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Wednesday, March 1, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
More realistic liquor bill allows Sunday beer sales
Kansas, home of the archaic liquor laws, may be making a move toward the 20th century.
A bill before the Kansas Legislature would allow for Sunday sales of 3.2 percent cereal malt beverages in grocery and convenience stores.
Kansans can buy beer or alcohol on Sunday in a club or in a restaurant that does at least 30 percent of its business in food. But they can't go to a store andbuy beer to take home
This move is long overdue. Beer already is available in grocery and convenience stores. People who want to drink on Sunday can take the extra effort to buy on Saturday. But why should they have to?
Opponents of the bill say that increased opportunity to buy beer will result in increased consumption. But according to testimony heard in committee, Sunday sales have little correlation with amount of consumption. For example, in 1987, Kansans consumed 1.5 gallons of beer per capita more than Oklahomaans. Oklahoma allows Sunday beer sales in grocery and convenience stores.
Many Kansans who want to buy beer on Sundays cross the border into one of our four neighboring states — all of which allow some sort of Sunday alcohol sales. If beer is available in Kansas, this illegal transport of alcohol could diminish.
The passing of the bill would allow local governments to decide for themselves whether they wanted to allow the Sunday sales. No area could be forced to follow the law.
Kansas has long lived in the shadow of prohibition. But it is time for the state to realize that the 21st Amendment was repealed in 1933.
Jill Jess for the editorial board
George Bush, despite his supposedly strong stand against crime, is turning his back on the U.S. homicide problem. By hiding behind a wall of idealism, he is helping murderers do what they do best — kill.
Bush incorrect about guns
The president recently said he strongly opposed controlling the sale of semiautomatic rifles. The criminal is the one who needs to be controlled, he said.
"I'm not about to suggest that a semiautomated hunting rifle be banned." Bush said. "Absolutely not."
Bush has taken a passionate stand against gun control, and now his inflexible position has put him at odds with reason. He is catering to the National Rifle Association by supporting semiautomatic weapons, despite all logic that they should be banned.
The NRA strongly supported Bush during the presidential race, even spending $1.5 million on anti-Dukakis ads. Bush also is from Texas, where a strong pro-gun stance is appreciated, and anything else could be deadly during the re-election campaign. Bush, with this issue, seems to have learned what Ronald Reagan knew well: There is more to be gained from standing firm on such issues than from recognizing the problem and dealing with it realistically.
But by calling for control of the criminal, Bush is sidestepping the problem. The rampant use of firearms is the issue, and those firearms must be controlled.
Moreover, semiautomatic weapons are not hunting rifles. Their sole purpose is to kill people, not animals. Bush's efforts cannot conceal that.
Washington, D.C., already has seen 75 homicides this year, after a record 372 last year. Bush's blindness to the devastation on his own streets shows his disregard for the families around the country that are robbed of their children.
Bush must listen to reason and accept logic: Semiautomatic weapons serve no purpose except to steal the lives of innocent people. He must realize that no argument the NRA presents could replace the value of a human life.
Grace Hobson for the editorial board
The editorials in this column are the opinion of the editorial board. The editorial board consists of Julie Adam, Karen Boring, Jeff Euston, James Fuarghar, Cindy Harger, Jennifer Hinkle, Grace Hobson, Jill Jess, Mark McCormick and Mark Tillford.
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Civilization Marches On
Drug czar should utilize military
W when President Bush gave his inaugural address a little more than a month ago, he pledged that his administration would help stop the
"scourge" of illegal drugs that is destroying the foundation of our country.
America sIould hold him to that promise.
The drug problem in the United States is public enemy No. 1, and we should treat it as such. Our nation is in the unmercifully evil grip of this disease, and it's time that it is halted. Illegal drug use contributes to its malnutrition's drug use contributes to its malnutrition's drug use significantly adverse effects on family life and productivity at the workplace.
If they refuse to combat their drug producers, or remain wrapped around the fingers of drug kingpins, then we must roll up our sleeves and get back to work. It's important for a popular approach with domestic dows or with
This strategy also should include military intervention in nations such as Colombia and Bolivia that do nothing to stop drug production. The governments of those two countries, in particular, blame the problem solely on U.S. demand and fail to recognize that any realistic attempt at cutting U.S. drug use will require drastic supply reductions.
But unfortunately, it appears that few decisive measures loom on the horizon. Sure, many lawmakers, and even the president, have hinted at using the military to aid in our war on drugs, but this practical and necessary resource remains untapped
Utilizing the military, however, is a key piece in solving the complex illegal drug puzzle. If the United States is to stop the supply of drugs, then it must dramatically intensify interdiction efforts along our borders — in the sky, on land and at sea.
Christopher Wilson Staff columnist
Latin America, but it is imperative that we attack this problem at the source.
Newly appointed drug czar, William Bennent, is a strong advocate of additive the military to our anti-drug arsenal, and President Bush should take his advice.
Use of the military, though, should not be seen as a panacea for our dilemma — we must confront the enemy on both supply and demand fronts. The Kansan in a soft-hearted editorial, touted drug treatment as the magical answer to reducing demand, while ridiculing tough police officers. Another extreme way is there to decrease demand for drugs than curing those who are dependent on drugs?"
Give me a break. The Kanse's proposition provides absolutely no deterrent to drug use and is frightfully similar to the distorted rationale used by those pushing legalization. In truth, reducing demand should entail a number of necessary tasks, with treatment only part of the solution.
authority to try drug cases under federal federal laws and local prosecutors federal punishments. options
And despite deficit problems, President George Bush and Congress should double or even triple the current anti-drug financing, which would reduce costs, including fully-armed army task forces.
First and most importantly, our nation must crack down forcefully on all segments of the drug community. Our lawmakers at every level must enact harshers laws regarding sentencing that put drug sellers, users and possessors behind bars. This is important because many that infected our society during the late 1980s and 1970s. This should include, as New York Mayor Ed Koch suggested, granting state-court judgments
We must discourage proposals, such as the Kansan's, that single out one best solution. In fact, we must do the opposite of what the Kansan suggests and stress programs that educate and correctly place responsibility for drug use with the individual. And we also should encourage businesses to allow the public sector's lead by implementing and investing in valid drug testing procedures.
Our nation should ignore finally and completely all calls for legalization. This unrealistic approach is a proven failure and only hinders efforts that provide real answers. Many fools point to alcohol, which is legal, and offer it as evidence that other drugs should be legal as well. But the numerous problems relating to alcohol only reinforce the need to maintain supply control as an alternative to punitive measures. Britain and Holland only created more adducts and increased crime. Meanwhile, questions of which drugs to legalize, how much and to whom, further impale the legalization argument.
The only way to defeat illegal drugs is to launch a massive, directed assault on every phase of the problem, realizing that a diluted effort will not suffice. We should not discount either the supply or demand battles — because if we lose one battle, we lose the war.
- Christopher Wilson is an Oatle senior marjoring in political science and personnel administration.
Nicaragua's history a cousin to Cuba's
to hear Carole Engle talk about Nicaragua is enough to bring on a severe case of deja vr.
Engle, a professor of agriculture at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, told a local audience that Americans needn't be concerned about Managua's little red junta being a cover for the Communists. She said Nicaraguans were capitalists by nature and culture.
It all sounds eerily familiar. Remember the heady talk 30 years ago about the great things Fidel Castro's regime was going to do for Cuba? Remember how Cubans, fun-loving individuals that were, would never tolerate a communist state? As it turned out, there's not much chance the committees everywhere the prisons overflowing and the economy in the usual socialist shamles.
Since those assurances were offered, Cuba has become the Soviet Union's chief outpost in the Western hemisphere, not to mention a ready supplier of cannon fodder around the globe. Cuba's chief export is no longer sugar but refugees. Civil unrest existent, and the secret police are pervasive
The same trends, and the same excuses, are obvious in Nicaragua. Professor Engle assured her listeners that Nicaraguans never would accept a heavily autocratic communist state. What
Paul Greenberg
Syndicated columnist
do they have now — a lightly autocratic communist state? Now the Sandinistas have promised to allow free elections and open criticism if they win. Daniel Ortega is a jefersonian democrat.
The latest demonstration against the Stalinists, this one in Managua, drew only 5,000 to 10,000 protesters, perhaps because the one before that was broken up by force and its leaders thrown in prison. La Prensa, one of the most courageous journals in the hemisphere, continues its struggle against censorship in its inflation rate at last report was 20,000 per capita.
Professor Engle said the standard of living in Nicaragua "has risen for the majority through the Sandinistas' efforts," an analysis that might interest the tide of Nicaraguan that arrives in Miami everyday — as the Cubans arrived before them.
The simplest and most threadbare explanation for this familiar story is that it's all the fault of
Yankee imperialists. This thesis grows less persuasive to Nicaraguans. It does, however, retain an irresistible charm for Americans who like their politics simple and guilt-ridden.
"By aiding the contras." Engle warns, "we are waging war against an absolutely poor country." Lest we forget, the contrasts are Nicaraguans, too. And they seem to have made the oldest mistake in the freedom fighter's manual. They trusted American promises. Thus, they effectively have been disarmed by the Congress of the United States.
American opposition has driven the Sandistas into the arms of the Soviet Union, Professor Engle said. She may be confusing cause with effect. This country poured hundreds of millions into Nicaragua under the Carter Administration and stopped only after it became clear that the new regime was bent on betraying what had been a democratic revolution.
Only among intellectuals can the Cuban and Nicaraguan tragedies be blamed on the United States forever. Things that may seem obvious to ordinary folks — like the absence of political and social interaction over impinge on the kind of visitor to a communist country who doesn't see past the slougars.
BLOOM COUNTY
Paul Greenberg is a syndicated columnist who writes for the Pine Bluff, Ark., Gazette.
by Berke Breathed