4 OPINION Page 4 Tu esday, November 27, 1984 The Michigan Daily 4 The price of constitutional freedoms By Dave Kopel Some liberals I know think that all of our consitutional freedoms are an unalloyed benefit. Don't believe them. Most of the freedoms exact a heavy price from society. That's why most other countries, including all of our democratic allies, don't protect these "freedoms" with anything like the stringency we do. Take the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. Most other democracies have a similar rule, but none of them have what our Supreme Court has inven- ted-the exclusionary rule. Under the exclusionary rule, if police seize evidence illegally, the evidence can't be admitted into court, no matter how im- portant the evidence is. Most foreign visitors are shocked when they find out about the exclusionary rule. Although studies indicate that the rule prevents successful prosecution in only one per- cent of all criminal cases, one percent is a lot. Over the years, the ex- clusionary rule has freed thousands of hardened criminals who have laughed at a society that let them go free. And no doubt these thousands of freed criminals went on to commit tens of thousands more violent crimes. AND CONSIDER how strict our con- stitutional rules about confessions are. Most democratic countries forbid physical torture of a criminal suspect; but only America boxes in the police with such an elaborate set of rules designed to prevent psychologically coercing a suspect. The hard truth is that without some pressure from the police, most criminals won't confess. In many cases there isn't enough tangible evidence to convict someone without a confession. That's why the Japanese, like many other nations, allow the police to hold a suspect for several days without outside contact, instead of immediately telling the suspect that he can have a free lawyer like we do here. Criminal procedure isn't the only constitutional field that features super- strict rules. Take the First Amen- dment. Current libel laws make it almost impossible for any public figure to recover damages for even the most vicious lies. The victim of libel must prove that the author misstated the fac- ts "knowingly or recklessly." And since it's pretty hard to get inside the author's head and prove what he was thinking, the vast majority of libel plaintiffs lose. Losing your reputation to a libel is horrible, but it's nothing like losing your son or your daughter to some cult leader. Sun Myung Moon moved from Korea to the United States because he realized that America's broad "freedom of religion" would give him room to operate-that is room to lead gullible teenagers into slavery and brainwash them to hate their families and society. In most of the rest of the world, Jim Jones would have been thrown into an insane asylum, before he led his victims off to poison death in Guyana. It's one thing to say that Protestants, Catholics, and Jews ought to leave each other alone; it's something else entirely to let demons like Moon and Jones run free. PERHAPS no constitutional clause causes more damage than the Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms. Full-scale national gun control wouldn't keep professional criminals from buying guns, but it would make it hard for young hoods to acquire the tools for a spur of the moment mugging. More importantly, a widespread ban on gun ownership would prevent all the senseless gun accidents and heat-of- passion killings that take place today. It's fair to assume that we could save 250 lives a year by stopping gun ac- cidents. If this country lasts another 200 years, that means 50,000 lives could have been saved-as many as died in Vietnam. What's my point here? That strict constitutional freedoms are a bad idea? Not at all. By refusing to sanction illegal police behavior, a strong ex- clusionary rule protects the integrity of the judicial system. Tough rules about coerced confessions protect the in- nocent as well as the guilty. High libel standards help keep our press the freest and most investigative in the world. Our religious tolerance has made America the incubator of religions that are still persecuted as cults elsewhere-like the Mormons and the Baptists. And widespread ownership of firearms ensures that if all the other constitutional protections failed, and a dictator took over, freedom-loving Americans would be able to wage a long-term guerilla resistance. The prospect of such resistance would of course deter anyone contemplating a coup. Constitutional freedoms exact a heavy cost, but they yield an even greater. bounty. The Founding Fathers knew that freedom sometimes carries a high price, and that it would seem expedient to cut back on freedom just a little bit. And bit by bit, America would lose its place as the world's beacon of liberty. To keep basic freedoms secure, the Framers put them in the Constitution, beyond the reach of temporary ex- pediency. And to enforce the Con- stitution, we have the federal judiciary, which, because it is appointed for life, is immune to temporary political pressures. Constitutional rights can cause a lot of problems and harm a lot of people; that's why we protect those freedoms by placing them in the Con- stitution. Kopel is a third year law student. South Korean evangelist Rev. Sun Myung Moon capitalizes on. America's constitutional freedoms which allow him to lead a religious cult, even if the cult brainwashes a few teenagers here and there. Editeb s tn t Th Unsty o ig Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan LETTERS TO THE DAILY More meaningless liberal platitudes Vol. XCV, No. 67 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, M1 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Troubled ADVICE GOOD ADVICE IS hard to come by during course registration. The hazards of CRISP often require a shoulder to cry on, but barring that, a little educated counsel is always ap- preciated. ADVICE, the Michigan Student Assembly's instructor and course evaluation guide, was established five years ago to help make one's fateful decisions at CRISP as educated as possible. Unfortunately, ADVICE hasn't been working the way it should. For the past three terms, evaluations have been incomplete or inexcusably late in coming. The beginning of CRISP marks the time when ADVICE is most needed. Yet this term it is nowhere to be found. The reasons for ADVICE's failure are numerous. It is clear, however, that MSA should take steps to correct the problem. ADVICE is one of MSA's most useful projects and deserves the attention necessary to make it available when needed. ADVICE Project Director Richard Layman blames this term's delay on computer programming difficulties and delays at the printer. But while these problems are legitimate and worthy of sympathy, they are problems which could have been foreseen and avoided by proper over- sight from MSA. Seventeen cents are earmarked each term from every student to pay the costs of ADVICE. On a budget of close to $12,000 MSA should be able to guarantee that the guide is released in time to be useful. Layman also cites a lack of student involvement as one of the project's dif- ficulties. Layman is currently in his third year of directing the project and was forced to complete the guide almost single- handedly after the resignation of a project co-director earlier in the term. The complications involved with getting ADVICE out on time are understandable in light of the small numbers working on the project. What is not understandable is how MSA could let the situation get as bad as it has in the past three terms. Last spring there was hope of progress in the implementation of a new evaluation method, but that hope has been followed this term by literally nothing. No matter how good the guide may be, it is worthless if not released in time for CRISP. ADVICE needs to be saved from its own inability to get released on time. MSA should do all it can to see that it becomes an indispensible student tool once again. To the Daily: Dean Baker's letter "No apologies for interfering with CIA" (Daily, November 17) was sufficiently ignorant and arrogant to warrant a response which will attempt to further his education about the ways of the world. So the CIA has had a hand in setting up repressive right-wing governments, has it? You think it's the worst of its kind in the world, do you? I wonder if you've ever heard of the grandfatherly little concern called the KGB? I wonder how many repressive left-wing governments they've set up; or how many terrorist manuals they've written, or how many murders they've commit- ted. If you were to do a little research beyond the usual liberal snivel-sheet material, you would discover that the KGB is a hell of a lot more intrusive, repressive, and widespread than the CIA has ever been or could ever hope to be. So why don't we hear people of Baker's ilk protesting the KGB, in comparison to which the CIA is pale and anemic? I'll tell you why. It's the usual liberal double-standard. Liberals scream shrilly and jump up and down when obscenities are committed by right-wing gover- nments, yet they close their eyes and bring out the whitewash whenever precisely the same of- fenses are committed by persons from their own end of the spec- trum. Few indeed are the liberals who get upset about Stalin's but- chering of millions of people in the gulags, including entire ethnic groups, or about the in- vasion of Afghanistan, or about the sheer mockery of Ortega's election (American apologists to the contrary), or about the star- ving of half the population of Cambodia when the Communists took over. Yet just mention the word "Nazi" or "contra" or "Grenada" and these same people gibber in rage. I guess that means that genocide and mayhem are acceptable as long as the person doing it is classifiable as left-wing. I guess that means that if Hitler would return today, all he would have to do to be a success would be to perform his same acts of atrocity under the cloak of leftism. It is interesting, too, how quickly the meaningless moral platitudes of liberals will crum- ble into dust when put to the test as they were with the arrival of the CIA representatives. The end result is that the liberals them- selves become just as repressive as they claim their victims are. I am curious what they would do if thePv would ever be in %a similar your opinion on everybody else at the University? Did Zeus tap you on the shoulder one night, or was it perhaps Osiris? We've had ex- perience with such arrogantly self-righteous zealots before, Baker-the names Hitler and Rev. Jim Jones immediately come to mind. It is such a thrill that a very small, select group of children elected themselves to be the guardians of decency here, but if you really don't mind-if it does not offend your deep sense of decency-I would prefer to make such decisions for myself without having to hear your crap issuing from the background. After all, isn't our ability to do that one of the cornerstones of the "freedom and democracy" of which you claim the CIA is an enemy and to which.you yourself attempted to inflict a mortal wound last week? It is time for certain people to grow up and realize that the world is real-not some dreamy cotton-candy ball made all soft and mushy by the milk of human kindness. Unfortunately for them, any such scenario is made almost impossible by the existen- ce of something called "human nature"-and it will never be possible as long as there exist people who wail about repression and yet become arrogantly repressive themselves as soon as they feel the harsh prick of reality thrusting into the in- sulating feather-bed of liberal fantasies they've wrapped them- selves into. By the way, Baker-it was also the CIA who helped get Castro in- to power. Funny you didn't men- tion that, but then I think the reason is obvious, considering the political persuasions of the leaders whom you did choose to lambast in your letter. -Gerald Eisenhower November 26 Apologies concerning AD VICE To the Daily: As you are well aware, the Course Evaluations Committee of the Michigan Student Assem- bly publishes ADVICE, an in- structor and course evaluation guide. And, as all of us are aware, CRISP started yesterday. Where is ADVICE? - Last term, although ADVICE came out on time for use during the early registration period, there ,were some significant problems with the published data it contained. For some reason (we still don't know exac- tly what happened) Department of Psychology course data and certain other courses contained incorrect information. If data contained within AD- VICE is incorrect we have no credibility. Apparently, our computer program contained un- detected bugs that, up till now, were inactive. Therefore, we had to rewrite the computer program. This has been done but it has taken us much longer than expec- ted. Additionally, we have had to check each evaluation for ac- curacy by comparing them to the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching's (CRLT) indepen- dently compiled evaluations. We have run into further problems relating to the actual printing of ADVICE. Michigan's BLOOM COUNTY economy is now booming, com- pared to the recent past. The delays in our compiling ADVICE due to the necessity of rewriting and checking our computer program have pushed our prin- ting time smack into the middle of the Christmas shopping period. Therefore, it is practically im- possible to schedule printing time at any of the major printers. We have had to switch printers twice before we could schedule time. We have had other problems. The person who had agreed to take my place as project director changed her mind, forcing me to carry on when I did not want to. Furthermore, because of my own responsibilities, I have not been able to give the necessary time to ADVICE that a project director should. This has probably delayed publication as well. Next term will be better. But now, the answer to the question, "When will ADVICE be out?" All I can tell you is what the printers tell me, sometime before December 7th. My hands are tied. I apologize to all the students who have been inconvenienced by our delays. Then again, if more students contributed their time and effort, things could be dif- ferent. -Richard Layman November 26 .. .. .i"" 'S .> * : i: c .:>3 . 3' f. ; . .*..*='i .::5*: "ii *S> :i>;:;i* i .*.* 2i : <:'*c.*i''i:i':. Unsigned editorials ap- pearing on the left side of this page represent a majority opinion of the Daily 's Editorial Board. 4 { *i.f 1 o; A YV " do oi p r° ; ovjeOW I ~. . .. ... . .... . . . ...... . ....... by Berke Breathed J~?ACe Bl.ACK? 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