Tuesday, October 26, 1982
Page 4
Daily Nebraskan
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Certification law needs enforcement, not evasion
Sometimes it's hard to tell just who is
abusing the law more in the Faith Christian
School controversy - the Rev. Everett
Sileven or Cass County District Judge Ray
mond Case.
Case's on-again, off-again enforcement
of the state law requiring certification of
all teachers in Nebraska public and private
schools appears to be off again.
In the past week, Case has suspended a
jail term Sileven was serving and reversed
an order that had called for the Faith
Baptist Church building in Louisville to be
padlocked.
Case earlier had ordered the building
locked because Faith Baptist officials re
fused to close the non-approved school.
When Cass County deputies and State '
Patrol officers arrived on the scene Oct. 18
to carry out the order, they had to carry
out 85 ministers who had come in from
around the country to protest the closing.
. Case's order to close the building con
tained a clause that allowed it to be
reopened for services Wednesday and the
ministers threatened to occupy the church
again, thus setting up another confronta
tion with law officials.
That's when Case buckled under
pressure. In order to avoid these problems,
he reversed his order and allowed the build
ing to remain open after Wednesday ser
vices. Cass County Sheriff Fred Tesch also
complained that Case would not allow him
to request National Guard assistance or use
tear gas to disperse the ministers Oct. 18.
"The principal thing is to avoid
violence," Case told the Lincoln Journal
Wednesday. "When their sole purpose is to
resist the laws of Nebraska, you've got a
potential for violence."
This is a breach of Case's judicial obliga
tion to enforce the laws of Nebraska, re
gardless of how certain groups, especially
those who are breaking the law, will react.
Something is wrong with the system when
a judge takes a defendant's actions into
account when enforcing the rules.
Sileven's release came Friday, just 62
days after he began serving a four-month
jail sentence for not complying with an
order to close the school.
In order to be freed, Sileven agreed to
close the school for the time being, al
though he promised to reopen it if the
Nebraska Legislature doesn't grant some
kind of certification exemption to church
schools during its special session next
month.
That's hardly a compromise. The fact
that Sileven has agreed to follow the law,
at least for a few weeks, doesn't hide the
fact that he has been breaking it for several
months.
Sileven's school may or may not turn
out better educated students as he claims.
But one thing is certain. They are sorely
lacking in an education of how the Ameri
can legal system is supposed to work.
Sileven obviously isn't an example of
how it works, and now, Case has failed in
his obligation to provide the example. He
has allowed a criminal to go free who has
more or less said he will; follow the law but
only if it is changed to suit his needs.
Those who argue that private schools
should be exempt from certification have
every right to try to get the laws changed
in their favor. But judges and other, law
officials have a duty to enforce the laws as
they currently stand on the books.
Case should either fulfill that duty or
step aside and allow someone else to do it.
Larry Sparks
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Individualism vs. government aid
The portrait was not designed to warm the hearts of
the American people: Ronald Prescott Reagan, 24,
standing in line for unemployment benefits.
Ronboy is not, after all, a typical laid-off automobile
worker nor a card-carrying member of the truly needy.
He is rather a dancer with the Joffrey Ballet on a regularly
scheduled furlough.
Rondad, on the other hand, has long expressed his
opinion that families should take care of their own,
C9 Ellen Goodman
instead of leaping, or arabesquing if you will, right into
the government's arms.
On one occasion, Rondad said we should all look to
the Mormons as our model. On another occasion, he said,
"I made a point to count the pages of help-wanted ads in
this time of' great unemployment. There were 24 full
pages of classified ads of employers looking for employ
ees." It does not appear, however, that his son pounded
the pavements in his ballet shoes before he headed for the
unemployment lines.
But the point of all this isn't to snicker at family in
consistencies. What is most notable about this modest family
rebellion is the course that Ronboy has taken. He has
refused help from Rondad and accepted it from the
government.
The president sincerely extolis the virtue of American
families taking care of their own nuclear and extended
troubles. He also and equally sincerely believes in the
virtues of individualism. But he often ignores the contra
diction that runs through a great deal of our recent social
history.
When ycu lock through the figures carefully, the real
"breakdown of the American family' has been a break
for independence. The greatest statistical changes have
come as the old and the young choose to live on their
own. And choose they do.
A running theme throughout the life of the elderly
is that they "don't want to be a burden." A running
theme throughtout the life of the young is that they
"want their own freedom." The more financially comfor
able older and younger people are, the more likely they
are to maintain a separate household.
But our kind of independence often depends on the
existence of government programs. Ronboy is on his own
this month with unemployment compensation (and a
working wife). Millions of senior citizens are independent
with the help of Social Security.
I don't mean to imply that Social Security and unem
ployment compensation are government handouts. We
nave done everything to differentiate these programs from
welfare or charity.
But if the government has replaced families in some
times of need and trouble, it's partially because many
families were unable to perform all these functions and
partially because many of them prefer the impersonality
of government assistance. In our concern about the
government interference that comes with money, we
often forget about the family interference that comes
with money.
Whatever nostalgia we have about a mythical and real
past, in which people took care of their own in times of
trouble, we have elaborate and expensive" entitlement
programs partially because millions of us would rather go
to a bureaucracy that a brother-in-law.
The elderly would rather receive a check from the
government than from the children. Reagan the Son
finds it easier to take $125 a week from the government
than from Reagan the Father.
For better and for worse, our independence often
depends on the same government programs that the presi
dent has threatened. Rondad might think about that as
he watches Ronboy "making it on his own.
Thone's campaign
not fitting for state
As soon as any man says of the affairs of the state
What does it matter to me? the state may be given up
for lost.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
For a majority of citizens, the week prior to the
Nov. 2 general election might best be likened to Shakes
peare's comedy "Much Ado About Nothing." But whet
her you consider the next seven days to be mildly enter
taining or just plain dull is of little consequence. You
can bet, however, that they will be different.
Between now and Nov. 2, Nebraskans can expect to
be inundated with capsulized rhetoric and trite political
J Jeff Allen
M 1332, Th Washington Pott Writer Croup
phrases. Unfortunately, like-so many of the recent "bur
ger battle" advertisements, a vast majority of the politi
cal commercials will offer constituentconsumers little
more than tasidess indigestible statements less intent
on presenting the qualities of their own product than
the shortcomings of their competition.
The indisputable protagonist of negative campaigning
in Nebraska's off-year election is candidateGov. Charles
Thone. Supplied by a $1 million-plus campaign fund,
Thone will litter the state with partisan campaign liter
ature designed to smear his opposition.
Negative campaigning, although measurably effec
tive on uneducated voters, is almost exclusively reserved
for the disadvantaged candidate. Thone's adoption of the
negative approach presents an interesting question as to
Why the incumbent governor would employ a primarily
last-ditch campaign tactic.
Two probable theories present themselves: Either
Thone perceives himself as trailing his competitior or he
would prefer to attacK from an inferior political position.
The former theory seems most probably.
Much to Thone's dislike, his competitor has refused
to take a defensive stance on those issues presented by
Thone and his staffers. Candidate Bob Kerrey has in
stead presented voters with a clean, positive campaign
based on the managerial approach to governing.
In 1981, The Center for Policy Research published
the results of comments by 15 former governors con
cerning their percepti6ns of the "primary function of the
contemporary governorship.' Far and away the "gover
nor as manager" was considered as that primtry func
tion. Kerrey, like the 15 interviewees, has emphasized
the need of promoting gubernatorial management prac
tices. The foundation o"f the gubernatorial management
approach is a product of the progressive era of the early
20th century, an era still dominant in Nebraska politics.
Progressivism represented a great deal of political party
reform, thus enabling an agrarian and business-oriented
Nebraska to overcome the destructive nature of opposing
political extremes and to implement a more moderate,
businesslike approach toward governing. With the adop
tion of a non-partisan Unicameral, Nebraska became the
model of a moderate business-oriented state govern
ment. As Nebraska's political great, Adam C. Breckenridge,
suggested, "for the majority of the people of this state
and ... a minority of the legislators, ... the differences
between Democrats and Republicans on most state
questions are difficult to ascertain. Indeed, the bases
for party distinctions may be difficult for most of them
TheprimaryresponsibilityofNebraska'sgovernor, there
fore, Is to promote and protect the moderate value of Ne-
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