Opinion
-LETTER TSe EDITOR
Rhetoric ‘getting us nowhere’
I think it is fairly obvious that
there are problems in this grand U.S.A.,
but bashing each other’s political
parties by trying to outdo each other’s
rhetoric has gotten us nowhere. I don’t
know what those political science
teachers teach, I’ vc on ly had one c lass
and it was just a history class on
government, but I think it is lime to
go out in the field and do some re
search, Malt McDonald (“Liberals
uphold immoral views,” DN, March
19). Your solutions to crime arc theo
retical. It never has been proven that
killing everyone who kills is a deter
rent. What needs to be done is some
true investigation into why these crimes
are committed. I would guess there is
a strong correlation to the poverty
and stress fell by many people who
turn to illegal activities that eventu
ally gets them in trouble. Poverty is
the problem, not crime — that’s a
result. If there were a few legal alter
natives that could improve impover
ished people’s economic situation there
would be less crime.
Also, as a political science major,
you should know that the term femi
nist came from the movement of
women to get equal rights, ERA, etc.
Equal rights for all is anything but
Nazi. I don’t understand how one
could use the two together. Or are you
one of those people who believe the
Nazis were trying to protect you?
Your Christian ethic is paradoxical.
This country was founded on free
dom of religion yet you wish to abol
ish all but your own. Sounds like a
Roman or a Nazi. It certainly is not
altruistic as 1 thought Jesus was (and
I’m not even a Christian). And, if
homosexuals want to be “immoral,”
then maybe you should not have sex
with them, and just let them “go to
hell.” As far as the death penalty
goes, should we “turn the other check”
or is it an “eye for and eye”?
Lastly, Oh! What a wonderful place
this would be if we all could decide
where our taxes went. I’d give all
mine to the NEA and education and
none to the military which now gets
50 percent to teach people to kill and
hate people different than themselves.
1 also think that a little open-minded
ne ; or at least tolerance is very im
portant. I don’t espouse to any politi
cal party for this very reason. Blindly
jumping on the bandwagon in nation
alist fever is another Nazi kind of
thing to do. Be a “good” Christian if
you want, but I’ve never known the
conservatives to be anything but right
eous and greedy.
Gina Dikcman
senior
anthropology and art
-EDITORIAL POLICY
Staff editorials represent the offi
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BRIAN ALLEN
Anti-cruising law ill-conceived
I’ve heard of some unbelievably
ridiculous and poorly conceived
laws in my lifetime, but the
Omaha City Council seems to be trying
hard to pass the worst one yet.
The council has passed an “anti
cruising” ordinance to stop problems
they associate with cruising on Dodge
Street.
The ordinance was passed 6-1 on
March 24 and, appropriately, will go
into effect April Fools’ Day, if it does
not receive an unexpected veto from
Mayor P.J. Morgan.
The ordinance would make it a
traffic violation to drive past a check
point three times in two hours from 9
p.m. to 6 a.m. Violators would face
up to six months in jail, a $500 fine or
30 days without a drivers’ license.
On most issues of crime and pun
ishment, I make George Bush look
like Michael Dukakis. But these
punishments seem more than just a
bit severe, even to me. Come on —
six months in the joint for driving
down a public, tax-supported road
three times 40 minutes apart is noth
ing but sheer idiocy.
Imagine this possible scenario: Joe
Omaha gets home from the second
shift a little after 11 p.m. and notices
he doesn’t have anything to eat in the
house. He starts out to his favorite 24
hour grocery store on Dodge and drives
past a police checkpoint the first time.
Because of heavy traffic in the
right lane, Joe misses his lane change
and turn into the store’s parking lot,
so he goes down a few more blocks,
turns and gets hack onto Dodge Street.
This lime he can’t make a left turn
into the grocery store because of the
median. So he drives past the police
checkpoint again and gets back onto
the correct side of Dodge.
Now in the correct lane on the
correct side of Dodge, he drives past
the checkpoint for a third time and
turns into the grocery store. Before he
can even buy a loaf of bread, he finds
himself in the back of a squad car
driven by a couple of boys in blue.
Joe is looking forward not only to
half a year in the slammer, but also to
the probable loss of his job and cus
tody of his children as a result — all
for missing that first right turn and
"cruising Dodge” one too many times.
Imagine what this law could do to
out-of-town visitors to Omaha, who
if vou had to am out
la get something such
as groceries soon
after arriving at mtr
house, vou would
have to hang out at
the grocery stare far
two hours before vou
legally could drive
back home.
don’t really know where they’re going.
Spend five minutes driving back and
forth looking for your hotel some
evening and spend the next 30 days
without a drivers’ license for violat
ing an ill-thought-out law of which
most people never even heard.
The plan is to have police officers
sit at checkpoints on Dodge Street
and type the license numbers of pass
ing cars into a couple of lap-top
computers.
Because traffic officers arc not
hired for their exceptional secretarial
skills, I wonder about the ability of
these officers to avoid typographical
errors, which would lead to possible
wrongful prosecution.
Suppose license number 1-H314
drives by, but is incorrectly typed as
1-H324 by an overworked officer trying
to enter the license number of each
and every car driving along Dodge
Street. Then the driver of the car
whose license number really is 1
H324 legally drives by twice arid boom
— busted and off to the Big House.
This law seems to have a certain
amount of publ ic support. The Omaha
World-Herald quoted business own
ers and residents near “the strip” as
saying they were upset about the
cruising because they thought the
cruisers “breed traffic congestion,
trespassing, vandalism and occasional
violence.”
Proponents of the law have pledged
more than S5.000 to buy the jap-top
computers for police use, but it takes
a lot more more than the unthinking
support of a few people to make a
good law — for instance, constitu
tionality.
Sure, cruisers tend to breed traffic
congestion, but 1 wonder if these resi
dents and business owners thought
about the possible problems they may
be bringing on themselves by trying
to alleviate the problem this way.
After all, this law would apply to
residents and business owners on
Dodge Street as well as cruisers.
Imagine if it were illegal for you to
drive home, leave and then come home
again in less than two hours. If you
had to run out to get something such
as groceries soon after arriving at
your house, you would have to hang
out at the grocery store for two hours
before you legally could drive back
home.
If owners or employees of late
night businesses located on Dodge
Street come to work after 9 p.m., then
go out for supplies and come back,
they will break the law. This law will
not help these residents and business
owners. It will make life impossibly
inconvenient for them.
As for trespassing, vandalism and
violence, why don’t we try to deal
with these crimes themselves, instead
of making it illegal to drive in down
town Omaha.
I don’t see how it can be constitu
tional to make it illegal for people to
drive on a road for which their taxes
paid. If Omaha’s cruisers can’t drive
on their own roads, they should quit
paying a proportionate amount of their
taxes. That sounds like a reasonable
form of protest to me.
The members of the city council
already have passed their anti-cruis
ing ordinance. Their only hope now is
that Mayes’ Morgan vetoes it and saves
them and other supporters from the
embarrassment of realizing this ordi
nance will not end any problems. It
only will create them.
Allen Is a junior mechanical engineering
major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
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