Beyond Feelings - Vincent Ruggiero [29]
The office of the presidency of the United States should be changed from a on-person position to a three-member board.
Cemeteries should open their gates to leisure-time activities for the living. Appropriate activities would include cycling, jogging, fishing, nature hiking, and (space permitting) team sports.
The environment (rivers, trees, land, and so on) should be granted legal rights similar to those guaranteed to people.7
Federal and state penitentiaries should allow inmates to leave prison during daytime hours to hold jobs or attend college classes. (The only ones denied this privilege should be psychopaths.)
Colleges should not admit any student who has been out of high school for less than three years.
To encourage a better turnout at the polls for elections, lotteries should be held. (Voters would send in a ballot stub as proof that they voted. Prizes would be donated by companies.)8
Retired people should be used as teachers' aides even if they lack college degrees.9
Everyone should be issued and required to carry a national identity card, identifying him or her as a U.S. citizen.10
Churches and synagogues should remove all restrictions on women's participation in liturgical and counseling services, thus permitting women to serve as priests, ministers, and rabbis.
Colleges should charge juniors and seniors higher tuition than that charged to freshmen and sophomores.
Test the reactions of three other people to one or more of the ideas in the previous application. Be selective, choosing people you believe may be shocked by the ideas. Observe their reactions. Have them explain their positions. Decide to what extent, if any, they seem to be resistant to change. (Keep in mind that it is possible for people to disagree with the idea not because they resist a change but because they see real weaknesses in it.
Read the following dialogue carefully. Note any instances of resistance to change. Decide which view is more reasonable. (Be sure you avoid resisting change yourself and judge the issue fair-mindedly.)
Background Note: In past decades college officials debated whether to censor student newspapers that published stories containing four-letter words and explicit sexual references. The debate continues, but the issue has changed. Some student papers are publishing articles that make fun of blacks, women, and homosexuals. And others are urging students to paint 11graffiti on campus buildings and take up shoplifting to combat conformity.
Ernest: Such articles may be childish and tasteless, but that's no reason to censor them.
Georgina: Are you kidding? Minorities pay good money to go to college. And on most campuses, I'm sure, their student activity fee pays for the student newspaper. Where's the fairness in charging them for articles that insult them or that encourage lawbreaking, which ultimately costs them as taxpayers?
Ernest: Why is everything a money issue with you? So a buck or so from every student's activity fee goes to the newspaper. Big deal. That doesn't give every student the right to play fascist and set editorial policy. The articles are written in a spirit of fun or for chock value. Censorship is not the answer. If a pesky fly buzzes around your head, you don't fire an elephant gun at it. Well, may be you do, but no sensible person does.
Bill Beausay, a sports psychologist, suggests that sports be rated much as films are – X, R, or G, depending on the amount of danger and/or violence in them. He urges that children not be allowed to take part in any X-rated sport at an early age. Such sports include motorcycle and auto racing, hockey, football, boxing, and horse racing.12 Decide whether his suggestion has merit. Be sure to avoid resistance to change.
Decide whether you accept or reject the following arguments. Be careful to avoid both "mine is better" thinking and resistance to change, and judge the issues impartially. You may wish to research the issues further before judging.
Beer and wine