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Daily Nebraskan
Wednesday, March 3, 1982
JEditorial
Reagan needs uniform image to avoid confusion
Ronald Reagan announced last week that the United
States would no longer receive oil shipments from Libya.
Reagan must have been more than happy to deliver that
message to Americans; after all, it seems OPEC has had a
firm grip on America's throat for a number of years. But,
suddenly it turns out that we can thumb our noses at not
just any member of OPEC, but the loathsome Moammar
Khaddafy and Libya. It fits right in with Reagan's image
of "we aren't going to take any crap from anybody any
more." Often forgotten, however, are the conditions that
allowed Reagan not to take any crap anymore from
Khaddafy. Most important among these is the world oil
glut. The OPEC nations that a few years ago could pluck
an oil price out of the air now find themselves undercut
but non-OPEC nations and even members of their own
ranks selling below the OPF.C price. It's easy to have
Reagan's kind of unflinching principles when things like
economic necessity don't get in the way.
In other matters of foreign policy Reagan has failed to
show this same highly principled attitude. In his dealings
with Taiwan, for example, Reagan has been considerably
less pugnacious than the Reagan who said in the 1980
campaign that he would never sell Taiwan down the river.
He may not be selling them down the river, but he's
also not selling them all of the war materials they want.
Why not? Because he wants to maintain already weak ties
with the People's Republic of China. Reagan doesn't say
much about this issu of course.
Then there is the latest round of dealings with Jordan.
Jordan wanted to buy some mobile land-based weapons
systems from the United States. We wouldn't sell because
Jordan might use them against Israel. But when King
Hussein decided to buy them from the Soviets, our con
cern for the safety of Israel decreased considerably.
The Reagan administration tried to get a foot back in
the door at the last minute but already had lost the sale.
Reagan has yet to comment about that one, too.
Reagan likes to play the tough guy, whether it's with
the Congress, with the press, or with other countries.
What's more, America loves it when he docs; we loved it
when he was tough in the westerns, we still love it when
he acts tough in the White House. But with the sporadic
way Reagan uses the tough-guy stance, all he is liable to
do is eliminate any chance of negotiation with our enem
ies, and confuse our allies. A man as concerned about his
public image as Reagan seems to me would be best off
presenting just one public image;
Legislation on contraception
attempts to regulate morals
My sons says that sometimes it seems
there are two kinds of people in the world
- kids and adults. Kids stay kids forever
and adults were never kids, and while I
have assured him that this is not the case, I
am beginning to wonder myself. The
Reagan people, it seems were never kids.
A case in point is the new regulation re
quiring that parents be notified if teen
agers under the age of 18 seek prescription
Richard
Cohen
contraceptives from federally funded
clinics. The only exception to the new rule
are kids whose parents are likely to beat or
sexually abuse them. Otherwise, it applies
to teen-agers seeking birth control pills,
intrauterine devices or diaphragms.
It's obvious right off that the measure
applies only to girls. They are the ones who
use contraceptive measures requiring pre
scriptions and they are clearly the ones the
sponsors of the new rule have in mind. If
boys needed prescriptions to buy their
contraceptive devices, this new regulation
would have been hooted out of the halls of
the Department of Health and Human Ser
vices before anyone could put it down on
paper.
So it is the girls we are talking about
and we should not be surprised. Much of
the so-called social legislation being discus
sed in Congress is directed at women. In
many guises and with much rhetoric, these
proposals are nothing more than attempts
to take away from women their ability to
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be sexually active on the same basis as men
- without the consequence of an unwant
ed pregnancy.
It probably would do no good to ask
the supporters of this and similar rules and
legislation what they have against women.
It might accomplish more, though, to ask
them about the intent of the new regulat
ion. President Reagan, when asked about it
at his recent press conference, simply said
parents had a right to know these sorts of
things: "Those young people couldn't get
their appendix taken out without their
parents' permission."
True enough. And while sex is not an
appendectomy, no one disputes that in the
best of all possible worlds parents should
know when their children - male or female
- are sexually active. Hut in the best of all
possible worlds, parents should not have to
rely oh the government (or its agent) to tell
them. They should not have to insist that
some Planned Parenthood clinic that re
ceives government funds slip a note in the
mail.
Most parents fight like crazy for any in
formation they can get about their child
ren. It's a rough world out there, a world
full of fast cars and booze and drugs and,
of course, sex with its possible conse
quences - pregnancy and childbirth. Any
one can understand the desire to know as
much as possible, to want the government,
like some good neighbor, to pick up the
equivalent of the phone and fill in some
blanks.
The trouble is that it is asking the
government, in particular a single program,
to do too much. It is asking the program to
make the choice between the desire of the
parents to know and the need of the child
to have contraceptive protection - in
confidence, if need be. After all, the prob
lem is acute. By age 19, almost 66 percent
of all woman have had sexual intercourse
and account for nearly one million births
and abortions a year.
It would be fine if both aims could be
meshed, but in many cases they can not.
The purpose of the contraceptive program
is to cut down on the appalling rate of
teen-age pregnancies with its attendant
appalling toll of illegitimate births, abort
ions, school dropouts and cost to the tax
payer (75 percent of births to teen-age
mothers require some form of public sub
sidy). Other programs should encourage child
ren to open up to their parents and the
other way around as well. Yet many . of the
same people who urge the adoption of the
new rule are opposed to sex education in
the schools. They contradict themselves so
many ways it is a wonder they can walk -not
to mention still talk about getting the
government off our backs.
Anyone who was ever a child knows
that the new rules will do nothing more
than assure that some teen-agers, fearing
the reaction at home, will simply not visit
a clinic. Other than that, their behavior will
remain the same. The results are predict
able. Teen-agers who shy from letting their
parents know they are sexually active will
not become celibate. They will become
pregnant.
Then their parents will know.
(c) 1982. The Washington Post Company
'Ain't it awful?' game played
The behavior of people is described by
the games they play, according to Trans
actional Analysis. This approach to human
interaction analyzes the varieties of human
interchange into specific reciprocal pat
terns - the "games people play." Eric
Berne, the high priest of Transactional
Analysis, used that phrase as the title of
his popular book on the subject.
One of the games described in a TA
manual is "Ain't It Awful?" in which
"game players want agreement from listen
ers in order to confirm that the world is
Qr Chuck
Jagoda
an unhappy place. They seek out problems
because if the entire world is horrible,
it takes away an individual's responsibility
to take care of himself."
A variation of the "Ain't It Awful?"
game is "Look What They Are Doing to
Us Now" game. This involves placing
blame upon an individual or group thought
to be very powerful.
These games are easier to play today
than at any time in recent history. During
the Vietnam War at least there were gov
ernment initiatives in the improvement of
civil rights, the elimination of poverty and
the expansion of educational opportunities
for all.
A thread that has been part of the fabric
of American life - the right of blacks to
sit in the same classrooms as whites -shows
signs of unravelling. Older threads
become bare: Social Security benefits for
the old and disabled are imperiled. More
and more workers are unemployed and
their benefits are in danger. Student loan
payments are cut. The federal budget de
ficit grows, small businesses fail and the
taxpayer earning under $40,000 bears the
expenses and deprivation caused by in
creases in the military budget.
A recent poll revealed that a majority of
people believed financial support for Rea
ganomies was coining almost exclusively
from the lower tax brackets. But in addit
ion most of those polled also believed that
in the long run the economy would
improve.
What is the advantage of having a guar
anteed income of $500 a week if a loaf
of bread costs S480? We seem to accept
the bitter pill to cure our economic ills,
as if the end (economic health) justifies
the means (impoverishment of the already
poor, enriching of the already rich). But
are we even getting the cure we make sac
rifices for? A number of economists don't
think so.
One of them, Robert Lekachman, has
written a book titled Greed Is Xot Enough:
Reaganomics, in which he argues that
supply-side economics and tight-money po
licies are not only mutually contradictory
but ineffective. He maintains that large
corporations, not the supply and demand
fluctuations of a free market, control the
economy.
We have made a bargain with the devil
in which we are sacrificing the small busi
nessmen, the poor, the old, workers and
students. The final word on whether sacr
ifices were worth the cure will have to wait
until a time when we will look back and
say, "Well, it was cruel and heartless and
many suffered but we did end up with a
healthy economy" or "Never have so
many sacrificed so much for the benefit
of so few and had so little to show for it."