4 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, December 12, 2001 OP/ED q aloie £kw gnfa~ 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 daily.letters@umich.edu EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 GEOFFREY GAGNON Editor in Chief MICHAEL GRASS NICHOLAS WOOMER Editorial Page Editors Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other articles, letters and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. NOTABLE QUOTABLE C CHe has a huge job - huge - and he's only 25. Yay, good contact." - Diana Davis, staff assistant to Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) on Ryan Thomas, who works for the Senate Appropriations Committee. Davis was featured in an article in this month's issue of Vanity Fair on socializing and other ways to rise through Capitol Hill. flWs AREN'T ' i TIAf M >~$~ N\\ I p O:( o ~ 4 q CHPS LLE \2. I-oz l~ pCAP Ot c he--MAi s Ct0 l tAm OCF A clump o' cells but not universal healthcare? NICK WOOMER BACK TO THE Wi.OOM T he Christmas sea- can already see a conflict a-brewin'. If I have are against abortion at any point in the preg- son isn't easy for property rights to, say, a piece of pizza, that nancy, this is a moot point. those of us on the means I can do whatever I want with that Therefore, to be consistent,,.our laissez- secular left. On the one piece of pizza so long as it does not conflict faire-loving pro-lifer either has to seriously hand we find ourselves in with anyone else's rights. I can eat it, I can rethink his or her conception of property rights the midst of this awful give it to a homeless person, I can just let it sit or he or she has to join the Satanic legions of orgy of consumption and around and watch mold grow all over it -- it's pro-choicers (bruhahahahaha!). I tend to think commercialization. On the my decision, and I am under no obligation to that people who take generally principled other hand, the capitalistic choose any particular method to dispose of my positions like being pro-life would be more revelry at least distracts piece of pizza. If you take my piece of pizza inclined to drop their allegiance to property people from paying too much attention to the away from me without my permission, regard- rights. bogus spiritual fantasy that acts as the sup- less of how noble your motives are (feeding When you think about it, however, the pro- posed impetus behind "The Most Wonderful the homeless for example) then that means life conception of property rights is probably Time of the Year." you have violated my property rights. going to look pretty radical Here is a position So it's at times like these that I like to The problem for pro-lifers who believe in that says that even that which we have the spread my personal confusion by revealing a strict conception of property rights is that a most solemn claim of control over (our body) some uncomfortable contradictions I detect in woman's body must function in the exact ought to be confiscated (at least for nine people who are ideologically aligned with two same way for them that my piece of pizza months) for the good of another. Following of my very favorite political positions: The does for me. She is free to use it as she pleas- this logic, then, it would seem that the needy hard-core, right wing, laissez-faire property es, and she is under no obligation whatsoever also ought to be able to confiscate those things rights advocate position and the hard-core pro- to use it to help anyone else, even if it would which people have significantly less solemn life position. Guess what? You can't be both. keep a cute li'l clump o' cells alive. control over (like discretionary income, inher- Still, there are a lot of people who think Of course, the laissez-faire pro-lifer might itance, etc.) for the greater good. A consistent you can be - for examples think aspiring try to argue that, by having intercourse, a pro-lifer, then, ought to be clamoring for at Christian Mullahs like Jerry Falwell and Pat woman implicitly accepts the possibility that least all of the features of the traditional wel- Robertson and most mainstream, tow-the- she might become pregnant, and that in doing fare state (universal health care, unemploy- party-line Republicans. Here's why you can't so, she enters into some sort of contract with ment benefits, access to education at all levels, be a pro-life strong property rights advocate: any potential zygote whereby she promises to etc.) since he or she must accept the premise Let's start by granting (I think wrongly) bring it to term. This would, however, be a that property rights are flexible in the pursuit the pro-lifers one of their principal points - pretty strange contract, since every contract of the greater good. that a fetus is a person in the moral sense. That that I'm aware of requires that both parties It's worth noting that a lot of pro-lifers is, fetuses are entitled to all of the moral con- enter into it voluntarily and an "unwanted already realize this and act accordingly in the siderations society usually accords to anybody pregnancy" is, by definition, not voluntary. political arena. That said, many (probably else. The only way I can see this argument most in this country) do not; if they're going Let's also assume something that almost working (maybe) is if it applied some sort of to be such staunch opponents of "murderous" everyone who believes in the free market statute of limitations on the decision to have institutions, they'd be well advised not to pick agrees with - that property rights actually an abortion. This would apply to cases where, and choose which ones their consciences tell exist. It follows from this that if anyone is if a woman doesn't decide to terminate the them to oppose. capable of having a "right" to own anything, it pregnancy in so many weeks/months, she ought to be his or her own body. implicitly enters into a contract with the fetus Nick Woomer can be reached via With these two premises established, we to bring it to term. However, since pro-lifers e-mail at nwoomer@umich.edu. Y LETTERS TO THE EDITOR N pah have tattoos, is this really the image that we Maybe this picture would have been more want to publish to the world? Not to mention appropriate for the Arts or Weekend, Etc. unprofessionalism the fact that this paper featured the farewell pages of the Daily. honors for our departing president ... what an JAMEs DALE lack of taste issue for him to have to archive! LSA junior The picture, while I feel its content too unseemly, could have even been better taken. To THE DAILY: We certainly didn't need the photo artist Thanks for producing one of the best col- to use the "nipple-cam" approach to his sub- lege newspapers in the nation. I normally ject; I really did not want to wake up to see enjoy reading the Daily and catching up on some guy with two little bullet things in there .U'E.E..... 'n.HER wi Ti., world events. as a piercing.-E OR AGAU4ST U I did not, however, appreciate the photo In general, I found the picture distasteful. on the front page of Tuesday's Daily Furthermore, I am sure that it would have ("Needlework"). The photo, featuring some been relatively easy to find a picture of some- tERRAL VIGILENCE. guy getting a tattoo across his chest, has no one getting a tattoo on his/her arm or some- COMRADRS, place on the front page of the newspaper. thing like that, if the photographer was really While I hold nothing against those who bent on getting a tattooist on the front page. Y VIEWPOINT Get off the bus ... and on a train BY JEREMY MENCHIK According to the Detroit Free Press, in 1945 Detroit's transit system carried 492 million rid- ers, most on electric trolleys. In contrast, some 70 million use Detroit's public transportation system today and have only one choice: Buses. Why? In 1932 and 1936 General Motors (in collaboration with Standard Oil, Firestone, Mack Truck, and Phillips Petroleum) formed two private companies, United Cities Motor Transit and National City Lines in order to buy urban streetcar lines, tear them up, and substi- tute buses the company manufactured. Between 1936 and 1956 National City Lines bought, dis- mantled, and replaced 100 electric rail systems in 45 cities with buses. Detroit was among the places National City Lines targeted. In 1949, the U.S. found G.M. and their cohorts guilty of anticompetitive behavior under the Sherman Antitrust Act. What the court called a "criminal conspiracy" proved to be a splendid business investment for the perpe- trators. G.M., Standard Oil, Firestone, Mack Truck, and Phillips Petroleum have since real- ized hundreds of billions of dollars in product sales connected with motorized transportation. It seems these same business interests are up to their usual schemes, this time with the support of The Michigan Daily ("Connect Metro Detroit," 12/11/01). By advocating the Coalition, sponsor of a study beginning a pro- ject for increased public transport and pushing the Rapid bus system. There are neither envi- ronmentalists nor local businesses involved in MAC. MAC is not an accurate representation of the community riding the buses but rather serves the needs of businesses benefiting from construction and maintanance of the system. The real negative effect of Rapid buses is the infrastructure - roads and pavement. Keeping Michigan's overcrowded roads in decent condition is an expensive process and the federal govermnent discourages spending on highway infrastructure. Real money from the federal government, according to the Michi- gan Land Use Initiative, is in rail. Policy Direc- tor Arlin Wasserman notes "since 1990 the Federal government has shifted away from chiefly automobile to rail funding. Within the pool of federal dollars, rail has gone up and roads have gone down. Instead of going after the rail money like many progressive states, Michigan decides each year to go after a shrinking pot of road dollars." Michigan is the nation's eighth most popu- lous state yet last year the state received less than one percent of $2.6 billion in federal fund- ing for bus and rail. Detroit spends only $19 per person on public transport while San Francisco spends $139 and Cleveland and Pittsburgh spend $70 to $80 per person. With rail-based tranrn''t_ Michiean cain ve~t more federal funds Detroit to Ann Arbor, Pontiac and Mt. Clemens. A 1997 study by the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) found that the rail system would serve 19,000 passen- gers a day, with 14 daily trains on each line, and would cost only $23.4 million to operate annually. This is in comparison to $1.3 billion needed to widen just 11 miles of I-94. Accord- ing to MDOT, a commuter rail system in Southeast Michigan would create nearly 2,500 jobs related to building and operating the rail- system. In addition it would generate $1.1 bil- lion in economic benefit while enhancing business values and property values throughout the region. A 1999 study by Cambridge Sys- tematics, a transportation-consulting firm, esti- mated that every $10 million of capital investment in public transit creates more than 300 jobs and a $30 million boost in local sales. The commuter rail system would reduce congestion on Detroit's overburdened high- ways while the Rapid bus system worsens the problem. Yet the state continues to proceed with plans to widen, extend, and improve existing roads rather than rail. Why? Accord- ing to a study in October 1998, lobby groups including Automobile Club of Michigan Polit- ical Action Council, Michigan Road Builders Association PAC and Michigan Trucking Association PAC contributed more than $730,000 to state politicians. The highways 4 -A