Students need to mobilize so opinions can be heard

I am writing this letter in response to the inevitable $1,000 tuition hike. I find it incredible that the wealthy people in this country are getting enormous tax cuts while at the same time students who can hardly afford something off the dollar menu at McDonald's are facing a huge tuition hike. Students are not likely to get a huge tax break when compared to the rest of society. As the distribution of wealth in this country is a skewed distribution, I find it impossible to believe that a great number of students will get a substantial amount of money back from the government unless they lie on the wealthier side of the curve. Why can't these refunded tax dollars really be put back into the economy by educating the next generation in the workforce?

As students, we are silent bystanders to the administration's choice to raise our tuition. In essence, the administration has taken away our voting rights on this matter. At a state-funded institution, this seems rather totalitarian.

There are cases in the past, however, where students in the same situation that we are in now made their voices heard. An example is the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the largest school on the continent. In April of 1999, 270,000 students went on strike in opposition of proposed tuition hikes. The university remained shut down for seven weeks, with about 20,000 students showing up for daily protests. Finally, the administration gave in, and the proposed tuition hike was thrown out.

In my opinion, the students at this university need to find a way to mobilize themselves in order to make their voices heard. The students at the university will be affected substantially more than the administration will by this proposed tuition hike, yet in the end it is the administration's choice. I am not sure if a strike is in order in this situation, however, I cannot fathom a better way for our voices to be heard than to strike.

Jakob Schanzer
chemistry senior

Out-of-state students stuck with unfair tuition increase

I am writing regarding the tuition increases the Board of Regents recently passed. The increases are unfair to out-of-state students for two reasons. Reason one, the tuition increase for out-of-state students is $250 more than the increase for in-state students. The second reason is all financial aid increases will only benefit in-state students. If UA administrators want to maintain or increase current out-of-state enrollment rates, they must stop putting the financial burden on out-of-state students.

Vanessa Zirakzadeh
communication senior

Increase of parking costs unfair to campus residents

I recently saw that Parking and Transportation Services is raising the cost of parking permits by $50 for next year. Their memo states that the money will be used to fund the construction of new parking garages and off-campus park and ride programs. While I understand the need for these things, I think that the rate increase and current parking situation is unfair for students like myself who live on campus. As an RA in a residence hall on campus, the university campus is not only where I go to school but it is also my home. Parking garages that cost $400 a year that many students cannot afford and off campus parking lots do not help students such as myself who live on campus. It is already difficult enough to park remotely near my home on campus and I think that the $180 I currently pay is too much for the low-quality parking situation that students who live on campus face. A rate increase will only make this situation for on-campus students worse.

Jeff Sparks
history junior

New shooting range will generate money for county

Hey Kendrick Wilson, have you ever heard of the Second Amendment? You know, the one that states you have the right to keep and bear arms? They have every right to put a shooting range for responsible gun owners near the fairgrounds. In your column you state that some voters were fully aware while others had no idea where their money headed. Well maybe those unaware should have researched on the issue before voting. This shooting range is mainly to replace the shooting range formerly operated by the Tucson Rod and Gun Club, which was shut down because of safety and noise issues. This new range should and will bring in a lot of money to Pima County which will then be used to hopefully remodel the county swimming pools, improve the trails and add basketball courts etc., as you stated in your column.

Drew McGinness
education sophomore

Public receives recreational benefit from firing range

In response to Kendrick Wilson's Tuesday column, "County wrong to subsidize guns," it is necessary to point out several flaws from the article. First, the county is not giving citizens monetary donations to purchase firearms. They are building a range for sportsmen to utilize. Any individual can choose whether or not to access the range much like any individual can choose whether to access a county-funded park. Further, self-defense is only a small reason to support gun owners. Freedom is the real issue and guns aren't just about hunting and killing. The right of the people to keep and bear arms is a check on the government and is a right that the Second Amendment clearly states shall not be infringed upon.

Just because Mr. Wilson and other anti-constitutionalists despise guns doesn't make the county project a waste of taxpayer money. There are several individuals who will use the range much like individuals who use a park, and just because I don't use a park doesn't mean it is a waste of tax dollars. A legitimate waste of taxpayer money statewide is use of tax dollars to fund political campaigns.

An analogy for Mr. Wilson's ideas about guns would be as follows regarding parks: Let's not build a park because drug dealers and homeless people will go there and destroy the moral fabric of our community. That belief clearly has no substance. Parks' primary purpose is for recreation, not drug dealing or providing somewhere for the homeless to go.

The purpose of a shooting range is for recreation, not to create bloodthirsty killers as Mr. Wilson indicates. While parks have been utilized for drug deals and refuge for the homeless, does that mean we should shut them down? Of course not. Then why try to silence the Second Amendment and melt down all of the guns as Wilson intends? Ben Franklin may have said it best: "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Scott D. Weller
political science and journalism junior

Government subsidy for gun range, not firearms

This is a response to Kendrick Wilson's piece "County wrong to subsidize guns." First off, the county isn't actually subsidizing "guns," a gun range is what is being subsidized. And second, and more important, not all those who purchase guns at a gun show are potential murderers. Case in point, myself, as a gun owner who got his firearm at a gun show, I have never once even thought of knocking over a 7-11 or doing a drive-by with friends. If by protecting myself from someone else who has a gun I can potentially murder you then think of this:

Suppose someone breaks into your house, by breaking your deadbolt, and begins to rob your house but runs across you and decides to kill any witnesses. Are you saying that you would do nothing to fight back, to protect yourself in a life or death situation where it comes down to you or them? If you wouldn't fight back or you would wait 30 minutes or more for the police to show up then you're lying to yourself and everyone that read your article. But if you would fight back, you're a "potential" murderer too. That's not the case at all! You say "I'm no potential murderer," well, neither are most gun owners.

Nick Harrison
pre-business sophomore

Campbell promotes Īblind obedience'

I'd like to comment on some of Steve Campbell's March 11 column, where he makes a sorry attempt to debunk the efforts of war protesters. First, he claims that the government is not neglecting education for weapons since the U.S. is increasing educational spending from $37 billion to a whopping $61 billion (in 2004), while military spending has only increased from 3 percent to 4 percent of the GDP. Our GDP in 2001 was around $10 trillion. One percent of that is $100 billion. So, the increase in military spending (1 percent GDP) since 9/11 is nearly twice the entire education budget. What point was Mr. Campbell trying to make again? Compare the dollars, not percentages. Bombs, not books, indeed.

The rest of the column is similarly illogical, but the most disturbing part of the column was the first line, "At a time when U.S. citizens should be supporting their president and the troops overseas · " What he appears to be condoning here is blind obedience. Since the president decided to make war, we must all fall in line, unquestioningly, and rally behind him? That has to be one of the most offensively un-American ideas one could possibly utter. This country was founded by political dissidents whose sole purpose in constructing the Bill of Rights was to protect us from becoming the zombies that you are proposing we be.

The evidence for Iraq as a threat (with or without al-Qaeda) isn't there, George Tenet said so in October, and MI5's need to plagiarize old intelligence confirms it. Anyone who saw Colin Powell's presentation of "evidence" could easily see this for themselves. Pictures of featureless square buildings in the desert aren't convincing to me, nor the UN, evidently. Mr. Campbell's assertion that the government MUST know something we don't is a petty cop-out for hunger for an excuse not to think for themselves.

Christopher Haney
environmental microbiology graduate student

Government budget exemplifies priorities

This letter is in response to yesterday's column by Steve Campbell entitled "Demonstrators should spend more time in the classroom." Mr. Campbell, while you seem to consider yourself the new authority on the situation in Iraq, I think it is you who needs to "get back into class and learn a little from history."

First of all, it is absolutely true that the U.S. is neglecting education in favor of war. Here's a lesson for you, Mr. Campbell: In 2003 the federal budget for education was set at $56.5 billion, granted, it has increased over the years. But what has increased even more is the U.S. military budget, which has been set at $396.1 billion dollars for 2003. When this country spends almost $340 billion dollars more on war preparations than on education, how can you possibly suggest that the U.S. cares as much about its education system as it does about its military?

Secondly, you state that there is indeed a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda but that telling the public what that connection is would jeopardize missions and American lives. So am I just supposed to always believe the President, no matter what he tells me? Like I was supposed to believe Reagan when he said that he "did not ÷ repeat, did not" sell weapons to Iran in exchange for hostages? Was I supposed to believe Clinton when he said he bombed a "weapons manufacturing plant" in Sudan, even though the plant was producing pharmaceuticals? Blind faith has no place in government.

Lastly (in the interest of space, I'll try to abbreviate my outrage), you seem to think that removing one leader will make a fundamental change in the state of a country. I disagree, as you could probably have predicted. But there is a possibility that you could be right, so I propose we remove Bush from office and see where that takes us. It probably couldn't make things any worse. In closing, I would just like to thank you, Steve Campbell, for your fascinating column. I haven't seen such a shameful display of ignorance and indoctrination in a long time.

Allison Smith
sociology and German studies sophomore