Editor,
When I read about UNM students' struggles to cope with issues such as abortion, smoking, gun ownership, advocating democracy in foreign countries and so on, all of these debates are talking about freedom of choice.
I speak as a British nonresident scholar visiting this country for two years - it's been a wonderful and insightful experience.
This country was built on the hopes and dreams of immigrants. Unfortunately, America has now become so big and successful that it believes the world over should be like it.
Innocent as I'm sure it was, statements like, '"Is this the example we want to set for the world?"' by Alex Pettit in the Opinion section of last Tuesday's Daily Lobo in regard to abortion, reiterates what I mean.
It's as if Americans are the rest of the world's parents. Of course, I am in danger of generalizing, and in fact the majority of American friends I have made are not like this - but there is an undercurrent in the belly of America that it is the yardstick from which all countries should be measured.
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Although smaller and sometimes also irresponsible, other countries do not suffer from an American-bred problem - the over-reliance on freedom of choice. Freedom comes at a price. If everyone is free to do as they please, chaos ensues.
The U.S. Constitution is heavily structured around freedom - a noble aim rightly conceived out of historical context - but herein lies her problem. Freedom of choice unfortunately steamrolls over all other modern-day considerations. The nation must instill, at the constitutional level, a separation of freedom from rights, as much as the necessity to separate church from state.
The best thing that ever happened to British politics was the split away from monarchy.
If less emphasis was put on America's freedom to choose, and more was put on the considerations of the public's rights - and no, this is not Marxist, just socialist - then I think her hang-ups will dissipate.
Private gun ownership should be banned, restricting public use and storage to rifle clubs and licensed institutions only. Abortion should be illegal, accept for clear cases of rape, not carelessness. Smoking should be banned from all public places, indoors or out - by out I mean thoroughfares and a suitable radius around where anyone is not smoking. SUVs, trucks and four-wheel drives should be owned only by those with proof of specialist sport or trade and those living off the beaten track, not for traveling your average commute. Leaders of tyranny should be arrested by international law, not America representing the world police, and war should only be waged against armies, not militia or insurgences.
America and China, especially, need greener policies. Their industries, which placed them in the global driving seat, must now be responsible for cleaning up the globe. European countries are the leaders in the world for caring for the environment, but unfortunately these friends are too small alone to fight in Earth's corner. Water and oxygen are so precious. If I could persuade Bush to cover the golf courses of California, Arizona and New Mexico and interstate highway medians with solar panel farms, I'd die a happy man. More realistically though, at least recycle more and wash your cars less.
Some of these opinions may seem harsh to many Americans. Some are probably too simplistic, but I leave the lawmakers to fill in the details. The world is getting smaller and dirtier. Perhaps our cars should too. Perhaps one less choice for brands of bread and one more unborn child's life saved would do America a world of good.
Steve Durant
UNM visiting scholar
