Face Off from 2003 in The Exeter News-Letter

Face Off- Is there any reasonable gun legislation? 2/4/2003	Face Off- To Build or Not to Build, that is the question 3/4/2003	Face Off- Should our schools offer tax-supported sports programs? 4/1/2003
Face Off- Should schools pay for Special Ed. - related medical care costs? 5/7/2003 Letter to the Editor: Face Off columnists off mark on special education	Face Off- Should parents be notified if their minor child seeks an abortion? 6/3/2003	Face Off- Should tax cuts be targeted to our wealthiest citizens? 7/1/2003
Face Off- Should Congress allow the sunset clause of the assault weapons ban? 8/5/2003	Face Off- As Bush's term nears end, what is Clinton's legacy? 9/2/2003	Face Off- Assisted reproductive technology: Acceptable medical practice? 10/07/2003
Face Off- Does Media have liberal or conservative slant? 11/4/2003	Face Off- How should the subject of homosexuality be handled in public schools 12/2/2003

(Editor's note From the Exeter News-Letter: Face off is a new point/counterpoint column that will appear monthly in the Exeter News-Letter. Columnists James Buchanan (Left of Center) and Ken Goodall (My Side of the Story) will face off on local, state and national issues of interest to our readers.)

How should the subject of homosexuality be handled in public schools?

KEN: Homosexuality should be taught in sexual education or biology classes, but it should not be portrayed as a normal lifestyle, an acceptable alternative lifestyle, or some kind of life choice Twenty something years ago, it was brought up in one of my classes and I was one of the few voices declaring that homosexuality was not normal. I took a lot of heat for that position and since I still feel the same way, I will probably be taking some more.

JAMES: Sexuality within conventional terms is considered to be an expression of love between two people. Therefore, that expression can take as many forms as there are couples who wish to express that love. Sexuality is also a matter of lust, a means of reproduction, and more. So, to teach kids that sex is solely centered on propagation of the species thereby making homosexuality a dereliction of duty is to ignore the obvious truth about the nature of human sexuality.

JAMES: While there are certainly those places where one can find opinion and fact well mixed, such as The Nation, The National Review, and Fox News, I cannot accept that the hard-news media report on events from any single bias.

KEN: News reports themselves may not be biased, but the manner in which they are reported may very well show bias. I learned of media slant at a very young age. In the early '70s there was a news show called "The Guns of Autumn" with Dan Rather. This expose on hunting showed the worst of the worst and not one true sportsman. That was my first letter and no one responded.

By Ken Goodall and James Buchanan

Face off: Exploring issues of the day

KEN: The first baby born using in vitro fertilization was Louise Brown, born in England on July 25, 1978. Since then, assisted reproductive technology (ART) has become a very common medical practice. In 2000, 35,000 babies in the United States were born using this technology. According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, one in 10 couples face problems conceiving a child. This could be nature's way of controlling the population of humanity. Using science in this manner may be messing with Mother Nature.

With all of the abortions and unwanted pregnancies in this country and the world, more people should consider adopting a child that is already here instead of unnaturally creating more.

JAMES: I think the key to what you are saying is choice. I, too, would rather have fewer abortions and more adoptions, but that is not necessarily a choice I would want to make for someone else, especially a couple who are unable to conceive a baby naturally. For you and your spouse, the decision not to pursue an adoption or alternative form of conception was a choice the both of you made and one that you are free to make.

However, in vitro (assisted conception) should be accepted by the medical community because it offers childless couples the opportunity to make a choice. Yes, there are issues such as the conception of too many fetuses, but medical science is in constant evolution, improving its practices and techniques, as well as developing new ones.

Assisted reproductive technology: Acceptable medical practice?:
http://www.seacoastonline.com/2003news/exeter/10072003/faceoff/54145.htm

9/2/2003- James: When Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, he promised two things. The first was to break down the false choices of the past - they had to be left or right, this or that - and replace them with a third way, based on dealing with problems honestly and beyond a particular ideology. The second was a commitment to the ideal of economic prosperity as a means to empower all people, not just the wealthiest as President Bush believes.

Ken: In December 2000, Bill Clinton announced that the economy was on track to eliminate the public debt by 2012 - at a time when the economy and interest rates were breaking records. Talk about false choices. A future economy cannot be predicted based on a few good years. Enron, Global Crossing, Tyco and many other companies may have crashed while George W. Bush was in office, but the fall started long before that.

The federal law banning the sale of semi-automatic assault weapons, known as the federal assault weapons ban, was passed as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. President Clinton signed it into law on Sept. 13, 1994. However, the assault weapons ban will expire ("sunset") in September 2004 unless Congress and President George W. Bush renew it.

8/5/2003- KEN: The assault weapons ban was bad legislation when it was enacted and no law deserves a quicker death than this fragmented, disjointed, and misguided attempt to ban firearms. This law deals with threaded barrels, pistol grips, and folding stocks. These features can make a firearm look real scary. This law has little to do with the power, strength, or accuracy of a firearm, and more to do with how mean they look. The legislators picked mean looking firearms with folding stocks and pistol grips. The fact is that my deer rifle is stronger than many of those that were banned. This was a planned attack on a set of firearms that would give them the chance to start banning firearms.

JAMES: Legislators did pick "mean" looking firearms for a reason - they are generally high powered and able to spray a large number of bullets in a general area as a means to maximize their lethal effects. In your statement you are partially correct about what the assault weapons ban does not permit, but you should have also included bans on guns with clips of 10 or more rounds, threaded barrels that can support flash suppressers and grenade launchers, bayonet mounts, and specific weapons such as Kalashnikovs, Uzis, Ar70s, AR15s, and others. I should also point out that the assault weapons ban also protects more than 600 sporting rifles. The distinction the law makes is that it bans semi-automatic weapons with multiple assault weapon features. In short, it bans very dangerous weapons that are designed for no other reason than to kill.

7/1/2003- JAMES: In a word - no. From an ethical perspective, even in an economy that could charitably be described as in the doldrums, the wealthy in America are doing very well. They are not losing their jobs; they are not making choices between life-saving prescription drugs or food; they are not facing losing their homes - in short, they aren't suffering.

KEN: In a word - yes. The latest data from the Internal Revenue Service shows that the top 1 percent paid 34.75 percent of all income taxes in 1998, and the top 5 percent of taxpayers paid 54 percent of total personal income taxes. So if the rich are paying the majority of income taxes, it stands to reason that they should get the benefit of tax cuts. Not anymore than anyone else percentage-wise, but an equal amount relative to what they paid in income taxes.

Face Off- Should tax cuts be targeted to our wealthiest citizens?: http://www.seacoastonline.com/2003news/exeter/07012003/faceoff/37096.htm

The Exeter News-Letter: http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/exeter/

6/3/2003- KEN: On Friday, May 30 the New Hampshire Legislature passed the first legislation regulating abortion since Roe v. Wade became law more than 30 years ago. Gov. Craig Benson is expected to sign the legislation into law. Although I am pro choice, I am pro choice for adults, but not for minors. I fully support this legislation and believe that parental rights regarding their minor children should most definitely include being notified if their daughter seeks to have an abortion.

JAMES: It’s interesting that you led off with your support of choice for adults as opposed to minors. According to the legislation, minors are defined as under the age of 18 and yet in this state the legal age of consent is 16. Therefore, we now have a very restrictive law that not only requires parental notification, but a waiting period of 48 hours on young women who are considered by the state to be cognitively and emotionally able to consent to engage in sexual activity.

Face Off- Should parents be notified if their minor child seeks an abortion?:

5/7/2003- James: To put it simply I would hesitate to say that school districts should pay for all medical care that can be justified or somehow related to a special education student’s ability to learn. However, there are some instances when it is not only required, but the right thing to do for the school district and the state to live up to the mandate of educating all students. The question then becomes; where does one draw the line?

Ken: What has caused this is a recent decision handed down by the United States District Court that has put the burden of paying for some of the medical expenses of a special education student onto the school district itself. This decision has taken the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1975 to an extreme that I don’t believe was ever intended by those that supported this act. This act, I believe, was written to force school districts to pay the costs involved in educating children with disabilities, but not the actual medical expenses of these children.

Face Off-Should schools pay for Special Ed. - related medical care costs?:
http://www.seacoastonline.com/2003news/exeter/05062003/faceoff/27228.htm

5/23/03 - I was in disbelief as I read the Newsletter of May 6, a newspaper that has won awards, and now published both in the paper and on the Internet, such blatant trash in its column, "Face Off." Written by two, who appear to be very ignorant and uneducated in the subject, "Should schools pay for Special Ed.-related medical care costs?"

Face off: Exploring issues of the day

By Ken Goodall and James Buchanan

4/1/2003- KEN: Today's news is full of stories about schools in disrepair and others on the verge of loosing their accreditation. To spend one dollar on sports in such financially distressed times seems to me to be a waste of perfectly good money

JAMES: The question at hand is whether schools should offer sports programs, which to me is a fairly broad term that goes beyond just team sports such as football, basketball, and baseball. It also includes teaching kids a sense of physical health and well-being through a myriad of means.

Should our schools offer tax-supported sports programs?:
http://www.seacoastonline.com/2003news/exeter/04012003/faceoff/20803.htm

By Ken Goodall and James Buchanan

3/4/2003- James: It is vitally important for all communities to maintain their centers. They must be sure that they have commons within which the community can come for commerce, recreation, education, and for church. However, the need to maintain such public commons comes second when compared to the needs of educating the community's children. This is made even truer when the interests of the community's taxpayers may be compromised.

Ken: Yes it is vitally important to maintain the center of a community, and it is also important to consider the effect that it may have on the quality of education for our children, but it is equally important to consider the cost of that education and other ramifications as well. Considering the raw numbers it does appear to be worth a little extra money to build a new school, but there are other costs involved that don't appear in those raw numbers.

Face Off-To Build or Not to Build, that is the question:
http://www.seacoastonline.com/2003news/exeter/03042003/opinion/15963.htm

By Ken Goodall and James Buchanan

2/4/2003- Ken: This is a very tough question. I do believe that there is reasonable gun legislation considering that the term gun could include a bazooka. So, do I believe there is any reasonable firearm legislation? Again yes, but the most important piece of legislation would be Article 2A of the New Hampshire Bill of Rights. This article clearly states that "All persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property and the state."

James: Essentially what we need to take a look at is the term "reasonable." Is it reasonable for people to own firearms that do not fulfill any legitimate purpose? Is it reasonable to allow snub-nosed pistols to be sold even though they hold no value other than to fire at another human at very close range? Is it reasonable to have no means whatsoever to be sure that people purchasing firearms are not mentally unfit or a convicted felon? Is it reasonable for a man or woman with a restraining order filed against them to be able to purchase a gun? Is it reasonable for individuals to arm themselves with semi-automatic weapons? The answer is no.

The Exeter News-Letter "Is there any reasonable gun legislation?":
http://www.seacoastonline.com/2003news/exeter/02042003/opinion/11483.htm

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