The Tar HeelThursday, July 13, 1"7815
Philosophy prof aspires to Senate,
has populist approach to schools, taxes
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by Pat Daugherty
Staff Writer
"Tower to the people' is a slogan that
doesn't have any substance until you
work out the instruments of power and
that's the job of the state legislature," said
Richard A. Smyth, a UNC philosophy
professor running on the Republican
ticket for state Senate from the 16th
District.
Smyth, who specializes in the teachings
of Immanuel Kant, considers himself "a
common sensist" and thinks political and
moral issues ought to be referred to the
judgment of the people.
Smyth stands for democratic
decentralization as opposed to democratic
centralism, control from the center. He
said, "If you look at the legislative record
of the people that I'm running against,
youll see that almost invariably the
legislation that they prefer, takes power,
from the people and moves it to Raleigh or
to Washington. That's a trend that's got
to stop."
"I believe that the liberal movement
that has dominated American politics for
the last 30 or 40 years has run out of
steam intellectually," he said.
"There's no doubt at all that it (his
philosophy background) is a liability in the
campaign because of the association that
it gives me with the university. The
university, politically, is not popular
through the state, or at least through the
16th District which is a very conservative
district. The University is perceived as the
center of liberalism," Smyth said.
He doesn't apologize for bringing his
philosophical background into politics,
however. "I think it's a useful element to
inject into it," Smyth said.
The major issues in his campaign,
Smyth said, are education and taxation.
However, as a teacher, and with three
children in Carrboro-Chapel Hill schools,
Smyth admits that education interests
him most.
"The main thing that I see is that there
is no one problem in education. It's a very
complex area in that there are different
problems at the different levels."
In higher education, Smyth thinks
there is going to be a trend toward
equalization of various elements such as
the uniform wage scale across the
University of North Carolina system. He
thinks such trends will have to be resisted
over the next few years. "What I see from
the inside gives me a very useful kind of
knowledge to bring to Raleigh because it
makes me realize how unrealistic that
kind of equalization is," Smyth said.
Smyth is interested in setting up a
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i
Richard A. Smyth
secondary education system that would
test the school rather than the pupil. "If
"there's failure in the system, it has to be a
failure of the school and not the pupil,"
Smyth said.
According to Smyth, the schools are
failing to prepare students who do not go
to college for actual employment. Smyth
said the state's employment agencies
should be put into the high schools to help
graduates get jobs.
Smyth said inflation "is the forgery of
money by government." He said,
although inflation is basically a federal
problem, "The state Legislature can be an
important battle ground in the general
war against inflation, partly by making a
conscientious effort to hold down costs in
state government, but also by educating
the people about the nature of inflation
and its effects."
Smyth said "Taxes tend to get passed
through until they reach people in the
economy that can't pass them on, and
those are the people with the least
economic leverage. There's an enormous
amount of social injustice involved in that
kind of taxation."
Smyth is running against Charles
Vickery of Chapel Hill and Russell Walker
of Randolph County.
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