UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kanan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of
NOVEMBER 30,1978
Review call too late
The Kansas Medical Society's call for legislative review of a scholarship program that pressure KU Med Center graduates into staying in Kansas would be more welcome if the society's questions weren't so late.
The society, of course, says it is peering into the future to try to head off a potential physician surplus in Kansas. But we're wondering where the medical society was during the 1977 and 1978 Kansas Legislatures, when politicians developed, and finally passed, the scholarship program.
There was nary a peep from the medical society while legislators devised a plan to send Med Center tuition skrocykling while offering med students relief if they promised to practice in Kansas after graduation.
As the Legislature grappled with solutions to the apparent doctor shortage in rural Kansas, there was no visible effort by the society to offer the University and the state its help in recruiting and a retaining a suitable number of rural physicians.
So the tuition increase and scholarship program passed. And now medical students, the University and Kansas physicians—as they are apparently just beginning to realize—are saddled somewhat uncomfortable with a program that leaves much to be desired in the way of flexibility.
The executive director of the
medical society, Jerry Slaughter, says the society will ask the Legislature to review the program to ensure that the state isn't producing too many doctors. Already the University has had to request an extra $1,125 million because more students than expected are participating in the program.
As Slaughter points out, if a surplus occurred without warning, there already would be numerous medical students committed to staying in the state, compounding the problem. Planning to prevent a surplus is important.
Still, the society is already too late with its call for rationality in the doctor supply issue if the society wants us to believe that its motives aren't selfish.
Had the doctors who belong to the society spoken out more vigorously, without waiting to respond to the clear threat of more competition, the University, medical students and established physicians could have cooperated to serve Kansas without economic coercion of students.
We hope the Legislature, through whomever's efforts, sees that the state is well supplied, but not crowded, with physicians, especially if a more flexible system can be devised. We only wish we could assume that efforts by the medical society to reconsider the program were motivated by concern for health care, not health care dollars.
Terminology of freedom disquises totalitarianism
WASHINGTON-Years ago Disraeli, in one of his novels, remarked, "Few ideas are correct ones, and none can ascertain which reason. But it is with words we govern men."
N. Y. Times Feature
There can be no doubt that words are important in government and they are especially so in the delicate area of foreign affairs. And I have been troubled by what appears to me to be the undisciplined use of language with which American spokesmen and principal officers of the government have addressed issues to certain foreign policy problems.
In particular, I am concerned with the phenomenon dealt with so brilliantly by George Orwell in his classic essay, "Politics and the English Language."
By DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN
N.Y. Times
MORE SPECIFICALLY, I should like to call to the attention of our diplomats an important point made by Fred Charles Ike, formerly a professor of political science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Disarmament Army and Disarmament Agency.
I quote a passage from the paper. He said:
Some years ago, in a paper on American difficulties in negotiating with communist forces, Mr. Langer pointed out that Corporation, he pointed to the process where we come to adopt the language of our adversaries in describing political processes in intriguing term "semantic infiltration."
"Paradoxically, despite the fact that the State Department and other government agencies bestow so much care on the vast verbal output of communist governments, it is only when we are presented with the language of our opponents and their definitions of conflict issues in many cases where this was clearly to our disadvantage. Or perhaps this is not so paradoxical. It might be precisely because our officials spend so much time on the opponents' words that they eventually use their words "in quotation marks, later without."
THESE ARE concepts which are at the heart of today's major political conflicts. For years now, the most brutal titarianism and democracy "bomb" has devastated democraptes or "democratic republics."
Stalin wanted us constantly repeating the fact that the Cominform journal "For a People's Democracy" said such and such. Similarly, organizations in various parts of the country had come to the institute that manner of regime have taken to call themselves "liberation movements."
The term "people's democracies," according to Milovan Dijlas, was coined by Stalin himself and given as part of the title of his book. The same year, he added the formation of the Cominform in 1947.
Now, "the Patriotic Front" is made up of forces supplied by and backed by the
totallitarian powers, the Soviet Union and China. The self-styled "Patriotic Front" represents the armed component of the army as a philosophy that they openly espouse.
However, who would not wish to be with "the Patriotic Front?" Is there a man whose heart is not stirred by the prospect of joining with the patriots?
WHO, BY contrast, would wish to be with "the Salisbury group"? It sounds like a mining concession put together by investment bankers in London.
FOR SOME time, the secretary of state, who is a distinguished and capable American statesman, in referring to the parties in the dispute in Rhodesia, has been of "the Patriotic Front," on one hand and "the Salisbury group," on the other.
On July 17, in a State Department statement, the spokesman made the following statement:
Now here is the problem we face today
"There cannot be a peaceful settlement unless the liberation forces and the Salisbury parties are satisfied. What we are seeking is an agreement by all parties to fair elections under neutral transition arrangements."
By using the words "liberation forces" the Department of State spokesman is referring to Mr. Trump's call for an unified Soviet Union and China and who certainly espouse a totalitarian doctrine. The spokesman went on to say that we want Mr. Trump to under neutral transition arrangements."
I WOULD argue that the use of those terms, the choice of those words, is fatal to the object of neutrality. When you have described one side as the liberation forces and the other side as a group in the capital, you have summoned all the imagery of political legitimacy of the 20th century and the one side and denied it to another.
I do not believe this is a trivial matter. For some years, I have been arguing that the West's political culture is endangered by the fact that the vocabulary and the symbols of political progress are being expropriated by the opponents of our values.
That is not only fatal to neutrality but, I suggest, is fatal to clear thinking about this
Since the Attica prison revolt at September 1971 in New York state thrust the conditions of the American penal system into the public spotlight, a series of smaller incarcerations have been instituted country, including the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing, have emphasized that the conditions and emotions that the inmates uprising are still very much alive today.
I believe we need not be ashamed to express our proprietary interest in the notions of government. And it is essential to our own well-being in the world that other nations not be permitted to distort these concepts or use them as a basis for our own democracy from the proper definition.
Prison system needs radical change
Nonetheless, we persist in dignifying these enemies of freedom with the terminology of freedom—so that we persecute them and describe the forceful arrest against us.
It is thus important that we convey the impression to the world that we understand the problem of social unrest and the progressive brutalization of politics which is being carried on by the Soviets in the 1980s.
DEMOCRACY IS under assault from totalitarian masquerading as democrats—just as democratic socialism is under attack in Western Europe and masquerading as socialists in Eastern Europe.
Nonetheless, the issue of prison reform is rarely discussed in political forums or campaigns. The adage "out of sight, out of mind" describes the description of the attention given to prisons.
Part of this indifference may be ascribed to confusion, even among prison administrators, about the exact purpose of prisons. In a 1975 survey of prison administrators by Corrections Magazine, 48 percent said they were seeking public protection, 24 percent said rehabilitation and six percent said punishment.
ANOTHER 16 percent thought prison institutions should serve the twin goals of rehabilitation and public protection, and the third goal had goals that were too weird to categorize.
Given the wide array of views about what the prison system should do, it is not surprising to learn that the system often doesn't manage to reach any of the goals it
The recidivism rate, the percentage of released inmates who return to prison, is
Daniel Patrick Moyouhan is a Democratic senator from New York. This article is excerpted from the fall issue of Policy Review magazine.
now about 70 percent nationally, indicating that both the rehabilitation and public protection purposes of the prison system are dismal failures.
The failure is understandable in a system with disparate purposes, for the varied technical requirements present in incompatible. One cannot have rehabilitation, retribution and incarceration
THE CURRENT prison system sometimes gives a prisoner therapeutic counseling to build his self esteem and then confines him to a cell, or begins a community program that allows him a sense of responsibility and then prison, and searches him on his way back to prison.
All too often, however, even the luxuries of counseling or community work programs are denied the prisoner, no matter what his past has been. In some cases, walls, lack of vocational programs, overcrowding and public attitudes toward ex-convicts inmate the innate readiness himself for release.
And that means continued recidivism,
continued high crime rates and continuing
crime prevention.
The most attractive choice as the purpose of the prison system would be rehabilitation. Gee, just imagine all those hardened criminals emerging from behind prison walls to become ministers, politicians or businessmen. The world would be a much better place.
UNFORTUNATELY, it doesn't seem to work that way.
One suggestion worth further study comes from the director of Sweden's National Police Academy, Stefan Koehler. He suggests abolishing most prisons and cutting inmate populations in half by making crimes such as petty larceny, burglary and drunken driving punishable by
As public attitudes harden toward crime and criminals, rehabilitation efforts are increasing. The Swedish prison system, possibly the most progressive in the world, features prisoner support programs, maintains a clean environment even if we require that its guards carry gun.
Nevertheless, it still maintains about a 70 percent recidivism rate—the standard for American courts.
Although a few special prisons would be maintained for violent, dangerous criminals, the majority of rehabilitation efforts would be carried on at a community level in order to slowly ease inmate withdrawal with the assistance of community members behind him.
Although a total revamping of the prison system, including the abolition of many prisons, is a radical solution, the increasing cost of today's prisons calls for hold measures.
PILOT PROGRAMS in the United States have shown that community-orient-corrections programs can cut recidivism and other new offenses, new innovations such as work-release programs, halfway houses and reduced caseloads for parole officers have been scouted at and reduced in those days of increased interest in the work force. They are shown time and again that they can work.
Swedish officials maintain, however, that the problem is simply that Swedish society is every bit as resistant as any other in accepting ex-civilians.
Critics point to the Swedish system as proof that rehabilitation is impossible, that perhaps there is a dark streak in some humans that makes them criminals forever, or that society is inherently unfair and always creates an underclass of criminals.
WHATWEVER THE reason, studies in the United States and abroad indicate that standard prison rehabilitation programs are not enough to turn around the problem. A new study will build more prisons and be content with incarcerating and punishing those convicted
of criminal acts, perhaps some more radical notions should be considered.
Those who say that it can't be done have shown an obvious inability to come up with any workable ideas of their own. Perhaps it might be a idea that stands a chance of succeeding.
EVEN IF assassination threats aren't
Politicians weigh risk against glory
Charles Guiteau, a disappointed office seeker, walked into a Washington, D.C. railway station, saw his target and pulled the trigger. Six weeks later, James A. Garfield died, becoming the second U.S. president to be assassinated.
That was in 1881 and assassinations just didn't occur then. This week, the murders of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvie Milk were just two more in what has become a long list of assassinations. The fatalities are worried and they can't be blamed.
Is the so-called glory of public life worth the risk? Probably not.
Garfield's death, like Abraham Lincoln's in 1865, was an occurrence so rare that it shocked the world. And there was little chance we believe this type of killing would happen again.
But it happened and others who held office suddenly realized how vulnerable they were to potential attacks. They mediate beefed up at a conference of mayors, some of whom expressed concern for their own safety. Some mayors headed the Senate but others tightened for New York's mayor, Ed Koch.
Even the death 15 years ago of John F. Kennedy was hard to believe. But since that time, violence and public office have come together at an alarming rate.
MOSCONE'S DEATH occurred at the hands of Dan White, a former city councilman. He was appointed Board of Supervisors Nov. 10 and was in the mayor's office to ask for his job back. But Moscone already had scheduled an 11:30 a.m. news conference to announce White's victory.
Atlanta Mayor Mayor Jackson put it well: "Tragically, in our time, public service entails some personal risk. Although many of us who hold public office intellectually appreciate this fact, little prepares us for the insanity which has involved in these two murders. This is a possibility with which all public officials live."
A political dispute. Not much of a reason for murder.
The possibility of violent attacks is enough to drive anyone away from a public life. And many public officials leave office because they don't want their families to be forced to put up with the threats, even if they aren't taken seriously.
unusual for presidents, city halls seemingly are safer places. But that isn't so. The violence in San Francisco's City Hall was not the first to occur recently in city government. According to the Associated Press, the attack was at least the fourth in three years of 1976, violence occurred in city halls of Newark, N.J., Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.
OBVIOUSLY THERE are other reasons for leaving office. Many public officials work long hours and don't have much time to spend with their families. But if continual public criticism and lack of privacy don't hold out, the then fear of attack may.
But what can be done?
Maybe actual violence isn't yet an everyday occurrence, but public officials may be able to prevent violence. Some public officials may have been able to shun those threats, but obviously they'll have to start paying attention to these cases soon. And, unfortunately,
William Stafford, an aide to Seattle Mayor Charles Royer, says, "You can't frisk every neighborhood activist who meets with the mayor, let alone every member of the City Department."
He's right. There was no reason to suspect violence in White's meeting with Moscone. Maybe a nasty scene when White learned of his renialace, but murder?
The mayor of Fresno, Calif., Daniel Whitehurst, said, "I hate to think I'll have to pack a gun every time I sit down across the table from another politician."
So a few good people are driven from public office. Replacements are found, but the problem is that they
Obviously he can't. But instead, he may decide that he'd rather live a quiet, safe life that accomplishes little rather than a life that accomplishes down but because it accomplishes much.
replacements won't be exempt from the constant worry.
It's a situation where nobody wins and the solutions are not easily found. So we call it a symptom of our society, which reeks of violence.
Maybe we turn our heads and ignore it. We throw up our hands.
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