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OPINION
Page 4
Friday, September 14, 1984
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The Michigan
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Religious leaders behind politicians
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By Dave Kopel
I used to dismiss Jesse Jackson's
complaint that the media treated him
unfairly. While Jackson was right in
saying that the media focused too much
attention on Farrakhan, and not enough
on the social iustice issues that Jackson
was trying to raise, Jackson had only
himself to blame for not breaking with
Farrakhan earlier. But lately, I've
found out that both Walter Mondale and
Ronald Reagan actively court the sup-
port of "religious" leaders just as evil
and hate-filled as Farrakhan. And the
mainstream press ignores the story.
You've probably never heard of The
Jewish Press, but Ronald Reagan has.
When it endorsed him in 1980, Reagan
called it one of the "most powerful"
newspapers in America's Jewish com-
munity. Walter Mondale also pays atten-
tion to this newspaper, which has a cir-
culation of 200,000. During the New
York primary, he visited The Jewish
Press office, was photographed with its
publisher, and won its endorsement.
BOTH RONALD REAGAN and
Walter Mondale have sought approval
from a viciously racist newspaper.
Consider the attitude the paper took
to some recent events in Israel. A few
months ago, Israeli police infiltrated
and broke up a gang of extremist
Israeli terrorists. The terrorist group
had bombed Palestinine buses, attem-
pted to murder two Palestinian
mayors, and machine-gunned
Palestinian college students. In an ef-
fort to set off a "holy war" between the
Arabs and Israelis, these Jewish
terrorists were plotting to blow up the
Dome of the Rock, a very sacred
Islamic shrine located in Jerusalem.
While the vast majority of Israelis ap-
plauded the destruction of this cadre by
the Israeli police, The Jewish Press
editorialized that the terrorists were
guilty only of "doing what the gover-
nment should have done in the first
place."
According to a recent column by
Alexander Cockburn in the Michigan
Voice, Meir Kahane serves as a columnist
and correspondent for The Jewish
Press. Kahane is an extremist Israeli
politician who believes that all non-
Jews should be forcibly expelled from
Israel and the West Bank. A Hitlerite
a coalition, or even to talk to him.
In Israel, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak
Shamir forthrightly reject Kahane and
everything he stands for. But in
America, Ronald Reagan and Walter
Mondale seek the endorsement of a
newspaper that backs Kahane and his
sick racism. And the American press
says nothing.
JESSE JACKSON might say the
reason the press writes about his
association with Farrakhan - but
ignores the association of Mondale and
Reagan with The Jewish Press - is that
the mainstream media is biased in
favor of Jews and Israel. But Jackson
would be wrong there, because the
press also refuses to notice Ronald
Reagan's association with a militant
anti-Semite.
Viewers of Sunday morning
television know who Jimmy Swaggert is.
A powerful orator, he is one of the first,
and one of the most successful
televangelists. He claims that Jews,
Catholics, and most Protestants are
damned. "None of those things that
Mother Teresa does will add one thing
to her salvation," he said. He thinks
that Satan created Calvinism. And'ac-
'. t
cording to-Swaggert, Jews were.mur-
dered in the holocaust because they
would not accept the protection of Jesus{
Christ. Jimmy Swaggert belongs:in a
loonie bin, but Ronald Reagan
regularly invited him to the White
House for consultation on church-state
issues.
Louis Farrakhanj leads only a sniall
sect of America's Black Muslims, un-
der ten thousand people. The Jewish
Press and Jimmy Swaggert have hun-
dreds of thousands of followers. They
are no less hateful and angry than
Farrakhan, and a good deal more4
powerful. Why doesn't the establish-
ment media demand of Mondale and
Reagan what it demanded of Jackson?
And why don't Walter Mondale and
Ronald Reagan remember Franklin
Roosevelt's observation that "The
Presidency is primarily a place od moral
leadership"? Why don't Reagan and
Mondale repudiate their own allies of
hate?
Jesse Jackson isn't the only one who has associated with racists. Walter Mondale
and Ronald Reagan are also guilty of keeping bad company.
advocate of racial purity, he proposes
criminalizing marriage or sex between
Arabs and Jews. Kahane called the
Sabra and Shatile masacres the
"vengeance of the God of Israel."
Although Kahane's party won one seat
in the Israeli parliment, both major
Israeli parties refuse to admit him into
Kopel is a third year law student.
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
Cramer
sir.
Vol. XCV, No. 8
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board
Going for the scalp
T HE CITY should once and for all
decriminalize ticket scalping and
stop pretending that it takes the offen-
se seriously. The University, as well,
should stop viewing the practice with
such indignation. The athletic depar-
tment should admit that its ticket
policies create the problem and stop
,pestering the city for more active en-
forcement.
Current state law imposes a $100 fine
and 90 days in jail for scalping but has
never been enforced in Ann Arbor. Ex-
cept for a couple of arrests made last
fall, the police have ignored scalpers.
Enforcement hasn't been, nor should it
be, one of the city's priorities.
City Council has been tossing the
idea of decriminalization around but
just can't bring itself to go all the way.
Mayor Louis Belcher, and several
other council members, have said that
they would support a $25 fine for
scalping, but the reasoning behind
such a fine is questionable. If it is
aimed at high-volume dealers who
make hundreds of dollars a game, then
it is far too small a penalty to be any
deterrent at all. On the other hand, if it
is aimed at the student trying to get rid
of 1 or 2 extra tickets, then it is a
ridiculous and unfair attempt to curb a
harmless campus-wide practice. The
city cannot waste its time and money
enforcing the state's law, nor can it
-waste its time ticketing dealers who
won't even notice and pursuing half of
the students on campus. With
decriminalization the city would be
able to eliminate all of the inconsisten-
cies in its current and proposed enfor-
cement.
Amidst the debate are heard the
University's cries for strict enfor-
cement of the state law. University of-
ficials are correct that fines will fail to
act as a deterrent but they are wrong
to be chastising the city for lack of en-
forcement.
The scalping problem arises because
the athletic department sells tickets to
students that are not, supposedly, valid
without a student ID. Students then sell
the tickets to scalpers who in turn sell
them to non-students-alumni, fans,
etc. who ignore the need for an ID.
The University could take matters
into its own hands easily enough by
simply asking for student ID with the
presentation of a student ticket. Not
that they-or anyone else-would want
such a time-consuming and prohibitive
measure. But it is completely feasible.
If it isn't worth it for the athletic
department to be checking tickets,
why should the city be wasting its
time making arrests and prosecuting
the numerous campus scalpers?
The bottom line is that scalping hurts
no one and actually provides an im-
portant service for those in need of a
ticket. It is not worth anyone's time to
be pursuing such a minor offense.
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What are our rights and respon-
sibilities as citizens in a free
society? Before answering that
question, we must make the fun-
damental observation that rights
and responsibilities are always
linked. Where there is a right,
there is a responsibility, and vice
versa. They are mirror images
of each other. A person's right to
drive on the freeway entails a
concomitant responsibility to
drive cautiously and safely. The
responsibility of raising a child
invokes the right to exercise
authority and limit the child's ac-
tion.
What is a right? Where does it
originate? Does it come from a
diety, or is it inherent like the
number pi? A little reflection will
reveal that rights are created for
people by people and come in the
form of non-returnable gifts.
When the framers of the
Declaration of Independence
wrote that "We hold these truths
to be self-evident. . .," they were
really saying that they had
unanimously agreed that the
truths were self-evident.
If rights come from people,
which people can grant them, and
which must live by their man-
dates? Throughout human
history, only two kinds of groups
have ever granted a right: the
powerful (either physically or
monetarily) and the simple
majority. In a representational
form of government, there is
usually a mix of the two. This is
most clearly illustrated in the
inherent. Non-despotic societies
have occasionally abandoned
even these so-called "natural
rights." In 1856, Chief Justice
Taney of the United States
Supreme Court ruled in the Dred-
Scott case that slaves were
property, and "had no rights or
privileges but such as those who
held the power and the Gover-
nment might choose to grant
them."
Examples can be found in other
societies, ancient and modern.
The right to life would seem the
most basic of prerogatives. But
the Aztecs had an annual ritual
supervised by a priest in which a
man was sacrificed to the gods.
The victim was always a cap-
tured prisoner. Presumably, the
priests valued their own lives. In
nineteeth century England, the
death penalty was frequently in-
voked for offenses as minor as
stealing a loaf of bread. A
general principle can be gleaned:
an individual almost always
RT dVMVa MS wiTv
values his own life and liberty,
but when groups grant rights to
society at large, these ideals are
not always preserved.
What happens when rights con-
flict with each other? The right
of free expression, for instance,
has been known to conflict with
the public's right of peace and
quiet. As with judicial evidence,
rights are sometimes "Weighed"
on a delicate scale. Some rights
are judged to be more important
than others. If a protest or
demonstration threatens to
disrupt a community, the
"message may be weighed
against the potential danger.
But what happens when impor-
tant rights are pitted against
each other. The right to life is
typically regarded as more im-
portant than free expression, but
many people have died as mar-
tyrs to-a religious belief. What
would happen if a cult group in
the U.S. advocated infanticide as
a "holy" practice? It would
Question ing
rights and
resp onsib ilities
By John Critchett
quicklybe put out of business by
a society which neither under-
stands nor condones such prac-
tice. Everyone is entitled to have
ideas and opinions. But abstract
concepts and notions are like puf-
fs of hot air: one person can feel
them, and then they are gone. An
enduring right is more often than
not, a product of something which
can be seen, heard, or touched by
everyone. Life can be univer-
sally appreciated.
But what about respon-
sibilities, the mirror image of
rights? Why do they always go
hand in hand? To use an
economic analogy, responsibilities
are the costs we bear for the
rights we enjoy. If we deprive
someone else of a right, society
will take action against us as
surely as we will be stopped from
stealing a good in a supermarket.
All goods have a price, and we
should expect to pay it. And when
something is extracted from us,
'we should expect to " find a
corresponding good. Those of us
who use the roads and parks, and
are educated in the schools, owe
much to our society. But where
there is no right to speak or act in
our own best interests, there is no
responsibility to the state or any
other entity.
:
Critchett
student in
ministration.
is a graduate
business ad-
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