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Wednesday, October 29, 1986 / University Daily Kansan
Opinions
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Moore would bring a welcome change
Dennis Moore, the Democratic candidate for attorney general, has called the race a campaign of images, not issues. But the images the two candidates tried to project were hard to distinguish once the mudslinging began. In the end, it's clear that Moore is worth your vote.
The issues haven't been completely neglected in the campaign. Both Moore and Republican incumbent Robert Stephan support a crackdown on drugs; Moore wants mandatory sentences for large drug dealers, and Stephan thinks more attention should be focused on drug users.
Both think that non-violent criminal offenders should not be placed with violent criminals. And both candidates want to reinstate the death penalty. However, Moore would support it for only those criminals who have been convicted of "heinous" crimes, while Stephan thinks it should be an option for first degree murders.
Aside from the platform politics, Stephan's record as attorney general, including his handling of a 1982 sexual-harassment suit brought by a former
employee, has cast a shadow over an office that should be untarnished. Stephan has done little to clear his name.
Moore's plans for comprehensive prison reform and the creation of mandatory minimum sentences and the elimination of time off for good behavior indicate that he is not soft on law and order.
With similar positions on most of the issues, voters must examine the candidates and their records very carefully
before they vote. With eight years as attorney general behind him, Stephan can claim more experience. Many conservative voters may be attracted to his tough stance on the death penalty, ignoring the fact that Moore has called for comprehensive prison reforms.
In this race, images may be just as important as the issues. Not only is Stephan's integrity in question, but he hasn't explained any part of his conduct or the handling of the suit.
It's time for a change. For an office as important as attorney general, Moore has the ideas and the integrity to carry them out.
We want the 'old Bob' back in 1987
It's no wonder that hardly anyone seems interested in the U.S. Senate race in Kansas. The almost non-existent campaign features an absentee incumbent against an anonymous challenger.
The incumbent is Republican Bob Dole, whose only appearances in Kansas this fall were made in behalf of gubernatorial candidate Mike Hayden. The challenger is Guy McDonald, a Democrat from Wichita who is running on a platform of opposition to campaign advertising and political action committees. He hasn't distributed any literature about himself and doesn't hold press conferences because he thinks they manipulate the press.
McDonald's idealistic opposition to spendthrift campaigned is an admirable sentiment. But it can hardly be the cornerstone of a viable campaign, and his positions on other issues don't commend him as an acceptable alternative to Dole.
On the other hand, Dole's performance during the last few years is far
from worthy of an unqualified stamp of approval. Since the beginning of the Reagan administration, he's been transformed from an independent decision-maker into a puppet of the president.
He changed his positions on the Strategic Defense Initiative and South Africa sanctions to fall in line with Reagan. In 1985, he voted for Reagan-supported bills 92 percent of the time.
Dole's presidential aspirations are well known, and this may account for his strict adherence to the party line. He should heed a recent statewide survey in which only 32.8 percent of the respondents said they wanted Dole to run for president in 1988, compared to 45.2 percent who didn't.
With no more support than that for a presidential bid, we hope the "old Bob Dole" will re-emerge in his fourth Senate term from his current identity as an unquestioning yes man for administration policy.
Slattery deserves to stay in the House
The romantic tendency would be to root for the underdog.
But the underdog in the race for 2nd District congressman, Republican candidate Phill Kline, can't match the leadership and experience that Jim Slattery has shown in his two terms in the House.
Kline, a third-year law student at KU, has limited experience. As state chairman of the Kansas Federation of College Republicans and former president of KU's College Republicans, he has yet to prove himself in public office. He can't compare with Slattery's legislative expertise.
Slattery, a 38-year-old Democrat, has been exemplary during his four years in Washington, as he was during three terms in the Kansas Legislature, where as a representative he served as majority leader.
The two candidates have taken
similar stands on most issues; both support the Strategic Defense Initiative, programs to feed the hungry in the United States, and both support across-the-board freezes of allocations in the federal budget.
Slattery opposes federal aid to contra rebels fighting against the Nicaraguan government. Kline has vowed to vote for contra aid.
Slattery had the nerve and forsight to oppose the 1985 Farm Bill which was he criticized as being of little help to farmers. Instead, he proposed a marketing loan agreement to help beleaguered farmers recover.
Slattery has also promised to fight any attempts by the Reagan administration to cut student assistance programs.
Our interests will be better served with an experienced representative in the U.S. House.
News staff
Lauretta McMillen ... Editor
Kady McMaster ... Managing editor
Ted Carlisle ... New editor
David Silverman ... Editorial editor
John Hanna ... Campus editor
Frank Hansel ... Sports editor
Jack Kelly ... Photo editor
Tom Eblen ... General manager, news adviser
Business staff
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The Kansan Editorial Board met and voted on candidate and issue endorsements. These endorsements will appear on the editorial page for the rest of this week.
On the issue of capital punishment, the board reached an evenly split vote. Consequently, endorsements may mention the candidates' stand on capital punishment when it is applicable, but the issue was not a determining factor in any Kansan endorsement.
Mailbox Now, to Victor go the spoils
Antidote for venom
I was puzzled by the impassioned paranoia of Victor Goodpasture's Oct. 24 column in which he denounced "what the liberals call freedom of speech" as sheer "hypocrisy."
Being only an occasional reader of the Kansan Opinions page, I am not familiar with Goodpasture's views generally, and I couldn't decide whether his own version of "screaming censorship" was sincerely presented or whether this tone was designed as a point of style. Not that the difference really matters, for in either case he succeeded in making it "horrible enough" to get some media coverage.
And though I think his article provocative, my response is not one of outrage. Still less is it a "left-wing" defense. I certainly don't believe thoughtful people can condone the sort of behavior he cites in his examples — regardless of the agents' political inclinations.
But what does merit a response is the venomous manner in which he couches his message, for, whether he is aware of it or not, it can easily encourage the sort of black-and-white extremism and closed-mindedness which he himself appears so righteously to condemn.
Several of his sweeping generalizations are clearly irresponsible. To say that "what matters (to liberals) is that their agenda gets through, and
to hell with moderates and conservatives" is a gross generalization. Goodpasture does not and could not substantiate this because, among other things, the labels which he applies — liberals, moderates and conservatives — do not lend themselves to any simple mapping onto the complex of any particular individual's political views.
This loose fashion of referring should always be qualified because it is inherently misleading and it over-simplifies. Also, the members who make up the classes to which these labels are supposed to refer are all people, and Goodpasture has not shown that any one class is composed of people intrinsically more pernicious than another.
But then it is not clear that he has even considered the questions which naturally arise as to why Accuracy in such cases, and to whom it is
Elsewhere Goodpasture baldly asserts that the members of "the left" who "screamed censorship" were teaching "garbage". Leaving aside the audacious vanity that permits him to think he is competent to pass judgment on the works and opinions of many people more learned than he, Goodpasture offers no thoughtful insight to explain why some teachers would scream censorship just because Accuracy in Academia "merely reported on ideologically motivated teachings that slant to the left."
"reporting." Is it so unreasonable to infer that its purpose may well be to throw out the "garbage?"
A more personal bitterness becomes evident when Goodpasture concludes that some of his past remarks were disapproved by Kansan editors simply because his opinions did not match those of the author. They also serve as a form of censorship which hides behind a banner of free speech.
Well, perhaps he is right. For my part I don't expect to continue reading Goodpasture's column. But this is not because his ideas don't square with those dearly regarded by "the left," nor it is because I find him especially closed-minded. I just don't find his ideas particularly worth exchanging.
After all, if Goodpasture is right, all these leftist teachings are "trapped in a time warp" and hence, removed from American realities. His diagnosis is that American universities on the whole just haven't caught up with the enlightenment of the Reagan decade of conservatism. The implication here appears to be that only those ideas which are politically in vogue are worth teaching.
He thinks that just because his views were contrary to those of the left he was "considered closed-minded" at the free exchange of ideas."
Lawrence graduate student
Michael Hinz
Attention Victor Goodpasture: You have finally written something which is reasonable; Phyllis Schlaft should be treated with the courtesy due anyone invited to speak at the University of Kansas.
The rest of your column, though, was unclear. This was partly due to a seemingly random usage of such terms as "liberal," "the left," "left wing" and "radical leftist." Apparently these terms appear in the
Semantics, Vic's style
Goodpasture Thesaurus under such headings as "hypocrite," "moral wrongdoer" and "third-person pronoun." Historically, however, they have been associated with certain political values and well-reasoned theories, and with political practices which are legitimized by those values and theories.
In the interest of more lucidly communicating your viewpoint, please delve into the Goodpasture Dictionary and inform your readership of the full meanings you attach to
these terms. For as the pool of differing opinion is the primordial ooze from which new ideas arise, vagueness and rhetorical trickery impede and even stifle the evolution of ideas.
Incidentally Victor, congratulations on your appearance in Rolling Stone. I'm always happy to hear of yet another periodical which covers a wide range of views. Only then can we choose which article not to read
Cleveland Heights, Ohio, senior
Misdirected comment
Without denying the specific incidents that Goodpasture uses as evidence of a liberal plot, it must be clear that conservatives act just as regretfully.
According to his relentless diatribes, the most important problem confronting the country and this campus is liberal bias. Whether it emanates from the press or "college radicals," Goodpasture evidently believes that its menace to society must be exposed before it destroys us all.
There are those who bomb abortion clinics, seek to ban books from schools and public libraries, destroy the shanty towns of anti-apartheid demonstrators and attempt to intimidate college professors who have a liberal point of view.
After reading the columns of Victor Goodpasture, you have to the conclusion that he is driven by an obsession which, unfortunately, is affecting his ability to write valuable commentary.
Those who feel strongly about a
If Goodpasture was not so preocupied with his fixation on liberal bias, he might discover this far more significant and worrisome problem the general apathy and pseudoracialism of our some characteristic of our generation.
However, these actions are undertaken by a small minority of our population, and certainly the vast majority of students on our campus have never taken such actions. In reality, a far greater problem has been inflicted upon today's generation of college students.
By apathy. I do not mean the failure to take to the streets in protest. It's more fundamental than that. It's the failure to be informed, the failure to consider different points of view and the failure to formulate one's own opinion.
political issue, regardless of their party affiliation, may take actions that the majority considers inappropriate. Whenever the free exchange of ideas is threatened, we should be prepared to speak out in the defense of free speech.
Instead, we are allowing others to
do our thinking for us as we anow ourselves to be manipulated by propaganda and demagoguery. We are, in effect, allowing our future to be determined for us.
It is often noted that we have rediscovered patriotism as a desirable attribute. Regrettably, we have chosen to express our patriotism in symbols, rituals, ethnocentric and militarism.
Genuine patriotism evokes a vision of the United States where the promises of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are fulfilled for all.
This is not an issue of conservatism or liberalism, it is about the future of the United States. We need to dispense with meaningless labels and political dogma and begin to involve ourselves in the political discussion.
Only when we open our minds and engage our intellects, will we be able to take our proper place in society. Only then will we be able to shape our own destiny. It's not too late.
Bob Hennecke Overland Park junior
The opposite effect
Victor Goodpasture: Do you live in a vacuum, or do you not think about what you're writing?
Your commentary of Oct. 24 would be funny except for the feeling one gets that you actually believe your mixed bag of stereotypes, misconceptions and sometimes unintelligible dogma.
At the "conservative" Schlafly and "radical" Weddington (perhaps a little bias in your use of adjectives?) debate, both speakers were regularly interrupted with cheers and boos from the audience. Although Weddington received more of the cheers, she got her boas as well. Despite this, Weddington was able to preserve both ladies said. For me, the debate was the epitome of free speech and free forum — America being true to its ideals.
You apparently saw the debate as typical of "the sorry state of the First Amendment on the nation's campuses" and that "there is no freedom of speech on college campuses."
As for the group that protested "Hail Mary," the Kanan editorial headline didn't suggest they didn't have a right to speak out. It only said that they were "Intolerant of free speech." If, before you opened your mouth, you had bothered to read the words, you would have been handling you would have known they were explicitly advocating the censorship of the film, as well as apparently using stink bombs to deter people from seeing the picture.
How do the events substantially justify that conclusion? I would like to know which "liberais" are trying to get it, and what there are trying to get it "through."
The ACLU, what you might call a stronghold of liberalism, and Kurt Vonnegut, another so-called liberal, defend the right of free speech for even the most unpopular minorities, as do I — even for the neo-Nazis who marched in Skokie, Ill., a Chicago
suburb with a large Jewish population. I say this as she Jaw and am personally offended by your suggestion that "the new liberal hypocrisy ... (is) plotting censorship on people and ideas that don't match their own."
By the way, -were the fraternity brothers who tore down the shanties and assaulted demonstrators who were protesting for divestment at Dartmouth campaigning for free speech?
While there may be some on the left whose minds are closed to different ideas, this certainly is the case for some members of the right. Therefore, any oversimplification or stereotypical generalization, whether from the right or the left, serves only to polarize attitudes and destroy the open forum for the free expression of opinion, although presumably unintentional, for which your fattous comments serve.
Kevin Eberman Overland Park freshman
Coach clarification
to athletes.
I'm writing in response to a letter that appeared in the Mailbox Oct. 22.
I'm writing in response to a letter that appeared in the Mailbox Oct. 22. Our players are fully aware that there is a serious drug problem in our community, school and country. When Kevin Pritchard made the statement that "this is the place," he
If there was a misunderstanding with Kevin's statement, then the staff and players of the KU basketball team apologize. We in no way promote the consumption of alcohol or any other substance that would harm one's body.
was referring to the Wagon Wheel simply as a restaurant where the players feel comfortable and relaxed. The Wagon Wheel is a place where eating lunch can be fun and very sociable without any consumption of alcohol Mr. Wooden, the owner, is a dear friend to a vast number of KU students and not just
Larry Brown Basketball head coach
Fantasy relived
In last Wednesday's Kansan,
Michael O'Rourke asserted that I was living in a fantasy world and that I wanted to work with them without the help of the United States.
isn't necessarily so.
We grow up believing that the United States government is essentially a humanitarian one. But that
I believe that the United States government will do everything it can to remain the richest and most powerful government on earth. If that involves keeping the Third World hungry and dependent, so be it.
I am not so naive as to romanticize peasants working in the fields. But
the "development" that the U.S. government supplies does nothing to improve their situation. Self-sufficiency is the only answer to their problem.
O'Rourke thinks too well of his government. I am not the one who needs to "wake up and return to the real world." Jan Underwood
Emporia senior
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