The Battalion OPINION 2 The I S Thur Thursday, October 11,1990 Opinion Page Editor Ellen Hobbs 845-331 Pi St Libertarians offer alternative to partisan baloney As election time rolls around, we are once again treated to the age-old saga of the repocrats and the demopublicans, arguing over each other’s make-up and personal lives; this time to a background symphony of deception, delay and denial over the budget crisis. The public wearily awaits another opportunity to stand in line at the polling booth and choose between people who mainly differ on which ridiculous program gets your (future) tax dollars. In the modern world, we have come to view government action as the solution to all of the problems we face. Slipping into a mire of irresponsibility, we find our political conflicts reduced to one group of people trying to get the government to force something on another group, asking a third group to pay for it. If you feel like you don’t have a real choice, read on. There’s a party that offers a serious, considered alternative to business as usual. The Libertarians favor a different approach. Instead of being a conglomeration of special interest groups, this party bases its positions on a €>WO THE RECCpP NEW consistent philosophical approach. The starting point could be stated simply; government 6/the people means, if anything, that government should not be in the business of forcing people to do things; rather, it s'.o’ild protect their lives, liberty and property. If I don’t have a right to barge into my neighbor’s house with a gun to stop him from having oral sex with his wife (or anyone else), then neither does the state of Georgia. If I don’t have a right to take my neighbor’s property just because I think he makes too much then neither does the government. The point is that you and I are the government. If we misuse its power against our fellow citizens we hurt ourselves as well. idea, but freedom has become extremely unpopular in the United States, among both “liberals” and “conservatives.” Many people have forgotten that there is no magic genie in Washington who hands out money. That money comes from you and me. When we authorize our government to take so much from us, it is virtually guaranteed that we will soon be fighting over how much to take from each other. Economics. Government may requiti business to operate honestly, and enforce liability (each person is responsible for their actions), but it should not tell businesses how to operate, and may not set wages or prices. Secret Police Forces. The CIA, FBI counterintelligence operations, and NSA should be abolished. They haven; place in a free society. Citizens should be able to live without their governme® spying on them; f urthermore the CIA and NSA presently operate completek outside the law. No one is outside the law. “National security” (read “government security”) does notjustifi violating citizens’ rights. Enough political philosophy. Where do libertarians stand on issues? Foreign policy. While the two major parties are falling over each other to send American young people to Saudi Arabia (where we can be almost sure that many of them will die), libertarians beleive we should just say no. If the major oil companies want to fight a war over oil, let them pay for it themselves. Personal choices. The government has no business telling people what they may eat, drink, smoke, ingest, inject or own, what drugs or medical procedures they choose, what kind of sexual relations they may have, what to think, read, hear or watch, what clubs they may belong to, what they say or believe, or how they worship or teach their children. Period. This is a very simple These are but a few of the issues where the major parties are in partialor complete agreement; the Libertarians offer a real alternative. They believe that excessive government fosters irresponsibility, lethargy, and (eventually) poverty from dedining economic power. They support the rights of everyone to choose how to list their life, as long as each respects the rights of others in turn. Jeff Daiell is the Libertarian candidate for governor this November 1 don’t know Mr. Daiell, but I don’t need to — since he’s a Libertarian, 1 know what he stands for. If youaresid of the same old song and dance, andart thinking of staying home on the 6th, please don’t. Check out the Libertarians. Vote for some peoplewho mean what they say. For once. Jeff Farmer is a graduate student ii\ mathematics. Steps must be taken to end rape of environment Mother is being raped and plundered. Her name is Earth and her children (the animals, the plants, the humans) are dying at a sinister rate. The children feed off the Mother, and the Mother is being poisoned. The killing of her children even seems to be accelerating. The situation is sickly; the details are gross and alarming. There is an ozone hole over Antarctica the size of the United States, and it’s growing every day. Even if the production of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs — the main culprit in the destruction of the ozone) stopped today, the disintegration of the ozone would continue for several years. The Earth is becoming hotter everyday as the result of air pollution and forest and plant destruction. This is called global warming or the greenhouse effect. George Bush, on the campaign stump, vowed that the greenhouse effect would meet the “White-House effect,” but that phrase seems to have met the same fate as “no new taxes.” The rainforests are being mowed down as if they were some obnoxious, overgrown global lawn, not the cornucopia of life that they really are. As rainforests are turning into deserts, 1,000 species are becoming extinct every year, and the indigenous peoples that live in the rainforests are systematically being killed. Our food, drinking water, rivers, lakes, oceans, air, ground, our unborn babies and our bodies are being filled with toxic chemicals and radioactive substances. T he problems of the environment intensify upon entering the big cities Irwin Tang ,