I sorely wish The State Press would stop parroting the views of the supporters of Clean Elections [Commission] and presenting such views as facts in news articles.
Government funding of political campaigns is our greatest imminent threat to First Amendment protections of free speech. Why? Because what the government pays for, the government eventually controls.
The last thing we should wish for is government financing and control of political campaigns. Soon the Unclean Elections lobby will want to expand the regulatory scope of their system to include what political campaigns can say, when they can say it, how they can say it and how much money they can spend to say it.
This is already happening at the federal level with the McCain-Feingold bill, which explicitly bars certain kinds of speech (commercials paid for by people the establishment doesn't like) during campaign season.
The First Amendment says: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech." This principle is so much more important than the concerns of those people who hate it when other people spend lots of money to promote political positions which they disagree with.
--Jose Duarte
ASU student
Martori column right on
The price of gasoline is soaring, and there is no end in sight. We can point to many reasons, but in the end we only have ourselves to blame. Supply and demand controls the market, and our dependence on gasoline has brought us to this point. Unless we lower our demand, the price for the supply will continue to rise.
It would be difficult to do, but it could be done. Alternative fuels, conservation, more fuel-efficient vehicles, carpooling and public transportation: Any combination of these would lessen our need for gasoline (demand) and cause a surplus in the market (supply).
That does not mean for one day or a week, but a whole new attitude toward our dependence on oil is in order. We could do it. The question is: Would the price be too high?
--M. Rothra
MCC student
Bhajaria takes too much on faith
What is it about the death of this pope that has prompted people without even a passing acquaintance with Catholic theology, philosophy or history to begin "pontificating" on how the church should operate?
... As frustrating as it is to modern secularists and relativists, the church claims to speak with the authority of Christ, which means that what it teaches authoritatively cannot be discarded or revised.
Whether the church's claim is justified is something individuals must decide for themselves. How could the church hold fast to its teachings on morality for 2,000 years, reverse them the next day and still claim the allegiance of the hearts and minds of its faithful?
To say, "Truth gets more and more relative each day" is to say truth does not exist at all.
--Christopher Lanter
Biology senior
