Opinion
University Daily Kansan, January 20, 1982
Stopping up the sieve
President Reagan, in an effort to plug up the Washington sieve, is trodding heavily on some fundamental American freedoms.
Reagan's aides issued memoranda last week ordering all U.S. government employees to get advance clearance before talking to "major media" reporters.
Of course, the administration is worried about threats to national security that could result from the disclosure of classified information.
It seems that the president's pet peeve is news leaks. In an interview recently, Reagan called Washington "a giant ear."
But Reagan and his boys in Washington may still be smarting from some embarrassing disclosures of not-so-classified information about cabinet members and White House aides.
If government employees are leaking classified information, they should be punished as the law prescribes.
But to restrain the flow of news from Washington by placing a blanket-advance clearance requirement on government employees punishes the employees, journalists and, most importantly, the American public.
Employees of the federal government, although they have a duty to their em-
poyer, also have First Amendment rights as individuals. Restraining them from discussing their work with reporters, when classified information is not involved, violates these rights.
White House spokesmen said the purpose of the ord-r was to provide a "smooth, steady and consistent flow of information to the public about the Reagan Administration."
One man's "smooth, steady and consistent flow of information," is another man's one-sided public relations blurb.
Although Reagan's crackdown on news leaks is an inconvenience to journalists, the real victim is the American public.
As the recent David Stockman episode suggests, government employees must fear for their livelihoods when they start criticizing the policies of the Reagan administration.
The sieve may cause problems, but in a government as complex as ours, the public is entitled to more than one carefully screened side of each story.
When the American people elect a president, they do not give him carte blanche to operate in the manner he sees fit, only letting the public know what and when he wants them to know.
Fight Falwell and gang with reason
Over the mid-seminar break, I watched a "Tomorrow" show in which guests Birch Bayh, former U.S. senator, and an official of the Moral Majority were pitied against each other. The discussion began civilly enough but soon became a heated argument that host Tom Snyder was pathetically unable to control.
The main bone of contention, it seemed, was Bayh's description of Moral Majority activities as "Nazi-like." Bayh did his best to avoid the connotation that he opposed will not let him off the book.
In my view, Bayh's frustration with the rhetorical techniques of the Moral Majority—repetition and evasiveness—is perfectly understandable. But he and others similarly frustrated must realize that they do their cause on good by losing control.
In the end, both men were shouting simultaneously, each trying to score points by
Bayh should not have likened the Moral Majority- or anyone, for that matter—to the Nazis. He should have kept his cool on the talk show.
Perhaps such advice seems applicable to both sides. After all, wouldn't Mural Majority spokesman also be more convincing if they remained calm and collected?
Surely. The Rev. Jerry Falwell himself is a prime example of persuasion through composure. I've never seen him really lose his grip on the table, but they are carefully planned and executed.
The Moral Majority's viewpoints, however, are not grounded upon the reasonableness Fallwell's demeanor implies. They are based, ultimately, on emotion, on the desire to subject others to fundamentalist rules of conduct.
emotion with still more thoughtless emotion is, well, thoughtless.
This is an instance where fire must not be fought with fire. To oppose thoughtless
How can we get anywhere without getting anrry? There are several approaches.
One is irony. A potential Moral Majesty member may be brought to his senses when the inherent ridiculousness of the group's position is brought to light.
Many may find it ironic, for example, that in forcing others to behave in accordance with the rules of the game they play.
TOM
BONTRAGER
element of choice and therefore of moral responsibility.
If Johnny doesn't read "Catcher in the Rye" because he can't get a copy (they've all been burned), are we to applaud him for making a morally proper decision?
The Moral Majority might, but I wouldn't,
because Johnny had no say in the matter.
Humor is also helpful in reducing the "morality" of this "majority" to absurdity. I am thinking especially of an Art Buchwald column which addresses the "problem" of what Jerry Falwell calls "secular humanism."
"The terrible thing about secular humanists," writes Bucwald in mock agreement, "is that they can look just like you and me."
The reason humor can be so destructive to the Moral Majority is that they can never respond in kind. They can't afford to laugh at themselves or others, because laughter doesn't mix well with an air of solemn condemnation.
Perhaps our most useful tool, when all is said and done, is simply to point out that the Moral Majority has no ideological connection with responsible political views, liberal or conservative. The movement has been riding the wave of conservatism the past two years under the pretense that conservatives and the Moral Majority so hand in hand.
First, a responsible conservative is a responsible person.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
He ponders each issue carefully, despite certain predispositions. The Moral Majority, on the other hand, represents nothing more than a desire for preservation in the very worst sense of the word.
Second and equally important, the Moral Majority is not merely a political movement but a deeply religious one as well. If the letter of the law forbidding mixture of church and state has not been violated, certainly its spirit has
The point is not that government officials should be less motivated by religious commitment than other people—this is the case in many places, where typically associates with its onceptions.
Rather, it is that we must be wary of the dominance of a single religious perspective.
The Moral Majority is an interest group motivated primarily by a specific church ethic. Interest groups are not part of the government proper, but they have a direct connection with policy-making. When a church uses that connection to enforce its beliefs, nobody's interests—conservative or liberal—are served.
The slogan of Birch Bayh and his well-
known colleague, the-collar followers
should be: "Don't get mad at me."
The Moral Majority wouldn't stand a chance.
Did you say social change? Force it with taxing power
By AL ROSS
Guest Columnist
BY AL ROSS
H and R Block is not going to like this idea, but what if we just used taxes to raise revenue?
Presently, the taxing power of Congress is used for everything from incentives to punishments to welfare for tax attorneys. One example of the mis-emphasis of the tax system was the introduction of private schools. However, the misuse was just bad when the schools were not tax exempt.
Instead of raising dollars to keep the Treasury affax, taxes are put to use to force social change. Somebody once decided charity was noble. Then they decided everyone should be paid for everything they were. Was the best way to convince someone to pick his own pocket? Just give him a deduction.
The powers in Washington, D.C. decided that children are cute, so people who have a child receive a deduction. The money is not enough to buy a rat in diapers. It is enough to say "good job."
Since Social Security is headed for a dive, the tax gods want wage earners to put some cash away for those golden years. They want someone to cover his old age so much that there are no taxes on the money when it is deposited in the system.
D. C. policy-makers used to think it was not a good thing to earn a big salary. The top incomes were penalized with a graduated income tax. The tax was a suitable punishment for being rich. The Republicans have said it is all right to earn big bucks again. Their form of social tax legislation was to reduce the top tax rates. If they use tax loss socially what prompted the
Reagan administration to stop punishing secreterationists?
Ronnie and Co. sat down and read the Constitution. "The Congress shall have the power to take action concerning the Constitution."
AIT. 1, section 8 also grants the taxing power to Congress, not to the executive branch. Now it is up to the legislators to abuse the power of taxation. Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Gary Hart jumped right up to say they would be happy to punish those segregationists. They have probably just put a glean in Sen. Jessie A. Helm's eyes.
For once, Helms may be happy with what Hart does. Legislation that would tax a school because it practices segregation opens an entire field to the new right in Congress.
Soon appearing on the tax form will be line 8a—"Did your child (children) pray in school?" If yes is checked, the taxpayer would get an extra $1,000 deduction per pious offspring. If a private school teaches creation science, contributions could be entitled to a double exemp
During Moral Majority years, an abortion could add 15 percent to a tax bill. If Senator Edward Kennedy won in 1984, an abortion could result in a $200 tax credit to cover costs.
There is no doubt that the interpreter use of taxes to force Americans into the same social and moral mold will continue. If segregation is not overcome, the state will continue to oblivion. Meanwhile, innocents who earn money, do not discriminate and the till will continue to run to accountants. These accounts will continue to tell them how to behave in the state, and therefore the form of the punishments for those who do not obey.
Al Ross is a first-year medical student at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
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Sorority rush is over for the year, and the 12 residential sororities which participated have npledGE classes to replenish their houses when their senior members move out.
Segregation caused by members attitudes, not policies, of black, white Greek systems
None of the pledge classes include a black
pledge.
No one can accuse any of these sororites of discriminating against blacks, because no black
No one can deny, however, that a fear of discrimination, too deeply ingrained to counter, might keep a black woman from going through white-security rush.
A sorority—black or white—is a sisterhood of college women who live, study and play together. They call each other "sister" because they share membership in the same group. That membership is a close bond, but a superficial one within which the real friendships form.
The process through which older members select the younger ones who will carry on the tradition of the sorority also works on both a superficial and a personal level.
More women go through rush each year than can find a place in the pledge classes. The sororities compete for the cream of the crop. Each sorority has its reputation to consider. Each wants the prettiest, the sweetest, the most accomplished and the most fun girls as pledges.
On the personal level, each sorority member sees out the same girls for her sorority that she was in.
Each chooses women she feels comfortable with. Each chooses those whose backgrounds and interests and values are similar to hers. Each chooses women she would want to share
Rushes choose sororites in the same way. They want a sorority whose members they would be—or already are—friends with. They want a sorority that is not overly competitive and wants a place where they would feel comfortable.
A few members of white sororities have said
they would not want to live with a black woman A few members of black sororites say they would not want to live with a white woman. They are different from each other's and value are different from each others'.
These attitudes contrast starkly with a
LISA BOLTON
soriority's Greek ideals of open-mindedness, justice and fraternity.
I talked to a member of a black sorority who was among a small percentage of black students in a predominantly white high school. When she started college, she said, she did not consider going through white sorority rush for two reasons.
E.
One was that the white sororites seemed to revolve around purely social activities. She said she was interested in the black sororites that she had on community service to benefit other blacks.
The unofficial segregation of the sorority system at the University of Kansas appears to be under way. The university has
The other reason that she did not go through white-scorum rump was that she didn't think she should. "I would have been a good judge."
She had grown up with blacks. Though the majority of her high school classmates were white, she was not.
It was only natural that she would be drawn to a black sorority, one whose activities related to her own interests and whose members were familiar to her or were friends of hers.
I hope that this, rather than racial
B
It is an arrogant presumption for a member of a white sorority to believe that members of black sororites secretly would prefer to have gone through white sorority rush.
discrimination of blacks or whites, explains the segregation.
No member of a white sorority can know whether the segregated system is as simple as black friends choosing black friends and white friends choosing white friends, or whether it results from blocks forming their own sororities discriminated against blacks.
Only the black women who never consider or who consider and reject the idea of going through white sorority rush can say on what facts and feelings they base their decisions.
The white sorority members do not know what fear of racial discrimination feels like.
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