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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 28, 1992)
LISA PYTLIK Vlolent society warps kids I have two husbands, one wife and one fiance. Of course, I say this mostly in jest. After all, polygamy is illegal here. In reality, our “family” is bonded by friendship and a common commit ment to each other’s welfare, not by law. Even so, it effectively provides companionship, acceptance and much appreciated support. The one thing our little family lacks, however, is children. Most of us live in the residence halls, and they won’t allow cats, dogs or anything that can’t survive submersed in an aquarium, so kids arc out of the ques tion. I used to regret this because it meant I had to borrow other people’s children to enhance my visits to the circus, the zoo and the roller-skating rink. However, I’ve recently come to appreciate the fact that our pseudo family has no children because I’ve found overwhelming evidence point ing to a rather surprising fact: Chil dren arc dangerous. The March 9 issue of Newsweek, for example, contains six pages of articles about kids, some as young as nine or 10, who carry guns, knives and other weapons to school, parties and the movies. According to these articles, one in five students nation wide reports carrying some type of weapon and one in 20 reports carry ing a gun. Some cities, such as Oakland and Los Angeles, even arc giving kids lessons on how to effectively and quickly drop to the floor when they hear gunfire. Kids aren’t only attacking each other with weapons and beating each other up, however. They arc also perpetrating sexual violence. Last month, for example, in Longview, Wash., a 10-ycar-old boy was or dered to wear a monitor while he awaited trial for five counts of first degree rape and one count of first degree molestation. His alleged vic tims were children aged two to six. Incidents such as these happen often enough to warrant special programs such as the SPARK program at the Children’s Institute International in Los Angeles. This program is de signed to help kids likc“Danny” who, at the age of six, had been separated from his family for having abused his younger siblings and who, a few years later, sodomized a 3-ycar-old neigh bor and forced the toddler to have oral sex. One of the most frightening things about these children is the lack of empathy they show for their victims. This lack of empathy was illustrated by recent Associated Press interviews of teen-age girls involved in New Abortion moral, not theological, issue In her leuer, Elizabeth Ball ('‘Reproductive freedom essential,’’ DN, April 27) addresses the issues of abortion, morality in the law and separation of church and state. I*d like to suggest answers to the ques tions she raises. First, the reason that abortion is a dilemma is that not everybody agrees as to whether or not the life in the womb is a person with rights. A par ent cannot terminate the life of a child once it is bom, because everybody agrees that the child is a person with rights, but no such agreement exists where the unborn child is concerned. Unfortunately, neither side in the debate is addressing this point where the disagreement lies. Those who favor legalized abortion can only call it an issue of a woman’s choice because they have already decided that she is the only person involved. By the same token, those who oppose legalized abortion can only call it an issue of murder because they have already decided that not one, but two people are involved. This leads lo ihc issue of morality in the law. Ms. Ball asks why we should “cram” moral and ethical be liefs into the law. The fact of the matter is that much of our criminal law is based upon moral and ethical beliefs. Why is wife-beating illegal in the United States when it is perfectly legal in other countries? Why do we have laws designed lo prevent swin dling and lo enforce contracts? Be cause we, as a nation, have a moral and ethical belief that these things arc wrong. When we consider the legali zation or prohibition of abortion, the question is not whether or not we should have moral and ethical beliefs in the law. The question is which moral and ethical beliefs lo pul in the law. This brings us to the issue of sepa ration of church and state. Ms. Ball is quite right in saying that not every body believes in the same religion or God. The founding fathers very much wanted to avoid a stale church, such as England had. They very much wanted matters of theology kept apart from mailers of govcmmcnl. This is why ihc govcmmcnl cannoi require you lo profess a belief in God or any olher deily you may choose. The govcmmcnl cannoi dcicrminc which doctrine is acceptable and which is not. There is a difference, however, between determining theology and determining right and wrong. To use the example of slavery, many Chris tians opposed it because their reli gious beliefs told them that it was wrong in the eyes of God. They did n’t simply throw up their hands and say, “I don’t want to impose my religious beliefs on someone else.” They rec ognized that this was not a theologi cal issue but a moral issue. The same holds true for those who oppose le galized abortion, and those who feel that prohibiting abortion is a viola tion of church and slate need to ask themselves if they would prepared to say the same about prohibiting slav ery. Brad Pardee Library Assistant Love Library -EDITORIAL POLICY Stall editorials represent the offi cial policy of the Spring 1992 Daily Nebraskan. Policy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. Its mem bers are: Jana Pedersen, editor; Alan Phelps, opinion page editor; Kara Wells, managing editor; Roger Price, wire editor; Wendy Navratil, copy desk chief; Brian Shellito, cartoon ist; Jeremy ritzpatnck, senior rc porier. Editorials do not necessarily re flect the views of the university, its employees, the students or the NU Board of Regents. Editorial columns represent the opinion of the author. I he Daily iNCDrasxan spuoiisncrs are the regents, who established the UNL Publications Board to super vise the daily production of the pa per. According to policy set by the re gents, responsibility for the editorial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of its students. Some cities, such as Oakland and Los Angeles, even arc giving kids lessons, an how to effectively and Quickly drop to the floor when they hear gunfire. York gangs. One girl described the feeling of culling someone in a fight as being “like cutting meat.” “It’s like you start in and you want to keep on slabbing them,” she said. In reference to how she feels after hitting someone, she said that “it just feels good to get a whole lot of anger out of your system.” Stories such as these arc made more frightening by the large possi bilily that ihcsc kids will grow up to be adults with more rights and free doms, but no more ethics or empathy. Obviously, we need to stop kids such as these and reform them before they do even more harm as adults. But it would be even better to slop them from becoming violent and abusive in the First place. This should be possible, because kids aren ’ t bom evil. Instead, they are inducted into terrorism by a violent cycle. Ninety percent of the children at the Los Angeles clinic, for ex ample, arc victims of sexual abuse themselves, and most came from homes ridden with alcoholism and other abuse. Yet violence is found not only in the home. Violence permeates our society and is treasured as necessary and fun. In fact, violence is so fun that we will pay money to sec it in movies such as “Terminator,” to hear it from music groups such as Icc-T and Body Count — who encourage the killing of mothers and the shooting of pol ice men — and to buy video games that allow us to role-play characters who shoot, kill or beat up other characters. We also reward military heroes with medals when they do what many of us believe to be the necessary job of killing our so-called enemies, and we worship sports such as football that involve so much violence that players must wear extensive armor like padding to avoid getting hurt. So how do we keep our kids from becoming violent when they are often raised by viclim-victimizer parents in a violent society? It probably won’t work to try to pass more laws. Laws regulating the way people raise their children or make their movies would be about as acceptable to the American majority as my polygamous pseudo-family. At the slightest suggestion of laws such as these, people would complain that their civil liberties and basic rights of expression would be violated. As I was thinking about this prob lem late one night while watching TV, I drifted off to sleep and began to dream. I dreamed that millions of everyday Americans had realized the importance of children and voluntar ily joined a grass-roots organization bound not by law but by a common commitment to kids’ welfare. In my dream, parenting was viewed as a privilege rather than a right, and children were considered individual people with specific, clear rights, instead of the property of their par ents. People also believed in the impor tance of parenting and in improving as a parent, and it was suddenly po iiutauy incurred iu nave ennuicu without taking parenting and com munication classes, no matter how good a parent one was naturally. I also dreamed that middle- and upper-class people gave up their in herent right to ignore the thousands of children whose families were living in poverty. They began to “adopt” these families,offering them hclpand support both emotionally and materi ally. People began donating money to education. The wages of elementary teachers and college football coaches were reversed. All forms of discrimination, whether meant seriously or in jest, were scorned in both public and private, especially when their expression might influ ence children to adopt similar views. But then, while I was in mid-sleep, the sound of a gunshot from my tele vision awakened me, and I realized it had all been a dream. I still lived in Violent, U.S.A. My pseudo-family and I arc plan ning to move off-campus this sum mer but, thank goodness, we still arc not planning to lake on the responsi bility of children. We’re going to adopt some cals instead. Pytiik is a senior art and psychology major, a Daily Nebraskan staff artist and a columnist. Speech, debate teams praised The University of Nebraska-Lin coln speech and debate team is one of the oldest co-curricular activities in the university. The squad remains, for the most part, anonymous to stu dents, staff and faculty because the Daily Nebraskan consistently fails to cover the endeavors of the squad. I would like to make the UNL commu nity aware that the team took first place in its division at nationals this year. Overall, the squad placed 19th among more than 150 schools in the nation. Individual successes include: Pamela Epp, scmifinalist in extem poraneous speaking; Janet Richardson, semifinaiist in persuasive speaking; Sara Gocckc, scmifinalist in prose interpretation, quarterfinalist in po etry interpretation and quarterfinalist with Zack Moore in duo interpreta tion. Our national tournament capped off a tremendous year in which we won more than 200 trophies. I am very proud of the Comhuskcr foren sics team. Congratulations-to all members. Ann Pettus director of forensics ■ _ BUY IT. SELL IT. | FIND IT. hesWJNe Prices Til We'ra 8om , ONE IN OR CARRY OUT ONLY-7 DAYS A WEEK j H su Wh* h or carryout caN 494-7088 • Tj VA W;: h & vj ySS^^BSr i w Z ■ A J ■ ^^■■r * , ^B ■ B m B B ■ -T $ ? ^A ^■b m A * j|^A| ^. ..:: J, Sl> Summer Classes Begin MCAT: June 7, 1992 LSAT: June 13, 1992 GRE: June 27, 1992 GMAT: August 2, 1992 475-7010 216 N. 11th, Suite 102, Lincoln S STANLEY H. KAPLAN A Take Kaplan Or Take Your Glances
