The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, November 10, 2004, Page 8, Image 8
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AMECOCK
EDITORIAL BOARD
EDITOR
Adam Beam
DESIGN DIRECTOR
David Stagg
NEWS EDITOR
Michael LaForgia
THE MIX EDITOR
Meg Moore
COPY DESK CHIEF
Gabrielle Sinclair
VIEWPOINTS EDITOR
Wes Wolfe
SENIOR WRITER
Kevin Fellner
ASST. NEWS EDITOR
Jon Turner
IN OUR OPINION
Student section
needs reforming
Home rootoaii games are precious tnings to undergrad
uates. They’re big, free parties that students use as a way to relax
and forget about the stresses of college life. And for students,
nothing is better than standing every down of every game in the
student section, where you hug people you’ve never met and
jump up and down on aluminum seats when Cocky appears
during the 2001 theme, even though you’ve seen it a thousand
times.
Students love their section and there’s an unwritten rule that
Ticket officials
should distribute
student football
tickets on a general
admission basis.
seats in the student section are
on a first come, first serve basis.
There are practical reasons for
this. Students like to sit with
their friends, but 30 people
don’t have time to all go
together during the week to get
their student football tickets from the Russell House. That’s
why getting the ticket just gets you in the door. After that,
you’re on your own.
But a recurring problem in the student section happens when
non-students somehow get student tickets, show up late for the
game and grab the nearest rent-a-cop to remove students from
their seats. These non-students are typically older couples who
have never sat - or stood - in the student section before, so they
don’t know the rules. We can forgive and forget that. But we
can’t forget how it keeps happening, week after week.
C»n/^an«' ►i/'lrotr ^ ra fnr ffiwlonrr r n/\ nna alra A nirona
is welcome to use the student section provided that they under
stand that they stand where they can find space and don’t get
event staflF to remove students. Imagine if event staff started
patrolling the student section during the game, relocating people
to their proper seats. There aren’t enough quarters in a football
game to accomplish that feat.
Ticket officials should distribute student football tickets on a
general admission basis. Ticket officials shouldn’t sell student tick
ets to non-students. USC fans need to know that if you sit with
the students, you stand with the students - if you can find room.
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ABOUT THE GAMECOCK
EDITOR
Adam Beam
DESIGN DIRECTOR
David Stagg
COPY DESK CHIEF
Gabrielle Sinclair
NEWS EDITOR
Michael LaForgia
ASST. NEWS EDITOR
Jon Turner
VIEWPOINTS EDITOR
Wes Wolfe
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THeYALViAYs
SAID HG V6AS A
STRONG CLOSeR...
Morality votes call for mandate
■ Social conservatives
turned out in high
numbers for election
The re-election of President
George W. Bush was not just an
election based on terrorism and the
economy, but also an election based
on America’s moral system. In fact,
exit polls showed “moral values” as
one of the main factors in this
election.
According to Lee Ellis, former vice
president of CBS and Gannett, many
voters thought this election was about
losing all forms of morality and ethics
and lowering standards of human
behavior. However, Gary Langer,
director of polling for ABC News,
said a major flaw of the exit poll
question concerning moral values “is
that moral value is not the same sort
of specific issues that taxes or Iraq
are.”
In essence, moral values are more
loosely defined than other issues that
lead to ambiguity. For example, Langer
and others stated that moral values
became a sort of catch all for Bush’s
voters, which included topics as varied
as gay marriage and vulgarity on TV.
Since many people are discussing the
implications of morality on the re
election of President Bush, I pose a
fundamental question: What is
morality?
According to Bernard Gert in the
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
morality can be used to “descriptively
refer to a code
of conduct put
forward by a
society or some
other group,
such as a
religion, or
accepted by an
individual for
MARK her
McLAWHORN behavior , or
normatively to
THIRD-YEAR refer to a code
POLITICAL . ,
SCIENCE or conduct
STUDENT that, given
specified con
ditions, would
be put forward by all rational
persons.”
Sixty-four percent of people who
attended church more than one time a
week and 58 percent of people who
went to church once a week supported
President Bush. On the other hand,
54 percent of the respondents who
attended church only a few times a
year and 62 percent who never attend
church, voted for Sen. John Kerry.
Should one infer from the above that
President Bush is more moral than
Sen. Kerry?
Furthermore, the re-election of
President Bush and the overall
success of the Republican Party in
becoming a stronger majority in both •
houses of Congress are based on
another fundamental issue, gay
marriage. The 2004 election reflected
this sentiment when Arkansas,
Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan,
Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota,
Oklahoma, Ohio, Utah and Oregon
voted to ban gay marriages. All of
these states, with the exception of
Michigan, voted for President Bush.
It appears that many voters rebelled
against what appeared to be
destroying their moral compass. The
geographic location of these states
showed the issue of gay marriage
transcended regional boundaries,
namely the Bible Belt. Does this
voting pattern represent a national
mandate for morality?
Also, in a more indirect way, the
election focused on the moral value of
a woman’s right to choose. The issue
of abortion was further highlighted
with the recent debate about
appointments to the U.S. Supreme
Court over the next four years. A new
Supreme Court could overturn Roe v.
Wade, and have a long-term impact
on social “hot button” issues. A *
woman’s right to choose could be
descending into its final sunset, with
the possibility of a more conservative
leaning Supreme Court.
Moreover, many of those who
advocate strong moral values, such as
opposing abortion “right to life,” are
strong proponents of the death
penalty. Additionally, some advocates
of strong moral values oppose social
programs that provide prenatal
support for infants. I believe this type
of inconsistent ideology for life is
confusing and could discredit the
moral value movement by relegating
it to political opportunists.
IN YOUR OPINION
• • I . . . . . I . . ^ <• i r
umo issue exposes
liberals as sore losers
I was amused when I picked up
the paper Monday and read Erica
Kolmin’s column (“How the
Republicans stole Ohio,” Monday).
It was amusing because I’ve heard
this bit before, only it was about a
different state.
At no time in that three-ring
circus that Ms. Kolmin tried to pass
off as an intellectual argument did
she make a legitimate point. She
made some fairly bold claims about
the exit polls from CNN that can
probably be best summed up in the
words of President Bush as “fuzzy
math.” In case she didn’t notice, John
Kerry was leading in several exit polls
throughout the day in states other
than Ohio. And if Ms. Kolmin
thinks CNN is giving its news a
conservative slant, I’d hate to see how
she describes Fox News.
Despite all of her random points
about how the Democrats really
“won,” Ohio simply exposes a bigger
problem that liberals have been
facing since the fiasco back in 2000 —
they can’t accept defeat. Never mind
the fact that President Bush got more
than 50 percent of the vote: The
Democrats were “screwed” in Ohio.
Never mind the fact that the
Republicans gained seats in the
House and the Senate: the
Democrats were “screwed” in Ohio.
Ms. Kolmin, it would appear
your pariy nas some Digger prooicms
than Ohio. Here’s some free advice —
let it go, and then go home and try
to figure out why the majority of
Americans don’t seem to be
interested in what your party is
selling.
Maybe, just maybe, if you guys
didn’t spend so much time whining
about Florida and had actually
focused on this election, the result
would have been different last week.
But hey, if you want to whine for the
next four years about Ohio, I’m all
for it - it’ll likely lead to another
Republican win in 2008.
CHRIS FOY
Graduate student in the
Moore School of Business
Moderates left out
of political debate
The 2004 presidential election has
brought to the forefront a problem in
American politics that has bothered
me for quite some time: the
polarization of the American people.
What ever happened to the average
guy in the middle? I am pro-life, but I
believe that the war in Iraq is unjust.
I think that a smaller government
would be beneficial to this nation, yet I
recognize that many people need
governmental assistance. No one likes
taxes, yet the federal budget deficit is
huge. Who am I supposed to vote for?
Who speaks to the non-extremist?
It seems to me that unless you are a
rigm-wing mure mumper or a icn-wiug
hippie, there is no candidate for you.
Most Americans fall in the middle - why
do no politicians recognize this? I guess
common sense has never been
Washington’s strong suit. Alas, the din of
the endless bickering of the ultra left and
right-wing partisans drowns the average
American’s voice out. Who will answer
the call? Who will speak for the common
man? There is no candidate for me.
AARON HAYES
First-year English student
WWW.
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Liberals
should stop
wasting
our oxygen *
m People on edge of left
should accept election
results and move on
With the election a week behind us,
I find it hard to believe that there are
still ostensibly normal people still
walking around spouting conspiracy
□theories about
how Bush “stole
the election.”
What bothers
me isn’t so much
their blatant lack
of knowledge of
the subject or
their asinine
CURTIS emotional
CHOW appeals but
rather the pure .
FOURTH-YEAR . M
ECONOMICS and utIer
STUDENT hypocrisy they
espouse.
I remember in
the 2000 election
when A1 Gore won the popular vote by a
margin of 500,000 votes. The leftists were
immediately up in arms pronouncing
Gore the real winner of the election. That
rotten bastard Bush “stole the election”
thanks to the “faulty” Electoral College
system.
In 2004, Bush won with the most
popular votes ever cast for any presidential
candidate in U.S. history - by a margin of
3.5 million votes. All of a sudden, the left
fringe is embracing the Electoral College
system, throwing any desperate lie and
conspiracy they have left in them to
challenge the legitimacy of Ohio’s results,
mostly in an effort to demoralize the
victorious Bush supporters. They claim
that Kerry should have won Ohio, and
thus the election, but whatever happened
to the convictions they had tour years ago
concerning the winner of the popular
vote?
Let me now clarify that I’m not talking
about the Democratic Party specifically,
nor the Kerry camp. I have the utmost
respect for the way Sen. John Kerry
handled the election outcome. I found his
concession speech to be very unifying and
graceful, and I appreciated the words of
encouragement he had for his fellow
Americans and his appeal to move
America forward.
I am talking about the left-wing fringe
of American society that simply doesn’t
seem to understand that their candidate
lost and that they need to make the best of
it. These are the people who need to learn
that no matter how forcefully dogmaric
they are about their opinions and
conspiracies, it does not compensate for
their lack of actual knowledge. Unless you
actually know what you’re talking about
(which you clearly don’t if you’re one of
these people), no one cares what you think
and maybe its time for you to learn how to
shut the hell up.
I don’t care how much MTV you
watch, how many times you’ve seen
“Fahrenheit 911,” how many Bruce
Springsteen/Eminem/Dixie Chicks
conceits you’ve attended, nor how many
times you’ve heard Whoopi Goldberg or
Susan Sarandon speak - just because you
got out there and “rocked your vote”
doesn’t mean you’re an expert in politics,
international relations or economics. By
vehemently advocating your point of view
without actually knowing what you’re
talking about, you’ve accomplished litde
more than portraying yourself as a
nuisance — a sower of discord
counterproductive to the much needed
unification of the country.
Although I say unification is needed, I
also contend that there are some of you
out there who are beyond hope. These are
those unhappy leftists who seem to always
talk at length about moving to Canada
and leaving us to stew in the mess we’ve
created by re-electing Bush.
Yes, yes, we get the idea - Bush equals
big mess, warmonger, Hitler, etcetera -
why don’t you just leave already? No one
is stopping you, and I’m sure you’d be
much happier in that socialist paradise.
But if you’re not going to back your words
with action, you should go ahead and stop
talking: You’re wasting oxygen that could
otherwise go to people who could better
utilize it.
mjmm /
WINNERS AND SINNERS
W WL w
GtUKGt W. BUSH The president wins a second
term and the GOP gains seats in Congress,
use FOOTBALL A win over Arkansas makes
»J|f Carolina bowl eligible for the first time since 2001.
MOUNT PLEASANT TEACHER Carol Olney, a
special needs teacher, named Wal-Mart’s National
Teacher of the Year.
WKtKaKBKm. f.
JOHN KERRY The Democratic presidential nominee
manages to squander a solid shot at winning.
BOSTON MOB BOSS Cadillac Frank Salemme
^ charged with lying about a 1993 murder after serving eight
<*■ years in prison on charges stemming from eight murders.
MIAMI The Hurricanes lose to Clemson at home and
the Dolphins go 1-8 and lose their head coach. Can a
season-ending injury to Shaq be next?
J v f