Wednesday, October 1, 1980
page 4
daily nebraskan
Chase restrictions needed
Legislative hearings were held
recently concerning Nebraska State
Patrol high-speed chases! The
hearings were spurred in part by an
incident in which a patrolman died.
That particular chase resulted
from the suspect's failure to pay a
$13 gasoline bill.
Suggestions were made at the
hearing, ranging from a test track
where patrolmen could practice their
high-speed driving ability to pattern
ing Nebraska's law after a Colorado
statute under which only felony sus
pects would be pursued.
Nebraska's patrol chief, however,
said a line could not be drawn con
cerning when a patrolman should
chase a vehicle, endangering the lives
of innocent drivers and their passen
gers. Patrolmen, he said, are trained
to judge when such a risky move is
necessary, and should not be restrict
ed in doing their jobs.
We disagree. Chases at 100-plus
mph are not worth lives of patrol
ment or possibly innocent people
when $13 is at stake. Nor can we
imagine many instances in which a
misdemeanor violation is threaten
ing enough to public safety to risk
several lives.
More ridiculous than the idea of
running down misdemeanor suspects
is the thought of spending tax
dollars to build an area where such
dangerous tactics can be practiced.
Building a patrolman's confidence in
his ability to drive safely on a
practice range might encourage him
or her to engage in more such chases
in traffic.
In many cases, the vehicle can be
identified by license plate, and, if a
misdemeanor is suspected, the chase
should end once such identification
is made. "Starsky and Hutch" tactics
like shooting at tires should be left
to . television unless the suspected
crime is severe enought to force
apprehension of the individual as
soon as possible.
Other editorials have said as much.
Now, the Legislature should consider
the testimony presented at its
hearings, balance those opinions with
common sense and restrict the
situations in .which officers abandon
safety to arrest a suspect.
A point that needs to be made is
that those chased are only suspects
it would be, a genuine crime if the
patrol or another law enforcement
agency chased an otherwise innocent
frightened youth to his death.
Very seldom can the Legislature
pass a law that won't cost money to
implement that is in the public
interest. We hope this opportunity is
not missed.
NAACP starts economic campaign
WASHINGTON-The NAACP leader
ship, sensing a slowdown and even some
slippage in black America's quest for
equality, is about to launch a full-scale
economic campaign that goes far beyond
its traditional civil rights activism.
Margaret Bush Wilson, the associations'
national president, said in a recent inter
view that the NAACP is proud of its role in
helping black Americans reach its present
"plateau"-relative economic security for'
the black middle class-but said it has been
frustrated in its efforts to produce the
same sort of progress for low-income
blacks.
Last February, she asked Washington
economist Herrington Bryce to prepare a
set of recommendations, "cast in a broad
policy framework," of ways to deal with
the problems that remain.
Bryce has completed his assignment and
Wilson says the organization will shortly
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begin to devise specific programs to imple
ment his recommendations.
It may be the toughest job the organiza
tion has faced in its 71 -year history.
In many ways, the 1960s, with their
marches and jailings, their cattle prods and
head-splittings, were the easy days. The
objectives were clear and limited: a civil
rights law, a court decision or adoption of
a particular program.
. Policies and programs
"Now," says Bryce, "we have come to
the conclusion-which is a significant de
parture for the NAACP, indeed a signifi
cant departure for a lot of people-that
black economic problems can ho longer be
resolved by specific laws and programs but
rather we have to begin to deal with a
series of policies and programs that go
across the board.
"The problem, for instance, is no longer
confined to job training, but we have to
be able to deal with the way crime and the
criminal-justice system impact on the un
employment problem; with the way the
military impacts on unemployment; with
poverty and unemployment; with business,
with education, with residential mobility
and their impact on unemployment.'
"We don't deny discrimination; that
would be very foolish because, of course,
it exists," Bryce said. "What we are saying
is that we ourselves have to assume a
degree of responsibility."
The responsibility theNAACP proposes
to undertake includes programs to improve
career counseling for young blacks, efforts
to help black servicemen learn military
skills that are applicable to civilian life and
encouraging blacks to acquire technical
and secretarial skills so as to be prepared
for technological change.
Young people
While a major part of the NAACP's new
thrust will be on getting young people to
prepare for jobs in those sectors of the
economy that are likely to experience the
greatest growth in the coming years, there
is also a new awareness of the effect on
blacks of government policies that osten
sibly have nothing to do with race.
"What frightens me now is that it is the
kind of thing that will require a great deal
of oversight, which, as of now, we really
don't have the capacity to do.
"But it's clear to me that we're simply
going to have to learn to do it. Not all of
our problems can be blamed on white
folks."
(c) 1830, The Washington Post Company
Foreign policy should
seek common interests
Many Americans have a distorted view
od world politics. This world-view can
be traced back to the vanity of our
founding fathers. Its continuation in the
context of the modern world is not only
hypocritical, but also extremely danger
ous. This conception of international
relations emphasizes differences be
tween states-differences that cannot be
resolved short of destruction of one of
the conflicting states.
The traditional American world-view
is rooted in the moral arrogance of the
New World 'founders. Theirs was to be
a different kind of political system:
a democracy, inherantly superior to the
immoral autocracies of Europe.
In the international arena, power pol
itics was shunned by the new society.
Power was seen as the instrument of
evil statesmen who did not have to
contend with the moderating forces
of democratic popular will. The monar
chies of Europe were seen as intrinissic
aily wicked.
America assumed a policy of non
alignment in her early years in order
to preserve her international chastity
through avoidance of the tainted poli
tics of the Old World.
According to the American national
myth, she involved herself in global poli
tics only when provoked by wicked
acts of states less chaste than she. Once
provoked, our moral self-concept made
it difficult for us to compromise with
the evil transgressor.
Our moral arrogance dictated Ameri
can foreign policy. We had to destroy
the source of evU and remake the of
fending state in our own image of
pristine goodness.
Moral arrogance
John Spanier has argued that this
moral arrogance is the basis of an abso
lutist foreign policy in which diplomacy
and force become divorced. Peaceful
diplomacy is seen as the norm of intern
al relations, war an aberration introduc
ed by evil states or statesmen.
War is not, then, a continuation of
diplomacy (in the sense of Karl von
Clausewitz) but rather is its antithesis.
War is justified only to destroy evil and
enable a return to peaceful diplomacy.
Under this doctrine the United States
would go to war, not to attain limited
objectives in national interest, but to
annihilate a foreign devil. American
foreign policy would swing from peace
ful diplomacy to holy war.
Such arrogance is manifested in the
Monroe Doctrine, in Wilson's Fourteen
Points, in Truman's Containment
and in Ronald Reagan's conception of
the "city on the hill." It is an American
tradition and it is a dangerous distortion
of the inter-national milieu.
For as America has grown, she has
become more entangled in the politics
of an interdepend ant world. Isolation
ism is, of necessity, no longer a govern
. ing doctrine of U.S. foreign policy. Yet
holy crusades of democratic righteous
ness have not yet been recognized in
popular culture as the perilous self,
elusions which they are.
The perversion of our world-view
results from the incomplete framework
of analysis we apply to the international
relations. There are three levels of anal
ysis which we may use. Our doctrine
of self-righteousness emphasizes two
levels at the expense of a third, and
herein lies our error.
The first level of analysis is the indi
vidual level, and it deals with those indi
vidual characteristics which may have an
impact on foreign policy.
The second level is the nation -state.
At this level, characteristics of particu
lar states which influence their policies
are examined. We are too well acquaint
ed with these levels of analysis, as they
have often been allowed to dominate
our foreign policy decision-making pro
cess. Witness our destruction of the Kais
er, and our policy of the Containment
of Soviet Communism, to name only
two examples of our efforts to combat
perceived evil men and nations. We
often refuse to recognize that there are
other more powerfulfactors influencing
the foreign policy of every state.
Governing truth
These factors are found at the third
level of analysis: the international sys
tem. The governing truth of the inter
national system is that it is composed
of sovereign states.
Each state is ultimately responsible
for its own welfare and security. Each
uses the means at its disposal to pursue
its national interests. Paramount among
these is the preservation of each state's
sovereignty-its continued survival as an
independent national entity.
With the advent of weapons the
mass destruction International system
members have been forced to recog
nize the contingent nature of their
existence. Total war is increasingly
an unacceptable means of pursuing
national interests, for total war can now
lead to nuclear Armageddon. This is a
nuclear age fact of life and applies to all
states, by virtue of their existence in the
shadow of The Bomb.
Our analysis at the state system level
tells us that manichean dualisms of ab
solute good and evil are inappropriate
bases for foreign policy in the nuclear
era. We must recognize that all states
have certain interests in common, and
seek a rational foreign policy of comp
romise and peaceful coexistence based
on that realization. Holy war is out of
style. It remains only for American pop
ular culture to recognize this fact, and
to excercise a moderating influence on
iur foreign policy. .
The article
Student Proclaims Nixon The Only Real
Choice" deserves harsh rebuttal. It presents
a student who seems apathetic, foolish and
politically naive.
TTie article presents a student with an
attitude that is flagrant and thoughtless
But this is not the true picture. I know.I
am that student.
For a journalism major (and a serious
one), I have never read an article in any
paper of any caliber that contradict it
se f like this one does. When this paper
asked to interview me I thought that to
stress my purpose would be taken serious
y. Unfortunately, they have placed my ser
busness in the wrong area. The focus is en
tirely off-target.
I stressed over and over to the "report-er"-Maureen
Costello-that Nixon was used
only as an attention-getter-I cannot, how
ever, deny that my personal belief is that
he was a significant foreign policy presi
dent and a very capable man. He took
whatever means Re had at his disposal
yes, unfortunately, he was a crook, and he
let us down.
To say that I 4,rationalized Nixon's
actions" is absurd. I cannot. And in
referance to saying a man will do any
thing he must to pursue what he believes
is right" is in the least sixth-grade idealism
that just doesn't hold water in today's poli
cies. Continued on Page 5