out the life of another. This is no easy matter and goes, but murders will always be with us.
Those who readily embrace capital punishment, although they may carry the weapon, are also sanctioning all forms of murder. The summaryally reject it are slighting the sacredness of the victim's life and easing the burden of murder by celebrating the killer's death.
WE HAVE TALKED as much about revenge as we have about deterrence. Civilized, rational people, we are told, are拒绝 the raging, primitist desire for revenge.
In a moment of deranged, barbaric passion or of steely, inhuman delibration, who's to say whether a statute will stay the death-dealing hand?
Yet anyone who does not rise up in vengeful fury at an act of legal or illegal murder is not sufficiently humbled by the sacredness of human life.
Neither my sense of mortality, nor my conscience, nor my allow me to support the death penalty. Nor do they permit me to be against the death penalty.
Why should a man or woman who violates cardinal rule of law be allowed to live? It is a matter of human rights. Rather it is a conflict that lies at the very core of our existence as individuals and as a
It is a morally and philosophically insoluble dilemma.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
108764906440 Published at the University of California daily August through May and Monday and Thursday and Saturday by The San Diego Times. Copies may be ordered by mail or fax to 800-253-5711 or e-mail sales@sdsu.edu for six months or 800-253-5710 or e-mail sales@sdsu.edu for yearly Disney Cruise and HH for six months. Custumers must be 18 years old and a United States citizen.
Postmaster: Send changes of address to the University Daily Kansan, Flint Hall, The University of Kansan,
Lawrence, KS 69045
Editorial Editor
Brenda Watson
Editor James Anthony Fitts
Managing Editor Dana Miller
Business Manager Vincent Goulter
Advertising Manager Chuck Chowins
General Manager Rick Musser
Ron Kuby: martyr or motormouth? or both? Maybe a KU committee on freedom of speech will shed some light on this question. The report could end up a little “misunderstanding” between Kuby and KU of understanding.
Kuby gets KU administration moving
The "misunderstanding" concerns a Regents policy governing the display of banners at University-sponsored events.
If you are a KU official, the issue is whether the Regents banner policy should be replaced, specified or junked entirely. If but you are Kuby, the issue is not only that you are not allowed to use the banner, should use police officers to enforce a policy that no one else really understands.
NO ONE WAS seated near Kuby and his banner did not impede the view of any spectators. However, within minutes, Kuby was arrested on charges of "interfering with" a police officer." Kuby spent the rest of graduation night at the police station.
The controversial fasco started last May at KU's graduation ceremony. Kuby, then a KU student, displayed a rather sizable poster that proclaimed "KU Out of South Africa."
Perched on an empty bleacher in the northwest corner of Memorial Stadium, Kubu might likely realize he would incur the cost of a burglary. But that Kubu considered his actions to be wrongdoing; he thought he had every legal right to display a banner. KU officials
COLUMNIST
david lewis
Kuby, before this incident, had long been active in every cause imaginable. But Kuby's name became more prominent in the 1980s and early '90s. Moreover, he gained the sympathy of faculty and the community members as well as that of many civil rights groups. The school then denounced Kuby's arrest and said freed speech at KU was virtually nonexistent.
to keep up with them, but he has been successful.
That statement is debatable, but Kuby nevertheless made his point. And KU officials have gone so far as to admit that Kubu was a terrorist in city later dropped its charges against Kubu.
No other student at the University of
Kansas has been more successful than Kukan in getting the KU administration to move. But in the past, he moved when it didn't want to. In recent years, the state has shifted its focus in cutting the tape of KU's bureaucracy.
KUBY'S SUCCESS can be traced to his charisma and his ability to deal with the media. He has never been accused of hiding secret press; he always has something to say. Kuby has no interest not to go to the media. The University administration is public relations-oriented and will judge it treated with negative publicity. But surely you know that better than anyone else.
CAN ONE NAME a student besides KU who has single-handedly prompted the administration to hastily call closed meetings and form committees to rectify problems? Rarely, if ever, has one student received attention from the KU administration.
The Blue Ribbon committee on freedom of the press probably would confirm that the Report on the use of a more specific practice to control a more specific practice. The change would be a moral victory for Kuby, but he had a bad taste.
Although Kuby's actions may be exasperating, she is also refreshing. While the majority of KU students have been apathetic, Kuby has had enough drive to compensate for everyone.
Kuby was active in the fight to rescind a bill that helped lead a freedom of speech group that constantly aggravated Strong Hall. Now the distribution of literature policy is in the hands of Kuby.
Kuby's latest drive is the anti-draft registration cause. And one can be sure that he will be working round the clock to help the security team and involve in so many causes that it is difficult
Kuby certainly is sincere in his efforts, but his overabundance of activism may come back to haunt him. He could lose a lot of respect. He causes that crops up during the school year.
And that would be a shame. After all, a KU protest is just not a protest without Ron Kuby.
... and the University does hereby accuse the defendant of publicly displaying a contrary opinion ...
Forer, Dillingham should be praised
To the Editor:
negotiating with their friend, Balmire Dilhom, Bonner Springs junior, in the March 18 Kansan: Norman Forer and Clarence Dillingham should be praised for their unselfish attempts to do some good work during their trip to Iran. The U.S. government should be successful in resolving the crisis. Why shouldn't private citizens do what they can to help?
The University of Kansas should be proud to the university they have attended the two weeks prior to whom they have given their time and money to try to help resolve the crisis. These two are representative of a university with a history of resiliency.
People should become acquainted with the facts of the incident before they condemn two people for doing something that could potentially have been of some help. Most MKU students don't understand the need for government's policy or what Forer and Dumham were trying to accomplish; basically the whole issue is misunderstood.
For example, one thing that isn't common knowledge is that they lost all of their saxophone skills after they were absent. Why should these two be "made an example of" when there are many other professors who leave their jobs to play golf, to interview for other jobs, etc?
Dillingham and Forer were given the opportunity to facilitate a dialogue of reconciliation . . . and accepted the challenge. What would you do? Say, "No I want to up a month's salary and face ignorance from my peers. I don't want to get involved?"
I just wish there were more professors like Forer and Dillingham at the University. Then KU would have a "high standard image."
Susan Walker Lawrence resident
Right to bear arms wards off tyranny
To the Editor:
I want to address two issues in response to Susana Nammum's editorial advocating gun control.
First, the availability of guns was wrongly identified as the cause of crime. The cause is not the gun, but the criminal. Therefore, the way to reduce crime is not to force the law abiding citizen to register, and ultimately forget his gun, to provide a more secure crime by seeking tougher sentences and more severe punishment for the criminal.
Second, like most gun control advocates, Nnamum does not understand the original and current need to "keep and bear arms." The main issue is not crime control, but the population means of a means by which the populace may resist any potentially oppressive tyrant.
KANSAN letters
We learn from history that the most serious final obstacle to tyranny has always been the ability of citizens to rise to their position, and in the past it was by the American Revolution. Had not been for a well-armed population, the men would have been overpowered and won-not probably even attempted—by the colonial forces. The first battle of the war actually was fought in defense of the fortress at Boston, where Gage set out from Boston with British troops to confiscate or destroy American weapons stored at Concord. Wherever freedom has been reinforced by well-armed citizens.
For this reason, tyrants, in the process of bringing whole populations under their absolute control, invariably have had to suppress tended subjects all arms which could be used for incarce resistance. Twentieth century dictators have also known this. Lenin said that one of the basic conditions he imposed on people is to be social people. Since then, communist dictators have adhered closely to Lenin's dictum to "make searches and hold executions for found arms." Staind said. "If the opposition were successful, they would之 to disarm, shall we disarm it ourselves?"
Czechoslovakia was disarmed as the people surrendered their weapons. Rumania, Latvia, Poland, Hungary, Estonia, and Lithuania were also easily disarmed, since the private owned guns in these countries were registered and could be systematically without spreading alarm or something happened in communist China.
to keep and bear arms has justly been considered the paladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral pillar, the rule of law is one of the powers of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, help people to resist and triumph over them."
On October 28, 1969, former President Nixon signed Executive Order No. 11490 which assigns to the president the power to appoint the secretary and the government of every facet of life in the United States whenever he decides that such action is necessary—"in any emergency situation." Nowhere is this imprecise mention of the power to leave left to the discretion of the president. It is because of this that Executive Order No. 11490 has been labeled a "Blueprint for Tyrannacy." Has President Carter rescinded his executive order? The answer, unfortunately, is no.
Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story explained in 1833: "The right of the citizen
Is there a possibility that dictatorship may happen in the future? Could any reasonable American believe that conceivable that any president of the United States has ever harbored such a thought?M
Private ownership of unregistered firearms is an inherent right, not a natural right. If you own firearms in our country cannot preserve without it, long as men are governed by men, the right to maintain arms must be indispensable as a final recourse against tyrannical incarceration.
Rob Munyan
Shawnee Mission graduate student
To learn of Christ, read Bible for self
To the Editor:
Doug Lambert in his March 17 letter makes the mistake all so-called-born-again Christians make. They resort to the dart-throwing method of reading the Bible.
If you read past John 3: 1 (Unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God), it is obvious that Jesus was referring to the resurrection of the dead, not some other event. The Bible verses 5 and 6, He says, "Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is fish, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." If that is true we have a lot to learn from Jesus and that is where the kingdom and at least one in the White House.
My point is that if you want to believe in Christ you should read the Gospels and get the Word straight from him instead of making some last-day Dharisse says He meant.
Jon Barnes Lawrence resident