4 OPINION Page 4. Thursday, November 20, 1980 The Michigan Daily Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Feiffer 4 (AC HA'UR DA'A.) fHAS OUR CAR HARK t 460 C-MMAW, VWe ARAS AV UROi Vol. XCI, No:.67 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, M1 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Keeping lockers closed .iAALIA1 11 r i ti11 M 9 i .'MOST EVERYONE has seen it -happen, and a few of us have been victims-at some time in our pasts. Some high school administrator _or disciplinarian or security guard pulls a teenager out of class, escorts the sub- ject to his or her locker, and conducts a : ,search for suspected contraband. Such searches are embarrassing at least, and incriminating at most. Of- tentimes, they would seem to violate students' Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable search and f -seizure. SFortunately, the American Civil Liberties Union is trying to defend the right of high school students to refuse searches of their lockers and cars by school administrators. In a suit filed this week in U.S. District Court, the ACLU is arguing that Wayne Memorial High School should not be able to require students to sign forms permitting searches of their lockers or cars. The high school requires such con- sent forms of students who park their cars on school property because, ac- cording to the principal, "We consider driving to school a privilege." We consider searching a student's property a violation of privacy, and hope the court decides to protect students' rights. McX~k)AJQ CUBA&) TH SWOISS ERAWE ts IM5m&RAU S AVE OuR ! Ni TO1R \ I " PMLA 4 F A 4 4 The wrong Christian politics 4 I n the p ;. se to is; th attac -freqt singli creas Thi ded t attrit occul other expr( to th cours of mz Th, poun cide. nmpr Morevilncn Israel HE VIOLENCE in Israel and its the traditional Israeli response to ieighboring lands has gotten to Palestinian anger. int where it no longer makes sen- As has happened before, the ask whose fault a given incident Palestinian community responded to le bloodshed, bombings, terrorist the institution's closing with angry ks, and assassinations are so demonstrations. The Israeli army sent and so interrelated that showed up this time, and when a few ing out individual culprits is in- rocks came flying their way, the troops -ingly an exercise in absurdity. opened fire, wounding 11 Arab teenagers (they apparently were is week, another chapter was ad- directed to fire at the Palestinians' o the terrible legacy of the war of legs, to avoid killing them). ion when two Arabs living on the It would be hard to imagine that the pied West Bank were murdered by repercussions of the West Bank in- Arabs. Both of "the victims had cident will be peaceful. The essed friendship and co-operation Palestinians have long been suffering ie Israeli. government. That, of under a system that denies them both se, is a treasonous act in the eyes freedom of expression and fulfillment any Palestinians. of their national aspirations. They live Sviolent' atmnosphere was corn- in a country that, even at its most ded by another, even uglier in- lenient, has spoken only of "autonomy," it. The Israeli military gover- and never of full national independen- nt riecntlu csedvw Rir Zeit Univer- ce. There is a monster at work in American politics. He is everywhere. You will find him in every representative district that ever was. We have been taught to think that he is really not so bad and that even if we do not like him he will still take care of us. Our Constitution has helped to create him and through it he has worked to deceive those who ought to know better. What I have just described is the American system of political representation, the fact that it only gives representative seats to in- dividuals who get a majority, and its seduc- tion of much, if not most, of the Christian community. MINORITIES - 49 percent of the population or less - do not get 49 percent of the seats of representation in America; they get zero. In our system the majority wins everything and dictates to all the rest. The rest of us can never hope to be represented unless we get a majority ourselves. Attempting to organize a majority is the goal of existing political parties and, most recently, of a segment of the Christian com- munity that is concerned about its growing minority status: Moral Majority. The group puts a heavy emphasis on personal moral issues and equates ultra-conservative political thinking with Christian politics. Ironically, the very Constitution many con- servative Christians rank next to the Bible as a God-inspired document is partly respon- sible for the cultural impotence of the Christian community today. The disestablishment clause in Article II of the Constitution separates church from state, as well it -should; the institutional church's sphere of competence is ecclesiastical, not political. BUT RELIGION CANNOT be separated from life. While the institutional church is rightfully prevented from overstepping its bounds, we are wrong to assume that Christians, as a people, should put their Biblically rooted convictions behind them By Alan Toth when they enter the political arena. But that is precisely what the disestablishment clause has been culturally extended to mean. This development has its own history. In early America, the founders were cognizant of the religious wars that had been spawned by sectarian conflicts in the Old World. So instead of adopting a state religion, as was the practice of some nation-states in Europe after the Reformation,. the founders opted for the presumption of a public neutrality with regard to religion and established freedom of worship in the Bill of Rights. Religion, accordingly, became a strictly private matter. However, this presumption of neutrality with regard to Christianity did not keep a religion from establishing a foothold in public life. The disestablishment clause actually paved the way for the establishment of a public, civil religion of rational, moderate faith in America.' THIS NEW PUBLIC religion of humanity, rooted in Eighteenth Century enlightened rationalism, completely contradicts the faith it once confined to a private sphere of wor- ship. The enlightenment's faith in the perfec- tability of humanity began to establish itself as the dominant public faith, not just in America but throughout Western civilization.o It took Hitler and the Holocaust to make humanity aware that its proud optimism and autonomous faith in itself, alone, was at best naive. When Christianity comes out of the closet and goes public, it distinguishes itself primarily by what it is against. It has no positive program of public justice to offer ex- cept for what it has uncritically borrowed from the annals of classical liberalism: limited government, more freedom for business enterprises, and a stronger defense. The criticisms of liberalism it does offer do not go far enough. IF MORAL MAJORITY were more thoroughly biblical it would criticize a liberal welfare economy for prolonging instead of challenging the assumptions of capitalism. It would speak out against critics of this liberal political economy who are motivated, primarily, by their desire to preserve a com- fortable, middle class lifestyle with their backs to the poor. It would challenge instead of adopting the closed, intolerant nature of.a majoritarianism that claims to speak for all { groups but systematically excludes many of them from being directly represented in proportion to their numbers. FINALLY, IT WOULD take to task liberalism's failure to be more theoretically positive about the role of governiment. It would seek to entourage public policy alter- natives rooted in tie positive responsibility of government to protect and encourage the development of all groups. What is coming to us from Moral Majority, 4 instead, is justification of the trappings of American nationalism. It should not stgrprise us, then, when groups like Moral Majority emerge to support the American civil religion and to embrace majoritarian politics. But we who criticize such groups have our own blindness to contend with. In a country where the government rewards one set of beliefs through its educational system and secures its beliefs by forcing them down everyone's throat, we must learn to see that Moral Majority is a creature of our own making. If public policy making continues to close off the possibility for structural changes that make possible real alternatives in education, political representation, etc., there is a good chance we will get exactly what we deserve: a growing reactionary response to the polite totalitarianism we have already in- stitutionalized. Monsters breed only fac- similes of themselves. lRZAA n ! GAAI, y£ .A A l J u1V sity, a center ' of Palestinian nationalism north of Jerusalem that had just begun a commemoration it called "Palestine Week." The Israeli military was concerned about what it described as fervently anti-Zionist songs and speeches. In a display of scorn for freedom of expression, the government closed down the univer- sity for perhaps the umpteenth time - Somebody has to give in on something, sometime, and as the Israelis are in the powerful position of controlling their own lives, we think it ought to be they. But even the hastiest action of compensation for the most recent deaths would probably come too late to avert a continuation of the violence. The end of the bloodshed is nowhere in sight. Alan Toth is a devout Christian former Washtenaw County missioner. and a com- 4 Higgins LETTERS TO THE DAILY: SYL disruptions denied rights 'C I(,s jl' do THE DAILIN S o Wes . nt- . i / , i-;,;%" ,. ,. " ' To the Daily: I attended the lecture on Mon- day night about South African apartheid with Helen Suzman and Percy Qoboza and was very disturbed with several members of the Spartacus Youth League who were also present. During the question and an- swer period, a total of four Spar- tacus Youth League members rose to read prepared speeches. Several did not even bother to ask questions of the distinguished participants of the lecture. Even more annoying was when the moderator, who exhibited ex- treme patience and understan- ding, politely asked one Spar- tacus Youth League spokesper- son to either ask a question or please sit down. The spokesper- son continued, disregarding numerous additional requests from the audience to stop. This is not the first time the Spartacus Youth League has disrupted distinguished speakers at The University of Michigan. Their obnoxious and unbecoming shouting at Secretary of State Muskie at the recent Peace Corp rededication made the national news, much to the delight of the disrupters, I'm sure. I sincerely suggest to the Spar- tacus Youth League that if I wan- ted to attend a lecture and hear members of their organization read their rhetoric, I would at- tend their weekly meetings. I want to make it very clear that they have the right of free speech and that they may cer- tainly attend any lecture or gathering at this University and express their views. However, they will certainly not convince me of their views by violating my rights. They are obnoxious, self- righteous pseudo-liberals who believe they can speak and shout, all they want while denying others their rights. Must I be sub- jected to the Spartacus Youth League's interruptions again and again and remain silent? If the Spartacus Youth League continues to violate my rights and the rights of other University of Michigan students, I suggest the new chant will shift from SMASH THE KLAN to SMASH THE SPAR TACUS YOUTH LEAGUE!!!!!!!!! -Seth D. Moldoff November 17 4 /. r JAI S YL should open eyes Distinguishing CARP To the Daily: Messrs. Hilbert & Humbert (Daily, November 14) are quite, justified in their indignation over the fact that the Daily labeled the Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles an organization of the "extreme right." The extreme right, as these two officers of CARP define it, is the ideology of free enterprise ideas, which in this case means an opposition to left-of-center politics. CARP also criticizes Western society, according to its officers: Its stand is anti-liberal as well as anti-communist; and, according to, Messrs. Hilbert & Humbert, it is a "revolutionary organization dedicated to the construction of a new society ...'' D .i ., ,. ic _ n __s n To the Daily: In responding to the Spartacus Youth League (Michele Lubke, Oct. 31, 1980), I'd like to question the validity of the position of at least one of its members. The SYL seems to know what is right for us in America: We should follow the path of the Soviet Union in finding true com- munism. There are at least two obvious premises here. First, that there is one right way to live. If that is granted, then seemingly all that remains is to find the correct path or paths toward the least- imDerfect society. Then, even existence will have been destroyed. A class system exists in the Soviet Union. There is a ruling elite, and it has been dictating to the people, the workers, the in- tellectuals, and the scientists for over sixty years. How- many decades do we have to wait before we see and admit that the Soviet Union is not truly com- munistic? Or that Marx was wrong? I submit that to ignore the vast volume of information on the sub- ject is wrong, and unforgivable'in a community where knowledge is