The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current, January 27, 1983, Page 5, Image 5
Thursday, January 27,1983 Daily Nebraskan 5 n J HeGniiy u Cuoo'eaco sBnoony Imve beeoD Deft" m mi m jp Mrs. Lmerson must have had a mean streak in her to name her kid Ralph Waldo, but that's beside the point. One fine day in 1846, the great Ameri can philosopher was strolling and decided to stop by the local slammer and visit his sidekick in the history of Western thought. David Wood -J i 111 :, . ttt . Henry David Thoreau. Lmerson is on the record as thinking that the fix Thoreau had got himself into was "skulking and in bad taste." "Henry," he said reprovingly, "what are you doing in there?" Thoreau was the more curt of the two and cracked, "Waldo, what are you doing out there?" Thoreau was a tasteless upstart, of course. Skulking about his cell raising a stink, he had lots of time for brooding and brainstormed the famous manifesto he'd later write, "Civil Disobedience." Good Americans still tell you lie was a good American. But he was "mad at the devil," the sheriff said. "Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator?" Thoreau wrote in the essay, noticeably pumped up. "1 think we should be men first, and subjects after ward. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right." He was in the clink for thinking it right to space off six years of taxes. Iking a prominent figure.it was a Sophia Loren kind of thing. A bit more pompous than she, Thoreau said he didn't want his dol lars supporting a government that sup ported slavery and the Mexican War. Miffed, he ranted. "I say " he raved, "break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine." Remember, he wasn't your average caged hothead, lie was a purveyor of America's first genuine native philosophy. And, when incensed, he could be eloquent. Abbey Hoffman was never so smooth. I bet old Lmerson had no snappy come back to the stinging, ringing words: "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison." Thus spake the good American, the honorable free-thinker. "The state never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion." Well excuse me, Henry, for invading your space. The point's this: The man's clearly a slippery anarchist. And the skulker's place in history is a grievous mistake. The thankless crank should v been left to stew in his juices, Sophia Loren should be stamping license plates, and there ought to be stiff laws against civil disobedience. I riotously applaud President Reagan's proposal last week to deny college loans to the scarcdy-cats, peace-niks and other ne'er-do-wells who didn't register for the current draft. Our forefathers lied con scription in their native lands to build this home of the brave and the free. Our armies must be ready to fly into combat at the least threat to our forefathers' dream. Reagan's plan is ingenious. It unfairly discriminates against financially disad-. van t aged draft resisters who pursue higher education. Universities and colleges are un checked hotbeds of libertarian lunacy and the exact last place we want hundreds of thousands of juvenile outlaws hiding out. Let them read Thoreau and free-thinking insurrectionists like him and they'll be spouting logical whammies that are no concern in ruling a state. "Unjust laws exist," Thoreau, the smoolhy, wrote. "Shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them and obey them until we have suc ceeded, or shall we transgress them im mediately?" This is pure dupery, as if we had choices, let alone these. Ours is but to do or die. United we stand. "Government at its best is an exped ient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, in expedient," he wrote. "The objections which have been brought against a stand ing army, and they are many and weighty and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing govern ment." Frankly, I'd first die. If every simper ing humanist was packed off to Walden Pond and rocked out to their different drummers, away from the mainstream, America would be a safer place. EDITOR GENERAL MANAGER ADVERTISING MANAGER PRODUCTION MANAGER MANAGING EDITOR NEWS EDITOR GRAPHICS EDITOR NIGHT NEWS EDITOR ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR SPORTS EDITOR ART DIRECTOR PHOTO CHIEF PUBLICATIONS BOARD CHAIRMAN PROFESSIONAL ADVISER THE DAILY NEBRASKAN (USPS 144-080) IS PUB LISH ED BY THE UNL PUBLICATIONS BOARD MON DAY THROUGH FRIDAY DURING THE FALL AND SPRING SEMESTERS, EXCEPT DURING VACATIONS. POSTMASTER: SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO THE DAILY NEBRASKAN, RM. 34 NEBRASKA UNION, 68588. SUBSCRIPTIONS: S13SEMESTER, $25 YEAR. SECOND CLASS POSTAGE PAID AT LINCOLN, NE BRASKA. ALL MATERIAL COPY RIGHT 1983 DAILY NEBRASKAN Margie Honz Daniel M. Shattil Jerry Scott Kitty Pol icky Michiela Thuman Sue Jepsen John G. Goecke David Wood Patty Pryor Bob Asmussen David Luebke Dave Bentz Doug Netz, 472-2454 Don Walton. 473-7301 Letter Policy Editorial Policy I The Daily Nebraskan en courages brief letters to the editor from all readers and interested others. 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