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Quote, Unquote 'It's that much harder to hire quality people every time you have news of budget problems.’ Rob Wilcox, faculty budget committee member W\t (Bamecock Serving the Carolina Community since 1 QOS Brock Vergakis Editor in Chief Clayton Kale Viewpoints Editor Erin O’Neal Spotlight Editor Kyle Almond Sports Editor Brad Walters Design Editor Brandon Larrabee University Editor Amanda Silva Spotlight Editor Valerie Matchette City & State Editor Martha Wright Copy Desk Chief USC must warn students of high-pressure groups This week, The Gamecock is reporting on. a student’s en counter with the Columbia Church of Christ, a “high pressure group,” according to religious organizations on campus. USC administrators know about the Church of Christ; this is n’t the first time it’s been mentioned in student media. The Gamecock has reported on the church in the past; in that series, USC officials said there was a section on high-pressure groups in University 101. However, that session was held late in the semes ter, and many students join the church in the first part of their freshman year. Informal conversations with students who have taken University 101 show that such discussions about groups like Columbia Church of Christ either don’t take place or aren’t remembered. Several colleges and universities have banned high-pressure groups like the International Church of Christ from campus. The warning about high-pressure groups needs to take place early in the semester of University 101 classes. The university needs to publicize the issue and create services to help students who want to break away from such organizations. In whatever way it can, USC needs to educate students about high-pressure groups. If not, administrators can’t dodge the in evitable questions that will arise about whether they are partly to blame for students’ ignorance of the danger such groups pose. ‘Sixth Man’ should show more support at games When someone came up with the idea for the Sixth Man Club at basketball games, The Gamecock thought it would be a great way to increase school spirit at games. Originally, the club was started to show teams visiting USC that there is a united front of fan support. The Sixth Man Club would get block seating and free shirts as they cheer for the basketball team at games. The club would, in theory, help spur . more fan pride and support at games. A similar student club at UNC is very popular and has existed r for years. The Blue Crew at UNC goes to almost all of the home games and cheers for the Tarheels no matter what the score is. But unfortunately, the Sixth Man Club has fallen short of its goal of showing visiting teams that our school actually has some hardcore fans. In fact, they are only allowed to show up as a-club at four home games, and the fact that they don’t get to keep their shirts is ridiculous. If there is going to be a club supporting basketball at USC, then it should be allowed to convene at most of the home games. And students should be able to enjoy a couple of perks from their membership — like free T-shirts. About Us The Gamecock is the student newspaper of the University of South Carolina and is published Monday, Wednesday and Friday during the fall and spring semesters and nine times during the summer with the exception of uniwrsity holidays and exam periods. Opinions expressed in The Gamecock are those of the editors or author and not those of the University of South Carolina. The Board of Student Publications and Communications is the publisher of The Gamecock. The Department of Student Media is the newspaper's parent organization. The Gamecock is supported in part by student activities fees. 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E-mail submissions must include telephone number for confirmation and should be e-mailed to gamecockviewpointsdhotmail.com. The Gamecock reserves the right to edit for libel, style and space. Anonymous letters will not be Ol published. Photos are required guest columnists ’ and can be provided by the submitter. TwOuhoock Travis Lynn Charles Prashaw Sean Rayford Asst. City/State Editor Ptoto Editor, Betsy Baugh Mackenzie Clements Community Affairs Ja*°n Harmon Ann Marie Miani Ashley Melton Jennie Moore Kenley Young Katie Smith Copy Editors Page Designers StummtMbm Erik Collins Carolyn Griffin Faculty Adviser Business Manager Ellen Parsons Sarah Sims Director of Advertising Manager Student Media _ ... Jannell Deyo SEKU, Kera Khalil Sean De Luna Denise Levereaux Todd Hooks Nicole Russell Melanie Hutto Advertising Staff Emilie Moca Martin Salisbury Sherry F. Holmes Creative Services Classified Manager Only two letters to the editor per student will be xinted in a semester. Staff columns take priority over juest columns, unless the guest columnist offers expertise y> a subject, or if the subject's relevance is limited by :ime. Guest columns and letters may be submitted by ‘-mail to gamecockviewpointsdhotmai com. Call 777-7726 for more information. Political Ideology Southerner turns to ‘radical’ liberalism “tv;: them turn you into a liberal,” was the ad vice I got from my brother, along with Hamp Nettles a funny look, when js a second-year I told him I d be ec0nomjCs major, writing for The Reach him at Gamecock. Bom and raised in the ®>mecockv,ewpomts Solid South, there’s ®hotmail com' no doubt that my friends and family members would echo the same sentiment. That’s what makes my next statement so difficult to make. I am a liberal. Before jaws drop and great-grandfa thers turn over in graves, I need to clari fy my point. When I say I’m a “liberal,” I don’t mean I’m a tree-hugging, pro-la bor, anti-gun, bleeding heart, vote-Nader dot-com liberal. I am a classical liberal. My above characterization of modem liberals might be unfortunate, but I think it is fair. I have no personal dislike for lib erals. My beef with liberals is strictly ide ological. In terms of ideology, it seems to me that modem liberals simply lack it altogether. The ones who grace the Sun day morning talk shows seem only to serve the sprawling landscape of special inter est groups. That said, the current conser vative branch of the American politics is only marginally superior, if not identical, to modem liberals in many respects. As I like to say, the only real difference be tween the two major political parties is a couple of letters. So where does that leave me? As I de clared earlier, I am a classical liberal. A short definition might describe me as “off the deep end,” whereas a complex exam ination would likely yield the same con clusion. In truth, classical liberalism is a political philosophy so ideologically pure, and its conclusions so harsh, that it de serves its “radical” label. As for the foun dational beliefs of classical liberals, the ex act wording might vary from individual to individual because it’s a highly personal philosophy. I have codified the four pil lars of my personal liberalism below: 1. Every individual is bom with an identical set of rights which cannot be tak en away. An individual’s rights belong sole ly to him or her, are not worth any more or less than any other individual’s rights, and exist prior to, and outside the exis tence of, any government. 2. The most effective and efficient so lution to society’s economic problems is the classical model of economics. A tru ly free-market economy is both self-reg ulating and blindly fair to buyers, sellers, producers and laborers. 3. The role of government — if any — should be limited to the protection of individual rights and the protection against its own expansion. 4. All of the above assertions are ab solute. If these assertions seem radical, their conclusions are much more so. In a clas sical liberal world, freedom would be the idea]. Education would be privatized and drugs legalized. Minimum wage and wel fare would be repealed, along with cor porate tax breaks and farmer subsidies. People would have the right to cany guns and women would have the right to an abortion. The list could continue, but es sentially, private individuals would do that which the government does so poorly. As striking as these conclusions are, I did not arrive at them by myself. The timeline of classical liberals is full of in dividuals more radical and out of touch with reality than I. Thomas Jefferson, for example, proposed the extreme idea that individuals have the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Even more extreme was Mary Wollstonecraft. She extended the then-laughable idea that women possessed the same rights as men. Henry David Thoreau, living in a small shack in the woods, had the gall to call government evil and even suggest that slav ery should be abolished The are the poster children of classical liberalism. Sarcasm aside, it is a sad truth that the ideas of history’s greatest political thinkers have been lost in a sea of status-quo poli tics. Each week in this column, I hope to offend more than 90 percent of the read ership, and at the same time show that my offensiveness is not malicious and dis criminatory, but reasoned and egalitarian. Secondly, and more importantly, I hope to illustrate that classical liberalism does not belong on dusty bookshelves or in the minds of radicals, but instead in daily life. Herblock’s Cartoon "PRIU THEWUPKHESS.1 THIS IS AUEMEWCRISIS!' a c tNJ&s'K i. (Pj-oo I Send letters to the editor to ~~ gamecockvMewpoints@hotmail.com. Letters USC student appeals for cleaner campus To the Editor I am appalled. How can you spend close to $3,000 for a semester of graduate edu cation, have a great initial impression of classes thus far and feel nauseated due to the excessive amount of trash as you walk around this campus? It doesn’t make sense, since a clean, or ganized environment is one of the keys to success for many students. We should de mand nothing less of our university envi ronment than what we expect from our own personal environment. I happen to val ue cleanliness and oiganization. Why does n’t our univeisity hold a higher standard for itself? I know an easy answer to this ques tion would be that the university doesn’t have enough money for maintenance crews. This is ridiculous. First, we have a foot ball team that is now on the national radar. This, to me, is a great thing, and being from South Bend, Ind., I hope Lou Holtz can replicate what he did at Notre Dame. How ever, big football led by big name coaches is expensive. New athletic facilities are ex pensive. If the campus as a whole can’t be maintained, then how can we add new expenses to our university universe? Lou, you said something about the trash along highways in this state, and people lis tened. Could you please say something to the effect that you can’t use a bathroom on campus and not feel like you are in a dirty gas station or that there are more ciga rette butts around the union than leaves? I think you would agree with me in that these are important issues to raise. TonyClauss First-year graduate student Current Events Learning the news takes time I was sitting in class the other day, and the smartest kid in the entire world was behind me. He was loftily chatting with the Michelle Pittman professor about is a second-year all sorts of political journalism major, gaibage and current Reach her at news, and the rest gamecockviewpoints of the class was ohotmail.com. sitting there with that “What?” look on their faces. “How does he know this stuff?” I consider myself a fairly informed person. I know who the president is (Republican, right?), and 1 have my own take on some current hot topics (seat belt laws are bunk). I’m even registered to vote (Libertarian, thank you very much), but somehow, I feel left out of this giant journalism loop that seems to have its finger on the pulse of the world. In an effort to improve my conversational skills, I decided to bulk up on the information the public needs to know. I’m forcing myself to watch the nightly news, but even that isn’t helping. Headline News, a CNN-affiliated channel, was my first stop on the television circuit. After all, they promote themselves as “getting to the point,” but all I learned was that there was a bus crash in Jersey and the Lakers beat the Pacers. That sports ticker is awfully distracting. Maybe I set my goals too high. Maybe national news is too much for a beginner. But WIS wasn’t much of a help, either. Turns out they’re manufacturing pre moistened toilet paper now (I learned this by watching a WIS newscast). The problem with becoming informed is that ift order to see the story that’s of any interest at all, one has to sit through a pile of crap that doesn’t affect them. Why bother? Do I care about Jesse Jackson’s infidelity? Maybe, but can someone tell me what makes this news and not just mindless gossip? Watching a newscast is comparable to listening to “the drunk” at a party tell one of his off-the-wall stories. You’re pretty sure that half of the tale is irrelevant, and what’s to be done with the unrelated facts that are left over? We need to piece them together and make sense of the subject. But in order for me to string these tales together, I already need to know a little about what’s being said, right? Oth erwise, all I have to offer is third-hand in formation and a few ideals that my parents handed down to me. How do I end this vicious cycle? The answer is to keep on watching. Keep reading the paper. Gather eveiy speck of information that’s offered and review it into the ground until it makes sense. Like the smart kid in class told me, “If life is your classroom, the news is your text.” Thanks a lot, buddy. Store’s suspicion based on racial bias To the Editor I walked into a store the other day and went to a certain section. Over the intercom, a voice called out, “Security, scan section C, please.” Assuming that “section C” was the*section that I was in, I imme diately moved to the next section of the store. Over the intercom, the same voice hurriedly said, “Security, scan section D please.” On top of that , the manager of the store stared at me the whole time. It was painful ly obvious that I was the target, a potential felon in their eyes. Felon? I have never come close to being in trouble with the law. I am a year from beginning study in the business master’s degree program at USC. Just because my youth and skin color match es the stereotypical criminal gives no one the right to treat me as such. I left the store having stolen nothing except their unwarranted suspicions. But they had stolen much more from me. Darryl Green Fourth-year business major Check The Gamecock online every day for new columns. www.dailygamecock.com