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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 30, 1999)
lie Battalion o PINION he numbers game Vision 2020’s loal requires Wort, planning \ TBUntM ie Texas Luke SAUGIER n goai e is a Im prove.' i r any Aggies know about Vision 2020. ideetl, it would be ard not to have eard of it, as it is raised at nearly very public Aggie motion, including luster. . Wliot the average udent may not know is what the pur- ose of the Vision 2020 plan is. Because much of the construction a campus is attributed to the 2020 rogram, it might appear to the unin- irmed observer that the purpose of te program is to satisfy the law of onservation of Construction and lereby inconvenience students. Less milal students are likely to know that ision 2020 has something to do with taking the rest of the world aware of ie fact A&M is the best school there is /the year 2020. Upon first inspection this seems a mating task: A&M is unlikely to ever ? accorded the same respect as insti- tions such as Harvard, Yale, M.I.T. id Stanford. Even if A&M raised the inimum SAT score for admission to 100, accepted half as many under-^ adpates and successfully recruited e president’s daughter, there would ill be all those Aggie jokes to get rid Vision 2020 seems doomed to fail- :1V>2; e. But President Dr. Ray Bowen’s iro and amtl did not raise no dummy, and it 99 iu kes more than good looks to be ap- vhileHa tinted president of our great Universi- 3 record IA careful look at the official mission u-pitcht atement of Vision 2020 reveals that egoal of the program is to make nsjnark ; xas A&M University one of the top 10 ipetitioii ■iblic universities in the nation by the omau ! ap2020. This is an achievable goal. Accord ing to US News and World Report’s col lege rankings for 1999, A&M is current ly the number 15 public university, behind Penn State, UC Davis, Georgia Tech and UC Santa Barbara. University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, the school ranked number 10 among public universities is ranked 42 in the overall rankings, only slightly higher than A&M ranked two years ago when it made the overall standings for the first time. Given 20 years, A&M should have no problem overtaking the few schools that stand in the way. But in what ways will A&M have to change to become one of these top schools? Many of the ranking criteria used by US News are fairly abstract, but there are categories that directly af fect students, such as admission re quirements and class size. University leadership has vetoed raising minimum SAT scores any higher Page 11 • Friday, April 30, 1999 than they already are, and was quoted in Texas Monthly as saying that they do not want A&M to become a “campus full of geeks.” Because A&M prides itself so much on size it seems unlikely that the num ber of students denied admission will increase without a corresponding rise in the number of applications. This leads to a problem, though: Does it seem like all the classes are too small when it comes time to register? That might have something to do with the fact that smaller classes get schools a higher rank. An important but also extremely nebulous ranking criterion is the gener al perception of the quality of the Uni versity. This is judged by having the deans of universities score their peer schools according to quality. Here is where reputation comes into play. A&M has a well-recognized engi-' neering program and is ranked 16th na tionally in engineering, the same as Rice University. A&M is also well known for its veterinary and agricultur al departments. Unfortunately A&M’s liberal arts program is not quite as respected. While most engineering students would advocate the abolition of all liberal arts programs, this would not help achieve the goal of Vision 2020. The lesser-known (or non-existent) programs at A&M must be brought up to speed, hence the addition of a music program and all the talk about diversity. While A&M will have to change to become one of the top 10 public univer sities, the changes should all be benefi cial. Students will likely see improved facilities, a broader range of classes, and more chances to enrich themselves outside of the classroom. If all goes according to plan, by the time our children are ready to become Aggies, A&M should be so good that they might not be able to get in. And who knows: with a world class liberal arts department to expand their minds, the students of tomorrow may even ap preciate The Battalion. Luke Saugier is a sophomore petroleum engineering major. Price of freedom includes H dlowing for citizens’ stupidity !5 r Brendan GUY Ihomas Jefferson once said, “The price of freedom is eternal vig- mce. ” A good cautionary warn- ig, even if it does come om the man who founded ie Democratic Party. But ith respect to Jefferson, iat[is not the whole story. Rconstant vigilance is a ecessity for any free soci- ty, but ultimately the price of freedom is much igher. The price of freedom goes beyond eter- M vigilance: It is actually something far more ifficult to deal with, eternal stupidity. The reason for this is simple: people, when ieto make their own decisions, are some- imes going to make decisions most of us rauld not agree with — decisions that seem re- Hystupid to the vast majority of people. Some «ople are going to want to rot their bodies tith drugs, alcohol or tobacco. Others are go ng to want to rot their minds with Jerry ipringer, rap music or religious fundamental- sm. and tobacco but criminalizes marijuana. The sad truth is that majority rule does not offer a better guarantee of making wise deci sions than any other government type. A major ity can be just as stupid, short-sighted and self destructive as any individual or minority group, and because of that we cannot trust the majori ty to decide how everyone should think, feel and act. Sometimes, the best way to handle the problem of where to draw the line is by not picking up the marker. Which is not to say we are completely pow erless against the obnoxious, the disgusting, the hateful and the stupid. “The sad truth is that majority ruie does not offer a better guarantee of mak ing wise decisions than any other government type/' There will always be people in any society hat want to engage in self-destructive, wasteful lehavior, and in a free society the rest of us argely have to tolerate this. Thus the price of freedom is more than eter- B stupidity, it is the rest of us having to toler- itethis stupidity. Actually, it is even worse than hat because free human beings are capable of 0 much more than simple self-destructive idio- iy; they are also capable of obnoxious, disgust- ngand even hateful behavior, and again the est of us generally have to tolerate this. ( Why should we do this? It is difficult to see my real advantage for society in allowing flag juming, Klan rallies or Scientologists, and if it ^ ^was left to just a simple majority vote, we could jirobably ban all of these things. |^Fortunately, our system of government has Beks in place to prevent us from doing this, Bause that is a doorway we can never afford to open. Yes it is tempting, because let’s face it, BBe are a lot of stupid people out there saying Mum doing outrageous things, but legislating ■ IBpst those people would ultimately hurt us It is the age old problem of where do you flfdrgw the line. If one can ban Nazis from speak- their minds, than why not ban Pat ^Bhanan and his followers? And if one can ^ ban Buchanan then why not Ralph Reed? And if you can ban Reed ... ? |Jbf course we could try and say that we Would use this power responsibly and only ban the things that are truly harmful. It is a guaran- ^deethat would be a lot more reassuring if we ' did not live in a society that permits alcohol y utav For one thing, any behavior that directly harms other people or their property can and should be forbidden. Is this legislating morality and imposing our views on other people? Perhaps, but it is also absolutely necessary if human society is to function. But beyond that, there is certainly nothing wrong with confronting people with whom you disagree. Societal pressure can certainly be brought on people who act in ways the rest of us do not like, even if government pressure cannot. This can be anything from simply talking to a friend who is drinking too much to boycotting a business that engages in discriminatory hiring policies. Everyone should be free to engage in self-de structive, stupid behavior, but that does not mean that self-destructive, stupid behavior should be free. It is ultimately up to each indi vidual to decide if their behavior is worth the cost in societal disapproval and condemnation, that is also the price of freedom. Freedom is difficult, it would not be worth so much if it was not. Which means that Jeffer son might have been right after all, the price of freedom does seem to be eternal vigilance. The tough part is that it is not vigilance against some foreign despot or even against our own government, that would be to easy. The true price of our freedom is not vigilance against other people it is that we have to be vigilant against ourselves. Brendan Guy is a senior political science and history major. GUEST COLUMN Plight of Sudanese deserves international attention of media A little boy is starving to death. Week after week without food, except for an occasional mixture of boiled leaves and grass, has reduced him to skin and bone. All his joints are clearly visible, making him look like a skeleton. The pain of hunger burns deep within his stomach so menacingly he can barely think. He is too weak to stand after walking days and days under the scorching sun in search of food, so he sits — naked, hunched on his heels, head buried between his knees, overwhelmed by horrendous suffering. All this innocent child can do is ask himself, “What have I done to deserve this?” The world must put an end to the war that is caus ing the people of southern Sudan immense suffering and loss of life. People who have any sense of humani ty should be outraged at the lack of attention the me dia shows to the Sudanese. They must demand that the crisis in Sudan — which is the greatest catastrophe on the face of the earth — be given the coverage that it is, quite literally, dying for. Citizens must petition their government to do all within its power to make a just and final peace in Sudan. In 1998, according to the U.S. Committee for Refugees, 100,000 innocent human beings were tor tured, brutally degraded and ultimately killed by the horrible death of starvation in the southern portion of Africa’s largest country. This mass starvation is the result of war and the genocidal acts of the Sudanese government. One hun dred thousand people dead, more than twice the size of the student body at Texas A&M, 10 times the num ber of deaths from Hurricane Mitch and 50 times the number of deaths from the war in Kosovo. Yet, no one seems to know. In 1998, the media found the scandalous details of an affair between one man and one woman to be much more interesting than the fact that 2.6 million people were facing starvation in this African country. The deafening noise of the Clinton-Lewinsky parade was allowed to drown out the desperate and pleading cries of the dying people in southern Sudan. Was the affair between one man and one woman truly more important than that thousands of people were dying perhaps the most excruciatingly painful death possible? Or is it that Africans are not worth enough that their tremendous suffering should be con sistently and heartlessly ignored? The Human Right Watch reports that another war induced famine caused 250,000 people to starve to death in southern Sudan in 1998, . The U.S. Commit tee for Refugees states that in the last 16 years, the war in Sudan has succeeded in slaughtering 2 million peo ple in the south and central region of the country — more deaths than any war since World War II. Many of these were people who simply starved to death. Most of the deaths were innocent civilians. How many more people have to die before the world acts? How long will it take the world to learn that until there is justice in Sudan, the terrible, unnecessary suf fering and death will continue? The war in Sudan is being fought by the rebels who represent the people of southern Sudan, against the oppressive government of the Islamic and Arabized north. Although both sides are guilty in causing the suffering that plagues the civilians of southern Sudan, the government holds the lion’s share of the responsi bility. Government forces periodically raid the south ern villages like barbarians. They come wreaking terror on horseback and dri ving jeeps. They attack villages, burn down homes and crops, steal livestock, murder the men and take the women and children as slaves. Yes, slavery still exists in Africa. All slaves are treat ed brutally. Females become sex slaves. The United Nations, UNICEF and Human Rights Watch have all confirmed the existence of wide-spread slavery in Su- “The international community must work for peace and justice in Sudan in order to end the horrendous suffering and large scale death/' dan, with government forces being the major culprit. It is largely these village raids that lead to the mass starvation. They send terrified villagers, who are lucky enough to survive fleeing for their lives. Many of these people then die of hunger. The gov ernment of Sudan also tries to starve them to death or into submission. According to Human Rights Watch, in 1998, the Sudanese regime banned relief flights to the most famine-affected areas for two months. By the time the relief ban was lifted, it was too late for many. The international community must courageously work for peace and justice in Sudan in order to end the horrendous suffering and large scale death. The call for peace is long overdue. Countless children have already had their lives stolen from them by hunger and violence. For those who have survived, life has been an unre lenting misery. What type of world allows its people, its own flesh and blood, to needlessly die the miser able death of starvation? What type of world closes its ears to the begging cries of suffering children? Caesar A. Ricci III is a junior plant and soil science major.