OPINION Friday, February 20, 1981 The Michigan Daily Human rights: An obsolete ideal? 4 It didn't take Ronald Reagan long to seize and apply the town marshall principle to the art of world politics. Our new president may be un- schooled in many subjects (unlike all those sissy intellectuals), but he can damn well tell the bad guys from the good guys. Within a week of taking office, Reagan publicly and pointedly castigated the Soviet government as a cadre of thugs who would Coming By Christopher Patter "commit any crime" to further their dark aims of world conquest. Though his statement has elicited varying diplomatic interpretations, for domestic audiences his emotional message gleams clear as tempered steel: America isn't gonna take shit from anyone anymore. THUS DOES swaggering machismo bestride reason like a heaving collossus. At last, a president who'll stand up for America! To the long-moribund disciples of the old Cold War Right, the effect has been orgasmicly resuscitating; now revived and ceremoniously encouraged, they once again whoop and thump their drums while the more sober residents of a fragile world nervously hold their collective breath. After a 20-year hiatus, red- baiting is "in" once more. We chicly rattle our sabers while across the ocean a suspicious, eternally paranoid Kremlin waits, fidgets, and plots what moment to up the ante in the war of words. - It is an impetuous, deadly game. Old slogans from the 1950s suddenly abound: "The only thing the Russians understand and respect is force", "You have to fight fear with fear," and so on into the rumbling, murky future. The heat of verbal battle has already become so intense that few seem to notice much of the rhetoric employed is as dishonest in motivation as it is provocative in decree; that the crusade's godfathers are past and current masters of not practicing what they preach. HOW BALEFULLY amusing it is to hear conservative pundits excoriate the Soviet crackdown on Russian dissidents even as our new president moves swiftly to abrogate his predecessor's human rights politcy. The Right publicly wrings its hands over the hideous, symbolic plight of Anatoly Shcharansky; at the same moment our new director of the State Department's Human Rights Section declares "the U.S. has no responsibility to promote human rights in other sovereign states." Fur- ther, he darkly hints that the entire human rights movement may be a veiled subversive plot. Why the dichotomy? Just what is it about Communism that truly bugs the American political Right? Do conservatives privately weep at the helplessness of citizens or even whole countries held captive by tryants? Are they convulsed by the stark fact that The Soviet Union has probably enslaved or butchered more human beings than have all the other governments of recorded history put together? ARE CRIMES against humanity a dictator- ship's worst collective sin? I submit that, for all its breast-beating over Soviet atrocities, the ideological Right despises Communism for two principal iniquities: a) Communism is anti- God; b) Communism is anti-free market. Though the human rights issue touches both subjects peripherally, it remains itself secon- dary in a moral, if not practical respect. The Russian legacy of horror is useful to conser- vatives as a propagandistic lever, pragmatically applied to power politics - no more, no less. It's no mystery why Reagan's ambassador to the United Nations blithely asserts that a right- wing dictatorship is always preferable to a Marxist one. Most fascist rulers at least pay lip service to religious ritual; more crucially, most are willing and eager to play intimate ball with U.S. corporate brokers. THUS, SAYS OUR government, such tryants possess a morality superior to that of their left- wing, athiestic counterparts. So what if the Shah or the Greek colonels brutalized their people? It's a subordinate issue after all. Poor President Somoza-we did him wrong. Jolly old Ferdinand Marcos - his people just don't appreciate his good works. And by golly, if even those damn Russkies could only learn to worship God and Exxon - well, we just might overlook all those other nasty things they do.. Don't be against private, oblique overtures in precisely that direction sometime off in the less hyperbolic future. It's happened before and could happen again - already it, peeps bet- ween the lines of rebuke and denunciation. FOR ALL THEIR professed mutual emnity, the disciples of the Soviet Left and American Right share a substantial, if subliminal kin- ship: An obsessive fascination with the toys and gadgets of war; a deep contempt for con- sumer needs, rights and safeguards; a distrust of creative intellect and individual eccentricity except in the employ of corporate or gover- nmental service; and a mystic, gluttonous sense of their respective nations' mission to mold the world according to each's messianic nostrums. Such shared aspirations needn't necessarily be at crossed swords with each other. However fierce and bristling the arsenals of weaponry, military stockpiles remain a persuasive deterrent to all-out war. Domestically, keeping one's respective rebels and malcontents under the thumb can bring a brutish but stable order to both hemispheres. And though both sides may wish to install their gospels across the globe, this remains a very big world - con- taining more than enough space for each side to play God over the masses. THERE REALLY isn't much trick to cooperation once you've reached a lofty enough level - it's mostly the little folks who do the complaining. Quintessential cold-warrior Richard Nixon became fast friends with Leonid Breshnev once it dawned on him their respec- tive ideologies were less than contradictory. Will Ronald Reagan ultimately stumble upon the same discovery? If so, it may prove precisely the requisite, ironic tranquilizer needed to keep our troubled old planet spinning peacefully - if callously - a bit longer. Stranger matings have occured. And what of human rights? Ramsey Clark once said, "There is no conflict between liberty and safety. We will have both or neither," - but everyone knows what a pinko he is. Freedom is great stuff as far as it goes, .but ... well, after all there are priorities. Just ask Orwell. Christopher Potter is a daily staff writer. His column appears every Friday. 0 Edie m dtgan f Mig Edited and managed by students ot The University of Michigan Higgins Vol. XCI, No. 121 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 HAV YOU HEARD THE LATEST POLISH TOKE,, 9,, 1* SO Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board N US! 1'p AXI d i 0 Talking to the Regents. 1% 7,1Z T WAS INSPIRING to see more than 150 students confront the Regents at the public comments session of their meeting yesterday. Not since the Regents' Sept. 1979 South African divestiture discussions have students shown such a visible interest in the body that governs the Univer- sity. Such an interest is vital as the University plunges into its severe budget-making decisions. During these times, the need for both student input and awareness is essential. It is also important to let the Regents know that students are concerned with these decisions. Two very crucial topics were discussed at the meeting: investing in defense industries and possible cut- backs in the recreational sports depar- kwnt budget. Although the discussion concerning defAnse investments was tabled until today, it was important that students : , size their opposition to such an a -sed decision. The Regents nust d a -pow the University to invest in in- -,-ti yes that benefit from the growing A. - s race. It was also important for Regents to understand the students' need to main- tain the recreational sports program. Several students presented a concise, well-thought presentation emphasizing the importance of the department. Much of the credit for the impressive student showing at the meeting must go to the Michigan Student Assembly. Through effective publicity and prudent planning, MSA helped enlighten the Regents of these student concerns. Hopefully the efforts of MSA and the students present will not be brushed aside in typical Regental fashion. But even if the Regents do ignore the ad- vice about defense investment and recreational department cuts, MSA and the students have let their voices be heard. Unsigned editorials ap- pearing on the left side of this page represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board. 10 LETTERS TO THE DAILY: Gindin ignorant of 'real world' . . 0 To the Daily: In his article "A Moral Defense of the Free Market" (Daily, Feb. 17), Mark Gindin proves that he is just as ignorant of the real world" as the leftist intellectuals he condemns. While I also advocate a free en- terprise system, I will reserve judgment of President Reagan's proposed economic legislation until I can learn more about it. In any case, I do not find it necessary to label those people opposed to these ideas the "bad side." This kind of name calling is not called for and will not solve any of our problems. If Gindin would only look around himself, he would see that in spite of its theoretical advantages, the free market approach does leave some innocent victims in its wake. There are some groups (even in Ann Arbor) who legitimately benefit from, and desperately need, government programs besides the police for- ce, the judicial system, and the national defense system in order to survive. To say that taxpayers should support nothing besides these three primary governmental functions is immoral! If it were not for government aid how would most retirees, widows, and handicapped people survive? What kind of hope for the future would these people hold without government assistance? A socialist system is said to guarantee "freedom of outcome" while a -free market system provides "freedom of oppor- tunity." If you were to tell this to a person from a city ghetto, he would laugh in your face. The free market needs a little help - from government in providing this "equal oppor- tunity." It is obvious that this, country has vast resources; good legislation just helps to ensure that everyone can benefit from these resources instead of a select few. I will admit that government tax and regulative burdens on American industries have been overwhelming. Some cuts are obviously necessary, but just because we are facing hard times, we should not simply throw caution to the wind and cut just anything. Laws regulating the disposal of waste materials into the land, air, and waters have provided us with a much cleaner countryside than would have resulted from an unregulated industrial sector. Laws requiring car- manufacturing firms to install seat belts.in each car have saved a great many lives. The list of beneficial regulations goes on and on. If you will recall the concept of 'opportunity cost' from Economics 201, it bpcomes clear that what we need to do is to carefully consider which regulations are beneficial and which ones are not, and then cut the ones that we cannot afford. That is the task of our elected of ficials in Congress. The point is that we are now in a position where we must decide to cut some programs which help some people and regulations which do have some positive ef- fects. This undoubtedly means that sacrifices will have to be made. So far, President Reagan has been able to persuade labor, farm, and minority leaders that everyone will share the burden of budget cuts equally. Let's hope that this is the case. But let's also pray that the legislators in Washington are not so shortsighted as to believe that "any cut is a good cut" as Mark Gindin suggests. This is a crucial period in American history and we must make our decisions carefully! -Scott Butler February 18 6 0 6 ... and narrow-rninded To the Daily: In his article (Daily, Feb. 17), Mark Gindin purports to defend capitalism on the grounds of morality. I believe that he is sin- cere in this position, but I suspect that it is he, and not the liberals whom he opposes, who is "really quite ignorant of the real world." Gindin's narrow definition of mnrnliyac he frPdnm tfn-, polluted air; no one wants their children born with birth defects like those that blighted the citizens of Love Canal. Capitalism is all too often the freedom to do to others whatever you can get away with. Gover- nment regulations, for all their excesses, work to free us from the above-listed horrors. F~varnnP frPP to'ra in Aa hoie anr Is U.S. double-minded. To the a lvi /"//%%%// ,irii/l% ;# , !r. _ _ i. . i .i. ii in.,,... ( ( 1'/ Y ia ; i \1 iii% Ad