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Show The Utah Enterprise Review , February 76, 1977 Page 23b Pragmatic Dogmatics The BYU Student Poll by Kent Shearer Last fall, the BYU Business School conducted a poll of the entire Universitys student body to gauge opinions on a variety A summary of results is of subjects. reported in the February, 1977 Today , the publication of the BYU Alumni Association (on whose mailing list 1 - somewhat to my surprise find myself). Some of the poll answers are pertinent to this column, and may be of interest to Enterprise readers. There was demonstrated a sharp difference between business realities and student It turns out that the college perceptions. is not aware of certain basic population facts regarding the role business plays in the national economy, said Business Dean He cited three Merrill J. Bateman. examples. First, when queried, How much profit does a large national corporation typically make today on its total business revenue? The student estimate was about 45 percent. The correct figure is 5 percent. Second, when asked what percentage of the purchase price of an automobile or a refrigerator goes for labor, the median answer was 33 percent. The true percentage is 70. Third, BYU students also had a distorted concept of federal tax on corporate net earnings. They estimated as low at 15 percent, when it actually totals about 50 percent. All this from an institution which, when he was its President, Ernest L. Wilkinson used to brag wTas unusual in that its Economics Department taught the value of free enterprise! Perhaps reasons for these deficiencies can be found in other responses. Nearly half I CWJ ASf? who you b&mppeDi had not voted in a local or national election: far more than the 33 percent Gallup found nationwide (especially remarkable given the tendency toward older BYU undergraduates prompted by LDS missions). The most admired professions were college teachers, medical doctors and engineers. The least admired, in ascending order, were labor union leaders, politicians, advertising practitioners, journalists and lawyers. In short, the life style preferred by the students is the ivory tower, not the pit. It is a sterilized atmosphere they crave, not the Little give and take of the real world. wonder that, savoring the atmosphere, they misapprehend the world. One can only hope that they will not carry their ignorance throughout life. However, given the current drift of liberal thought (or lack thereof), there is no assurance that informational salvation will ever be theirs. ICRCUh! A6E0R Mi? 6 Your last yearmwa.' EPITH h MEXHVO- MARV RIQUPP5. 6UUK6R, me bomc THIS YEAR, m? WHIRS wm). pel- - &K I SebWR - ODRPACHB RX HIS QQO 2-1- 9 MO you oist ftoO ARE gRIC SgVAREBJ vest Btcme ARRAI 0 V&P1565 OF? he HE-- IMO 10 yov& H&PlRATOi? kdjak; sscaose HE'S A PSYCHOPATH LOHO'S . IT pm A PLUS. V Pettersson Promotes Pornography C 0 u N T E R P 0 I N T by Parker M. Nielson State Senator Carl E. Pettersson of Tooele and 16 of his colleagues are sponsoring legislation which will make enjoying a quiet evening out with the family viewing an movie possible without the constant harrassment of pickets, moralistic prosecutors and citizens vigilante groups. It is about time, too, for voyeurs are one segment of society which has long been in need of friends in the legislature. S.B. 190 would establish a Utah State Film Review Board to view motion pictures and assess their pornographic worth. The bill purports to be a ban against obscenity, but typically, violence, cruelty and any form of depravity goes unmentioned. Only sex is obscene. Some friends, you might say. While setting up a review board, dedicated as it is to curtailing First Amendment of the rights, may not seem calculated to advance the cause purveyors of smut, the cunning of Pettersson becomes evident when one examines the interaction of his bill with H.B. 80, sponsored by Rep. Genevieve Atwood, commonly known as the sunshine law. If both of these measures are enacted the fans of dirty movies will not only have their favorite recreation made more available, but it will be financed for them at public expense. It will be every kooks dream. Imagine the scene as Pettersson s panel of three sits down to their evening of dirty flicks. Because Atwoods law X-rat- ed in tt iummw WHICH P&OS SffcXO VO YCU B, THlPK' ST REFLECTS THE TROTH? mw. CARSCMS PWOLC605S. I m will make all meetings of two or more public officials open to the public, and Petterssons panel beyond peradventure of a doubt is a meeting of public officials, their meetings certainly will become the best attended in all of government. They may have to be held in the Salt Palace arena. Precocious children, perverts, and weirdos of every description may be expected to attend in droves. Moreover, if they miss the first show they will be given a second chance, for the district court of Salt Lake County, whose sessions are always public, must put everything else aside murders, burglaries, and commercial problems and view the film in its entirety, within seven days. Moreover, Attwoods law will require that meetings be scheduled in advance and will require that the Board give reasonable notice of the agenda, date, time and place of its meetings. Where shall we publish such a notice, in the art section of our daily newspapers? To make the scene bill the should be amended to require the complete, perhaps Board to lower the lights and install popcorn machines. There may even be a lesson for Carl Pettersson and his ilk in all of his. Sex itself is not a crime and movies depicting the subject, viewed by consenting adults, offend no one and interest very few. But make them the subject of public controversy, as in legislative debate or public hearings, and they become a curiosity. They may, then, even become the subject of journalistic comment, though otherwise they would go unnoticed. There is more to say, but I must hurry to the Gallery Theater to attend an important public hearing. |