4a
Opinion
Thursday, November 2, 2000
For comments, contact Ben Voosen Embry or Emily Hughey at 864-4924 or e-mail opinion@kansan.com
Voters have more power than ever
Perspective
So you don't like Bush or Gore? That doesn't matter. Even without the Presidential race, this election is sti
Presidential race, this election is still the most important in years for KU students. Lawrence voters will have more power than ever on the local, state and national levels this year for three reasons:
1. The proposed zoning ordinance could raise your rent. Last night, the Lawrence planning commission discussed reducing the number of unrelated people allowed to live in houses in the city's single-family neighborhoods. If the ordinance passes, you could no longer split your rent with your three college buddies on that lovely circa-1960s house. You could split rent with only one other unrelated person. Fewer buddies to split rent with equals higher rent for you, not to mention
equals higher rent for you, not to mention
more students looking in housing. The sudden increase in housing demand means higher costs for everyone in Lawrence.
Here's the beauty of democracy. If city and county commissioners vote to kick hundreds of us or our friends out on the street, we'll vote and kick them out of office. They give KU students the shaft, we'll give them the chance to focus on their day jobs. Even if you don't care about
David
Grummion
columnist
option@kansas.com
other races and if you couldn't make it to city hall last night, vote Nov. 7.
2. The Legislature will redistrict Kansas, which affects voter choice. Despite what candidates for the Kansas House and Senate might say, what's really at stake this year is redistricting. Every 10 years, state legislatures get to redraw the lines of congressional or state legislative districts. This "redistricting" can help or hurt a party bigtime.
A heavily Republican legislature could split Wyandotte County, a rare Kansas Democratic stronghold, into districts with larger populations of conservatives, making it impossible for Democrats to win congressional or state seats there.
Sounds far-fetched, you say? Hardly. This kind of redistricting happened after Kansas lost a congressional seat from the 1990 census. 'The Republican state legislature redrew the congressional districts and left longtime Democratic incumbent Dan Glickman of Wichita without a district he could win.
A party that strongly controls the Legislature can manipulate redistricting to undermine local voter choice and give itself an advantage for the next 10 years. This year, you're not just voting for individual legislators. You're voting to determine who draws the lines of congressional and legislative districts in Kansas for the next decade.
3. Our congressional race could have national impact. The hotly contested 3rd District U.S.House of Representatives race between Democratic U.S.Rep. Dennis Moore and Republican Kansas Rep. Phill Kline is important for two reasons.
first, it's a classic moderate-versus-radius clash. Kline is from the social conservative wing of the deeply divided Kansas House Republicans. Moore, on the other hand, won the last election because he could appeal to both moderate Republicans and Democrats, which together represent the majority in our district.
Second, this race could be nationally important. Republicans probably will keep the U.S. Senate, but they only have a thin majority in the House of Representatives. Democrats could win control of the House with a net shift of only six seats.
Why does this make re-electing Moore important? If Bush wins and Republicans keep both houses of Congress, all three branches of government would be firmly Republican — up to four Supreme Court justices are expected to be appointed by the next president. Recent history shows undivided government results in extreme legislation being enacted without needing to compromise with anyone.
Who needs a haunted house to be scared this Halloween season when we can sit at home and think about the impact of that? Reelecting Moore will encourage moderation.
If you're registered, vote on or before Nov. 7. Your vote may never hold this much power again.
Grummon is a Beloit second-year law student.
John Trevor / TMS CAMPUS
Kansan report card
Pass:
- The football team. The team may not have won against Texas Tech last Saturday, but its players rallied till the very end.
Student Senate-sponsored buses to last night's Planning Commission meeting. Way to encourage student activism.
Department of Student Housing's new flexible meals option. Now residence hall residents will be able to eat what they pay for.
Fail:
Bad parallel parkers. Bumper to bumper traffic, bad. Bumper to bumper parking, good.
Herpes on campus. It affects one in five people older than 1.2 in the United States. The next time you see a cluster of festering warts in the sacral lumbar region, put your pants back on and see a doctor immediately.
Flu vaccination shortage. Because of a nationwide manufacturing shortage, not everyone can safeguard against the flu.
Perspective
Freedom of speech includes hate speech
Some have come to view free speech less as a democratic right to be cherished and more as a dangerous weapon that can fall into the "wrong" hands. Free speech is a precious liberty. But what if it means free speech for Howard Stern, racists, Nazis, Eric Cartman and anti-Semites?
Many state universities, including KU, have adopted hate-speech regulations. Rather than promoting themselves as vehicles for stimulating discussion and debate, universities are
becoming highly regulated institutions that seek to protect students from unsolicited or offensive ideas.
former or observant
Former Chancellor Gene Budig is oft quoted: "As a university, we must allow expression of sometimes uncomfortable or controversial ideas and discoveries. But we have no obligation to provide a forum for the worn-out tokens of fear, ignorance and prejudice. They insult our intelligence; they assault our dignity. They are contrary to the nature of a university."
Scott Kaiser columnist opinionkanasa.com
they cannot be tolerated here."
Virtually every university today has a code of conduct governing how students may behave toward one other and toward lecturers and what they may reasonably say or write in conversation, meetings and essays.
Hate-speech regulations — by restricting the civil liberty of free expression — undermine civil rights. A goal of the civil rights movement in the 1960s was securing for all citizens the liberties protected by the Bill of Rights, including freedom of expression. At that time, protesters could expect a fire firehe to be trained on them as reward for their thoughtful display of public expression.
today, it is clear that hate speech regulations — while not as blatant as a fire hose — are aimed at denying citizens the same basic liberties that the civil rights movement fought so hard to earn for minorities.
By punishing certain forms of expression, it is
hate speech regulatory advocates who are seeking to deny liberty to a new group of ideological minorities. Thus tacitly endorsing the unjust principle that their 1960s predecessors fought against — that your right to freedom of expression depends on government's approval and group affiliation. Ironically, isn't this one of the injustices that fueled the civil rights movement in the first place?
Does a civil society need government to ban all the bad ideas? Aren't educated people able to recognize what they believe is false? Are hate speech regulations premised on the worry that people will actually believe everything they hear?
In 1971, the Supreme Court in Cohen vs. California recognized that "we cannot indulge in the facile assumption that one can forbid particular words without running a substantial risk of suppression of ideas ... [and] government might soon seize upon the censorship of particular words as a convenient guise for banning ... unpopular views."
there is no need to ban false or offensive expression because words have consequences only if we choose to give them consequences. The words themselves don't cause things to happen, but our estimation of the value and truth of those words.
It would seem that a rational person would laugh or not take offense at a blatantly erroneous comment. If a reasonable person would find the comment false, then it is difficult to see how the comment could be dangerous or worthy of censorship.
Hate speech regulations also are premised on the idea that speech needs to be restricted because people lack the capacity to make correct judgments. This does not make sense because the only way to enhance one's ability to form a correct opinion is to inform him with more speech. Restricting speech can only compromise one's decision-making.
Freedom of speech is actually the best device we have to shape our decisions and justify our beliefs.
Kaisor is an Overland Park first-year law student.
Editorial
Casino not necessary in Lawrence
Casino would damage the character, atmosphere of Lawrence community.
The Delaware Tribe of Indians wants to build a casino in northeast Lawrence, but a casino in Lawrence would hurt the community and become an unnecessary temptation to college students.
Lawrence has an active downtown, a healthy college atmosphere and the feel of a small town in a medium-sized city. Lawrence can do without the possible crime and addiction that accompany casinos.
Although the tribe says it does not have plans to build a flashy Las Vegas-style casino, casinos are seldom anything other than the flashy, money-guzzling type.
Representatives from the tribe say Douglas County would be reimbursed for any property tax lost in the deal, but the city could not be reimbursed if the casino doesn't make any money. It may be difficult for a Lawrence casino to make enough money, given the proximity of casinos in the Kansas City area.
Planners should take a look at our neighbors in Kansas City. If they have trouble keeping their casinos running with more than one million residents, a community with less than 100,000 residents cannot be expected to support a casino. A larger city may be able to support the possible negative effects of having a casino, but a smaller community such as Lawrence would absorb the crime and debt. Illegal activity generally follows casinos, and the Lawrence community could lose its sense of a safe and healthy community if a casino were here.
The temptation to gamble may lead to addiction and debt for some college students. Although the casino could provide more than 1,400 jobs and educational scholarships for college students, jobs and scholarships are worth little compared to the number of students who may be tempted to gamble their money away.
Lawrence should be cautious in discerning which growth opportunities to embrace. In this case, the negatives effects outweigh the positives, and it would be better to allocate funding to something other than a destructive casino.
Erica Hawthorne for the editorial board
rfree for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. The Kansan reserves the right to edit submissions, and not all of them will be published. Slanderous statements will not be printed. To read more, go to www.kansan.com.
How come Halloween is the only day I can tell people that I'm God and they really believe me?
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蜜
Can vegetarians eat animal crackers?
the saddest part of this whole sexual assault case was that people believed that the witnesses who are other football players would rat out their teammates.
KU has the worst fans in the Big 12.
the saddest part of this whole sexual assault case was that people believed that the witnesses who are other football players would rat out their teammates.
If you're going to knock on the Greek community, you should research to see that there are good things to be said about it.
the saddest part of this whole sexual assault case was that people believed that the witnesses who are other football players would rat out their teammates.
Why do the independents waste all of their time complaining about the Greeks?
If the football players were so innocent, then why were they forced to run sprints?
No wonder studies show assaulted women are reluctant to report their assailants, especially when potential rapists aren't prosecuted because they play for a crappy football team.
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Why aren't non-Western cultures studies called Eastern studies?
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The paper around beer bottles makes it hard to open.
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It's difficult for out-of-state students to vote.
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Nader and Bush don't care about the environment.
My friend who's a sophomore just asked me what UDK stood for.
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Listen to Beethoven for at least an hour a day.
Phish is the most versatile technically proficient and underrated band of our time.
MARKETING
Why does Kansas suck so much?
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