Daily Nebraskan
Thursday, April 2, 1987
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University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Playing trade tag with Japan
The Reagan administration's
commitment to a free-trade
policy has become politi
cally untenable. Congress
men are under severe pressure
on their home fronts to preserve
American jobs that are ostensi
bly being lost due to foreign
competitions. And the most
obvious indicator of foreign eco
nomic domination is the trade
deficit.
Japan stands at the top of the
list. The United States exper
ienced a $58.6 billion (that's
with a 'b') trade deficit last year
with Japan alone: Recently the
Reagan administration announced
the imposition of quite signifi
cant tariffs on Japanese elec
tronic goods.- Although these
products represent only a frac
tion of the total deficit, the polit
ical symbol is nonetheless sig
nificant: The action was taken in
response to the belief that Japan
is dumping computer chips on
U.S. markets at prices below an
honestly competitive level.
The positive reaction the play
drew from Congress indicates its
protectionistic mood. Over the
past several years, congressional
criticisms of the administration's
free-trade agenda has shifted
from mere Democratic moans to
Letters
Off-camera comment
In the March 20 Daily Nebraskan an
article appeared purporting to be a
report covering a talk show taped
March 19, which aired March 22 on
KOLNKGIN-TV. In the article, I was
quoted criticizing my colleague Sen.
Ernie Chambers.
In viewing the tape, no comment
made by any person participating in
the show referred to any other member
of the Legislature. Since the article
claims these quotes were made during
the taping of this show, I maintain the
Daily Nebraskan's reporting was out of
Wise use of leisure
From Feb. 20 through 22, 26 UNL
students attended the Annual Associa
tion of College Unions International
Recreational Games Tournament at the
University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan.
Students placed first in women's bil
liards, women's racquetball and men's
individual table soccer. The universi
ty men's bowling team captured first
place.
The ACU-I Recreation Committee
initiates, promotes and establishes
standards for participation. From the
campus level to international tourna
ment competition, the recreation com
mittee develops new programs for stu
dents. This committee is made up of
volunteers, student union profession
als from across the country who pro
mote campus, recreational, national
and international competition in a var
iety of leisure and sport activities.
The ACU-I International program
began in 1932 and today provides tour
nament competiton for students from
more than 1,000 colleges and universi
ties. These tournaments are designed
to develop and stimulate interest in
those wholesome recreational activi
ties which can supplement the aca
demic life of the college students. The
wise use of leisure time is an increas
JclTKorlH'lik, u7or, 472 1760
James Rogers, Editorial Pafji' Editor
List Olson, Associate News Editor
Mike Reilley, A7tff Mmw ;fcr
Joan Rezac, Copy Desk Chief
a fully bipartisan chorus of com
plaint. The sticky point about the
administration's action is the
long-run impact of the policy.
Already international financial
markets have been thrown into
turmoil. Federal Reserve Board
Chairman Paul Volker has argued
that protectionistic activity could
reignite high inflation and cause
interest rates to soar.
Additionally, given the no-gruff
mood of Congress, the threat of a
full-scale trade war looms large
an economic battle that ends
with all nations losing.
But it's not obvious that Rea
gan's past commitment to free
trade coud be considered prac
tical or successful. Trade means
there are two parties (at least),
and free trade means that neither
partner acts like a protectionist.
But Japan hasn't been playing
the same game as the United
States its domestic markets
are all but closed to foreign
competition.
Caution should be the key
word during this time. The gains
from a more open Japanese market
must be weighed against the
possibility of a full-scale trade
war.
shouldn't be printed
context.
It should be a matter of mutual
respect to refrain from criticizing fel
low senators in any public forum.
Senator W. Owen Elmer
Indianola
Editor's note: Sen. Elmer critic
ized Sen. Chambers while on
the set at the debate on the
recreation center sponsored by
KOLN-TV, but while off camera.
The comment was made when
all participants in the debate
were present.
time advocated
ingly important consideration of mod
ern living. Well-organized recreational,
social and cultural programs on cam
puses can form the basis of sound life
long leisure habits.
Anyone interested in these tourna
ments or who wants the chance to mea
sure his or her skill in recreational
sports is welcome to come to the
Nebraska or East union RecRooms to
obtain information about upcoming
tournaments.
Kay Fuelberth
clerical assistant
Nebraska Union RecRoom
Letter Policy
The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief
letters to the editor from all readers
and interested others.
Letters will be selected for publica
tion on the basis of clarity, originality,
timeliness and space available. The
Daily Nebraskan retains the right to
edit all material submitted.
Readers also are welcome to submit
material as guest opinions. Whether
material should run as a letter or guest
opinion, or not run, is left to the
editor's discretion.
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Book banning judges humanism by its
"A rose by any other name . . ."
As usual, the more ignorant or
dishonest of our modem "Enligh
tenment" adherents (call them
humanists, secularists, naturalists,
whatever) want it both ways: They want
a cogent metaphysical system of belief
taught at public expense in govern
ment schools and, at the same time,
avoid the obvious conflict with the
constitutional prohibition on religious
establishment.
Federal District Judge W. Brevard
Hand recently found that some of the
curricula in Alabama school violated
the constitution by establishing a sec
ular religion. Of course, our modern
Enlightenment devotees indignantly
exclaim "book banning, book banning"
in reaction to the decision. Really.
Does it escape their notice that books
already have been banned from inte
gration into most systematic instruc
tion in public schools? The Bible is
prohibited from being taught as revela
tive of right thinking. So too, quite
obviously, Augustine's "The City of
God," Calvin's "Institutes" and Luth
er's "Bondage of the Will" all cannot
systematically undergird instruction in
government schools. All these books
have been "banned' in the name of
religious freedom. Evidently, then,
secularist blitherings depend upon
whose ox is getting gored.
Strictly speaking, however, the Bible
hasn't been banned from state schools
and neither have books revelative of
the Enlightenment religion. As Hand's
opinion clearly avers (the critics haven't
paid close attention to the actual deci
sion) the books found in violation of
the establishment clause still can be
taught in comparative religion classes
and during history of religion instruc
tion. Gee, that means those works have
to be treated just like the Bible, "The
City of God," "Bondage of the Will,"
etc., etc., etc.
Secular apologists whine that there
is no definition of secular humanism.
They ignore the data. What they mean
is there's no one definition of secular
humanism. Of course, by that standard
there's no definition of Christianity
either because there's no one defini
tion that every Christian agrees upon.
It escapes the secularists' notice
that metaphysical belief systems can
be identified by idea clusters. Secular
humanism (which is a term invented by
secular humanists to describe them
selves it was not thought up by Jerry
Falwell) is one such system. This par
ticular set of beliefs can be traced back
at least to the Enlightenment and
probably much earlier.
More than over half a century ago in
a series of lectures given before the
Yale Law School, Pro Carl Becker, no
big fan of Christianity, identified the
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idea cluster that formed Enlighten
ment religion and still resides at the
core of the modern secularist religion:
"The 18th-century philosophers, like
the medieval scholastics, held fast to a
revealed body of knowledge, and they
were unwilling or unable to learn any
thing from history which could not, by
some ingenious trick played on the
dead, be reconciled with their faith.
Their faith, like the faith by which any
age lives, was born of their experience
and needs .... The essential articles
of the religion of the Enlightenment
may be stated thus: (1) man is not
natively depraved; (2) the end of life is
life itself, the good life on earth instead
of the beautific life after death; (3)
man is capable, guided solely by the
light of reason and experience, of per
fecting the good life on earth; and (4)
the first and essential condition of the
good life on earth is the freeing of
men's minds from the bonds of ignor
ance and superstition, and of their
bodies from the arbitrary oppression of
the constituted authorities."
Jim Rogers
The eminent Harvard law professor
Harold Berman noted in his seminal
work "Law and Revolution" the
increasing influence of the Enlighten
ment religious commitments: "In the
19th century and even more in the
20th (there) was the very gradual
reduction of traditional religion to the
level of personal, private matter, with
out public influence on legal develop
ment, while other belief systems
new secular religions (ideologies, 'isms')
were raised to the level of passion
ate faiths for which people collectively
were willing not only to die but also to
live new lives."
These religious commitments ex
plicitly undergird the first and second
Humanist Manifestos and represent
the religion Judge Hand saw illegally
established in certain aspects of the
Alabama curricula.
Quite clearly, a common-sense desig
nation for this belief system is the term
"religion." For example, in interpret
ing what constitutes a religion for the
purpose of being accorded the status of
conscientious objector, theU.S. Supreme
Court has been guided by such a
common-sense notion. In the 1961 case
of "Torcaso v. Watkins" the Court
observed that "among religions in
this country which do not teach what
would generally be considered a belief
in the existence of God are Buddhism,
Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Hum
anism and others."
Judge Hand is hardly advancing a
novel line of thought in questioning
whether a secular religion could be
established contrary to the Constitu
true religious cover
tion. In "School District of Abington
Township, Pa., v. Schempp," U.S.
Supreme Court Justice Clark observed
that "the State may not establish a
'religion of secularism' in the sense of
affirmatively opposing or showing hos
tility to religion" and thus "preferring
those who believe in no religion over
those who do believe." In fact, Judge
Hand seems to be requiring a greater
showing of secular establishment than
Justice Clark did require for a find of
unconstitutional activity.
However, even if one grants that 1
secular humanism is not a religion in
some accepted sense of the term, its
First Amendment difficulty is not there
by avoided. Law professors Stephen
Arons and Charles Lawrence III cogently
argued this point in a 1980 article pub
lished in the "Havard Civil Rights-Civil
Liberties Law Review": "Although rec
ognizing the danger of inculcation of
religious values or establishment of
religion in schools, the Court has failed
to consider the first amendment impli
cations involved when equally basic
but nonreligious values form a part of
the philosophy established by a school
and communicated to its students
"The Supreme Court has eliminated
religious indoctrination in public
schools but, as we have argued ... the
imposition of secular values may con
stitute as significant an interference
with First Amendment values as the
imposition of religious beliefs. Yet,
except when dealing with overt instan
ces of value inculcation such as the
compulsory flag salute, the Court has
left the establishment of other ideolo
gies untouched"
Judge Hand has taken a first step to
ameliorate the cause for Arons' and
Lawrence's lament. Everybody Christ
ians and secularists alike must play
by the rules of the game. Simple equity
requries that the rules be the same for
everybody. Of course, secularists don't
want to do that. No surprise there;
many Christians did not want to play by
the same set of rules.
Hand's decision is a significant step
toward true freedom in America's
schools. Arons and Lawrence are cor
rect in pointing out: "It is significant
that in this situation so few people
have expressed the belief that school
decisions are so personal in origin and
meaning that they ought to be classed,
along with religion and freedom of
speech and press, as beyond the reach
of the majority. Majoritarian control of
the transmission of personal beliefs
through schooling is a problem (thats)
magnitude is equaled only by our ref
usal to hold public discussions about
it."
Rogers is an econimScs graduate stu
dent, law student and Daily Nebraskan
editorial page editor.