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Thursday, February 3, 1994
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Three-time offenders should be struck out
From cans of mace to pocket alarm systems, people all over the country have looked for their own solutions to violent crime. President Clinton answered the 911 call of America by encouraging the adoption of "three strikes, you're out" legislation for convicted violent felons. The policy should be adopted.
Opponents of the policy point to overcrowded prisons. But the cost of crime is broad and outweighs the cost of increased incarceration.
The threat of life imprisonment will not necessarily decrease crime. But it will lessen the opportunities violent felons have now to commit more crimes, to back up courts and to destroy lives.
Judges complain that their leeway in sentencing will be eliminated, thus diminishing their power. They do, however, have two chances to get the message to felons.
Clinton has shown a deeper understanding of the crime problem than have previous presidents. By taking a pro-active stand with his views on assault rifles and teen-age crime, Clinton has opened the doors to understanding and commitment to solutions.
The president asks us not to point our fingers at the young when their role models are active criminals. He recognizes the need to get criminals and heavy ammunition off the streets now. He also knows that this short-term fix cannot stand alone.
DAN JANOUSEK FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Ruling could infringe upon right to protest
The Supreme Court's interpretation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, Act is a reasonable decision, but extreme caution should be taken.
The Court's decision regarding the RICO Act, in essence, allows businesses, such as abortion clinics, to sue groups that engage in a pattern of racketering against the businesses. A pattern is established when groups violate two of a number of state and Federal laws.
Some anti-abortion protesters have challenged the spirit of the right to protest by threatening, hurting and even killing physicians who perform abortions. The right to protest does not translate into a right to violate laws.
But regardless of whether or not people agree with anti-abortion views, people have a right to protest. This fundamental Constitutional right is important to our nation as a democracy and a place where ideas are freely exchanged.
Though this right has not been breached yet, current trends are critically close to doing so. With a Florida law creating a buffer zone protecting physicians from protesters, and the Supreme Court's ruling on the RICO Act, more and more regulations are being imposed on protesters.
As Justice David H. Souter cautioned in a concurring opinion with Anthony M. Kennedy, "I think it prudent to notice that RICO actions could deter protected advocacy and to caution courts applying RICO to bear in mind the First Amendment interests that could be at stake."
The Supreme Court decision to apply the act to protesting is a good decision, but First Amendment rights must remain a top priority.
DAVID ZIMMERMAN FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Englishman vexed in attempts to translate cultural differences
"I detect an accent. Where are you
"London, England."
This short conversation has dogged me in the four years I have lived in the United States. I don't resent the curiosity of the questioner, at least until the next set of questions arises.
"Oh, you're from England. I've a friend from England. Billy Thomas." A pregnant pause follows while the person with a friend from England hopes for me to reply, "Not Billy Thomas, he's a good friend of mine. He lived two doors down from me."
If I'm unlucky enough to encounter someone who has just come back from England, he will undoubtedly want me to ask him how it was. I don't because I know how it was. I used to live there, remember?
Then there are the "my ancestors are from England" crowd. Members of this group tell me which small hamlet their ancestors left in the 17th century, hoping that I not only will know the place but also know someone with
the same last name as themselves. This is kind of like asking lifelong residents of the Midwest if they know Hugoton, Kansas.
The hardest question to answer is also the most frequently asked. What are the differences between the United States and England? OK, here goes, for the last time now.
We drink more tea than any other nation in the world, but not only at 4 p.m. and rarely with scones or crumpets. No, I don't know whether the Queen will abdicate, nor do I know, "What's up with Charles and Di?" And
no, Ross Perot is not buying the Crown jewels.
Yes, the average "Brits" are pretty stoic but will listen to the loud, talkative American tourist sitting on the bus, but only because they are too polite to tell the Yank to shut up. Don't call us "bud"; it's "mate", as in, "Give us a pint, bartender. Cheers, mate." And we really don't think that you saved us from German invasion in World War II but rather that you showed up late for the show, old boy.
We are a crowded nation: 60 million people squeeze into an area only 13 percent bigger than Kansas. We don't have crack houses or drive-by shootings, but our soccer violence is just as legendary. We have a 99 percent literacy rate.
We are not a very active people. Our university sports look like hobbies compared to the NCAA. We don't play basketball, but we are beginning to play your football — don't worry, however, about the London Monarchs appearing in a Super Bowl anytime soon. Our most popular sport is fishing, not soccer, and we are keen sailors. We like to play by or on water, not in it. Too cold. Generally we don't hunt. It's more of an upper-class pursuit, and frankly, there's not much to hunt. Our wildlife really isn't.
We don't have all-night diners; in fact, our pubs close at 11 p.m. every night, and our TV has four channels. But I hear cable is spreading throughout the country, bringing MTV Europe. There goes the literacy rate.
We don't celebrate Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July (think about it), and we have boxing day after Christmas Day, but it's not a pugilist holiday. And we drink WARTER not WARDER. Despite all these differences, I like it here, and you'd probably like it there. Encourage you to go. Just don't talk to anyone.
Jack Flasher is a London, England, senioblre
journalism.
Meanwhile, measuring about 1.2 on the Richter scale...
Violence erodes solutions to abuse
Many American women reacted to the acquittal of Lorena Bobbitt with a collective touchdown dance. At least two female friends of mine were ecstatic, saying in effect, "Hack away!" These were not celebrations about Bobbitt's success in beating the rap with an insanity plea. Her supporters think that she should have done what she did no matter what her state of mind.
Was Bobbitt justified in castrating her abusive husband? No. To understand why, you should first note that there were several Lorena Bobbitts on trial.
There was Bobbitt the Defendant, a woman accused of a crime. On this level, the question of justification is futile. By acquitting Bobbitt on the grounds of temporary insanity, the court did not condone her act. On the contrary, a verdict of this sort assumes that the defendant could not distinguish right from wrong, clearly implicating that the act was wrong. Bobbitt may not have been responsible for her behavior in a strict legal
sense, but that is not a legal or a moral vindication.
There was also Bobbitt the Symbol of Womanhood. In this sense, she is a voice for all the women who throughout the centuries have suffered sexual exploitation by abusive men. Some say that Bobbitt should be lionized because her trial focused public attention on the problem of marital sexual violence.
Maybe more Americans are talking about these issues lately, which is good. But that is no justification for her act. Not guilty by reason of symbolic value? Come on. And what
exactly has been achieved by this trial and the media circus surrounding it? Network television will enrich itself with several lurid movies about the affair, and men will wince collectively every time the name "Bobbitt" is mentioned. But we are no closer to solving the complex and difficult problem of sexual violence. Making an example of one reprobate like John Bobbitt is at best cold comfort for battered wives.
At still a third level there is Lorena Bobbitt the Vigilante. She is a person who took matters into her own hands and effected a bloody solution to her problems in the time-honored American spirit of Judge Roy Bean and John Dillinger. This was frontier justice, 1990s style.
Those who defend Bobbitt think that they are talking about Bobbitt the Defendant or Bobbitt the Symbol of Womanhood when in fact they are talking about Bobbitt the Vigilante. At bottom, all the cheers and high-fives for her acquittal are nothing more
than another example of the fascination with violence that is such an endemic part of American life. Americans have long had a love affair with violent solutions to difficult problems, from the mobs who beat British tax collectors, to the castration and lynching of southern African-American men, to the content of modern gangster rap. The reaction of Bobbitt's supporters is only another episode in this sorry history.
Do not be misled by those who claim that this is a simple matter of justice for a woman victimized by her spouse. When you remove the cloak of gender equality that has been draped over the Bobbitt affair, you find only the savage mutilation of one human being by another, nothing more and nothing less. Do not taint the worthy goal of combating sexual violence by associating it with Lorena Bobbitt's sad tale.
Brian Dirck is a Conway, Ark., graduate
student in history.
KANSAN STAFF
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K-State debate not at 'lower level' than KU
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
In your Jan. 20 article, "Debate Squad in Line for Title," Scott Harris, assistant professor of speech and director of forensics, says, "K-State gets a tremendous amount of publicity for its success at a lower level. Their championships are comparable to winning the NAIA tournament..but we compete against the tough teams." Harris is a nice person and a good coach, but this opinion, that the National Debate Tournament is superior to the Cross-Examination Debate Association, is inaccurate.
Harris points out that the University of Kansas competes against tournament teams from Harvard, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Texas and Michigan. True, and all are fine teams. K-State competes against
CEDA teams from Cornell, Notre Dame, California, Clemson, Duke, Illinois, Michigan State, Wisconsin, UCLA. Well, the list is 294 colleges and universities long this year, approximately three times longer than the list of NDT programs. Which of these are the "lower-level NAIA" programs?
Any college can field a debate team against the best competition in the country as long as it has adequate resources and coaching. For example, the first NDT champion was Southeastern Oklahoma. A member of that team later coached the first association champion, from Macalester College. In Kansas, former tournament champion Wichita State and tournament "sweet-sixteen" programs at Southwestern College and Emporia State now accomplish the same feats in the CEDA.
NDT debate still features outstanding programs and teams, and the University is one of the very best. That is what I tell our students and what I tell high school debaters who are deciding between KU and KSU. The differences are that the NDT debates one resolution each year and the CEDA debates two. NDT debates only policy resolutions, whereas the CEDA debates resolutions of policy, of value or of fact. The NDT is an older tournament than CEDA championship, but to value age absent any other rationale would justify choosing the NIT over the NCAA tournament — another flawed, athletic analogy.
In our six-state tournament District III, there are at most 20 programs in NDT debate, and that's only if all of the small colleges and community colleges in Texas and Oklahoma that are on the list have active NDT programs. There are 67 active CEDA programs in the same six-state area, including community colleges, small colleges, and large universities. In Kansas and Missouri, only the University, Washburn, and Johnson County Community College continue NDT debate.
Next month KU will play host to a large national tournament. If the recent trend holds, KU's own tournament will feature more talented CEDA than NDT teams. I wonder what the CEDA teams would think of Harris' comments. He will need to explain to them what his criteria were for drawing those conclusions.
John Burtsis, associate professor of speech and director of forensics, Kansas State University.