Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Oct. 19, 1974, edition 1 / Page 5
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Murray. Fogler Commies threaten UNC? liie JJaily . Tar Heel . 82nd Year Of Editorial Freedom All unsigned editorials are the opinion of the editors. Letters and columns represent the opinions cf individuals. r r Founded February 23, 1893 M lectin n Congress decided this week to delay until after the elections any further investigations of Rockefeller's confirmation or Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon. Just as both issues are finally being plumbed, the hearings have been indefinitely suspended;' It is understandable' that Congress is sensitive to both its dirty work and dirty linen. The Democrats are sitting fat on a predicted landslide victory in November and the Republicans are reluctant to make any more mistakes. But it is not the obvious political considerations that are objectionable. The assumptions underlying both parties strategy is that a moratorium on crucial hearings will somehow lessen their importance in the public eye. Unfortunately, they are probably right. Voters have a notoriously short attention span and a one-month disappearing act, however obvious the sleight of hand, will do the trick. It is sad that blinking at salient issues is usually deemed better campaign strategy, than clear-eyed scrutiny. Both parties are now all too willing to sweep matters under the rug, pretending that there are two clean houses in Washington to present to their .constituents. The worst thing is that we have always believed this fiction. I . - -i hi ttm .Z H i i- 'THE WAY I SEE IT, IF DEALING WITH THE COMMIES WILL KEEP OUR PRICES UP, THAT'S THE RED-BLOODED, FREE-ENTERPRISE, ALL-AMERICAN VAYI' Consumerism ' To the editors: I was disappointed by L.T. McRae's column on plantains and anti-consumerism. As a fellow graduate student in economics, I must take issue with his simplistic comments, regarding the latter type. McRae claims that the fundamental flaw in consumerism (or Naderism) is that it "requires us to assume either that consumers are dumb or that no one will provide them with what they want to buy." I would agree that both of these conditions exist, so that consumerism is a viable stance. Two simple examples lend support to this position. If General Motors Corporation was a country, its assets would rank it as having the 23rd highest GNP in the world. Since such oligopolistic concentration of power goes against the free market system envisoned by McRae. one might think the bill that Ted Kcnncdv has sponsored which calls for the implementation of anti-trust proceedings m.uiiNt that company might find some Nupport in our All-American Senate. Kennedy, couldn't, however, find anyone to sponsor the bill with him. Obviously it would be in the interest of the consumer to have such a bill the $450 increase price in autos this year would be less likely if GM and The Daily Tar Heel welcomes the expression of all points of view through the letters to the editors. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors. This newspaper reserves the right to edit all letters for libelous statements and good taste. Letters should be limited to 3C0 words and must include the name, address and phone number of the writer. Type letters on a 60-space line, double spaced, and address them to Editor, The Daily Tar Heel, in care of the Student Union, or drop them by the office. El the other members of the big three (Chrysler, Ford and GM) weren't quite as mighty. The strength of the automobile lobby, of course, prevents this, and so the consumer goes on, uneducated, grumbling, but still accepting what big business offers. His alternatives are few: when all the major American companies raise their prices, the. only other alternative (besides walking or pedaling) is to buy a foreign car. Unfortunately, many consumers don't even recognize the advantages of that option, so they continue to "buy American." Thus, consumerism can play an important role in educating the dumb American consumer. To refute McRae's second point that companies will always provide the consumer, with what he wants, one need only examine another oligopolistic industry, the drug industry. There are thousands of drugs marketed to aid us through colds and the flu. Much of the research dealing with improvements in drugs is also carried on by a few large companies, With all the funds available for research, why is there still no simple cure for the common cold? If a miracle drug was invented to these ends, its marketing would make many other drugs obsolete, including some of the drugs produced by the company which invented the new drug. The market would be quickly narrowed, and the profits made on the One drug would be offset by the costs incurred by the obsolescence of the others. I don't mean to imply a total conspiracy between the drug companies, but it does seem to make sense for a profit-maximizing firm which controls a large segment of the market to avoid producing a product which would eliminate much of its market. My general point is simple: if a true "free market" system existed in the U.S., McRae's point would be valid, In our present situation, however, many industries are in the control of a few large firms. The consumer is then reduced to choosing between what the big boys" have to offer, or not choosing at all. Consumerism' plays a Saturday, October 19, 1974 are over A much more mature course of action would be for Congress to take only enough time off for campaigning, and not put off important legislation to keep up appearances. After, all, crucial bills and controversial hearings should be a candidate's salvation, not his downfallThe only other factor we may judge a candidate by is his personality, a most unsatisfactory criterion. But that's the way Congress seems to want it. The prime fault lies not with our representatives, but with ourselves, since we are the ones who determine their behavior. If Americans urged Congressmen to stay at work, stump speeches, baby kissing, and hand shaking would be pursued with far less enthusiasm. But we are too flattered by the attention to ask so great a sacrifice. So now our national politicians are practicing being innocuous in Washington between sallies into the countryside to campaign. Even the battle-scarred Wilbur Mills is happy to journey to the hinterlands of Arkansas and the certain scorn of his constituents. Citizens' of all states should criticize their representatives who take month-long electoral holidays when there is important national work to be done. Letters to is vital for protecting consumers vital role in v both educating and offering protection to the consumer. Through its efforts, consumer sovereignty may become a real state of affairs. In closing, I would urge L.T. McRae to: 1 ) Back up his column with economic fact rather than rhetoric; 2) Come over, to the economic graduates' offices on occasion no one here has ever heard of him, and some have speculated that he is actually a sociologist writing incognito; 3) Continue to give us information on consumer issues (his points on plantains had a wonderful reception); and 4) Read something besides Friedman. Bruce Caldwell 426 Craige Etiquette rules for N.C. State To the editors: , ATTENTION: N.C. State students and alumni. Recommended behavior for all personnel for away games of the Wolfpack. 1. Before leaving Raleigh, clear red mud from windshield. 2. Any cardboard box can be made to look like a suitcase if brown liquid shoe polish is smoothly applied. Boxes must have tops but no rope. Please, when a few miles out of Raleigh, remove overalls and brogans and put in your box. Change to your Sunday suit, clean shirt and good shoes, (wear socks), please. 3. Limit occupancy of your car or pickup to a reasonable number of riders, it looks country to overload a vehicle. 4. Those going on their tractors should leave four days early and remember to drive on the right-hand side of the road at all times except when passing a slower tractor or a buddy on a wagon. 5. 1 n route, always buy a full tank of gas, A About once a month in local newspapers, one invariably finds among the letters-to-the-cditor an admonition from a loyal American redneck: take heed America, lest the youth of our country be insidiously corrupted by Communism. This homily is always followed by the full text of an allegedly genuine manifesto, which describes how to gnaw at the foundations of capitalist society by distracting the youth with sex and drugs. Apparently, the time for crying wolf has long since passed. The wolf has already reared its ugly head. This conclusion, reached after weeks of exhaustive research, is as plain as the nose on my face. Look around, people! Can you find one thing to indicate that our nation's youth are proud of their citizenship? There is nothing (don't you think this very article would address itself to relevant issues if there were any?). No one cares about politics anymore. There are still a few die-hard student No case in University judicial system While studying for a take-home quiz last year, a student gave a few veiled hints to her, roommate, who was studying and had the same test. When the tests came out remarkably similar, the girls were tried before Honor Court for cheating. The girls proclaimed their innocence and were able to explain how they independently arrived at their answers, but the court found them guilty on the grounds of collaboration rather than openly copying. Interpretation: hinting can be equivalent to cheating. The girl who had admitted hinting appealed the decision before the Faculty Review Board on grounds of innocence. The Board, hearing the case as an original procedure, tried the evidence, considered the. Honor Court; verdict, and handed down a, decision for acquittal. Interpretation: hinting does not necessarily constitute cheating. The primary question that arose from the two rulings is which court, if either, established a rule of law? On the one hand it seems clear that the Faculty' Review Board has the power to overturn a lower (Honor) .court decision, but because the case was appealed on grounds of innocence rather than point of law, was there a definitive interpretation of cheating established? Can future cases be decided using either interpretation the court chooses, or will the decision be handed down, as it were, in a vacuum? the editors dollar's worth at a time requires too many gas stops. 6. On your arrival, immeditely get settled in tourist home or boarding house. If they don't feed, try to locate near an all-night cafe. 7. Leave soda crackers, Vienna sausage and RC Colas in car or pick-up truck. First class tourist homes and boarding houses do not take kindly to guests who prepare food in their sleeping rooms. 8. Do not take Sears catalog or corn cobs with you. Down there the outhouses are located inside, and they still furnish apaper substitute but remember to pull the knob on the white bowl as this is a house rule and creates less air pollution problems. 9. If invited by a county agent, fertilizer representative or hog vaccine manufacturer representative, to have a drink in his hotel room, do not spit tobacco juice on the carpeted floor, as the stain is very difficult to remove, and some say it isn't sanitary. When asked what you will drink, don't say "Stump Juice." Keep your shoes' on at all times, as holes in your socks make a bad impression. 10. And this above all!!!! Don't let any The Daily Tar Heel Jim Cooper, Greg TurosaK Editors Kevin McCarthy, Managing Editor Barbara Holtzman, Associate Editor Gary Fulton, Associate Editor Joel Drinkley, Haws Editor Harriet Sugar, Features Editor Elliott Varnock, Sports Editor Martha Stevens, Head Photographer Linda Stern, Night Editor politicos around, and they mean well when they exhort everyone to "get involved," but no one does. There is a statewide campaign going on, and, notwithstanding the obvious lack of competent candidates (the Red Menace has infiltrated our political parties!), the interest is so low that an outside observer wouldn't even know there is an election. Think how the commies must relish our economic ills. Free enterprise is convulsing in its death throes and the youth, the next generation of bourgeois capitalists, go to their football games unknowingly. It has become passe to discuss the Universities pre-occupation with sex. but now the disease has been passed on the the very young and old as well. Children are reading obscene literature in the schools, but it is futile to fight it. The cancer has grown too strong. We should have been warned a few years ago when the Chappaquiddick incident awakened our nation to the stark reality Chan Hardwick decision continuity Presumably, the University established the Honor Code and a subsequent legal system, not merely to decide who did or did not break the code, but to render a cohesive set of interpretations which would help determine why a person was " guilty or innocent. As things are now, the closest thing the judicial system has to a continuity among case decisions may be a couple of three-year Honor Court members with good memories. Collecting dust in some filing cabinets in Suite C is the recent history of the school's fragmented, contradictory legal system. The files date back to the 1960s and probably cover every type of qhe a ti n g ?-: b o t tl e -1 h r o w i n g , collaboration, name calling, plagiarism, vandalism, and visitation violation that can be imagined on a college campus. Some of the cases are fascinating either by plea or performance, while others the majority are simple offenses where the defendant admitted his guilt. Why they are kept is something of a secret; they rarely see light. What is implicit in the existence of the records of past cases is the possibility of deriving not just a system of laws Thou shalt not cheat but a system of interpretative justice where verdicts will be handed down on the basis of earlier verdicts, and higher courts can overrule local alumni, businessmen, Colorado oil men or professional people show you up. Constant screaming of "GO PACK, GO" will make it difficult for them to engage you in conversation on their intelligent level. A Carolina fan Marijuana use changes attitudes To the editors: I realize that the article in the 77, "Marijuana Study Shows Few Perils" on Oct. 10 was written about the studies of a much more learned man than most of us and that his findings are from a scientific viewpoint as well as a personal one. But it seems that the article left out almost all of those "few perils." I am not saying that Professor Perez'Reyes is necessarily prejudiced; I just wonder if the professor has tried the drug himself. I guess he has seen much more of marijuana, having been that even our most trusted leaders had been victimized. Now, when the chairman of the House Ways and Means committee is similarly discovered, will we still refuse to be aroused from our slumber? Don't think this Marxian influence is rampant in America alone. A recent survey revealed only 29 per cent of all Britishers still believe in God. Communism has released the people from the opiate of religion, but we must remember that methadone is still dangerous and addictive. It may be too late. All the acclaimed institutions of industrialized societies from individual initiative to participatory democracy -can't hold a . candle to sex and drugs. Perhaps wc should merely resign ourselves to this fact. I may mean the end of those naive letters-to-the-editor, but then no one reads serious newspapers anymore. Murray Fogler is a senior political science major. lower courts, and that this will be done often. It is true that we now have judicial reform which, quite rightly, was devised to make the judicial system more efficient, run with more equanimity. This step seems to be warranted, and may cut down on the human inadequacies of the former Honor Court system. But we still have a lack of continuity within the new set up. There will still be a tendency to judge cases within a vacuum, to hand down decisions on the whim of the court; not that these verdicts are not weighed and often times agonized over, but that they are not tempered by a system of. precedent and - definitive justireATrfe; system of appeals is there, but the ignorance of how it can be used also exists. Our Supreme Court should be flooded. Instead it meets about four or five times a year. The CGC would do well to quit hiring summer interns to dream up the ideal student infirmary, and hire a law student to go through the files and draw up a reasonable system of justice. Chan Hardwick is a senior philosophy-English major. He was on the Attorney General Staff 1972-73, Assistant Attorney General and Court Administrator, 1973-74. educated in Mexico where much of the drug traffic in the United States originates. I know for sure that having been exposed to the effects of the drug outside of the laboratory, I can give some "opinions that are probably less scientific. Long-term users of marijuana experience a change in attitude or overall outlook on life. They seem to emphasize the value of pleasure-seeking as opposed to "straights" who see the superior value of work. Often they become dissatisfied with recent pleasurable experiences and desire a more potent means of pleasure. There are various other perils in the case of long-term marijuana users (which I have and have not been in direct association with), but I just picked out the most obvious. As with any drug, marijuana can produce a change in personality. So maybe what Professor Perez'Reyes should have mentioned is that if you are going to use a drug, use it on a short term basis to prevent a change in personality that could be detrimental in the future. I agree with the statement in the article that marijuana is less harmful overall than alcohol since, as everyone can see, alcohol is the number one drug problem. But that is no reason to legalize marijuana. I am against laws which make drugs that have been detrimentally used more accessible to society. I realize that I am not the perfect judge of anything in this world. Judgments made by human beings are always fallible. But 1 respect the judgments of people in authoritative positions in society because God gave them all they have. I desire the pleasurable effects of an influence to control my actions as I think most people do. After searching through various material things and finding nothing, I have discovered something which gives me an ever-lasting high. If you want to be controlled by something to obtain euphoria try the Holy Spirit. Eph. 5:18. Ben Grooms ' 528 Ehringhaus
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Oct. 19, 1974, edition 1
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