Column: Resolving the Debate
Columnist Fred Taylor-Hochberg has called out the Christians, with a less-than-witty critique of the Intelligent Design Theory. No matter what you believe about the progression of human kind, there should be some tolerance for alternative theories of life. You should definitely not worry that alternative theories like Intelligent Design might “corrupt our youth,” as Taylor-Hochberg suggests in his column. He warns, “Next thing you know, we'll have intelligent design taught in our history departments.” Oh no! Not our fair and objective history departments. We wouldn’t anyone on our Berkeley campus teaching us revisionist history. As Taylor-Hochberg puts it, “Do you want your kids to learn that the Crimean War was caused by Jesus and His time machine?” No, but we also wouldn’t want a Political Science 1 class requiring students to learn the basics of government from Ward “9/11 victims were little Eichmans” Churchill. If you didn’t already know, Political Science 1 was converted to an American Cultures class, where lessons on federalism were replaced with lectures on multiculturalism. If Taylor-Hochberg really wants to prevent the corruption of our youth, he should leave the Christians alone and call out some of the professors on our own campus
Editorial: Hands off our values
The editorial board of the Daily Cal is upset that the US House of Representatives has messed with their “values” by rejecting a proposal to name a Berkeley post office after former Berkeley Vice-Mayor Maudelle Shirek. If Shirek’s values are the Daily Cal’s values, then we know the Daily Cal supports Castro-like leaders and the release of certain cop killers. According to a February 2000 article in the Daily Cal, Shirek was greatly involved in the Free Mumia movement and “has dined with the likes of Fidel Castro.” But that doesn’t matter. Living and studying in Berkeley, we should all be accustomed to these leftist values, as misguided as they are.
The real issue is the editorial board’s emphasis on retaining personal values. When they defend their values by writing, “…don’t mess with ours,” it sounds like something the Boy Scouts of America would say to the ACLU or a Private Business to a government mandated hiring law. While the Daily Cal defends Berkeley’s right to name buildings after its own civic leaders, would they also defend the Boy Scouts of America’s right to pray during their meetings and recruit only heterosexual troop leaders? I could only hope that while the Daily Cal defends their own values, they will allow other individuals to retain their personal values as well.
Op-ed: The Case for Military Withdrawal in Iraq
Activist Snehal Shingavi continues his crusade to convince us that America is the worst thing in the world. While he lists several setbacks that the Iraqi people and the US military have encountered, such setbacks do not justify the abandonment of the mission in Iraq.
He writes of the lack of running water and electricity in Iraq, but also admonishes the “privatization of Iraqi industry.” How does he think Iraq will bring their water and electricity to maximum distribution? A centralized government will not be able to do this.
Shingavi also claims that, “American and British troops pit confessional and sectarian groups against one another.” The only group that American and British troops are pitting Iraqis against is Jordanian born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his band of foreign insurgents. Zarqawi has no interest or respect for Iraqi independence or autonomy. He is not even an Iraqi himself and is the true enemy of self-determination in that region. If he believed in Iraqi independence, he would not have supported the killing of Iraqi citizens who went to vote in their own free election.
Shingavi goes on to say that in the history of occupation, “Both the occupier and the occupied lose.” We all know that Germany, Italy, Japan, and France are all in dire straits since they were blemished by American occupation. America’s presence in Iraq is in no way an occupation of imperialist interests. Imperialist cccupiers do not take bullets for those they are occupying. Americans are dying so that Iraqi could live in a free democracy.
If you want a real discussion about how to best help the Iraqi people, you cannot come into the discussion presupposing that any military involvement is wrong. Shingavi writes, “…it is narrow-minded to assume that military intervention is the only way we can ‘clean up our mess.’" It is just as narrow-minded to assume that what America does is the cause of all the world’s problems.
If the US does withdraw from Iraq, the Iraqi people will not remember America for what it attempted to do for them, but how America left them in the dust, leaving incomplete the support for Iraqi democracy. Such a memory would be dangerous for the Middle East and the rest of the world, as radical terrorists would take advantage and recruit Iraqis disillusioned with the West.
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