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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 8, 1993)
mber 8,1993 “rs trip 24-14 d Press barren Moon >b security on red by coach would be the le remained iad the 37th r of his career iston Oilers jwks 24-14. touchdown |4-4) won its A.1 Del Greco 1 point since earn record but kicked re Oilers, k Rick Mirer wn pass for ft the game :t because of eight passes ng a 3-yard 0 Webster 12-7 halftime Ireco's kicks jred ress - Troy npleted 2 yards is, was nday's brk Gi- :er with is a left vpleted as hurt miod as i away ve end rolling e went t as his 1 him. in Rich dn't be iday if ailable against Opinion ilonday, November 8,1993 The Battalion Editorial Board CHRIS WHITLEY, editor in chief |ULI PHILLIPS, managing editor MARK EVANS, city editor DAVE THOMAS, night news editor ANAS BEN-MUSA, Aggielife editor IELINDA BLANCARTE, night news editor MICHAEL PLUMER, sports editor HACK HARRISON, opinion editor WILLIAM HARRISON, sports editor KYLE BURNETT, photo editor The Battalion Page 7 De.dr Son, rfe lore yru, bu't npi enough, io send Monty. MHdl Ms! h. Get 3 Jd! l-Olr-C Mem -f-Jhd EDITORIAL Right to die Kevorkian unjustly imprisoned At this moment. Dr. Jack levorkian lies in a 10-by-10 wtjail cell while he continues stage a hunger strike in sup- »rt of doctor-assisted suicide, tmericans should support levorkian's stand against the igal effort to deny people the ightto die. The right to die stands out one of the most hotly debat- i topics in many years, levorkian supporters uphold le patient's choice to live or ie as a necessary part of hu ll dignity. The important issue at lake here is choice. t svorkian does not commit Jhanasia, the "mercy- ling" of a terminally ill vic- m. Patients choose to kill mselves while their dignity ' self-respect remain intact mthe ravages of disease. Most patients choose to die lecause they want to spare iemselves and their families enormous, inevitable an- ih of a long painful death, (evorkian employs extensive search and intensive coun sling to ensure the patient's kindness of mind in making le decision. Kevorkian, a retired pathol ogist, developed a so-called suicide machine consisting of a carbon monoxide breathing apparatus which the dying pa tient activates. Death results within minutes after the gas is released. Nineteen people have com mitted suicide in Kevorkian's presence since 1990. Their con ditions range from a 72-year-old cancer patient to a 30-year-old victim of Lou Gehrig's disease. The controversy surround ing assisted suicide has inten sified rapidly in recent years. An 8-month-old Michigan law banning assisted suicide re sulted in the current charges against Kevorkian. The doctor was free on per sonal bond while awaiting tri al, but he went to jail Friday rather than pay a bail fee, which the courts increased be cause he continued to help pa tients commit suicide. No one denies that every one has a right to continue living. However, everyone also has the right to stop liv ing. American law needs no power to trap helpless pa tients in a lengthy death when assisted suicide offers a peaceful, dignified release. Facts, lies and the new health care plan Government policies discourage personal responsibility EUOT WILLIAMS Columnist L ike most of you, I am sick of hear ing about Clin ton's new health care plan. I know all about how great it's going to be under the new benevolent regime. I've heard all about the utopia where all of America's citizens are guaranteed their right to health care. We've read all about the bril liant job Hillary Clin ton is doing designing the program. What we haven't seen, however, are any facts. All we know is that somehow everybody will be covered; somehow everybody will receive better care, and somehow it won't cost us any more money. Right. And Beavis and Butt-head will soon receive the Nobel Prize for Physics. The facts regarding this newest craze in American politics are much different than you may suspect. The hallowed rhetoric of "unin sured Americans" and "complicated insurance claims" hides the truth about health care — it's already a government controlled affair. Let's analyze a few arguments made by Clinton supporters: Fallacy one: health care is a right. Wrong. The undeclared premise here is that "govern ment has the right to take the property of one person and give it to another to whom it does not belong, especially if it saves the oth er's life." Or, more appropriately, "govern ment has the right to make you work for an other man's sustenance." Anyone who agrees with the fundamental truths established in the Emancipation Procla mation should understand the error in this premise — it is legalized slavery. There is no more a right to health care than a right to Taco Bell. Your need for food doesn't give you the right to force someone to farm it for you. Fallacy two: an unacceptable number of Americans are uninsured. No. The Wall Street Journal reported in April that some "83 percent of Americans have public or private health insurance or both, in cluding the genuinely poor.... It turns out that half of the uninsured go without cover age for less than five months, and 70 percent for less than nine months." If there is an uninsured class of Americans, they obviously don't stay that way for long. The problem here is not the current system. Many of these people choose to stay unin sured. The Employee Benefit Research Insti tute has shown that "nearly half (of the unin sured) have household incomes above $20,000 and 17 percent earn more than $40,000." Many of the uninsured are not too poor to afford health care; they simply don't care, or possibly, as Dr. Thomas Sowell, an economist for the Hoover Institute, wrote last June, these people "know that they are going to get taken care of anyway, one way or another. Fallacy three: the private market has failed. Not at all. "The explosion of health care costs is not the result of market failure, but is rather the direct result of major government-imposed distortions of basic market forces," says Dr. Henry Butler, professor of law and econom ics at the University of Kansas. "For years, government policies have subsidized de mand through tax incentives and restricted supply through licensing restrictions. The combined effect of these distortions is unam biguous — higher prices." The government has banned medical ad vertising, which prevents consumers from comparing prices for medical procedures. It also enforces the American Medical Associa tion's monopoly. In many states, midwifery is illegal. Citizens who are willing to sacrifice the luxuries of some health procedures are prevented from using this sometimes attrac tive and less expensive option. Additionally, all state governments use the state Insurance Commissioner (IC) to enforce the insurance cartel The IC ensures that all in surance policies sold in that state include cov erage for the same type of care. A wide vari ety of potential choices in price and coverage with insurance policies have been outlawed. Clinton's plan is clearly a step in the wrong direction, and T have touched on only a few of the half-truths, exaggerations and all- out lies that are consistently uncontested by the mainstream press. We must reshape the system to allow more free-market solutions where every individual must takes the responsibility for their own health. Government-run programs only dis place that responsibility, causing unlimited de mand for what appears to be free health care. Americans today spend 14 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on health care while the government consumes more than 40 percent of the GDP. I ask you, which one is really out of control and in need of extensive reforin — health care or the government? Eliot Williams 1$ a sophomore electrical engineering major s' ^ .V 0 '" M AA U •Yy'SH A V;CoM fipgN CE -Pa,-,' y r f ^ Editorials appearing in The Battalion reflect the views of the editorial board. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of other Battalion staff members, the Texas A&M student body, regents, administration, faculty or staff. Columns, guest columns, cartoons and letters express the opinions of the authors. The Battalion encourages letters to the editor and will print as many as space allows. Letters must be 300 wordspx less and include the author's name, class, and phone number. We reserve the right to edit letters and guest columns for length, style, and accuracy. Contact the opinion editor for information on submitting guest columns. Address letters to: The Battalion * Mail Call 013 Reed McDonald Mail stop 1111 Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77043 Fax: (409) 845-2647 Forget Fabio — life is a romance novel and you're the author 've thought many times about writing a Jinance novel and taking lots and its of money fast, seems like it ould be so easy, (cause these doks are all the me. All of the men Krich, handsome, stablished, witty -id a little danger 's - everything on want in man. hd they have all (en playboys at one time — everything ouprobably don't want in a man. Unlike in books, everything in real life •lesnot always end happily. You don't ’id yourself stranded on some far away iland or in some barren prairie land inking forlornly that he doesn't love ou, only to have him come rushing to j veyou — telling you over and over TRACEY JONES Columnist again how much of a fool he has been to deny his love for you. No. Instead, you find yourself sitting — bored out of your mind — at Hurri cane Harry's and feeling just a tad bit bit ter. (What can he see in her? Her hair is so big!) Or worse: you see the person you used to go out with hitting on someone else, and you really liked this person. He made you laugh a lot and didn't demand too much from you. But either he left on his own, or you decided that it was best to separate yourself from him. Whatever the case, he's no longer with you. This in itself would be such a good ro mance novel. You might not think of it this way, but it's true. I've come to the conclusion that we write our own romance novels quite frequently — every time we get our hearts broken or at the very least our pride stepped on. Think about putting that down on pa per: the number of bozos you've been through. I personally think that I've had an overabundance but.... Consider the time I was stalked by a psychopath. This person would not take no for an answer. He would send little el ementary school notes — cute if you were writing to a 13-year-old, but not a 21- year-old. Strike one. He would also call at the oddest hours of the night asking if I wanted to go out to I still could not get rid of him. I even told him that I was illegitimate. He said that was all right; he couldn't read that well ei ther. some obscure club in one of the nearby towns. Strike two. And, finally, he want ed to take me to the dollar theater. Strike three. I was rude; I was unresponsive, dis tracted, hateful — and I still could not get rid of him. I even told him I was ille gitimate. He said that was all right; he couldn't read that well either. Needless to say, I was more than hap py to get rid of this one. 'A friend of mine had a young man that she'd met all of a few days earlier call to inform her that he was coming over to her apartment. It was not "may I come over," but "I am coming over." So, at three in the morning, he started banging on her win dows and doors until she went to the door and talked to him. Another friend had the misfortune of dating one half of the real Beavis and Butt- head. She was thrilled to ax him also. But what about those who are not hap py to be independent of and the hurt that accompanies being set free? Perhaps the heartache happens be cause we look at the situation too serious ly. Is he the one? Is he going to be my husband? Or for the many of us who attract so ciopaths: Is he going to avoid the sanitari um long enough to marry me? Why worry about it? There is a per son who is perfect for you out there. It is just a matter of choosing the right tech nique to find him. As a friend told me, for every nine no's, there is one yes. So, in theory you have to be turned down by nine people before you come across the one who says yes. Try keeping a score card. Check off every rejection and be all right with it. Every rejection you take, you are putting yourself that much closer to finding the right one, and that will put your mind more at ease. You will be able to go out and meet people and learn to enjoy their company without worrying about being the right one for him so that he will be the right one for you. There's no need to worry about rejec tion. Everyone experiences it; it's univer sal. And if you think about it, some of those rejections could make some pretty funny romance novels and make you very, very rich in the process. And if that happens, you can't say it was a total loss, can you? Tracey Jones is a senior psychology major MAIL CALL Turnabout is fair play I couldn't agree more with Tut Jones' Nov. 4 letter about sex, sports and capi talism. Sex sells, so that's why I'm proposing a new approach to daytime $ oap opera spots. I can see it now. We see two normal looking women eating lunch at an out door cafe. Suddenly, Jean-Claude — their sexy, muscle-bound Adonis of a waiter — comes sauntering up to the table. "Hello ladies," he says. "Would you care for some French Vanilla Cafe?" "Why yes!" the women chime. He whips off his apron to reveal two packages of coffee tucked neatly in his G-string. Then the final shot ... Jean- Claude holding a little single-serving en velope of instant coffee in his rather large, obvious package of manhood. "Try our tasty coffee," he says. Wouldn't it be great? There is a huge difference between a douche ad, which has nothing to do with and a beer ad that objectifies all women. I'd watch jock itch ads all day long if it meant I never had to see another woman selling beer with her breasts. Mr. Jones, until men are exploited by television advertisement the way women are now, you will never, ever understand More Mail Call Page 8 Julie Chelkowski's gripe. I'd rather that the advertisement industry divorce itself altogether from the practice of using sex to sell products, but until then, how about a little turnabout? It is, after all, fair play. By the way, women like sex and-sports, too! Julie fffllden Graduate student MSC wastes our fees In refel'ence to the Nov. 3 Battalion arti cle about the MSC enforcing speaker rules, I must say this is one of the most ridicu lous ideas the MSC has tried to pull off. . MSC Associate Director of Programs Kevin Jackson was quoted in the article as saying that in order to maintain a "certain environment" on campus, the MSC administration wants to control whether other student organizations can host a pertain speaker or not. The VfSC already gets the lion's share of the student service fees that appear on our A&M bill, almost $100 per Aggie per semester. I left the MSC Council in 1991 after it gave Caesar Chavez a $2,000 speaker fee then immediately refused to allow another MSC committee to host a famous "counter speaker," Rush Lim- baugh. What a double standard. I urge the MSC Council to concentrate on improving its own weak programs. When was the last time you went to a MSC meeting with over 20 students in the room? They need to get their act to gether before attacking big successes like the Oliver North program because they cannot take credit for it. The MSC does not need another pointless program review system for outside organizations. And don't worry Ags, the College Republicans will bring Rush Limbaugh to G. Rollie White next year without the help of an outdated MSC bureaucracy and without wasting your student service fees. Keith Kouba Class of'93