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Show ,enterprisI19 PRAGMATIC DOGMATICS The 55 mph limit by Kent Shearer . j . During World War II, Franklin Delano Roosevelt imposed a 35 mile per hour national The Governor of automotive speed limit. Down here, the latter Texas demurred. reflected, at 35 miles an hour you don't get nowhere." . The 35 mile scheme was, of course, designed to save fuel required to best the Axis. Once peace was won, the restriction was lifted. When, more recently, OPEC, the oil cartel, decreed an embargo on petroleum, Richard M. Nixon responded in Rooseveltian fashion. He set a maximum highway speed of 55. The OPEC ban has come and gone, but that particular legacy of Nixon persists. In fact, there is scarcely a government official who presently does not place the 55 ',i i) K h. 9 limitation on the sort of pedestal normally reserved for motherhood and the flag. James Earl Carter has declared his personal commitment and has threatened to withhold federal funds from states that stray. Influenced as much by perceived safety considerations as by those of conservation, the Rampton-Matheso- n Utah cabal voices its enthusiastic echo. Trouble is, the public doesnt appear to agree. Angry rejectionists jammed DOT hearings held this past month in St. George and Salt Lake. If you want to run a test of popular behavior, take your car onto an interstate, drive at 55, and count how many autos pass you (the answer: about 99 percent of those you view). Along with Dickens Mr. Bumble, the motorists seem to say, If the law supposes that, the law is a ass, a idiot." Their pious protestations aside, what then can officials do about a law nearly everyone flaunts? Three alternatives present themselves. First, they can continue enforcement on a basis, the status quo. This, unfortunately, fulfills neither the goal of conservation nor that of safety for, as noted, nearly every motorist takes his chances and, if caught, pays his fine. Second, they can forget the whole thing. Freeways, after all, were designed to handle speeds of 70 mph or more. But, in that event, the goals also go by the wayside. A third, and most effective, course would be for Washington to mandate that no automobile manufactured in or imported into the nation can have the capability to exceed 55. Machines can be made to conform, even if hit-and-mi- ss their owners cant. But dont bet that the third direction will be adopted. Detroit wouldn't like it, and politicians arc unlikely to risk public wrath at the polls. So look for more political preachenforcements and continued ment. Neither safety nor conservation will be served, but fines will keep going into bureaucratic coffers. hit-and-m- iss 1 i t I e CT V h H ir g Z it oQ. s d 1! DC ill H Z 4 J x.' $ V o o Justice Ellett on philology and obscenity by Parker M. Nielson substantial segment of the legal profession is dismayed e Chief Justice Ellett of the Utah Supreme Court characteriz-hosA who, in keeping with holdings of the U.S. Supreme rt. find literary or artistic value in movies portraying sex as State praved, mentally deficient, mind warped queers." cs who apply the High Court's standards, he said, are and he chophants" engaged in technicalhispretense" vomit in search of ned them to a dog that returns to . le morsel in the filth." out all of twisted issue the has Ellett Respectfully, Justice movie Memories Within portion. The case concerned the court were whether a ;s Aggie." and the issues before the Lake City ordinance defining obscenity was constitutional whether Attorney General Robert Hansens effort to rig the On the r in favor of conviction constituted jury tampering. cr point Justice Ellett offered that the defense attorney with uld have retaliated with efforts to stack the jury homosexuals and other members of the mps, prostitutes, . nographic community. constitutional resolve to issues, curious a is way Tit for tat committed what is more important is that Justice Ellett has deviate nantic errors, lumping all those whose activities or another includes most m societal norms (which in one way In doing so he gratuitously and us) into one category. of society. lcccssarily insulted a substantial segment Specifically, many pimps, prostitutes and homosexuals abhor voyeurism and would take justifiable umbrage at being linked with dirty movies. Furthermore, the juxtaposition of pimps and prostitutes with terms like mentally deficient" and queer" smacks of uncalled for slander of homosexuals on the one hand and the entirely respectable patients at our mental institutions (or, for that matter, all of us who got bad grades in school) on the other. Homosexuals may not mind so much the term queer," but would resent having their mental capacity impugned. Viewing dirty movies is plainly a spectator sport. Pimps, prostitutes and homosexuals, by contrast, arc engaged in participation sports. They are linked only in that they all deal with the broad category of sex in much the same way that truck drivers and astronauts are linked to the broad subject of transportation. Pimps and prostitutes spend their evenings on the streets, and homosexuals spend theirs in rest rooms or gay bars, not in fourth rate movie houses. They know nothing of dirty movies. Asking them to judge dirty movies is therefore like asking C.W. McCall to narrate a moon landing. To that extent Justice Ellett is mixing his fruits and nuts. In the end, however, pornography is in the mind of the beholder. Some consider sex to be healthy and natural and arc not offended by movies or books portraying the subject. Others, myself included, find lines like Justice Elletts analogy of a dog that returns to his vomit in search of some morsel in the filth" to be disgusting and the ultimate obscenity. If we are to have censorship, a good place to begin might be with Justice Ellctt's own opinions. |