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Show Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010 Page 14 Views&Opilli011 Utah State University • Logan, Utah • www.aggietownsquare.com OurVi ew FUTURE MILITARY WEAPONS SIAOULD BE CHEAP AND AFFORDABLE, SAYS ARMY OFFICIAL Avoid those buying candy with blood money AIM..- As a matter of faith y friend and I were talking the other day under the wooden arches inside Old Main. He told me an interesting idea he had about modern atheism. He said it stems from adolescence, a desire to reject parenthood and authority. Most atheists I know try to avoid that simple mindset. They reject traditional theism because they don't think it provides fundamental answers in their lives, and they're pretty reasonable and scientific about it. But many others fit the adolescence description perfectly. They act, from what I see, like kids who are mad about having to eat their vegetables and now take their frustration out on religion. Even the usually level-headed Richard Dawkins has wrote rather childish articles about Catholicism recently, in the wake of the Vatican opening itself to Anglicans. Some have made the adolescence and atheism connection before, such as Pope John Paul II and psychologist Paul Vitz, with varying degrees of success. This doesn't mean all atheists had horrible families or are frustrated with their upbringing. Instead, it's a metaphysical matter. The mentality that drives so many youths to fight their parents over nothing eventually manifests in fighting the ultimate parent, the divine. Rebelling against our parents could be considered part of our nature. We do it as part of figuring out who we are as individuals, and under some negative circumstances it's probably necessary. I'm not surprised the same thing happens with religion since faith involves laws and judgment, and the fire of youth can want out from under that. The nature of this rebellion in modern atheism is disturbing though. It goes beyond yearning for identity to an addiction or fetish with being self-made. The identity must be totally original, so that nothing can be placed before them (absolute truth, values, divinity, etc.), they can have total freedom. Rather than just being skeptical of a law or parent, it's almost a hatred for those things, and anything else that restricts total individual liberty, no matter the cost. Modern atheism itself isn't the problem. I really think it's also the modern mindset, since various new hip religions have this problem too. People join them because the religions claim to not judge, which again is part of the adolescent mentality. It's also true that traditional authoritative religions contain people who care about nothing but themselves. Both issues stem from selfishness concerning faith, which leads to bad theism and atheism. Faith is about truth beyond individualism. It shouldn't just be abandoned because of discomfort. It demands thought, conviction and humility. Many psychologists suggest faith, and its judgments and laws, are just part of wanting a supreme parent I See ATHEIST, page 15 Editor in Chief Patrick Oden News Editor Rachel A. Christensen Assistant News Editor Catherine Meidell I t's that time again. In the next few days, a few dozen students will be selling their souls for votes in hopes of becoming the voice of USU students during the 2010-'11 academic year. Their names will be plastered on homemade billboards and splattered across T-shirts all over campus. This year has definitely been a trying one for ASUSU because dealing with budget cuts is always a messy situation. Though they have needed to make adjustments, like all other aspects of USU, the officers have come out alive and given students another memorable year. It's about time the entire student body started learning about who this year's candidates are, in order to ensure a solid group of leaders through the next school year. The people voted into student government have a say in student dollars, so whoever is uninterested in voting is flagrantly disregarding their own financial situation. Especially in these difficult economic times, it is crucial that we, as college students drowning in higher education expenses, put our futures in the hands of students who actually know what they are doing. ASUSU has more power than many students may realize. The students elected are literally the link between administration and the student body. They are a few handfuls of young adults that act as the voices of thousands. Officers have direct say in our scholarships, tuition, fees and academics. That's a lot of responsibility in the hands of a bunch of rookies. It's a safe bet that some of the students running for office are doing so for the scholarship money. They undoubtedly thought, "Hey, what the heck, I've got a nice smile, and I could use my blood plasma donation money to buy many large bags of Laffy Taffy to entice people to vote for me." Let us all make sure we steer clear of these whack jobs and figure out who is really in the race to best suit our needs. Elections are a serious matter and time should be invested by every student to figure out which candidates know what they are going to be reponsible for if they win. Go ahead, ask the candidates questions when they come to your door, campaigning. Put them on the spot. Make them sweat. It's good for their character. In the end, we will all benefit. USU students, far and wide, get your pointer fingers and mouses at the ready, because it's time to vote. AboutUS Features Editor Courtnie Packer Assistant Features Editor Benjamin Wood Sports Editor Connor Jones Assistant Sports Editor Matt Sonnenberg STAYskAL TIMvitle MeDIA SCRV(CeSilto Obama's only choice on Iran: Try Plan B t was a blunt exchange with the bitter bite of the ideological battles between talk-show hosts Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly - except the sparring partners were Hillary Rodham Clinton and Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. "We see that the government of Iran, the supreme leader, the president, the Parliament, are being supplanted, and that Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship," snapped the U.S. secretary of state while visiting Qatar on Monday. In Tehran, Ayatollah Khamenei snarled back: "Now the Americans, once again, have dispatched their agent as a saleswoman to the Persian Gulf to spread lies." That's a far cry from the policy of engaging Iran that President Obama pursued so hopefully when he took office (although administration officials insist their door is still open). At a moment when the U.N. nuclear agency is suggesting, for the first time, that Iran is seeking nuclear-weapons capability, does Obama have a coherent strategy toward Tehran? I think it made sense to try engagement, even though the odds were daunting. Obama sent warm messages to the Iranian public and two letters to Khamenei offering to reset relations. The ayatollah didn't answer. Perhaps antiAmericanism is too essential to the regime's worldview. We'll never know what might have been had Iran's rulers not rigged the June elections and provoked the country's most serious political unrest since the revolution. The leadership is now so deeply divided that it's unlikely to revamp its nuclear policy or relations with the "Great Satan." The Revolutionary Guards - an aggressive military force that controls much of Iran's economy, along with its nuclear and foreign policies - seem to be calling the shots. In such circumstances, the White House had no choice but to activate Plan B: pursuit of harsher international sanctions to curb Iran's nuclear program. But, having offered engagement, Obama has a better chance of getting U.N. Security Council members on board. "They can't say this administration didn't open the door," said Nicholas Burns, who worked on the Iran issue as undersecretary of state in the last Bush administration. "Now Obama is in a much stronger position to say, 'Those guys wouldn't meet us at the table.' He has a lot more authority." Yet, even if Russia agrees to new sanctions (a possibility) and China acquiesces (more iffy), many experts ask whether sanctions will change the regime's behavior. True, Iran's economy is in difficult straits. But, says Mark Fowler, a former CIA officer who leads Booz Allen Hamilton's Persia House research service, Iranian officials "are pretty well set up to weather sanctions, pretty good at working around them, and at smuggling. It's a question of how much pain you can bear, and they can bear I a lot." Sanctions would indeed worsen Iran's economic problems, says Suzanne Maloney, an expert on Iran at the Brookings Institution, but "the difficulty is to connect the impact with a reversal of positions by Iranian authorities." To the extent that sanctions target the Revolutionary Guards, Maloney said, their impact will be "much more powerful. But they won't be a knockout punch." And just about everyone I've talked to doubts that congressional sanctions against refined oil products would make a difference. The idea sounds good, since Iran has insufficient refineries to produce much of its gasoline. But such sanctions are likely to hit the public hardest, while the Revolutionary Guards profit from smuggling rackets that evade the ban. Moreover, the regime, which is trying to reduce government subsidies for gasoline, could then blame sanctions, rather than its own mismanagement, for the public's pain. Yet, with all these caveats, sanctions are the best option at present. A military attack would rally Iranians around the regime without ending the nuclear program. (Unlike Iraq's Osirak reactor, which Israel bombed in 1981, Iran's program is dispersed, with much of it deep underground.) An attack would also risk the unforeseen consequences of another Mideast war, including skyrocketing oil prices. Sanctions buy time to isolate the regime internationally for its human rights abuses and for its violation of U.N. resolutions on its nuclear program. They buy time to strengthen the defenses of Iran's Gulf neighbors. They buy time to wait out possible political changes inside Iran and to see if Iran's leadership will reconsider compromise. Finally, they buy time to prepare a containment strategy, should all else fail. And we have time: Despite its bluster, Iran is having serious technical problems with its nuclear program. And experts doubt that its leaders have decided whether to produce weapons or just go to the brink of doing so. (Khamenei insisted again last week that Islam forbids such weapons.) The Revolutionary Guards, who pursue earthly power rather than apocalyptic dreams, are unlikely to risk Tehran's destruction by testing a nuclear weapon or launching one at Israel or the West. Their worldly interests may ultimately lead to an internal split between diehards and pragmatists who seek to join the global community. If sanctions don't produce quick results, Obama will have to withstand political pressure from those who want military action. "This is a long-term chess match, and we've only seen the opening moves," Burns said. This game will take a steady hand. Copy Editor Mark Vuong Photo Editors Pete Smithsuth Steve Sellers Web Editor Karlie Brand About letters • Letters should be limited to 400 words. • All letters may be shortened, edited or rejected for reasons of good taste, redundancy or volume of similar letters. • Letters must be topic oriented. They may not be directed toward individuals. Any letter directed to a specific individual may be edited or not printed. • No anonymous letters will be published. Writers must sign all letters and include a phone number or email address as well as a student identification number (none of which is published). Letters will not be printed without this verification. • Letters representing groups - or more than one individual - must have a singular representative clearly stated, with all necessary identification information. • Writers must wait 21 days before submitting successive letters - no exceptions. • Letters can be hand delivered or mailed to The Statesman in the TSC, Room 105, or can be e-mailed to statesman@aggiemail. usu.edu, or click on www.aggietownsquare.com for more letter guidelines and a box to submit letters. (Link: About Us.) Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. /- NOW 1.44AT TIGER'S SPIRITUALLY WEALEIA ) I'M ENPIN MY BOYCOTT OF OF LUCKILY, I DIDN'T LET MYSELF C1ET CUT OF SHAPE! Letters to the editor pertaining to candidates for the upcoming ASUSU elections will not be run prior to the elections. |