Letters

UC shouldn’t force community slavery

Mike Hansen’s call for a service requirement for UC
(“Service should be required at UCs,” Viewpoint, Oct.
22) is so altruistic that it is actually evil. What he’s
calling for would effectively be slavery.

If I were going to try to legalize slavery in America, I would
do it in the following manner.

Use public education to put the private school industry out of
business. (Private schools can hardly compete with free public
schools.)

Require community service of all students at public schools.

Once these two goals were accomplished, every citizen of the
United States would be faced with the following choice: don’t
go to school, or go to school and spend part of your time working
as a slave.

If community service becomes mandatory at public schools, then
this plan will practically have been implemented already.
Government funding of public education has ruined the private
school industry, so that for many high school grads the only viable
option for college is to attend a public university.

Hansen might be so racked with “guilt about being a
prosperous middle-class American” that he is willing to
sacrifice his individual rights for the sake of the “public
good.” But I am proud to be a prosperous middle-class
American, and I insist that my life belongs to myself ““ every
single hour of it.

Daniel O’Connor

Graduate student, mathematics

Knee ignores example of Pearl Harbor

Matthew Knee, in his article “Preemptive strike benefits
greater good,” (Viewpoint, Oct. 22) makes reference to some
historical preemptive strikes to support an attack on Iraq, but he
ignores the most infamous and obvious counterexample of how these
attacks can backfire.

The Japanese surely thought their attack on Pearl Harbor would
save lives in the long run by keeping the United States out of the
war. Instead, it resulted in nuclear attacks on their own home soil
and the death of tens of thousands of their citizens. I pray that
our own actions do not have the same devastating consequences.

United States intelligence agencies say attacks on Iraq will
make chemical, biological and/or nuclear attacks more likely, not
less likely, if Hussein is backed into a corner. Why don’t we
heed the warnings of our intelligence community for a change?

A U.S. attack on Iraq would turn any action by Hussein into a
“justifiable” act of war, just as our bombing of Japan
was “justifiable” after we were attacked. Let’s
not give this evil dictator any moral footing while debasing
ourselves in the process.

I hope Knee is wrong about history repeating itself, because the
consequences of past preemptive strikes have sometimes been
horrible for the aggressor. Instead, we can only hope that Knee is
right in his selective memory of history.

If the United States attacks Iraq, I desperately hope it saves
the lives of Americans, Iraqis, Kurds, Israelis, Indonesians,
Australians and everyone else in the crosshairs of international
terrorism.

Still, I hope he is wrong in his assessment of international law
as “dangerous and irresponsible” in its construction,
and I also hope he is wrong in his assessment that the
international community is trying to appease Hussein. I agree that
appeasement would be just as much a failure in this century as it
was in the past century.

Thankfully, there is a world of alternatives between attacks and
appeasement. Let’s hope world leaders, and especially our own
leader, are wise enough to see that the world is not so black and
white.

Joe Albert Garcia

Graduate student, psychology

Editorial board should try the bus

Has anybody from the editorial board ever ridden the bus?

I’m not talking about the nice ones like the Big Blue Bus
but real buses from the MTA.

Your editorial sounds so pompous, as if you know what is in the
best interest of the city and public transportation users. I ride
the MTA 720, otherwise known as the “Rapid,” every
morning and evening so I can attend UCLA. I take the bus for one
hour and 15 minutes from Vermont to Westwood.

With me are hundreds of working men and women going to their
jobs in the Valley or West L.A. Even though the bus comes every
five minutes or so, it is always packed. So when you state in your
editorial that MTA’s proposal to extend the Red line to
Fairfax is unreasonable, I wonder if you know what it is like to be
one of us.

Yes, the public transportation system in Los Angeles is flawed,
but how can you complain when so many working class riders will
benefit from the expansion? I have been waiting for the Red Line
Subway to expand to Westwood, as have many people who have long
shifts to look forward to at the end of their bus ride.

Before you write an editorial, try gathering not only the facts
but the personal experiences of the people who will be affected by
the issue. Otherwise, you look like the fools that a lot of people
on campus already view you to be.

Bo Mee Kim

Fourth-year, Asian American studies