The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 84, No. 9, Ed. 1 Friday, November 1, 1996 Page: 2 of 20
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Though not perfect, Dole is choice
of staff's majority.
It is a timeless tradition for the editorial department of American
newspapers to endorse candidates in elections; the most commonly
endorsed election being the presidential one. The Rice Thresher is
not immune this season. Hie editorial board agreed to endorse a
candidate two weeks ago.
In keeping with the spirit of staff editorials, the Editorial Board of
the Thresher was polled to preserve a majority opinion. The majority
chose to endorse candidate Bob Dole.
Not a single staff member predicted Dole as a winner within our
poll, 'The Thresher, after all, is a reputably open-minded publication
when politics are concerned. Open-mindedness has come to be a
feature or even a synonym of "liberal" in modern politics. So in
looking at ourselves we would have never thought we would have
chosen Dole — the conservative candidate. .
But is there truly a conservative or a liberal bent in this election?
What we have in Dole and Clinton are two moderates with successful
political careers that have been based on veers in political beliefs.
Some call these veers "wishy-washy." Others call them brilliant
politics. Either way you look, both can be called survivalists.
As with almost every other presidential election, what we see will
not be likely what we get. Whether its welfare cuts or lower taxed
that we arc promised, in four years there will still be poverty, deficit
and uncertainty. This is not cynicism, this is cause for alarm. Be
alarmed.
The Rice Thresher endorses Dole with'caution. Regardless who
wins Tuesday, think for yourself; think of solutions.
Comparing colleges is fine, but
assigning numbers doesn't help.
With all the emphasis being placed on college ratings these days,
the grass roots movement against U.S. News and World Report'*
college rating criteria is long overdue.
Rather than simply questioning the specific criteria used,'we
should be questioning the concept of college ratings themselves.
The tendency to want to quantify everything is, perhaps, under
st'andable. But can the value of a college education be reduced to a
single number?
Every university is different; each has its own unique character;
each will provide a somewhat different education. Consider,
for example. Money
nlnlnn W magazine's college best
U1I1iOI1£L buys for this year: New
College of the University
of Florida, Caltech and
Rice. Can we really corn-
pare such disparate
schools?
Rankings only serve to
mislead students into thinking that they must go to a "top school"
and lead administrators to put resources not where they will help
students but where they will boost rankings.
U.S. News. Money and their like are probably doing more harm
than good. We urge them to reconsider their approaches to college
guides
Letter Policy
TO SUBMIT — I t Iter s may be sent in by ...
e-mail: weller&ricc.edu
campus mail: letter to the Editor, c/o The Rica Thresher
tJ.S Mail: Loiter to the Editor, The Rice Thresher,
fil(K) Main St., MST>24, Houston, I*X 77005-1892
in person: Thresher Office, Second Floor, Student Center
DEADLINE — Deadline for all letters is 5 p.m. on Monday. Letters
received after the deadline are generally not considered for
publication until die following week.
RULES
1. All letters must include your name, college, year of
graduation and phone number.
2. Short letters (200-500 words is a good guideline) have a better
chance of being published than long ones.
.3. letters received via campus or U.S. mail must be signed.4/you
are not submitting via e-mail, we strongly recommend that you
submit letters on a Macintosh or IBM-formatted disk.
4. We do not accept anonymous letters, but names may be with-
held circumstances,
5. We reserve the right to edit for length, spelling, grammar
and style.
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Letters to the Editor
Republican Congress is best choice
To the editor:
I am writing in response to the
columns by the Rice Young Demo-
crats that have appeared each week
in your paper this semester.
I applaud the efforts of the Rice
Young Democrats in presenting
their side of the issues for the up-
coming election, and I would also
like to register my disappointment
in the Rice Young Republicans for
offering only token opposition. If
they can't offer a rejoinder, I will.
The most remarkable aspects of
the upcoming elections are the gen
eral apathy among the public and
the poor quality of the presidential
candidates of the major parties.
These phenomena are related and
can be blamed on both parties.
In 1994, the Democrats suffered
their worst electoral defeat in his-
tory. Americans were portrayed as
"angry" for good reason.
The administration now poised
to be re-elected had just tried to
force them to accept government
control over their lives in the guise
of "free" medical care. The adminis-
tration that declared "the era of big
government... is over," had shown
that it was really committed to fur-
ther expansion of big government.
Americans were tired of working
until after July J every year to pay
confiscatory tax rates.
The Republicans triumphantly
entered Congress with the promise
to slop Bill Clinton. <They won the
battle, bul a long campaign by the
Democrats threatens everything the
Republicans stand for."
The Democrats have smeared
the Republicans for the past two
years. They used Big Bird as win-
dow-dressing to portray the Repub-
licans as mean-spirited when they
tried to privatize public television.
Taxation is a form of
slavery. No amount
of concern for the
suffering of others
can change this fact
or justify it.
When the Republicans tried to
decentralize file school lunch pro-
gram, the Democrats acted as if child
starvation were a plank iri the Re-
publican platform. When the Repub-
licans offered a plan to slow the rate
of growth in Medicare by about the
same amount as the president, the
Democrats lied en masse, claiming
that the Republicans were cutting
the program. The Republicans
helped them by not arguing for their
principles.
The purpose of government is to
protect the freedom of its citizens by
preventing the initiation of force
against them, be that force in the
form of fraud, robbery or murder.
Man must be free to exercise his
best judgment to live, meaning that
to gain benefit from living in a soci-
ety, he must be unafraid of dealing
with others. For example, how can
one man liv*4?y selling shoes if other
men can simply take the shoes he
cobbles?
But thai is what our government
does when it taxes us. Whether we
want the "services" it offers or not,
we are threatened with imprison-
ment if we do not pay for them by
taxes. Since we must work to earn
money, these taxes represent time
from our finite lives. Taxation is a
form of slavery. No amount of con-
cern for the suffering of others can
change this fact or justify it.
Mass defections have left the
Democratic Farty with only left-wing
extremists in Congress, and these
politicians will not lose the chance
to radically attack freedom if given
another chance to rule. Socialized
medicine is high on their agenda,
and that will be just the beginning.
I cannot offer you government
handouts. I cannot show my con-
cern with money taken from other
people, I can only state the truth.
My vote is not for sale to the Demo-
cratic Party and Big-Labor. By com-
parison to the value of my freedom,
they are offering me trinkets. I hope
you will agree. When you chose to
attend Rice, a major factor in your
decision was probably the advan-
tages afforded by your degree, one
of which is the ability to earn money.
There is nothing wrong with that.
Protect your stake in the future.
Vote to keep Congress Republican.
I regret that there is no good choice
for president, but with a Republican
Congress, our freedom at least
stands a chanee. I will not pretend I
have a chwin1 for president. I will
abstain.
C.S. Miller; Jr.
Graduate student
Deptartniont o^ Biochemistry
and Cell Biology
Campus Police harass soccer players
To the editor:
A big "Congrats!" to the Rice
Police Department on yet another
round-up of persons with criminal
intent toward the university.
I was impressed two weeks ago,
when, while walking across cam
pus, I noticed four Rice police cars
stationed at the four corners of the
soccer field in front of the gym.
About six policemen and police-
women emerged from the cars and
advanced, hands in gun holsters,
purposefully toward the~20^r so'
soCcer players on the field.
Next, one of the policemen
parted yelling at the players who
were wearing Rice gym uniforms to
go to one corner of the field.
In answer to questions by the
puzzled students, the policeman only
yelled louder at them to "go to the
corner and just stay there!"
One student who normally uses
a hearing aid but was not using it
that day continued to ask what the
matter was; the policeman, naturally
assuming he was being mocked, sim-
pfy yelled at him at the top of his
lungs, "Shut up and go to the corner
and stay there!"
In answer to
questions by the
puzzled students, the
policeman only yelled
louder at themdo "go
to the corner and just
stay there!"
Police then proceeded to inform
the players who were not in Rice
uniforms that they would be fined or.
arrested the next time they were
seen using "Rke facilities."
Things to know, 1o appreciate
the prowess of our Rice Police De-
partment: Soccer "pick-up" games
(where anybody who wants to play
gets to play) have been taking place
at Rice every Tuesday and Thurs-
day for 15.years.
These habitually involve non-Rice
people, due to the fact that a soccer
game requires at least 22 players.
Among non-Rice folk, there is an
admirable 60-plus-year-old gentle-
man who has been attending games
for at least five years now or more.
None of the soccer players from
Rice 1 have talked to has ever com-
plained presence of non-
Rice people (on thetontrary, they
were happy to have a real gaftie
going with all 22 players).
None was bothered l,iy the ab-
sence of Rice uniforms. Apparently,
the call for the police intervention
came directly from the Jpee gym.
Vera Sideraki
Graduate student
Deptartment of Biochemistry
and Cell Biology
*N
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Beard, Marty & Rao, Vivek. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 84, No. 9, Ed. 1 Friday, November 1, 1996, newspaper, November 1, 1996; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth246551/m1/2/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.