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Show OPINION MAGGIE GALLAGHER A.RC '\/Cl) t\E:~ TO t\c\..t' RA,lf'i COMMENTARY T~t.. $UU$JI. No right of free speecbl You'd think any politician brazen enough to propose making it illegal for private groups to criticize politicians at election time would have to duck tomatoes and dodge Bronx cheers. But apparently all you have to do is call it "campaign finance reform," and press and public will dump accolades on you for, as a New York Times editorial put it, "cleaning up the system." What McCain-Feingold, which narrowly missed passing the Senate, would actually do is this: Ban outside groups from running advertisements using the name or likeness of a candidate within 60 days of an election. McCain-Feingold doesn't get the money out of politics; what it does is drive the amateurs and activists out of politics, leaving it to professional politicians to define and defend their own images come election time. In The American Prospect, a journal for "the liberal imagination," Robert Dreyfuss points to the 1996 California election of Democrat Walter Capps over incumbent Republican Rep . Andrea Seastrand as an example of the kind of horrors McCain-Feingold will put an end to: In that campaign, ads from groups ranging from the AFL-CIO, Handgun Control and NARAL to the NEA and the League of Conservation Voters "crimped (Rep. Seastrand's) ability to control the campaign agenda or even to get her own message out," he worries. We wouldn't want politicians getting crimped, would we? Liberal defenders of McCain-Feingold love to mock people like Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who correctly called the bill "an assault on the Constitution cloaked in the guise of reform," as insincere hypocrites in their devotion to civil liberties. l have news for them: The First Amendment is not primarily intended to protect the right of nckkid ladies to jiggle in public. The very heart of the First Amendment is political speech- the right of private groups in a democracy to criticize politicians in the most visible and effective way possible. The little guy is never going to get heard unless he has the right to band together with other little guys and gals to express political dissent. For me, that may mean sending a money to the National Right to Life Committee. For you, maybe it's the Sierra Club. Either way, no politician has any right t o suppress critics, especially at election time. The fact that so few people understand or care about what's really at stake in this so-called "campaign finance reform" is disheartening, but not swprising. The amazing thing is the politicians are doing so little to cover up their true motives. I'm listening to "Imus in the Morning", for example, and there's Sen. John McCain, RAriz., boasting to the I-Man that his bill would put a halt to all those "negative ads" telling people things like "Sen. Mc._Cain is a threat to Western Civilization." I'm no head shrinker, but when a senator blurts out that one of his goals is to keep people from saying nasty things about him on TV, maybe we should just take his word for it. Maggie Gallagher is a nationally syndicated columnist. PROFESSIONAL STAFF. ANO D ESK PHONE NUMBERS: Editor t..rry 8'lker 586-7751 Campus Editor Jim Robinson 586-1997 Con.tahlJII Sports Editors Neil Gardner 586-7753 Brett Jewkes SU.7752 STIJDENT STAFF AND DESX PHONE NUMBEJlS: AtsOl"Ute Editor D. W. 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Tuesdays for Wodncsday cdiliont ao<I Thursdays for Friday cdldon,. Gri,nncea: Any ondi•idual wi1h a gntV>ncc aga,n11 the Journal should direct sud, problem firsr to the ,•J nor. ti unresolv.-d. that grrc..nec: sl>ould then be d,n:acd to 1hc Joumo/ Stecnng C,,mmi1ttt, which is ch,lr,-J by Dr f,..n r.. PcalW<I. S86-797l. U11lve~iry foam ol: Offices on SUU Tcchnnlo4y Building 00.l. Mail at SUV Box 9384, Ce.hr C ity, U111h S4720 FAX ja.l ~) 586-54~7. Email address: 111um1l@suu.edu ••cw• O PRL"1U) ON RECYCLtO PA PEL PUASE U CYCU THIS COPY. ? C.®ST\"i \JTI 0~ · co c,, I rlt.~ 's ,._ <.C?'I l,D fol\ I ('t') 'tOUTo ~ E. Ab Ill C ..,a tJ- ~ Q:'. w ....._~~~~~ ~~ ~ ~--' 0 KATHLEEN PARKER I COM.MENTARY "l« "'; ' •""••·y.•;: __ , """" • ,, ;• ,·.. ·-·...,.. Oxford proposes gender correct exam It is done. The White Male of Europe.an Descent has heaved his final sigh. The world as we knew it is dead. Oxford University- the world's last bastion of the colon ial male-has bowed to the bards of political correctness. Noting m ore men than women receive Oxford's first-class degrees, the school has decided its written examinations are "unfavourable to women." If women aren't doing as well as men, the thinking goes, it must be men's fault. If women don't score as well as men on exams, it must be the exam's fault. How the school will correct this inequity is anyone's guess. Gender-neutral math questions? Female-friendly physics problems? Philosophical posits that rely on intuition rather than reason? I think back to my days of higher learning and I seem to recall all of my exams were unfavourable inasmuch as they caused me to lose sleep, fret and drink beer. Worse, they asked questions to which I did not know the answer. All along, I punished myself with th e unpleasant thought that I hadn't stuclied enough. Imagine that! And now come to find out the tests most likely were unfavourable to my gender. I was swindled by the system, oppressed and cheated of my membership in Phi Beta Kappa. May I sue? Do I get punitive damages for all the years of suffering owing to damaged self-.esteem? How about all those jobs I might have gotten had I been taught and questioned along female lines? For all I know, I'm supposed to be a brain surgeon making millions, vacationing in Palm Beach, rather than hacking out a couple of columns a week vacationing in my dreams. The problem for Oxford-and, inevitably, all schools-will be to devise questions that are deemed sufficiently female without being aggressively anti-male. Or might Oxford simply offer two sets of examinations-one male and one female. We have male and female athletic teams, why not male and female degrees? Clearly, the fastest, strongest fema le is no contest for the fastest, strongest male. Could it also be that women are intellectually inferior ? Nah, just kidding, girls. Nobody would ever say such a thing. We know intelligence comes in different shapes, tones and textures: But it sure does sound like that's what they're saying, doesn't it? Can 't hack it? Can't cut the mustard? No problem. We'll rephrase the question. The idea of questions favorable to women sounds like a mutation of the ebonies debate whe n som e Oakland, Calif., schoo l board members wanted to teach English as a second language to African-American children more comfortable with hip-hop lingo. They felt the children could learn better ii their lessons were taught in their "native tongue, " as in: "Is you is o' is you ain't, " said Hamlet. True or false? Women, presumably, can't relate to questions posed with male imagery or ones that preclude a fem ale contextual experience. So how does a female question go, exactly ? Is it a matte r of wording only, or of cultural perspective? Let's give it the old college try. Males: Explain why the Pythagorean theorem was critical to Ptolemy's system of quarks, quanta and quasars. Females: Draw us a picture of your garden and include several favorite recipes. Once you start changing test questions to give girls a leg up-which they don't need (schoolgirls in Britain, as in the United States, score better than their male counterparts)-every gender mutant will want special dispensation. Do gay men get to take female exams? Do lesbians get to take male exams? Or might they get gender-neutral questions: If Pythagoras had been a woman, would we need a"bypotenuse?" What about transsexuals? Do men who've had sex change operations get to take the girl test? I know of one transsexual male-to-female who is a lesbian. What kind of questions does he/she get? Finally, we have questions to which I know the answer. Stop it. Kathleen Parker is a nationally syndicated columnist. |