In the Sept. 26 Registration Issue of the Daily Bruin I found a
wonderful article on the evils of the carpool lane, (“Carpool
lane a vehicle of socialist ideology”). Not only is the
carpool lane evil, but as the author Garin Hovannisian argues, the
lane has become a vehicle for social change ““ it is a way for
this obviously left-leaning government to promote a socialist
ideology. Hovannisian clearly had too much free time during the
summer.
There are two major problems with Hovannisian’s article.
Granted, the lane rewards a select number of people while excluding
others, yet this is not a socialist concept. Rather, this is the
concept of rewarding a few select individuals at the expense of
others, which is a product of our capitalist society and
Hovannisian’s beloved Republican party.
This party has continually rewarded the top tier of American
society (who control the vast majority of our nation’s
wealth) while excluding all the rest. The overall power of the
Republican party is shown by their ability to draw young,
intelligent individuals, like Hovannisian, into their fold.
Hovannisian needs to realize that his right-wing bias has begun
to affect his thinking. He has managed to take something as
innocent as the carpool lane and turn it into a vehicle of
socialist propaganda.
As if he hadn’t already gone far enough, Hovannisian
commits his second major flaw when he manages to brand John Kerry
as a socialist ““ putting Kerry in the same category as Pol
Pot and Fidel Castro. Kerry is not a socialist, he is a
left-of-center Democrat. If Kerry were as liberal as everybody
seems to think he is, he would not be the Democratic presidential
candidate.
All one has to do is look at the rise and fall of Howard Dean.
Dean was the early Democratic front-runner, yet he was too liberal
and this ultimately cost him the chance to be the next president of
the United States. Kerry, on the other hand, ultimately won the
nomination by taking a more conservative stance.
Espiritu is a UCLA student.