Hate columns have no place in paper
This is in response to Amir Amirkhani’s submission on
homosexuality (“Campus
contributes to wrong behavior,” Daily Bruin, Viewpoint,
Oct. 18). The three years that I have been here at UCLA as a
graduate student in electrical engineering, I have seen numerous
articles in Viewpoint ““ political, academic, religious, etc.
““ and many have been controversial too. I have always admired
the ability of UCLA’s campus to have such a high degree of
freedom of expression.
But this article is seriously the limit. I have never seen such
a disgustingly hateful attitude. I am scared to imagine the
consequences if every person on campus were to go ahead and express
their individual hateful opinions like Amirkhani. The last thing
UCLA, America and the world needs in these fragile and tense times
are articles like these.
I hope the Viewpoint section of the Daily Bruin decides real
soon on where the line needs to be drawn separating freedom of
speech and pure, unadulterated hate.
Vinod Panikkath Graduate student Electrical
engineering
Serving others serves U.S. as well
Shirin Vossoughi writes that U.S. humanitarian aid is often
self-serving when in actuality, it has proved to be both
self-serving and beneficial to the recipients (“U.S.
humanitarian efforts not enough,” Daily Bruin, Viewpoint,
Oct. 16).
The U.S. helped western Europe rebuild after World War II
because it was in U.S. interests to have a more stable and
prosperous free world.
This type of help, which has continued and has amounted to
hundreds of billions of dollars, has benefited both the receivers
and the U.S.
In Afghanistan, with the help of the International Red Cross and
the U.N., much of the food, if not all, will get to the starving
Afghans.
Once again, it is admittedly self-serving but is also beneficial
for the recipients.
Theodore Andersen Professor of finance
Time to think, not debate on religion
Joel Schwartz (“God,
religion did bless our nation,” Daily Bruin, Viewpoint,
Oct. 17) has his history badly wrong when he argues that “the
framers” wisely made “In God We Trust” our
“national motto.” Actually, the founders of this
republic framed a Constitution that never once mentions God, and
“In God We Trust” wasn’t placed on our currency
until 1956 at the height of McCarthyism, when right-wingers used
the threat of Communism to impose all kinds of cultural
conformity.
The framers fled here from a country where people were killing
each other by the thousands because they each trusted in their
version of God. Now the same thing is happening globally ““
just read the pious letter the hijackers carried from their
ringleader ““ and our government keeps telling us it’s
time to pray.
Maybe instead, it’s time to think ““ and to recognize
our fellow creatures as something other than pawns in a game
between our deity and its evil adversary.
Robert N. Watson Professor of English