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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Tuesday, April 15, 1986
No monopoly on terror
Everyone knows it's not smart to spit into the wind, it's not good to put a crazy person in a red room and it's foolish to keep poking a mad dog with a stick.
However, that's what the United States is doing with Libya's Moammar Khadafy, whom President Reagan recently called the "mad dog of the Middle East."
Khadafy seems to be the man Reagan loves to hate, a man who Reagan thinks is the mastermind behind all terrorist acts. But to many experts on the Middle East, Khadafy is a minor character on the large stage of terrorism.
The Reagan administration has failed to realize that the solution to terrorism won't be brought about by exterminating Khadafy. The solution lies in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. Until then, terrorism will continue, even if Khadafy is gone.
Sol Linowitz, a former Middle East negotiator under President Carter, recently warned that terrorism would not go away with Khadafy.
"We have to be very careful
in assuming, one man is responsible and that doing away with him will solve the problem," he said.
Despite the warnings from experts, Reagan continues to stand in his safe house and call Khadafy names, while U.S. citizens traveling abroad become victims.
Last month, Reagan sent aircraft carriers to the Gulf of Sidra, daring to cross the "line of death" to provoke Khadafy. The only result of that confrontation was that it increased Khadafy's status in the Arab world and allowed Khadafy to claim he fought the 6th Fleet and won.
Recently, the United States blamed Khadafy for the bombing of a West Berlin nightclub and sent aircraft carriers to the Mediterranean prepared to attack Libya, waiting for the command from Reagan.
The Reagan administration should reconsider this latest move against Libya and study the real problem of terrorism, the Arab-Iraeli conflict. And for the good of all, stop poking at the mad dog.
Apology doesn't heal
An apology heals few wounds. Like a Band-Aid, an apology covers the hurt and sometimes even makes us feel a little better. But Band-Aids and apologies are just surface measures that don't really heal any injuries.
Too often, remarks are made without thought and an apology is expected to make everything all right. Such is the case in Jackson County where a circuit judge made offensive comments while ordering a new trial for a man charged with raping and sodimizing a woman at knifepoint.
Judge Tom J. Helms said it wouldn't be too traumatic for the victim to testify in a second trial since "it wasn't a brutal rape" and "it could have been much worse."
Although the judge has written a formal letter of apology to the victim saying he did not mean to minimize the severity
of the attack or the trauma she suffered, his words are merely a superficial bandage covering the injury inflicted by his earlier comments.
A typical myth about rape is that the trauma is less if a victim isn't beaten up; if she doesn't come out of the ordeal battered and bruised, then she wasn't really hurt.
It is abhorrent that this attitude exists at all. For a judge to spout such offal is nauseating.
Any official who is responsible for seeing to it that justice is served must be above the falicies that surround rape or any other crime. Above all, he must never attempt to make trivial the effect of a crime on a victim.
Yes, Helms has said he's sorry, and the rape victim said she appreciated the apology. But it probably will be a very long time before this particular wound heals.
Problem increase
Tuition at the Board of Regents schools continue to defy gravity. Once again a Regents committee approved a tuition increase for the seven Regents schools.
The Regents want to add an extra $100 to the tuition for out-of-state students. The measure seems fair on the surface — Kansas taxpayers and their children deserve a break, and students from outside Kansas can take up the slack.
The proposed increase is a modest 3 percent, and tuition at the University of Kansas remains a bargain. But a couple of twists in this year's proposal could create problems for KU.
But KU would suffer more from this part of the proposal than the other Regents schools. Now, 29 percent of KU students come from out of state, the highest in the Regents system.
Low out-of-state tuition is
especially important when competing with our peer schools — universities that offer similar academic programs. As tuition rises, more students will choose the schools that offer the same education at a lower cost.
The state Legislature is the source of the other complaint. While the Regents ask students to cover more of the costs of their educations, lawmakers are holding the line on spending for higher education.
Students here don't expect a free ride -- in fact at KU, students as a whole pay a higher percentage of their education costs than the Regents expect of the state schools.
But before students will sign on to another boost in fees, we want to see the same commitment to higher education from our legislators.
News staff
News staff
Michael Totty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Editor
Louise McMillen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Managing editor
Chris Barber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Editorial editor
Cindy McCurry . . . . . . . . . . . Campus editor
David Giles . . . . . . . . . . . Sports editor
Wilfred Lee . . . . . . . . . . Photo editor
Susanne Shaw . General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Brett McCabe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Business manager
David Nixon . . . . . . . . . . . Retail sales manager
Jim Williamson . . . . . . . . . . . Campus manager
Jon Eckert . . . . . . . . . Classified manager
Caroline Innes . . . . . . . Production manager
Pallen Lee . . . . . . . . National manager
John Ozerzan . . . . . Sales and marketing adviser
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Oil industry can't function as free market
19 1928, when the aristocrat Herbert Hoover was running for president, the notorious critic H.L. Mencken wrote, "All the candidates for the presidency of the Republic run true to form. That is to say they are all palpable frauds. What they really want is the job."
Many of the critics of George Bush think the same of him. Among his top critics are some conservatives who en shade of liberalism in Bush.
Bush's image is rather spotty. As if his penchant for verbal blunders weren't enough, several conservatives wonder whether Bush is true to form (that is a palpable fraud) or truer to the free market principle.
Early last week, Bush visited Saudi Arabia and said some things that at first sounded like another blunder, concerning the recent oil situation.
The press reported and interpreted him as begging the Saudis to cut down on their production of petroleum.
During the past four months, oil prices have dropped 60 percent to as low as $10 a barrel. Despite the benefit of faster economic growth these last few months, the drop has had a negative impact on the U.S. oil industry and the banking industry in the oil belt states.
Jack Kemp, whose dedication to free market economics nobody questions, has stressed the importance of a strong domestic oil industry.
Evan Walter Staff columnist
After his meeting with King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, members of Congress immediately criticized Bush for acting more like a competing oil producer, requesting that his Saudi competitors cut production, than like a vice president dedicated to free market principles.
Bush defended himself, denying that his intent was to manipulate oil prices, but rather he desired price stabilization. A seemingly careless defense, his part could only be explained by considering the specialty of the situation.
Get this straight. Stabilizing prices means one of two things. First, it can mean that the natural flow of goods and services, guided by the invisible hand, will stabilize itself at equilibrium between the effectual demand and the production. Second, it can mean stabilizing through negotiation within the industries, which has been the 20th-century free marketer's concession to the economic planners.
The president, in his news conference Wednesday, said he supported everything that Bush said, reiterating the administration's firm belief in the free market. Bush was concerned about the state of the U.S. oil industries. Free markets can't accomplish their purpose without competition.
"There are some major producers of oil who are governments, not private corporations or business people . . . you can't ignore the possibility that somebody would think of driving (the price) down to the point that they get rid of a lot of competition."
in the dichotomy of free market interpretations, the administration appears more as believers in the preservation of competition than in 19th-century Social Darwinism. Reagan gave a proper answer — not necessarily the proper defense — to those questioning Bush in Saudi Arabia.
"While we've said that we believe this whole thing with the oil prices should be settled on a basis of free market," Reagan said, "the market on oil is not completely free.
Doesn't this sound strikingly similar to the concept behind a popular board game? How can a country challenge this concept on the level of international trade? Either by protectionist policies or by sending a smooth-talking vice president to ask the international monopolists to please stabilize (or raise) their current price.
The die-hard believers in the free market traditionally boathe any attempt at back-handed protectionism. The market will on its own compensate the future shift in production, and this price shift will change but won't hurt the long run.
This situation deserves special attention, though, as the oil industry don't work the same way as other industries, because of the power of manipulation and potential for monopoly OPEC has shown in recent years.
Saudi Arabia isn't a company capable of annihilating competition — which would warrant enough concern, but a country whose manipulation will harm the U.S. economy.
Americans don't want tax reform
Staring at a mountain of paper on my dining room table, I wondered what had ever happened to tax simplification.
You remember a couple of years ago, everybody in Washington, from the president on down, suddenly had a plan to make paying our taxes easier and less expensive.
The monster that is our present tax system was finally going to get caged.
No more loopholes or tax shelters.
No more adding line a to line b and multiplying by line c, and subtracting the square root of d multiplied by line e, while wondering if you will go to prison if you forget to include line g from schedule 12z.
We were all going to pay the same flat rate, an idea I first heard from Professor Milton Friedman almost 20 years ago. Or if not the same rate, one of three or four rates, depending on how much we earned.
when the politicians began talking about it, the proposal seemed so sensible that I immediately knew it was never going to happen.
Even when the various tax simplification bills were submitted in Congress, I just opened another cardboard box and began tossing in more receipts and canceled checks.
We'd no longer have to hire accountants or go to the tax stores. We'd no longer have to fill drawers and cardboard boxes with receipts and canceled checks, and save them for years in case of an audit.
Everybody except the genuine poor would pay their fair share and it would be done by filling out a simple form.
Best of all, we'd no longer have to feel guilty because we might not have paid enough, or stupid because we might have paid too much.
And that's the way it turned out.
The lobbvists swarmed over
Washington. Real estate, big business, little business, the tax shelter people, everyone with something to depreciate.
"Save the loopholes" became a more popular cause than saving the whales. And the amendments began flying.
Mike Royko Chicago Tribune
The result is that the bills still floating around Congress no longer resemble their original selves. What they resemble most is the present tax system. In the meantime, the present tax system has become even more complicated.
The result is that the bills still floating around Congress no longer resemble their original selves. What they resemble most is the present tax system. In the meantime, the present tax system has become even more complicated.
their congressmen, forming pressure groups of their own, making as much noise about the tax system as they do about a baseball game.
But it had to happen that way. And it isn't really the fault of Congress. There won't be a fair tax system because the majority of people in this country really don't want it. If they did, they'd have it. They'd be calling
why don't they want it? Because the majority of Americans think that a fair system is one in which somebody else pays more than they do.
If you stop 50 people on the street and ask them whether they are paying their fair share, almost all would say yes.
But if you ask them if other people pay their fair share, they would sneer and say, no, most people are getting away with something — cheating, dodging, evading. Only a few, such as themselves, are truly honest.
And ask them who are the worst cheats? Most would agree that the rich cheat the most. The more money they have, the more they cheat.
Actually, studies have shown that middle-class taxpayers cheat as much as or more than anybody else, and they get away with it more easily because they're less likely to be audited.
And that's why the present system is popular.
And it provides a certain degree of fairness in that the countless deductions and loopholes let everyone have a chance to shave something here and trim it there.
That's all we really want, isn't it—the freedom to complain that somebody else is getting away with something, and the opportunity to get away with it ourselves?
Mailbox
Campers' statement
On April 10, the Kansas University Endowment Association announced to the KU community that it had adopted an official policy of selective divestment earlier this year. The campers at Youngberg Hall think this policy and its delayed announcement were in response to years of struggle by KU students and faculty against Endowment Association financial support for South Africa's apartheid system.
The announcement signaled a clear shift from the Endowment Association's past public position and was a clear endorsement of the concept of socially responsible investment. Because of this new position, the campers decided to pull up stakes at Bigbucksville and to refocus their energies on different tactics.
In addition to bringing direct pressure on the Endowment Association, we believe the camp also enhanced community awareness of our involvement in the South African problem. Visitors to the Endowment Association and the staff at Youngberg were reminded by our daily presence of our collective complicity in apartheid.
The camp also brought out some of the racists in this area and made it clear that the struggle for civil rights must still continue in this country. The camp was a clear demonstration that nonviolent, legal action is a viable tool for promoting social awareness and change.
There remain the questions of the adequacy of the Sullivan principles and the timetable for Endowment Association action against those firms that do not live up to the obligations the Endowment Association has endorsed. And no formal channels for
moving out of the camp is not a signal that the struggle for freedom is over. The Endowment Association's public change of policy was only one battle in the larger war to end aparthief. We leave because we think the camp has achieved all that it could be reasonably expected to accomplish.
Their claim that "no one had asked" files in the face of the clear concern expressed by the KU community on the issue over the past nine years. Such a position reinforces the need for continual pressure on the Endowment Association to ensure they will indeed follow the selective divestment position they have now publicly endorsed.
While the Endowment Association maintains its policy has been a longstanding one, there had been no communication of it until they were confronted with our continuing presence. A public announcement when they adopted this policy would have been a new starting point for discussion and action.
U. S. corporations allow apartheid to smoothly function, and the Endowment Association now recognizes the legality of withdrawing money from these pillars of apartheid. Such a recognition is a first step in bringing an end to the institutionalized racism that has enslaved more than 23 million people of color in South Africa.
dialogue with the Endowment Association on these issues have yet been established.
The struggle there and here will continue.
Dwaiie Hemphill
Manhattan law student
and the other divestment campers
and supporters
Echoes of Vietnam
Goodpasture sank his own boat by chastising the media for creating misconceptions about Nicaragua while simultaneously suggesting that
How ironic that Victor Goods pasture would question the power of the congressmen who voted down Reagan's Nicaraguan aid package, when his own motivation seems to be an inane fear that Soviet tanks will soon be rumbling into Texas.
Name-calling, empty Reaganquean rhetoric and reactionary red-scare tactics hardly constitute a convincing defense of U.S. intervention in Central America.
human rights abuses in that country are solely the work of the Sandinistas.
Confounded logic notwithstanding, Goodpasture must realize that monetary aid alone will not defeat the communist government in Nicaragua. Should the United States commit itself to the task of overthrowing the Sandinistas, it will soon feel the need to send military advisers and eventually troops. This scenario, thanks to a conflict we know as Vietnam, is hauntingly familiar.
Goodpasture asks, "Will the United States have the courage to oppose the cancer of communism, especially is this hemisphere?"
A more appropriate question: Will the United States have the sense to keep the nationalistic, nee-McCarthy paranoia from dangerously over-simplifying its foreign affairs decisions?
Ben Hall
Iowa City, Iowa, sophomore
Vacation infringement
I was very disappointed to read in the Kansan that as of next year our Easter Monday holiday will be eliminated. The reasoning behind this is "to help the semester move along quickly, and to get our business over with."
Whose opinion is this? How many students really mind getting out of school on May 15 rather than May 13? On the other band, how many students appreciate being robbed in the opportunity to celebrate Easter with their families?
1. for one, do not appreciate "business" being forced into my celebration of the most important Christian holiday of the year. It is seld enough that the Friday before Easter is no longer a holiday.
Let us not forfeit the entire holiday in the name of business! I hope the nine-member Senate Calendar Committee will reconsider this unfortunate decision.
Christine Wasinger Lawrence graduate student