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Opinion
University Daily Kansan, January 28, 1983
A point of honor
A KU law school committee has recommended that one law student be expelled because of reportedly violating the school's honor code, and another student is to come before the committee this week for a hearing on similar charges.
The dean of the school, Michael Davis, must make the final ruling on the committee's recommendations. Few details on either case are available.
The idea of an honor code must seem archaic to some. It is not difficult to come up with a list of shortcomings, selective enforcement being among the most troublesome.
Unfortunately, there seems to be an ever-present need to let students and professionals know exactly what behavior is expected and what is not acceptable.
The law school honor code hearings are the first in several years. Martin Dickinson, professor of law and committee adviser, suggested that tight job markets might induce students to lie during an interview or on a resume, or to cheat on a test. If this is the case — and it may well be — we've lost the point of education.
And not only education. The worth, or lack of it, assigned to such intangibles as honor can be expected to carry into government and business. Competition on the job is hardly likely to be less fierce than in the classroom.
In any case, the two incidents reported to the law school committee reach far beyond the walls of Green Hall.
Honor code violations are not something one gets outraged about. Just very sad.
Reagan needs to sell policies
By HELEN THOMAS
United Press International
WASHINGTON / President Reagan, seeking to show that he is in touch with suffering America, is planning to hit the road more often to sell his new belt-tightening policy.
Reagan laid out a program in his State of the Union address that spreads the sacrilege and makes no big promises of a quick economic recovery.
Still, the Republicans were happy to see that he is abandoning some of his anti-government rhetoric and taking a more pragmatic approach to the nation's problems.
House GOP leader Robert Michel, who barely won re-election in a hard-pressed district, told reporters after getting a preview of Reagan's programs: "I was impressed by the fact that the president is at least living in the world of reality."
in recent weeks, there has been a spate of reports from Reagan insiders who maintained that the president was out of touch with the people, especially the 12 million unemployed.
His aides are now organizing a campaign blitz to refurbish his image as a caring, compassionate president who is in step, and also probably to set the stage for his re-election. His aides all believe that he wants another four-year crack at the presidency.
What is clear in the "strong medicine" Reagan has proposed to cure the country's ills is that nothing works unless the Democrats come aboard. And some of the proposals are
He has called for a freeze on all benefits in Social Security, entitlement programs, government pensions and retirement funds. Democratic leaders believe that a rollback in the third-year, 10-percent tax cut also is in order to keep up government revenues.
In assisting he will oppose any effort to scrap the next tax cut, starting July 1, Reagan is calling for a "standby tax" that could go into effect in fiscal 1986 if deficits remain high.
The fine print on Reagan's budget proposals for the 1984 fiscal year shows that spending on domestic, mostly social programs, will go up only 2 percent while defense spending will increase by 10 percent. The Stockman gave the figures reluctantly at a briefing for reporters on Reagan's program.
white praising Reagan's program, there is no question that his refusal to make any real dent in Pentagon spending will be up for close scrutiny on Capitol Hill. Whether there has been a turnaround in the president's philosophy the government has pursued, it has not. Democrats stood up and applauded when he said, "We who are in government must take the lead in restoring the economy."
He said that the time may now have come when Reagan recognizes that the government is moving toward a free-market system.
"Normally at this point we would not have heard that from the president," said Michel.
Many of the lawmakers duly noted the change in tune from his inaugural address, and subsequent speeches, that government is the "problem," not the solution.
While last year he predicted that the nation would be out of its slump by now, Reagan was more cautious this time in forecasting an early recovery.
The most he would say was that "America is on the mend," and made it clear that "we have a hard time."
Sen. Robert Stafford, R-Vt., noted that Reagan has stressed his bipartisan ship from the Social Security compromise to foreign relations, and said he was pleased the president had responded with millions of Americans. But I'm not sure the medicine he is prescribing will work fast enough."
On the other hand, conservative supporters applauded Reagan's call for a spending freeze, tuition tax credits, a simplified tax code, and a special youth minimum wage.
In the coming months, Reagan must prove that he is not only a "great communicator but a super salesman," as one lawmaker put it. "It is going to be going to the grass roots for his initial support."
Not all draft objectors conscientious
Moral wimps.
Spawned by the Me Generation, sedated by a decade of romance novels and repetitive television, and encouraged by the onslaught of efficient, valueless computers, the United States has become the home of the morally depraved.
We have become a nation of people more interested in immediate self satisfaction than in the consequences of our actions. Moral decisions rest more heavily upon whether the action is punishable, and whether the action is likely to be punishment, than on the rightness or wrongness of it.
Standing up for what we believe, in spite of repercussions, has become senseless, even silly, in the public mind.
Registration for the military draft illustrates this point perfectly. I think.
In the summer of 1980 I attended an anti-draft rally in Denver. Contrary to reports of massive dissension among the youth, and predictions of crowds in the thousands, I found that the only people at the protest, aside from the speakers, had come in the same car I had.
One dedaces in this case that about 440,000
Since the summer of 1980, about 560,000 men have not registered for the draft. Joan Lamb, director of public services for the Selective Services Committee, number 117,000 are military reserve forces.
men actively oppose the registration. But that deduction is way off base.
Lamb said that fewer than 400 men had voiced a complaint against the registration.
A complete answer.
The rest of them failed to register either out of ignorance of the requirement, or out of a feeling that because so many other people were not registering, the chance of their getting caught was minimal.
Not registering is similar to a juvenile game of cops and robbers to those people. It shouldn't be.
MATT SCHOFIELD
Registration is required by law, and lack thereof should at least raise some very serious moral questions.
willing to accept the punishment as a part of his protest.
Registration isn't required until the age of 18. By 18, a person can make the choice of whether he is against the draft or not. If the person does oppose a law, he has a civic obligation to actively resist that law. In the case of the draft, such opposition can result in five years in prison. If one actually opposes a law, he should be quite
For the 440,000 who did not register but chose to remain silent, it's time to find a new country.
These people have secretly disobeyed the law. They have taken no moral stance, they merely hope they won't be caught.
Jean Paul Sarret said that man is condemned to be free. Inherent in this is the obligation of men to take responsibility for their actions, and must midst of a crowd is not taking responsibility.
The people who have failed to register for the draft and who have kept silent do not transcend
non-registration without active resistance is the specific example, but from this specific example says much about the general nature of modern Americans.
In a free, democratic society such as ours, civil disobedience should be the most effective tool the individual can wield in fighting for social change.
If we continue to disregard this tool, we are condemned to exist in a society over which we have no control. And, although we may not realize that we have the control of society that control is gone forever.
Our generation's sense of moral willm will be paid for by succeeding generations as well.
Letters to the Editor
Personal discretion has to have some limits
To the editor.
In response to Kate Duffy's opinion in favor of abortion, I am appalled as well as intellectually insulted. This fruitless attempt at logic was tainted with personal biases and laden with emotional overtones. Furthermore, her hypothetical use of pregnant women was so narrowly circumscribed as to lead one to believe that the only alternative to pregnancy is abortion.
While I defend the right of any person, male or female, to exercise discretion over their own body, I also see a limit to this nihilism. When a person engages in fatalistic practices it is in the best interests of humanity to aid that person for his or her own good. Perhaps Duffy would advocate legislation to create a social climate where everyone could provide one's own discretion. Society could provide clinics where these emotionally troubled individuals could take their own lives.
4. errate the laws governing drugs and illegal substances should be abolished, since this could limit one's choice to exercise discretion over his or her body. Still more clinics could be built, so one could get shot up with heroin or LSD. This would provide a sterile environment for one to
experience his or her free will. Think of all the lives that could be saved from dirty needles and drug overdoses in musty old apartment buildings.
The act of the matter is that people enduring emotional trauma, whether it be drug addiction, suicidal tendencies or even pregnancy need support. They do not need encouragement to terminate. While I agree that raising a child to 18 years can be expensive, the $250,000 figure Dudley quoted is not the most accurate, but would offer a car, pay my own expenses and live on less than $6,000 a year. What the hell do these kids do with all this money?
In conclusion, I will agree that there are few easy answers to this social crisis we are all experiencing. There are no simple answers and each case is unique. I do view Duffy's opinion of abortion as a cure-all as not only callous but perhaps demented. As for the females who consider abortion as a choice, I do sympathize with them. Conceivably, if their mothers would have had abortions, they wouldn't have all of these problems.
C. Richard Goodwin
Give fetus even chance
To the editor.
Springhill senior
What is the right thing to do under the following set of circumstances?
I think many would agree that the right thing to do would be to assume he is alive and use all available means to save his life, rather than assume he is dead.
Suppose you find the victim of a car wreck.
You notice no signs of life, but you suspect he might be in a deep coma. In other words you are not sure if he is alive or not.
So it is with abortion. We don't know. No one has yet conclusively proven that a human fetus is not a human being; no one has proven that it is.
We are blinded by arrogant ignorance. We don't know, and until we do, it would be immoral to dispose of that fetus, if only because there is a chance that we might be committing murder.
Ana del Corral.
Colombia, South America, Junior
Bob
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