Wednesday, April 15, 1987/The Battalion/Page 3
State and Local
Freeze-dried urine, hot debates
n highlight MSC Political Forum
weren’t
Buti
I.
By Danny LaBry
and
Melanie Perkins
Staff Writers
s 3pin®p|j erSj booklets, newsletters, pam-
s rel y iBlets and other political parapher-
;i gainstnitJBlia filled the Memorial Student
St concerniiBntei Ttiesclay as MSC Political Fo-
sponsored its 1987 Political
I Avareness Day.
' at thisUiftBStudents walking through the
■ a degree-• I® ( -' were l ,<,in fiaixled with infbrma-
jnrU n Jn ranging f rom pro-abortion to
• ’ “Hti-abotlion, democracy to cornmu-
e system. R,,, an( | ami-drugs to anti-drug
„ | Hting. The Texas A&M chapter of
1 ' ' the American Ci\il Liherites Union
-OnesotouiM en we ,K as f ar as to sell treeze-
’• i here’s no (Bied urine as a political statement
testing in ifiKainst drug testing.
J esystem t^BThe table staf fed h\ the American
^tensionyHlniie Coalition was * ai the most
’ i Bpular sight lot debate. Debates
Bout English as the official lan-
all aroundtf-* age usually started of f as lo w-key
ACLU sells freeze-dried urine
to make political statement
Freeze-dried urine was being
sold in the MSC Tuesday by the
Texas A&M chapter of the Amer
ican Civil Liberties Union as a po
litical statement against drug test
ing.
A statement issued by the
union said the group doesn’t con
done drug use and acknowledges
that drug use is a problem but is
opposed to drug testing as a way
of solving the drug use problem.
Union member Steve Ridge, a
junior political science major who
came up with the idea after see
ing an ad for the freeze-dried
urine in an Austin newspaper,
said he proposed it to the leaders
of the organization as a viable
protest and they liked it.
The urine, contained in small
vials, came from a laboratory in
Austin and was sold for $10 a vial.
It also came with a booklet dis
cussing drug testing. At last re
port, there was a grand total of
one sale.
For those who didn’t get a
chance to buy any of the freeze-
dried urine Tuesday, Ridge said
the group should have it on sale
in the MSC again next week.
s j •™».ussions between one or two stu-
3. otudtM^B nts an ,j a coalition supporter. As
y down lltetM voices got louder, the crowd got
ofessor'sma Agerand the discussion got hotter,
tads from ■Students passing In may have mis-
thereas jtaknthe Communist Party U.S.A.
for a L.S. Army or Marine re-
^Biiting table because of the large
ns stnrUiJ l"nbet of Cm ps membet s gathered
* B rront listening to the
QOrediscussions going on at the
heycandotMie, anyone could tell that the ca-
lassand,Offifinweren’t about to enlist,
ough, theg'B y l ()Sl °f die |M)litieal groups rep-
^Kented at (he galhei mg had an op-
■nimity to express their ideas dur-
ke tobdbtlj ' n ' a va, '’etv of speeches scheduled
v for the nr
em. Comic
cion and yo
have one.
the system,
limited.
Correction
■r students 1
he system, l 1
irt of a m
•e’s a place i
?r we’ve (oiiftj
our collegtij
of
.* have
it center
An article in T uesday’s Bcittnl
on reported that women must be
t least 18 years old to receiv
from Planned Paren-
of Brazos Y'alley. Planned
parenthood, however, offers its
i vices to women of all ages.
» (t'l
leivu us
Imod nj
throughout the day in the MSC
lounge. Most of the people in the
lounge, however, talked with
friends, did homework or slept
rather than listen to the speakers.
Some people did listen.
“1 find it fascinating that they (Po
litical Forum) do this program,” said
Tom Wilhelm, a senior history ma
jor. “1 find it interesting to hear the
different views that people have.”
I he speeches given in the MSC
lounge from 1 1 a.m. to 3 p.m., in 30-
minute intervals, came from a vari
ety of conservative and liberal
groups: the National Rifle Associa
tion, the Public Citizen (a non-profit
consumer group), the Texas Grass
roots Coalition, the National Organi
zation for Women, the Communist
Party of Texas, the Students Against
Apartheid, the Socialists Workers
Party and the American Ethnic Co
alition.
Curtis Burns, coach of the Texas
A&M Pistol Team, represented the
National Rifle Association and ad
dressed the issue of the constitu
tional right to keep and bear arms.
He said the men who wrote the
Second Amendment to the Constitu
tion were afraid of the standing
army and were interested in all
Americans being armed to avoid the
overthrowing of the government
and the creation of a dictatorship by
the army.
“Any attempt to control or elimi
nate the use of firearms by private
citizens for their own self-protection
would inevitably cause the crime rate
to skyrocket rather than go down,”
Burns said.
Public Citizen, a non-profit con
sumer group founded in 1971 by
consumer activist Ralph Nadar, was
represented by Jessica Shahin, who
spoke on the social value of the tort
system and the product safety the
system helped generate.
“It is not federal regulations, it is
not moral obligation, nor is it new
technology that forces manufactur
ers to make a safe product,” Shahin
said. “It is still, foremost, the fear of
private-liability lawsuits and the fear
of the punitive damages that can be
awarded in these lawsuits.”
She said tort reform means giving
up rights with little or no compensa
tion in the form of lower insurance
premiums.
In another speech, Texas Grass
roots Coalition Director Samuel
Hoerster III, said Christians must
become more involved in the politi
cal process.
Definitely the loudest and most
outspoken speaker of the day,
Hoerster captured the attention of
even the most casual passer-by.
“The modern cradle-to-grave
mentality of govei nment is not wor
king,” he said. “Government has
tried to be omnipresent and omnip
otent, but, unfortunately, only the
Lord God is omnipresent and om
nipotent.”
He said civil government was or
dained by God and is ultimately re
sponsible to God.
The function of government is to
be a terror to those who do evil and a
praise to those who do good, he said.
He said American Christian cul
ture is like a frog in hot water. If the
temperature of the water is in
creased slowly, the frog will not
jump out of the water, but will be
come relaxed. The frog gets so re
laxed that by the time things get
really hot, his muscles are too re
laxed tojump.
The speech by the Texas district
of the Communist Party U.S.A.
probably attracted the largest crowd
of the day, with more than 60 listen
ers.
A1 Rodriguez,'a Class of ’74 me
chanical engineer, pointed out the
advantages of socialism and commu
nism to capitalism. As soon as Rodri
guez opened the floor for questions,
hands flew into the air.
When asked why the standard of
living in communist countries was so
low, Rodriguez pointed out that
countries in which capitalism has
failed, like Mexico, also have low
standards of living. He said the so
cialist and communist countries pro-
Photo by Tracy Staton
Steve Ridge, a member of the Texas A&M Civil Liberties Union,
sells freeze-dried, drug-free urine for $10 a vial.
vide an extra benefit to their citizens
that capitalist countries don’t.
He said people are starving in
capitalist countries because they
can’t afford to buy food; people in
communist countries may be living
without luxuries, but they aren’t
starving.
The speech made by Lou Zaeske,
a local Bryan resident, on English as
the offical language brought less au
dience opposition than the, Commu
nist Party — partly because most of
the opponents were still at the coali
tion table debating with other mem
bers.
“Establishing English as the o v;
cial language is kind oflike recog
ing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner is
our official anthem or the ‘stars and
stripes’ as our official flag,” Zaeske
said.
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