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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 2, 1981)
Viewpoint The Battalion Texas A&M University Tuesday June 2, 1981 ^olleg tion wi 1 busin Slouch By Jim Earle “This is a typical case of a severe withdrawal from the regis tration process. “ Spare the rod and the machine spoil By DICK WEST United Press International WASHINGTON — Physically attacking an inanimate object is widely considered an irrational act, and maybe it is. Certainly such antics rarely stand up in court as evi dence of sanity. Yet it was more than a perception offlaky behavior that aroused public interest in the case of a California man accused of shooting a lawnmower that wouldn’t start. There also was a vicarious thread run ning through our reaction to the incident. Who among us has never been tempted to wreak mayhem on some malfunctioning appliance? Let anyone totally innocent of this base impulse cast the first golf club. The Californian who confessed to gun ning down his lawnmower was fined $65 for discharging a firearm in a populated area. Had he been booked on the more serious charge of armed assault, the jury probably would have ruled it a case of justifiable mowercide. The desire to inflict retribution on mechanical tormentors seems to be part of the universal experience. The unfortunate part is not that we harbor such primitive emotions but that we tend to stifle them as not in harmony with reason. I regularly play tennis with a man who has one of the sweetest dispositions you are even likely to run across. Tolerant, kind, gentle, amiable — he is all of these things, and more. But let his tennis racket commit some act of treachery and he flings it viciously across the small society by Brickman vo You OH /A&H'ZoH f OH, £ UHP&f&TAHV IT ALL 0UT x Hon ho km wfZoHo- C) 1991 King Features Syndicate. Inc World rights reserved 6* A Democrats should take lesson [hose a Bv DAVID S. BRODER EASTON, MD. — If the Democrats are not too proud to borrow from the opposition — and with all their other problems, they can hardly afford excessive pride as well — there is an idea here eminently worth copying. It is called the Tidewater Confer ence. Tidewater is a weekentl house-party and unofficial issues seminar for Republican members of the House and Senate and elected statewide officials. It was started in 1978 at the urging of Sen. Bob Packwood, who in the 1960s had launched a similar venture for grassroots Republicans in his home state of Oregon. The fourth of these annual spring events was held here last weekend at the Tidewater Inn, an Eastern Shore resort-hotel that gives the meeting its name. It was, like its predecessors, a lively ses sion. Quoting oneself is bad form, but the judgment expressed here after Tidewater I in 1978 has been amply confirmed: “Pack- wood may have invented the best solution yet found to a perennial and debilitating problem for our political parties: Their in- ablility and reluctance to discuss policy questions.” The problem is particularly acute for the party out of power — which the Republi cans were when Tidewater started and the Democrats are today. “The real business of a party out of power, ” the 1978 column said, “is to prepare itself and its leaders for the momeht when they are, once again, the government. Packwood has found a humane, relaxed format for addressing those inescapable issues of government, in an atmosphere that breeds collegiality and consensus, not rivalry and diatribe.” The format works so well that Democrats barely need to tinker with it. The partici pants are elected officials and their spouses. They gather in a sports-shirt-and-slacks atmosphere, unchaperoned by stall and un inhibited by the workday distinctions of seniority and rank. They meet over drinks, dinner and a piano sing-along on Friday night before they sit down at roundtables of a dozen to start talking issues on Saturday morning. The debates are lively and funny — and, somehow, more agreements than expected emerge. Part of the secret is simply that a lot of these folks are meeting dealing with each other for the first time at Tidewater. The House and Senate are separate worlds, and Washington is far removed from the state- house in Jefferson City, Des Moines or Salem. Caricatures of right-winger or left winger begin to disappear when an Orrin Hatch and a Pete McCloskey, a John Rous- selot and a Dick Snelling talk substantively around the tables. come and capital gains tax rates.’ consolidation of narrow federal c% grants into broad block grants. Itadvof e dial of stir into ninisti Dr. Rc iness r of th< The conviviality and consensus at the first three Tidewaters were so striking — especially after the civil war that had wrack ed the Republican Party at its 1976 conven tion — that most of us covering them tended to minimize the import of the policy statements. Looking back now, you can see that Tide water foreshadowed not only the new unity of the COP but its philosophical direction. The first conference in 1978 adopted re solutions anticipating the major themes of the Reagan administration. It said that “government alone cannot solve our social problems-without an unacceptable burden upon the taxpayer and an unacceptable loss of personal freedom.” It called for “substan tial permanent reductions in federal an increase in defense spending “in tit of mounting Soviet military aggres ness.” Do the Democrats need suck a where their quarrelsome officeholders socialize and converse? The qiie e uni' answers itself. On the day the latestlBade w water ended, Haynes Johnson Washington Post reported — afl viewing many leading Democrats agreement with the observation ofB McPherson, the former Lyndon Join $7 j n aide, that the Democratic Partyisai rennial happening.. .a label without ante. “Wouldn’t it be better if we tal each other?” Sen. Daniel PatrickMon (D-N.Y.) asked plaintively. Of course, there are risks inassei officeholders who share a common label but differ on almost everything Back iu 1978, Rep. John J. Rhodes oft na, then the House GOP leader, said, first reaction (to the Tidewater ideal ‘Why do we want to stir up that mess? But Rhodes came to Easton the first 50 pioneers — and saw worked. The Tidewater Conferences have underwritten by the Republicanseni j] K , j and congressional campaign committa , q c) ]] ( an annual cost of less than $3,000,Old a [ e millions of dollars Republicans haves [The p in the last four years, as they have in lirmar ever closer to becoming the majority; tin foi in our government, no money hasB^ 11 better spent. Democrats are free to profit example. the court. Or into the net. Or again the backstop. Or, as happened one memorable evening, into the overhead lighting fixtures of an indoor tennnis facility. As a result of this harsh discipline, he has one of the most dependable tennis rackets I know of. I, by contrast, belong to the permissive school of racketowning. I indulge my racket scandalously. At times, I have let it get away with murder, so to speak. In consequence, 1 have a tennis racket that is perfidious, unpredictable and a total ingrate. But there is more to machine retaliation than keeping implements in line. I am con vinced my friend’s good-natured attitude toward his associates is possible in large part because he vents his hostility on his racket. There is a lesson in this for all of us. It is said the tremendous amount of vio lence in American life is a sign of a “sick” society. Might it not also be a sign that we have become too docile in dealing with machines? We let ourselves be mechanically humi liated and frustrated without striking back. Then, when finally we reach the breaking point, we exercise our resentments on our fellows rather than the source. Shooting, rather than kicking or smiting the offending rnaching, may be a bit ex treme. But no man who pumps six revolver bullets into a balky lawnmower can be all bad. Stuck ition atre ['he c e 25-: Bizz athy sare ition, The iuncif. The msorc tors ai illiam egist rid' 15. Government control is problem Editor: The main thrust of‘liberalism’ is that our capitalist society has been a failure, and that government should take control in order to protect the ‘poor’ and needy.’ This theory, called Keynesian economics, is responsible for our current economics, is responsible for our current economic troubles. Every president since Roosevelt has embraced Keynesian economics. The re sult has been high inflation, high taxes, and lowered productivity and growth. Burden some regulation has made making a profit unprofitable. Businesses are being driven into bankruptcy by unfair tax systems. Yet every time there is an effort to repair the damage by returning to a capitalist syste, ‘liberals’ cry out about the ‘poor’ and ‘needy, and manage to scuttle; the attempt. We do not have a capitalist system now. We have a quasi-socialist/collectivist sys tem that drifts and stalls and shudders from every shortage or surplus that comes along. Such a system is far worse for the ‘poor’ and ‘needy than capitalism could ever be. No ‘liberal’ is a sworn enemy of capital ism. They claim to be improving the system when they pass legislation that dam# These people live in a world whereef l 1111 and opportunity have the same meanis ^«lyo mediocrity. Their time has passed, fp President Reagan and his eeonomitL’ is the only one that reflects the f Keynesian economics in favor of capita and freedom. I urge people to supped in his efforts to turn the countryaro^ David Fl« Warped By Scott McCullar The Battalion U S P S 045 360 MEMBER Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Coneres LETTERS POLICY Editor Angelique Copeland City Editor Jane CL Bnist Photo Editor Greg Gammon Sports Editor Ritchie Priddy Focus Editor Cathy SaathofT News Editors Marilyn Faulkenberry, Greg Gammon, Venita MeCellon StaffWriters Bernie Fette, Kathy O’Connell, Denise Richter, Cartoonist Scott McCullar Letters to the Editor should not exceed 300 length, and are subject to being cut if they arc InnfJ 111 editorial staff reserves the right to edit letters forslV 'j length, but will make every effort to maintain the J 11 ® 1 intent. Each letter must also be signed, show the**® and phone number of the writer. Columns and guest editorials are also welcome, not subjec t to the same length constraints as Wq Address all inquiries and correspondence to: Edit 1 ' j Battalion, 216 Heed McDonald, Texas A&M '| College Station, TX 77843. EDITORIAL POLICY The Battalion is a non-protit, self-supporting newspaper operated its a community service to Texas A&M University and Bryan-College Station. Opinions expressed in The Bat talion are those of the editor or the author, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Texas A&AI Universi ty administrators or faculty' members, or of the Board ol Regents. The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper for students in reporting, editing and photography classes within the Department of Communications. Questions or comments concerning any editorial matter should be directed to the editor. 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