page 4
daily nebraskan
thursday, September 3, 1981
U.S. support needs evaluation
As the policies of Prime Minister Menachem
Begin grow more reckless, it's clear that the
United States needs to re-evaluate our support
for the Begin government.
The United States has long been Israel's lead
ing ally, but it is getting harder and harder to
swallow the rantings of Begin.
Narrowly re-elected this summer. Begin
campaigned throughout Israel whipping his fol
lowers into a political frenzy. The campaign
against Shimon Peres of the Labor Party was
full of invective and self-righteousness.
This culminated in the June 7 attack on the
Iraqi reactor near Baghdad that Begin claimed
was necessary to prevent Iraq from using nu
clear weapons against Israel.
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Israel has said it will not be the first to intro
duce nuclear weapons into the Middle East but
will not be the last either.
Begin's blatant political opportunism in the
timing of his attack worked to his advantage as
it cut support from the more rational candida
cy of Peres. A country suffering from an infla
tion rate of 1 20 percent is susceptible to easy
answers and the Israeli's chose Begin's.
Begin called the bombing of the Iraqi nu
clear plant a "defensive action." But if his logic
were carried out daily, countries throughout
the Middle East and the world would be drop
ping bombs on each other to prevent an attack.
This schoolyard mentality will only drive the
tenuous situation in the Middle East closer to
another war.
Begin must learn that his cries of "Never
again" serve a good political purpose, but lose
their meaning when viewed through the current
international situation.
The Reagan administration chose to go along
with the condemnation vote in the United Na
tions knowing it would have little effect.
The administration then suspended the sale
of 16 U.S.-buiIt jet fighters similar to the ones
used in the Iraqi attack. The subsequent inves
tigation into the use of the planes resulted in
the administration being unable to determine
whether the planes were used offensively or de
fensively. Clearly, the administration found itself be
tween a rock and a hard place.
To find the Israelis responsible would have
required firm action from Washington against
one of our allies. But to let Israel get away with
such an act of international provocation would
have cast doubts to the validity of the United
States' ability to intervene in the search for
peace.
But now that the administration has cleared
the way for Israel to receive the jets, Begin
should be a little grateful to the United States
for our support.
The election is safely behind him, but his
majority of one in the Knesset may prove to
cause more problems for Begin than if he had
been defeated.
Initial heresy now ACLU orthodoxy
Roger Nash Baldwin came out of that Boston Unitarian
tradition in which one is encouraged to dissent first, and
ask questions later. In that milieu, it has always been an
honor to be called a heretic. So Baldwin, born in 1884,
grew up practicing, and defending, heresy.
During World War I he served a term in prison as a sort
of conscientious objector. Nobody ever accused him of
lacking guts.
But it was hard for anyone as patrician as he was to get
himself arrested: he practically forced his attentions on
the police, pointing out he had as much right to be jailed
as his fellow radicals of humbler stock.
It was also during this period that he formed the Nat
ional Civil Liberties Bureau, precursor of the American
Civil liberties Union, for the purpose of protecting leftist
radicals from persecution and prosecution, as the case
might be.
He had caught the left oug from the anarchist Emma
Goldman, who later ex iated him for continuing to
admire the Soviet systei ong after her own disillusion
ment. Hie '20s were the ACLUs Golden Age: the Scopes
trial, Sacco and Vanzetti, a socialist movement basking in
the hopes radiating from the new, improved Russia.
Baldwin was sure his ideas were those that would shape
the future. He wasn't altogether wrong nor altogether
happy when he saw how that future was turning out.
In those sunny days, though, free of doubt, Baldwin
spoke cheerfully of the "class struggle" and frankly
admitted the apparent inconsistency of supporting civil
liberties in free countries, while defending socialist
dictatorship in Russia.
The inconsistency, he contended, was only apparent.
"When that power of the working class is once achieved,
he wrote, "as it has been only in the Soviet Union, I am
for maintaining it by means whatever." He defended
Stalin's repressions as late as 1934 on grounds that "no
champion of a socialist society could fail to see that some
suppression was necessary to achieve it."
Meanwhile the ACLU, which had originally included
people like Norman Thomas, Helen Keller and Felix
Frankfurter, had opened its arms to Communists. One of
them, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, managed to be an official
of both the ACLU and the Communist Party of the
United States of America - an odd sort of interlocking
directorate.
Actually Mrs. Flynn had been on the ACLlTs govern
ing board from the start, and remained there until 1940,
when the left, sundered by the Hitler-Stalin alliance, had
an internal showdown over the issue.
Baldwin at last recognized that there was more bad in
Hitler than there was good in Stalin, and forced the Com
munists to resign.
After World War II Baldwin helped Douglas MacArthur
design a new constitution for occupied Japan, a distant
outpost for Unitarian missionary work. As Baldwin look
ed on from retirement, the ACLU has moved back toward
the left and has abandoned its old aloofness from politics.
Meanwhile, constitutional scholarship has found more
and more evidence that the BI1 of Rights was never
intended to mean what socialists and liberals wish it had
meant.
Alexander Hamilton opposed ratification of the Bill of
Rights precisely because he feared the kind of miscon
struction the ACLU would later indulge on a grand scale,
twisting the enumerations of certain rights into a more
general disparagement of liberty.
It is the perverse triumph of Roger Baldwin that his
rhetorical gimmickry has made it possible for leftists, who
favor maximal government, to masquerade as libertarians,
who favor the minimal state.
The ACLU today supports things like forced busing -in
the name of "civil liberties.' Baldwin's heresy has
turned out to be a rigid orthodoxy.
(c) Lot Angelas Tims Syndicate
Availability of gun
helps breed crime
Following the shootings of John Lennon, President
Reagan and Pope John PaulII, there were the expected
exhortations for some type of gun control policy in the
United States. As was also to be expected, with the pas
sing of the initial emotional reactions, no steps were taken
to stop the proliferation of violence in society.
Americans have become so jaded that even the most
outrageous events cause little concern over what has gone
wrong. Each time "a public figure is shot, the degree of
public indignation lessens.
It does not matter where you stand politically, the
shooting of a president has tragic connotations.
It is not as if positive actions are impossible. There are
already limitations on the types of weaponry a person
may legally own. There are regulations requiring gun per
mits in many areas.
Kpo3 niiups
The argument that guns do not kill people, peopledo,
and that if guns were not available killers would use
knives, bats, etc., is not reason enough to make no effort
to curb the spread of violence.
Gun control advocates do not contend that their poli
cies would bring about the end of violent acts. It would
simply be made more difficult for such acts to occur.
There would be one less instrument available. At this
time, it is too easy for any person to obtain a gun.
Those who believe that they need their guns to protect
themselves and their property, appear to have given up on
the mechanics of societal living, like official law enforce
ment organizations, etc. For these people there can only
be a movement towards anarchy.
The point is not to have a weapon when attacked, but
to create a community in which attacks do not occur. Be
sides, a readily available gun is just as likely to harm its
owner, or some other accidental victim, as it is likely to
save the television set from a prowler.
It can also be suggested that the loose availability of
guns helps breed crime, rather than protecting the indivi
dual from crime. An atmosphere is created in which the
gun becomes acceptable, even attractive, and there is
essentially only one violent, function for the gun.
On the surface, there seems to be a foundation for
some type of gun control action in the United States.
Public opinion polls continually show that a majority
of Americans favor handgun registration. Many Americans
are also tired of seeing their leaders become sitting ducks,
or captives of their offices.
But the affection for owning guns permeates our na
tion, from the frontier tradition, to the odd feeling of se
curity it gives some.
There is also that group known as the National Rifle
Association, which could give the other lobbies in Wash
ington lessons in organization, finance and power politics.
Not even a rather mild form of gun control, handgun regi
stration, has gotten by these obstacles.
Perhaps, since there is such a determinism within gun
owners to keep their weapons, we should do as one. law
yer has suggested, and make the owners legally responsible
for their guns. (They are already morally responsible).
tveryone could keep their guns, even buy more if they
desired. They would only have to notify the authorities
that they have that particular gun.
Then, if any crime were ever committed with that wea
pon, they would be liable 'to the same charges as the
criminal. Prospective owners would have to shy away,
meaning there would be fewer guns around.
Persons who already have guns would have to guard
them more carefully. The onus would be placed on those
who feel the need to have a gun.
Obviously, this is an absurd solution, but it fits the pre
sent situation, and it emphasizes the impact that a gun can
have. What rationale is there is allowing our cities and sub
urbs to become armed camps?
At the very least, handguns should be controlled, or
are they needed for hunting too?
Gun control requires legislation, and a massive shift of
the attitudes we have about guns. It will not end crime, or
even shootings,but it will be a progressive step towards
that end.
Hopefully, action can be taken without the dramatic
impetus of another assassination attempt.
