Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, November 2, 1981
Left high and dry
The predicament of that poor Soviet submarine, beached unceremoniously on Swedish territory, is rather amusing in a way.
Since the sub ran aground on the Baltic coast nearly a week ago, it has been under heavy guard by Swedish marines in battle dress and commandos armed with submachine guns. A Swedish coast guard officer who ventured close to the stranded intruder said, "It looks so unreal. It's like a war movie."
Actually, the film that comes to mind is a comedy titled, "The Russians are Coming," the Russians are Coming," in which a Soviet sub is grounded on the northeast coast of the United States. The nearby New England town panics at first, but in the end the townpeople and the Soviet sailors are good buddies.
Sweden has refused to refloat the sub until its skipper explains what it was really
Unfortunately, the current situation isn't quite as rosy.
doing in Swedish waters—and close to a Swedish naval base, at that.
Swedish officials have already dismissed the initial claim that the grounding was the result of "misnavigation due to gyro compass fault and fog."
The Soviets, meanwhile, are not taking the embarrassment well at all. They refuse to give the submarine's skipper permission to go ashore, and the most recent rumors indicate that they are afraid the crew is contemptulating defection.
And a Soviet tifiaia—incuiring destroyers, tugs and a sub salvage vessel—has been cruising just outside Sweden's 12-mile territorial limit. An impressive show of force, to be sure, but let's be realistic. What could the big bear do to neutral little Sweden in this situation without looking like the world's biggest ore?
The Soviets should face facts. They were caught sneoping and now they have some explaining to do. We'll be watching and waiting with interest—and, for now, a smile.
EPA's pro-industry stance spells danger for environment
There are no simple, painless, quick remedies for the complex financial and economic maladies the United States is suffering. Now more than ever there is an urgent need for fiscal restraint and iron discipline. Sacrifice must be by all groups and agencies within the budget.
Indeed, Reaganomics may be the proper prescription. However, one area of the budget has been cut so drastically as to gut an entire agency, an agency whose work affects us all. Work in the Environmental Protection Agency has come to a near standstill.
Since Denver lawyer Anne Gorsuch was named to head the EPA last February, the city's mayor, Karen Lovell, has
CINDY
CAMPBELL
percent. Gorsch's budget request for 1983 would pare another 20 percent beyond this year's reduction and calls for the removal of 3,200 of the 13,000 people who work for the agency.
After a decade of vigorous enforcement, the man will become, if it hasn't already, a pusher for bitch girls.
The Reagan Administration's rumored target for a budget of $700 million, just half of what the agency receives annually.
The agency has already regressed. Deputy Administrator John Hernandez has said that the new strategy is to "get away from the adversarial role . . . this agency has had in the past. That was true toward business where we were doing it," he said. And it was true in the way we treated the states. The idea of running the country from Washington is a bad idea."
In future relations with states, Hernandez vowed that "instead of using words like 'shall' and 'must', we're going to use words like 'may' and 'here's a good idea.'"
In actuality, the EPA is calling for voluntary dugouts in wells and dredges. Well, the people in hell must ice water too.
Gorsuch has already been under fire for possible illegal procedure by meeting with industry groups between June 19 and Sept. 29 to discuss banning two widely used chemicals. A May 20 EMA memo said the two chemicals in question, formaldehyde and DEHP, caused cancer in test animals, and it recommended they be regulated.
Rep. Toby Moffett, D-Conn, said the meetings reflected "a lack of regulatory mentality," which the agency also had demonstrated in its proposed budget cuts and policy shifts. It adds up.
Moffett told, to a 'massive retreat for en-
gagement' and to the agency charged with providing that protection.
Tens of thousands of companies are required to comply with the clean air and water laws, the toxic substances and resource recovery laws and the EPA regulations to the list for the EPA to enforce in recent years.
In 1979, the EPA referred 200 cases to the Justice Department for enforcement. In 1980, 230 cases were referred. The EPA has referred 250 cases in 1981, and only 10 since Gorsuch took over.
It's no wonder that Gorsuch has only found 10 examples of misuse and illegality; as part of a 'general reorganization' last spring, Gorsuch eliminated the EPA office of enforcement.
A former EPA official, Jeffrey Miller, said, "If I have to prove that, a year worth prosecuting, you must be blind."
The pro-industry attitude adopted by the EPA since Gorsuch took office has failed to get environmental results and will continue to do so. The agency's obvious unwillingness to go to court should be sending shivers of delight up and down, and the leaders of every industry the EPA regulates.
We are not likely to deal successfully with the energy and environmental problems through private, voluntary action. Industry has no control over energy use in state or local governments of governmental intervention are necessary.
Such a proposition, however, conflicts with our commitment to limited governmental power and decentralized political power. Consequently, we may be compelled to rethink accepted limits of governmental power with regards to conservation and ecological conservatism.
Once people recognize that there are limits to environments' tolerance as well as vital properties, protection becomes easier.
With hope, the realization won't come to late.
Letters policy
The University Daily Kanans welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and not exceed 500 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include the class and home town or faculty or staff position. The Kanans reserves the right to edit or reject letters.
Policy of affirmative action obsolete
"All men are created equal," wrote Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence.
As I'm no expert in early American history, I can't authoritatively read the founding father's mind 200 years after the fact. I venture to guess, however, that equality meant something strikingly different to Jefferson than it does to many modern-day liberals.
Equality did not mean that people were the same in all respects. Nor did equality mean that men were the same in birth, talent, intelligence, wealth or success.
Yet those assumptions are the idealistic bedrock upon which our modern-day affirmative action policy was built and upon which the myth of "equality under the law" was constructed. Our belief in moralistic righteousness, we expose the federally enforced program's very weak foundations.
Affirmative action had its origins in a governmental effort to ensure equal treatment for everybody everywhere. It is a policy developed within the federal bureaucracy—in the Department of Labor and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now Health and Human Services)—in response to Executive Order 11246, given by President Nixon in 1972.
This order forbade discrimination, commanded equal treatment for all and required
E. O. 11246 demanded that an employer take additional efforts (or take affirmative action) to recruit and promote qualified members of groups formerly excluded, namely women and disabled, and inclusion could not be traced to particularly discriminatory actions on the part of the employer.
The demand that minorities and women be hired simply to comply with "equal rights" smacks of ideological blindness. The problem with affirmative action, according to George Gilder, program director of the International Center for Economic Policy studies, is that it limits personnel decisions to only a few key elements—sex, race and national origin.
affirmative action, there could be no real progress toward full equality.
Supporters will cry that this is a misrepresentation of the true nature of affirmative action. They claim affirmative action is designed to overcome discrimination. In short, without
But in fact, we have witnessed over the past 30 years strides too numerous to mention toward ending discrimination; so great, in fact, that Earl Butz's offand racist joke in 1767 single-handedly brought about his resignation from the Ford Administration.
The advances have been economic as well as social and political. If we rid ourselves of the distortions put forth by special interest lobbers, we can do better for us, for we have gained greater economic parity with whites.
Much of the difference between black and white incomes, according to Glider, simply
DAVID HENRY
reflects the fact that the average age of the black population is about 22 (seven years lower than that of whites) and that half of the blacks live in the South, the nation's nobest region.
In any case, "families headed by 22-year-olds, black and white, had a median income approximately $5,000 less than families headed by 30-year-olds," writes Gilder.
The key fact is that when age and location are held constant, the difference between black and white incomes closes radically, with blacks earning about 80 percent as much as whites.
Why then is there still avoid support for affirmative action in most of the liberal comm.
I suspect it goes back to an earlier-stated point: ideally, all people should be the same in all respects and that distinctions such as race, gender or ability ought not to count in the comittements of life.
But even the first-grader with a smaller set of crayons than his neighbor's soon realizes that such distinctions do in fact exist. By the time we have reached maturity we realize that anything short of authoritarianism has its limits in shaping the capabilities of our social and economic conditions.
Unfortunately, many liberals suffer from what
could be called the "Bambi syndrome," no doubt brought on by watching, at too early an age, poor Bambi's mom end up as smoked venison. Injustice and inequality become intolerable to someone suffering from this malady; everything should be fair and equal, whatever the cost.
Those of us who had to catch "Bambi" in revival houses differ in our viewpoint. For us, affirmative action is nothing more or less than a forced employment policy designed to simply increase the employment figures of minorities without regard for ability or background.
There is a vast difference between treating minorities equally and simply hiring more. There must be a very strong connection between the two groups to be justified. This connection simply does not exist.
The affirmative action policy, however, teaches that genuine equality is primarily a matter of social status or economic condition. Moreover, it holds that no group possesses genuinely equal opportunity unless jobs, wealth and status are distributed proportionally among
The problems with affirmative action may be seen in yet another light. The hope of many liberals for eventual full integration of blacks and other minorities brought about affirmative action policies. The dream was for a colorless, sexless society.
Once again, the "Bambi syndrome" undermines possible success. Affirmative action is a key strategy.
"In its effort to force the proportional employment of persons identified solely by their race or national origin," writes Robert Sassen, professor of political science at San Jose State, "the policy wages racial distinctions into the law."
Affirmative action announces, in so many words, that the inferiority of minorities demands they become dependent upon the state. "Without our help" you'll never make it in the marketplace," is the message minorities receive from affirmative action.
"Baloney "should be the response.
A system of artificial equality, so near and dear to the white liberal community, has no basis in theory or practice. True independence and freedom have been gained through a forced affirmative action policy.
Letters to the Editor
Neighbor found Penn House survey non-threatening
To the Editor:
I live cater-cornered to Penn House and was contacted during the survey by Sonny Burton of Penn House and Dick Dunahpst of the ELA. In a straightforward presentation, they told me of the Penn House proposal, showed me some plans and asked for my reaction.
This letter is in reference to your front page story Oct. 20 about allegations of intimidation during the Penn House ELIA survey of residents and feelings about the new Penn House structure.
They were friendly, low-key and decidedly non-threatening. In fact, I was struck by the seeming neutrality of their approach. I was not surprised. The residents had felt intimidated by this same pair.
"I'd like to add that I've lived at my present address for about 2 $ \frac{1}{2} $ years and have been nothing but pleased with Penn House as a place to stay, having this neighborhood resource nearby.
Big Brother watching
Jeff Goudie Lawrence resident
Jeff Goudie
The Reagan Administration has given me many reasons to be concerned about political
To the Editor:
freedom in this country, but none so serious as a recent presidential draft order.
The order would allow the CIA to covertly obtain information about U.S. groups and organizations without providing legal justification.
Remarks such as this are appearing in newspapers alongside continued revelations of past governmental abuses of citizens' rights that are as recently as the Nixon Administration.
The Reagan Administration also is in the process of proposing legislation that would restrict the Freedom of Information Act. The Justice Department says the proposed law will "balance the public's right to know with the government's need to protect its secrets."
Many facets of Reagan Administration policy have been criticized loudly, yet possible abuses of personal freedom have been largely ignored. Illegal wristwriting, infiltration and other activities under the Nixon Administration are widely documented; surely events a decade ago can still serve as viable warnings of possibilities to come. Diane Olimsted
What concerns me most, however, is the fact that I have heard no major outcry in this country regarding my experience.
Lawrence resident and KU graduate
Senate needs overhaul
It has been a pleasure to note the recent comments concerning student governance that have been splashing across the news and editorial pages of the Kansan.
To the Editor:
Student governments sometimes do appear to be a vast wasteland of munifficient nothingness.
The blind appear to lead the blind down the railways of student government ignorance, which leads to disorientation.
The KU Student Senate president said he was accused of being "a fumbling, know-nothing who not only doesn't know how to push the 'buttons' of power, but doesn't even know they exist."
Perhaps the Groucho Marxists could provide us with more insight to student government.
It could be a bad commentary on our state universities if they do not provide a meaningful political education for their students. Richard Koch, president of the University of strategies in their university experiences.
Students just might turn to mischief in their student governments because those student senates don't provide sufficient motivation or a sense of political laboratory in American political science.
The heart of the Student Senate probably should be the senators. They have to stand for election, but other than the flush of victory in the voting process, all those senators get is a lot of work, little recognition and no pay or academic credit.
Then too, a student senator has the gratification of knowing that most students at the University really care about the Student Senate and what it does.
If we had a political science thermometer and took the temperature of some of these student senates, we'd probably find a lot of them a pretty sick bunch.
This needs to be done, because the future of not only university state governments, but of other states is under threat.
And if there is really anyone out there who cares about student governance, you need to reorganize, make it attractive, give the student Senate some pay or academic credit and clout, and make that government fully representative and accountable to the public, and executive branches in the American system.
Jeffrey L. Latz
Atchison resident and former KU student
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