Page 2/The Battalion/Tuesday, October 21, 198/
Bork rejection a
Last Friday, the
death knell
sounded for
Robert Bork’s
nomination to the
Supreme Court as
the Senate
rejected him 58-
42. The Senate’s
action is more
than the mere
rejection of a
nomination. It is a
frightening indication that many of our
politicians are willing to compromise
our long-term welfare for immediate
social outcomes.
Robert Bork undisputedly was a most
qualified candidate. His legal credentials
and record are impeccable. He is a man
dedicated to upholding the Constitution
and our traditional ideal of a
government of laws rather than of men.
Even so, he was rejected, first by the
Senate Judicial Committee “lynch mob”
led by such principled men as Joe Biden
and Ted Kennedy and then by the full
Senate.
The hearings were hardly fair by any
standard. Although he attacked Bork
for being closed-minded, Biden came
out in opposition to Bork before the
hearings ever started. Biden must be
admired for his ability to judge Bork’s
competence before hearing any
testimony and for his guise of
impartiality during the hearings.
Bork is a judge who practices the
same theory of judicial restraint that he
preaches. He believes “that judges
should be guided only by the written law
and the intentions of those who wrote
it.” Judges must base their decisions on
the law as it stands, taking into account
the intentions of the writers to clarify
possible ambiguities.
Bork’s view of the law does not square
with that of his opponents, who desire
that judges take a more active role in
changing society. In our system, it is a
judge’s duty to decide cases based on the
existing law, not on law he wishes
existed. If people do not like that law,
they may change it through Congress
and their state legislatures or by
Constitutional amendment.
Bork’s opponents wish to see the
Court legislate by handing down
sweeping decisions that affect the whole
country. They are not content to seek
implementation of their social goals
through the proper legislative channels.
That is too much work, and voters and
legislators may prove recalcitrant in
accepting their goals. It is much easier
and more effective, they think, to get a
case before the Supreme Court that
activist judges can use to set new
precedent that will apply immediately to
the whole nation.
Roe v. Wade is a case in point. On the
grounds of a Fictitious right to privacy
they created for the purpose. Five
justices struck state laws regulating
abortion, laws that had been enacted by
state legislatures. In effect, they enacted
a new law, one that was not approved by
the elected representatives of the
people.
The citizens of the United States had
no say in the matter. Laws properly
legislated were overturned by a Court
that felt that a woman should have a
right to an abortion regardless of what
the ofFicial lawmaking bodies of the
nation had said on the matter. It was not
willing to judge the case by existing laws
while leaving the people and their
representatives to decide if they wanted
these laws changed.
Because Bork does not believe that a
judge should assume this activist role,
Biden and his cronies cruciFied Bork
and caricatured him as a threat to our
civil liberties who would return us to the
“dark ages.” This was unjust treatment
for a judge whose only crime is that he
believes the Court should base decisions
upon the unexpanded letter of the law.
His opponents do not want a justice
who believes that judicial “activism has
gone too far and has lost its roots in the
Constitution or in the statutes being
interpreted.” They want a pliable judge
who will be sympathetic to using the
Court as a tool for remolding society.
Using the Court in such fashion
mi
■
, r
Brian
Frederick
Little Eddie a master
at scuffing baseballs
Each time I
read an article
about baseball
pitchers scuffing
the balls (which
allegedly makes
them curve and
dip and stuff like
that), I think of
Little Eddie Estes. Lewis
i grew up Grizzard
practically next
door to Eddie and
his family. He was a couple of years
younger than me, but we shared a
common passion — baseball.
The Baptist Church sponsored a
baseball team in my hometown. This
wasn’t official Little League. This was
blue jeans and T-shirts and lending
your glove to somebody on the other
team when you went to bat.
Eddie was 10 when he joined the
team as its youngest member. Eddie
eventually would become the best 12-
year-old centerfielder I ever saw, but at
10, he was small and punchless at bat
and needed much work on his defense.
So for two years, our coach played
Eddie at “bird dog,” a position even the
most ardent baseball fans likely aren’t
familiar with.
I’ll explain.
Our team had a severe scarcity of
baseballs. We got two or three at the
beginning of the season, and that was
that.
A few feet behind home plate at the
elementary school ballfield where we
played was a dog pen, home for two
rather rowdy bird dogs.
When a foul ball was hit into the pen,
which occurred quite often, the dogs
immediately launched a frantic effort to
retrieve it and have at it with their teeth.
Somebody had to stay in the dog pen
at all times in order to get the foul balls
before the dogs did, so the game, and
the season, could continue.
That position became known as “bird
dog.”
That somebody who played it was
poor Little Eddie, who spent two
seasons battling the dogs for the
precious horsehide.
You play the same balls all season,
ones that large dogs are trying their best
to destroy, you know something about
scuffing.
This story has a happy ending, and
then a sad one.
Little Eddie, as I mentioned before,
became a gifted centerfielder and a big
RBI man.
He developed speed and power, and
after spending two years Fighting off
two dogs for foul balls, running down
line drives was nothing to him.
He made one of the greatest catches
I’ve ever seen in a game against Mills
Chapel, then turned and threw out the
tying run at the plate and got his name
mentioned in the weekly paper.
(I was our team’s correspondent, and
I compared the catch to Willie Mays’
grab on Vic Wertz back whenever that
was.)
I think Little Eddie was 14 when he
got killed. The car rounded a curve and
the driver lost control. I was a
pallbearer. I still see his mother
occasionally when I get home to visit the
folks.
This was supposed to be about
scuffing baseballs, but I got off track..
Excuse me. I think it was a lump in
my throat that did it.
Copyright 1987, Cowles Syndicate
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Tracy Staton, Photo Editor
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Opinion
frightening compromisi
subverts the separation of powers in our
republic by encroaching on powers
properly belonging to the legislative
branch. It encourages the development
of an arbitrary power that threatens our
liberty to a far greater extent than any
caricature of Bork ever could have.
Sober citizens should consider the
consequences of such action and
question whether those opposed to Bork
have acted for the common good.
We need principled men like Robert
Bork to hold high office in our country,
men who have the integrity to uphold
the Constitution they are sworn to
protect and who will not sacrifice it for
the sake of politics. His rejectionWf!|
ill for the future of our liberties,
especially if the views of hisopponer:;|
continue unchecked in our nation.
Brian Frederick is a senior history,
Russian major and a columnisthtli
Battalion.
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EDITOR:
EDITOR:
I congratulate Brian Frederick for his brave column,
“Student Apathy Appalling.” Over the years I have
developed some feeling about American education today
and its problems.
In 1967 I came back to this country and soon was
struck by billboards with the slogan, “You need a good
education for a good job,” or something of that nature.
I immediately knew about the impending demise of
the American educational process, because I had known
from my experience that “education” usually means a
piece of paper, a “degree ”
To get this piece of paper the average “student” bores
himself through several years of college with the chores of
attending classes, doing homework, taking examinations,
etc. He leaves the school via the ritual of archaic and
resplendent academic regalia and receives a scroll of
paper. He presents his grades and this scroll as credentials
of his “education” and gets the job. Done!
I would have nothing against the above scenario if I
could dispose of it as just “apathy” as Frederick does; it is
the cancerous degradation that appalls me. The boredom
engendered by a “meaningless” educational process shows
up in the student as destructive behavior which is aimed at
the process itself.
The teacher’s function is seen as to be impeccably
organized and give the student a clearly prepared cram
paper for getting good grades in the exam. Grade inflation
goes on and prospective employers get shortchanged, but
they deserve little mercy because it is they who gave the
college the onerous task of evaluating the potential of their
future employees.
As a teacher I am in a dilemma and I need help. One
way I can get help is that somebody takes away my
academic freedom and instead gives me a set of cram
books which I pass on to the students. I then go to an
acting school and learn to recite my script in an interesting
manner. The second way I can be helped is if the
prospective employer never sees the student’s grades. The
college giving the student a diploma should declare no
responsibility whatsoever except for the fact that student
has been at the institution for a number of years and has
attended a number of courses. The delusion that the
teacher can teach without the student wanting to learn
must end. The college must not be irresponsible by giving
meaningless grades on a meaningless education.
Phanindramohan Das
Professor, Department of Meteorology
I would like to address Mike Hanagan’s absurd letter
on fraternities and sororities. Why don’t you just not won'
about what people want to do in their spare time? IHwait
to go to the Zephyr Club and match socks, are you going!;
stop me? What people do in their time is their business,nt(
yours.
Fraternities and Greeks in general are very traditional
in their beliefs. Many CT’s participate in Fight Night
year as well as the CT-Kappa Alpha football game (record
KA 2, CT 0). n
Mike, you know nothing about Greek life, so you haw
no ground on which to base your decisions about the
“good" of the university.
Don’t be scared if “someday” Greeks come to a
bonfire cut and actually fullfill your dream of Greeks
participating in these long-lived traditions. And Mike,
Dillards is having a sale on socks.
Jack Connell ’88
Phi Kappa Tau
Radio chaos
EDITOR:
It’s about time somebody said something about the
lame radio stations in this town. I find it difficult to
understand why the local FM stations are unable to
develop formats akin to those in larger cities. Sofarthe
only local station I’ve found worth listening to is 1240
KT'AM, which, unfortunately, is an AM station.
1 just can’t understand who the FM stations thinkth®
audience is. Not one soul I’ve talked to, and I have
discussed thisdilemma with many people, likes the local
stations.
The only relief available, for those who have the
means, is out-of-town stations or tapes. Tapes get old,so
I’m left to limited reception of KLOL in Houston.
Let me offer the local radio stations a bit of advice;
Top five radio and wimpy dance tunes aren’t the way to
go. Play a good mix of old, classic rock and somenewrod
play three or four songs in a row before breakingtoa
barrage of commercials, and the people of Bryan-Colk
Station will be yours.
Clint Hayes ’91
Richard Coselli ’91
Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorials^
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maintain the author's intent. Each letter moist be signed and mustinciwlttb
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