OCR Text |
Show independent student voice silenced again DAVID SELF NEWLIN Opinions editor Courtesy DON LAVANGE The new governor, Gary Herbert, speaking to student on campus. Trading down ANDYSHERWIN Opinions writer Former Lieutenant Governor Gary Herbert, now Governor Gary Herbert, (due to the resignation of former Governor, current Chinese Ambassador, and all-around awesome dude Jon Huntsman) was supposed to attend a panel discussion on our campus last Friday in lieu of Senator Orrin Hatch, who had been requested r to deliver a eulogy for Ted Kennedy and who expressed regret at having to bow out at the last minute. However, Herbert too bowed out early after only a few minutes before the students. We were stood up. As of this writing, an official reason for Herbert's ditching his state's newest university for heaven knows what has yet to be issued. Should we, as students and constituents (unwilling though some of us may be), take offense to his slight? Should we storm the steps of the capitol and demand an apology and a long-winded speech about the benefits and/or perils of unregulated capitalism? Maybe we should take it as a compliment. Governor Herbert has come under fire for having said that gay, lesbian and transgendered people should not be considered a protected class. As reported by the Sait Lake Tribune article "Herbert: No 'protected class' status based on sexual orientation," on Aug. 28, "Asked specifically if he thought people should be afforded legal protection based on •sexual orientation, Herbert responded, 'No.'" He also gave us the delightfully absurd and ill-conceived notion that doing so would set a negative precedent: "Where do you stop?" Herbert asked. "That's the problem going down that slippery road. Letter to the editor In response to "Worst of the wort" by David Self Newlin, published on Aug. 24,2009 The primary reason for Utah being last in terms of per pupil spending is the high ratio of children to adults. Utah is among the top states in terms of percentage of the state budget allocated to public education, but by the time that amount is allocated to students, the per pupil amount is not very high. Higher taxes are probably not the solution, because taxes in Utah are already fairly high and also because tax increases are thought to have an adverse effect on economic growth and development, FD Farnsworth, Jr., Professor History/Political Science Letters to the editor requirements uvu.review.opinions®gmail.com • Letters must be turned in on Wednesday by noon in order to be printed in the next edition. • We make no guarantee that letters will be printed. • Letters 300 words or less have a greater chance of being published - anything longer will be edited for content. • Please provide an electronic copy regardless of whether or not you wish to submit a hard copy. • All letters become the property of UVU Review as soon as they are submitted. • Anonymous letters are only publishable when the safety or professional status of the letter writer is in jeopardy. Pretty soon we're going to have a special law for blue-eyed blondes." So let's check the Scoreboard. Herbert bailed on us like we were an ugly prom date. Discrimination based on sexual orientation should be legal and protecting people is a "slippery road." As a matter of fact there ARE laws that protect blue-eyed blondes, just as they protect browneyed redheads, green-eyed blacks, hazel-eyed Latinos, etc., from workplace discrimination. I'm a huge supporter of former governor Jon Huntsman. Not only does he seem to be a decent man, but he also relaxed Utah's draconian, puritanical liquor laws, supports civil unions for gay couples, and played piano with REO Speedwagon for two songs when they came to the Utah State Fair in 2006. I'm glad Huntsman was given such a great opportunity to serve his whole country rather than just our humble state in the international political forum, but his accepting of the ambassadorship did his home state a great disservice by allowing Herbert the occasion to get new business cards. I don't personally know Governor Herbert, and 1 don't know if I can go so far as to say that his expressing a refusal to help protect an oft-persecuted minority keep jobs that they have and continue to earn and deserve makes him a bigot, per se; in the same way, I can't call someone a mugger just because they failed to stop a mugging. Whatever Herbert thinks about existing discrimination legislation, it is clear that we need more laws simply because people clearly DON'T do the right thing when they ought to; it seems we traded down when Herbert took office. Over the past six months, the UVU Review has gone missing from its racks twice. The first instance was the result of an innocent mistake on the part of counselors for at risk youth who were in need of materials for a building project. The second instance occurred at some time on Aug. 30, when the freshly-printed edition was dropped off, still bundled, stacked high and left on the loading dock to be picked up in the morning for distribution. . . Only, there were no papers to be found in the morning. Anywhere. No one is quite sure what has happened to them, whether their loss is the result of another innocuous mistake, or something more malicious; all that is known is that they are gone at a loss of approximately $1,500. Because of this incident, I wish to express something more than the bare fact that these papers have disappeared — yet again — much to the staff and advisors' dismay. What's more important is that the information contained in these papers was not available to students and other readers for which this paper is provided free of charge. Here's a list of things that you (probably) wouldn't have known about if we had not been able to reprint it: Advantages of the bus pass made available to students. An important excavation being carried out by our professors on campus Scholarships available Nutty Provo laws The student government's recycling program Why we need movie fantasies Why we should not get a new student center An important documentary made by Provo locals The international cinema Real Salt Lake's chances at the playoffs And the list goes on. The Review is full of all kinds of important stories, events, and opinions that deserve to be read by student's eyes. To the people responsible for the mishap of the missing papers: please think about the .importance of this paper. Students put hours each day into writing and •designing, sweat over deadlines, schedules, research and interviews. Whether your actions were the result of a mistake, a lack of information, or an attempt suppress the information contained within our pages, please understand how disappointing and difficult it is to expect to see your work available and be totally shut down. Give back your handouts DAVID SELF NEWLIN Opinions editor There is a near-constant refrain I hear from friends, fellow students and political pundits in the ongoing debate in health care and it goes something like this: "I believe in personal responsibility, and I don't think that it's right that some poor person or illegal immigrant should get a handout from the government for doing nothing and/or breaking the law." Or some such variation — the point is that they argue (loosely interpreted), that public health care systems amount to giving people something they don't deserve. I find it hard to make sense of this, and the best way I can think to express my confusion and dismay is to ask those who make these statements to give taxpayers back their money. . Did you drive to school today? Then you got a handout. After all, public funds paid for the road you drove-on, the DMV where Seriously, I could go on you got your license, the for days listing things that police that keep you from we all get from local or speeding and the parking national government that lot where you are currently we just don't "deserve" parked. if you take seriously the I don't know what ill-conceived and vulgar noanyone did to merit the privilege of tion so often mislabeled driving exDid you drive to as "personal cept simply school today? Then responsibilexist, you got a handout. ity;" it really Did you amounts to receive financial the notion that poor people are lesser aid in the form of a state beings than rich people and or federal grant? Handhence deserve proportionout! Would you be willing ately less. to give back your aid on principle, simply because "But we paid taxes for it was a handout? If you all those things!" I can are not willing, and you are already hear in response. also opposed to a public Well, no "we" as students health care option, perhaps didn't. By and large, we pay you should start rethinking either no or very little taxes, one or the other position for considering we make next the sake of being morally to nothing flipping burgers consistent. and scrubbing toilets to pay Did you drink some soda for school and top ramen. today? Then you received Only those far richer a handout from the federal than we can even imagine coffers that subsidized the right now "deserve" to corn, which was then prodrive on the roads, use the cessed into the syrup that busses, the school facilities, makes your bubbly beverthe parking lots, the sewage ever so sweet. Small, ers, the street lamps and* but a handout nonetheless. everything else that makes our lives as students and citizens possible. Health care is no different. With a public option, we all pay for it eventually, and those indigent and poverty-stricken families or individuals who can't pay would deserve their "socialized" medicine just as much as they deserve the soccer stadiums, libraries, universities, historical markers, stop signs and high schools we all get, courtesy o' Big Brother (and against which no one seems to be making "personal responsibility" arguments), not to mention the OVER-400-BILLIONDOLLARS worth of tanks, jet fighters, long-range ballistic missiles, nuclear warheads, CIA agents and combat boots that (supposedly) keep us safe and chock-full of liberty. I'm going out with a zinger, folks: something about "socialized" medicine just seems to make sense when you consider that WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY, PEOPLE! Ba-zing! |