4 OPINION Page 4 Friday, September 14, 1984 f The Michigan Dailyj 7 _ , ,' .. # r" ,.K ai.. . Religious leaders behind politicians *1., 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. RMAfh! l'M NOT &ETfM ANwE,%x I SjloUtb NAY KNOWtINUT T o BUY~ Aell711JG USED FOR S A1EN1AT f ,/'/ /I FM SENATE /w I f!.! 4 w 4 N 4 PAI = I 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- . I . . p tw lass«1rc 1!«n ti aarri