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Popularity of former presidents
eveals deep public cynicism
Caleb
MCDANIEL
■ (APj -
’fd soir-
mgs to;
idents kK
ces Me n one scene of Steven Spiel-
strong berg’s Amistad, a film based
-d dar on a controversial slavery
thborir ;e in the early nineteenth cen-
y, an aide for the soon to be
no i ne-duck president Martin Van
ries o ren asks whether anything is
quake pat netic as a former president,
aroun In a movie where one of the
uke in dn characters was John Quin-
I ■ams, his question was al- ■t^™*******
estim jst rhetorical.
■ 7 by Bams was one of the earliest presidents to prove
•’ey ii ivirg the presidency does not have to be pitiable.
placet ter a lackluster term as Commander-in-Chief,
arsely ams entered the heroic heyday of his career as a
165 n ;ml er of the House of Representatives. Adams
af Mex ay nave left the presidency, but he never retired.
nalSe Mpny former presidents since Adams have fol-
the ved his monumental example. Jimmy Carter
Either ook off the memory of his unpopularity in office
smaller bet ome a world-renowned philanthropist and
rake i: actinaker. Today, Carter’s work with Habitat for
June: imnnity and his service as a negotiator in various
nade abal conflicts have been invaluable,
ame The most recent president to enter retirement lit-
kek ally parachuted into his post-presidency with ad-
urec irable zeal. Texas A&M University has benefitted
DO h. eauy from the generosity of the Bushes, but per-
ial-er ips the greatest beneficiary of President Bush’s
rgebs has been the M.D. Anderson Cancer Re
arch Center in Houston.
Spurred on by the memory of their daughter, who
ed pf leukemia at a young age, the Bushes have
;scended on M.D. Anderson and the city of Hous-
or fl
:a.
romi
wa;
["here
her
?d in
ton with considerable
monetary gifts. Moreover,
aware of the responsibility their
immense renown entails, the former pres
ident and his wife have raised money for a
variety of charitable causes.
Because of these kinds of efforts, the public gen
erally smiles more favorably on a president after he
leaves office than when he was still in the hot seat.
After the 75-year-old Bush dove out of an airplane
onto the Texas A&M University campus earlier this
month, the national media took advantage of the
opportunity to report that most polls show Bush
enjoying more public favor in his old age than he
did in the Oval Office.
Carter has experienced the same explosion of
post-presidency popularity, and any nineteenth-
century historian will readily confirm that John
Quincy Adams’ experience was similar.
Apparently, Americans historically believe for
mer presidents are great improvements on their for
mer executive selves.
However, this widespread belief reveals more
about the public than it does about past presidents.
Adams, Carter and Bush did not become magically
good people the morning after the inauguration of
their successors. If they are noble now, they were
probably noble — or at least well-intentioned —
during their terms.
The difference between former and present presi
dents is not mainly in the president.
Rather, the difference is in the public’s perception
of the presidency.
Because political culture is often saturated with
cynicism, every move a president makes is unchari-
Page 7 • Tuesday, June 22, 1999
tably interpreted by pundits and the public. If a
president were to support a charity while in office,
his gesture would immediately be viewed as an en
gineered grasp for political gain. Presidents are per
ceived as puppets of the polls.
It is unfortunate that presidents must wait until
after their presidency to earn the good faith of their
constituents. The actions of Bush and others should
restore the declining public faith that presidents are
human beings, after all. And, with some quite no
table exceptions, they are usually admirable public
servants. In contrast to what Martin Van Buren’s
aide thought in Amistad, the truly pitiable thing is
the public’s growing belief that nothing is so pa
thetic as a current president.
Caleb McDaniel is a junior history major.
'eake’r;
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Moni
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JAIO-I'
Jtinel
Lack of strong evidence linking
HIV to AIDS needs attention
he well-informed and the
ignorant have one thing in
common — the ability to
liel very strongly about issues
ue to their respective bodies of
ow ledge.
But pity the moderately in-
rnned, because for them, it is
" ard to conclude anything in
. ie or iis age of contradicting opin-
Beverly
MIRELES
ro sat
ms and theories.
A good example of dissension in the intellectual
nks is the available information about Acquired
, amune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and the Hu-
u an Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). When talking
i 1 i ■
xnit AIDS, one encounters three supposedly in-
sputable facts. First, AIDS is caused by the HIV.
ned
' bl ;' acond, HIV is spread through body fluids, typical-
by way of blood transfusions, sexual intimacy re-
^ ‘ tlting in the contact with fluids such as semen
t * ie . ad by contaminated needles. And third, AIDS-re-
d eai , ted HIV will ultimately cause death, wlaether it be
‘art 1 i two years or twenty,
nth A 1 ■
is rarely found in the research is that all of
disAjele premises are based on a hypothesis that has
ay d [ atlo be proven.
ae ) 11 ; It is strange to think that after billions of dollars
1 40.' nd millions of hours have been dedicated to the
vo. ght against HIV/AIDS, society is exactly where it
aeao arted — clueless, and lacking any sort of solution,
ike The theory that HIV is relatively harmless and
1 dot jmpletely unrelated to AIDS belongs to Peter
■mao uesberg, a well-known molecular biologist. In the
^ugO'980s, he was the first to discover and map the ge-
, ac%ic sequence of a retrovirus, a type of virus that
soviHust integrate its own RNA with the host’s DNA.
, ' v! h several papers, the first of which appeared in
on; leljournal, Cancer Research, Duesberg stated no
jdlin(!search clearly proves the link between HIV and
ling IDS. He also says AIDS is almost certainly a result
a pkf repeated exposure to drugs that raise levels of
on Temical toxicity in the blood,
is, w 1 ' 1 The theory sounds absolutely ridiculous. In fact,
:ks ^ is almost insulting to think one scientist could
iead ! iscover what hundreds of thousands of other sci-
itists have overlooked. However, the strangeness
on d his surmise does not make it wrong,
t o( 1 ' H anything, it should motivate researchers to
ded
conclusively prove or disprove Duesberg’s claims.
That they have yet to conclusively establish the
link between HIV/AIDS does not bode well for the
scientists already announcing they are well on the
way to finding a cure. If Duesberg is right, then
what have the other scientists remedied?
AIDS research is now a celebrity cause with mil-
lion-dollar fundraisers and renowned spokesper
sons. In fact, HIV/AIDS research is a billion dollar
industry. Many governments, the United States in
cluded, have whole administrations dedicated to
the search for HIV’s cure. To the government, the
public and the majority of scientists involved in
HIV/AIDS research, Duesberg’s findings are an
anathema. They challenge the foundation of years
of scientific research.
Duesberg has been called everything from a ho
mophobe to a mad scientist, and his contribution
to research has been all but disregarded.
Scientifically speaking, something is amiss when
a scientist’s call for academic honesty in research
circles goes largely unheeded.
If anything, Duesberg should be a prominent
voice in HIV/AIDS research.
One does not have to look very far to see how
dissenters have the ability to encourage discovery,
not impede it. When the scientific community dis
owns a theory they cannot disprove, it shows that
the scientists themselves have forgotten that hy
potheses are merely suppositions, not natural laws.
Whether HIV causes AIDS or is only an innocu
ous retrovirus, one thing is certain — not only is
more research needed, but a healthy dose of scien
tific doubt would go a long way. If HIV does cause
AIDS, then perhaps the world is well on its way to
curing a disease that plagues over 33 million people
worldwide.
However, if Duesberg is right, then HIV-caused
AIDS is a misdiagnosis, and sufferers have been
unforgivably misled.
With the considerable amount of time and mon
ey being thrown into research, scientists and the
public alike should keep in mind that being misin
formed on such a grand scale is not only offensive,
it is futile.
Beverly Mireles is a junior
microbiology major.
Benefits of prison privatization
outweigh alleged disadvantages
P rivate pris
ons are a
growing
sector of the
U.S. economy.
With incarcera
tion rates on
the rise in this
country, corpo- jgpp
rations such as BECKER
the Correction mM—mmmmmmmmm
Corporation of America (CCA)
stand to profit from all the crimi
nals being put behind bars. These
companies are state-contracted,
and they privately own and oper
ate some of the facilities housing
America’s felons.
Many question the govern
ment’s decision to dole out its au
thority and responsibility to house
those guilty of serious crimes to
private companies trying to make
a profit.
This question is especially rele
vant to Texans, because Texas
houses the most criminals in pri
vate prisons of all the states, at
around 30,000.
The benefits of prison privatiza
tion far outweigh any of its sup
posed disadvantages.
Opponents claim private pris
ons do not have the same level of
security that public prisons have
and that prisoners are more likely
to escape, citing an incident at a
CCA-run prison where six inmates
were able to cut a hole in a fence
and escape.
Security is always going to be
the biggest issue at any prison,
public or private.
However, there are going to be
occasional security breaches, as
Texas residents found out with the
recent escape of an inmate from
the high-security Huntsville
prison, which is a public prison.
One cannot base a reputation
on one incident.
Just because there was an es
cape at a prison does not mean
the people there do not care about
security.
Private prisons want to make a
profit, and it would be very self
destructive for them not to care
about security, because if they did
not they obviously would not be
allowed to operate for long.
Caring about both profits and
security does not create a conflict
of interest.
In a recent Washington Post ar
ticle, U.S. Representative Ted
Strickland stated private prisons
have “potentially corrupting ef
fects on public policy.”
He further said prison corpora
tions like the CCA could become
powerful lobbyists in Congress for
long-term and mandatory sentenc
ing in order to maximize profits.
But this complaint is unfound
ed. Most people would like noth
ing more than to see violent crimi
nals go to jail for longer periods of
time. In the last two decades, the
incarceration rate in the United
States has tripled, and the violent
crime rate has fallen. Most people
would like this trend to continue.
Strickland also suggests that
since private prisons control good
conduct reports, they may have
the tendency to give bad reports in
order to keep the prisoners in jail
as long as possible, again, to maxi
mize profits. Someone who is in
for a 50-year sentence may actual
ly serve the full time.
Stating that prisoners may actu
ally go full-term in private prisons
cannot possibly be used as an ar
gument against their existence.
One of the biggest complaints
about the prison system today is
that people are getting out early
who should not be out on the
streets.
“Private prisons
are a good way to
save taxpayers
money and wili
help keep dangerous
people away from
the public”
If having a privatized prison
system means prisoners will actu
ally serve the time they deserve,
then a private prison system is
ideal.
Another question surrounding
private prisons is liability. Prison
ers sue the state on account of the
prison system all the time, and the
question of who is responsible has
to be asked.
If a private prison is charged
with, who would be liable, the
state or the prison corporation?
The state gives the authority to
the private prisons to hold prison
ers, and it is responsible for the
people who it deems not worthy
for living in normal society.
This is important, because the
state should not be handing out
the authority to house felons to
just anyone.
However, if the state is com
pletely responsible for prisoners,
this leaves no responsibility for
the owners of the prisons, which
would be bad for the state.
Private prisons must be liable
for many of the aspects of opera
tion in a prison, such as fair treat
ment and proper staff-to-inmate
ratios. The state must be able to
use the valuable tool of oversight
in the implementation and opera
tion of private prisons, in order to
prevent being charged with viola
tions that the prison corporation
should be responsible for.
The main argument in favor of
private prisons centers around
money. The corrections corpora
tions bid on prospects for the facil
ities, and the state government has
the final say on when, where, and
by whom these are built. Obvious
ly, the corporation with the lowest
bid would win.
This can be much cheaper than
building a public prison. If a single
prison can be built for less, then
more prisons can be built for the
same amount of money.
Also, in most private prisons
the cost per prisoner is lower,
which creates lower maintenance
costs.
Overcrowding is the single
biggest problem in the prison in
dustry today. Over the past 30
years, prisoners’ rights groups
have brought numerous suits con
cerning unconstitutional condi
tions in prisons.
In 12 states, the entire state
prison system either is or has been
under court order concerning
overcrowding.
To solve overcrowding, private
prisons are a better alternative to
early release programs.
A large percentage of the crime
committed in this country is per
petrated by people who have al
ready served hard time. The doc
trine of rehabilitation for the most
part has failed, and another alter
native to the overcrowding prob
lem must be evaluated. Potentially
dangerous criminals cannot be
dumped back on the street.
Private prisons are a good way
to save taxpayers money and will
help keep dangerous people away
from the public.
In a time when the U.S. prison
population exceeds 1 million peo
ple, the bottom line must be con
sidered. Private prisons will help
to ease overcrowding, help keep
violent offenders off the streets for
longer, and they will be able to do
it for less money.
The benefits are obvious, and
the corrections industry should be
allowed to grow and ease the pub
lic prison system’s back-breaking
load.
Jeff Becker is a sophmore
computer engineering major.