Kucinich offers a future of peace
Stephen Campbell (“Ron Paul would bring prosperity back to America,” Viewpoint, Nov. 28), offered Ron Paul as an alternative Republican candidate. I would like to offer Dennis Kucinich as his Democratic counterpart.
Kucinich stands out as the peace candidate. Of the Democratic hopefuls, only he has steadfastly voted against both the original authorization and subsequent funding of the Iraq war.
He plans for immediate troop withdrawal and the stabilization of Iraq. He proposed the creation of a Department of Peace to “dedicate ourselves to peaceful coexistence, consensus building, disarmament, and respect for international treaties.”
Domestically, Kucinich supports universal not-for-profit health care, he supports full-fledged gay marriage, and he voted against the Patriot Act and has pledged to repeal it.
Kucinich has put forth a plan that should resonate with every student: free college education. Kucinich proposes that every student would receive a free college education at any public institution in return for two years of public service after graduation.
In addition, he is one of the greenest candidates. He has pledged to sign the Kyoto Protocol and join the international community to combat global warming.
Kucinich has also proposed a Works Green Administration, which will create new jobs while reducing America’s carbon footprint.
Dennis Kucinich has the innovation, the plan and the will to transform America into a nation that garners strength ““ not through power, but through peace.
Logan Craig
Second-year, English
Ron Paul is not so rock-solid
Stephen Campbell’s claim that Ron Paul is a man of rock-solid principles (“Ron Paul would bring prosperity back to America,” Viewpoint, Nov. 28) left me confused.
Paul is a supposed constitutionalist who opposes the separation of church and state. He is a supposed civil libertarian who opposes a woman’s right to choose.
He is a supposed non-isolationist, free market advocate who opposes the free movement of labor ““ dictated by market forces ““ across national borders.
Consider his devotion to abolish virtually every federal program, including those that give UCLA financial aid and research funding.
Or consider that, according to an article published in his newsletter in 1992, “We can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in (Washington, D.C.) are semi-criminal or entirely criminal,” and black teenage males convicted of crimes deserve harsher sentencing than their white counterparts because they are raised on the street and are as “tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such.”
Either these blatantly racially charged words were sanctioned by Paul, or he is too incompetent to run his own newsletter ““ much less our country.
Ray Huffaker
Graduate student, computer science