The Springfield News-Leader du lieu suivant : Springfield, Missouri • 6

6A Editorials Columns Letters VIEW 5559 Thursday, September 12, 1985 It's time to show compassion for CSA members The Daily News POINTS Ours William T. Malone, Publisher Bill Southerland, Editor Bob Franson, Editorial Page Editor The Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord is a perfect example of idealism going berserk. And now that the people who invested time, money and their lives in the organization have seen it collapse, it's time to show compassion for many of them, no matter how misguided they were. Picking up the threads of their lives or establishing new liveswith will be Nations, a violent hate group. Now the CSA's founder, James Ellison, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison on a racketeering charge.

His second in command, Kerry Noble, was sentenced to five years for conspiracy. Other CSA members were placed on probation, told to find full-time jobs and ordered not to associate with one another. difficult The CSA was a perversion of religious ideas, an organization that armed itself, committed violent acts and advocated ideas inimical to American ideals. It even linked arms with the Aryan Cockfighting law needs to be clearer This decision has prompted the women still living on the CSA property near Pontiac, on the Missouri-Arkansas line, to move out They have begun thinking about finding jobs. Some have enrolled their children in a public school.

Chances of the CSA or the religious arm, Zarepath-Horeb, being revived anytime soon probably are remote, especially since many members no longer can associate with each other. Meanwhile, 11 members of the violent white-supemacist group known as The Order are standing trial in Seattle. They are accused of attempting to overthrow the government and financing their efforts by robbing banks and an armored car. And David Tate, a suspected member of The Order, is in the Greene County jail awaiting trial in the April 15 shooting death of a Missouri trooper, Jimmie Linegar, and the wounding of another trooper. Law-enforcement people did an admirable job of gathering evidence and bringing CSA leaders to trial.

The rest of us must be alert against similar groups that might take root in the Ozarks. Zoning laws bend To paraphrase Mark Rundel, a Crane attorney, a lot of people still think that their property is theirs to do with as they wish. But when their wishes come into conflict with new zoning laws in many Ozarks communities, something has to give. In the case of Edmund Pierce, 86, a retiree in Aurora, it looks as if the city is giving in a bit. He built the home last spring.

But the site was in an Aurora industrial zone where residences are barred. Further, he had failed to get city permission. When officials found out, they told Pierce to halt construction. Three months of meetings with city officials followed. On top of everything else, Pierce's home barely falls short of square footage requirements.

His lawyer thinks a variance is possible. He also predicts the city will agree with some experts who say homes can be built in non-residential areas. If all goes according to predictions, Edmund Pierce will have his home thanks to understanding city officials. The Missouri Supreme Court has found a portion of the laws against cockfighting and dogfighting is too vague. But in overturning the conviction of a spectator at a cockfight in Ralls County, the court may have wiped the slate clean of laws against cockfighting and dogfighting.

Such a development would be disgraceful. Activities as cruel and inhumane as cock- and dogfighting shouldn't be legal in Missouri. Far from dying out, cockfighting may be growing in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri. Breeders spend hours each day exercising the birds, building their stamina, feeding them the right food and injecting them with blood-clotting agents. Just a few years ago, a raid near Alton netted 149 persons who were charged with violating the cockfighting law.

Some pleaded guilty and were fined. In the Ralls County case, the man's lawyer argued the law did not make it clear whether a cockfight had to be in progress for a person to be charged as a spectator, which his client was. The court agreed a person could be convicted of being present at a site where cockfighting had taken place, regardless of whether a fight was in progress or whether the person participated. A St. Louis legislator, Rep.

Patrick Dougherty, who has sponsored bills to protect animals in the past, promises to clear up the problem with new legislation. His measure deserves a priority tag. We can't believe Missourians believe raising dogs or roosters to die in a pit is part of a sport. -J Marcella Bothwell Mel Sv Hancock Wise words are 2,000 years old College-age kids shape up parents mJtmHi I Si U.S. politicians have paraphrased but fail to act like they believe it "The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled and assistance to foreign lands should be reduced lest the state become bankrupt.

The peo-and not depend on gover- pie should be forced to work nemnt for subsistence." U.S. leans toward favors for India 4 A Jack Anderson Children gO back The shock of silence in the house is stunning, tO SChOOl, now that the last teen- ager has departed for the leaving parents college dorm. Almost as TO recuperate freezer and find choco- late-chip ice cream still there in its unopened carton. And it's a jolt to pull out a tray of ice that's full rather than one that's three-quarters empty. I'll never understand why kids put trays back empty, or why they leave potato chip crumbs in the bottom of the bae; when the waste basket is only one foot away.

Perhaps they think I want the crumbs for a tuna casserole, but if I ever said that, I wish they'd forget it. Just like they forget instructions such as, "Turn off the lights when you leave your room." We hope the children had a wonderful summer and that they remember their parents fondly. They'll miss us, I'm sure. Especially the ready access to clean shirts, half-slips and pantyhose. To locate their own seemed a great nuisance over the summer, but it's a skill that I'm confident can be developed.

In the dorm, it should take about 24 hours. Amazing the way teens can instruct each other in matters of privacy and possessions. They don't mince words. They rely on blanki-ty-blank straight talk that parents wouldn't dream of using. Well, parents might dream of it I'm now taking inventory of personal items left behind.

I've found six beach towels, two bathing suits, sandals, and many plastic tumblers all belonging to unknown owners who passed through the house during the summer. I wish the unknown owners would come forward. And if my red hair-dryer shows up in the trunk of someone's car, I'd like to have it back. In a week or so, after I'm reaccustomed to using the telephone, I intend to make several important calls. Ones I've put off because, frankly, there are some people that you just can't call up at 4 in the morning.

But it's good for parents to have children home for the summer. Parents toughen up; and because we've continued to mow the grass, shoveling snow won't seem such a chore. We've kept shape, and we have our children to thank for it. Marcella Bothwell is a Springfield author whose column appears on Thursdays. I have repeated this statement four weeks in a row because it expresses clearly and concisely the very essence of our problem as a nation.

This week's column will focus on the last sentence. Our country has thrived on what most people call the "work ethic." Even during the darkest depression of the 1930s, government attempted to make work available to the able-bodied in return for subsistence wages. In a free society, we cannot condone governemnt forcing people to work. This would be considered slavery. Another form of slavery is government confiscating the product of the labor of people who do work and, through government grants and handouts, giving it to people who refuse to work.

The major portion of the money we now spend for welfare programs goes to subsidize the bureaucracy rather than assisting the needy. An axiom of government is, "If you want 'less' of something, tax it. If you want 'more' of something, subsidize it." The more we subsidize those persons who refuse to accept gainful employment, the more career unemployed we will have. Who originally made the opening statement? Readers have guessed Franklin Roosevelt, Benjamin Franklin, Harry Truman and a multitude of others. Practically all of the people guessed are politicians who have repeated portions of this truism while seeking positions of leadership.

Their failure to implement these principles of government has caused the collapse of every great world power since the Roman statesman Cicero originally made the statement about 2,000 years ago. Mel Hancock is a Springfield businessman and voluntary chairman of the Taxpayers Survival Association. His column appears each Thursday. Pakistani's brash Washington is President Reagan about treatment Of to "tilt" toward India in its four decades of rivalry Slain leader with Pakistan? If so, it would be a remarkable daughter hUrtS turnaround for U.S. for- eign policy 14 years after we exposed the Nixon administration's secret tilt toward Pakistan.

Whether ruled by military dictators or the elected government of the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan has historically been favored in Washington over India, whose supposed pro-Soviet leanings have irritated not only Congress but one American administration after another. But there are signs no hard evidence, but suggestions from influential administration insiders that the historic course of U.S. foreign policy in the Asian subcontinent may be undergoing a change of significant proportions. And by an irony of fate, administration and congressional support for Pakistan's latest military dictator, Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, may have suffered its crucial blow from Zia's treatment of Bhutto's daughter, Benazir.

It would be poetic justice if Zia were undone by his rash decision to place under house arrest the daughter of the formidable rival whom he had executed on trumped-up murder charges in 1979. i She has been put back under house arrest after addressing a throng of supporters on the occasion of her brother's funeral. She had been promised by Zia that she would be in no danger if she returned to Pakistan for the funeral. With incredible gall, the man who had her father hanged said with a straight face, "You can have differences of opinion, but on the occasion of a death in the family, the sorrow transcends barriers." The State Department publicly expressed "dismay' at Benazir Bhutto's arrest It observed pointedly that it seemed "inconsistent" with Zia's pledge to return Pakistan to democracy. Several senators have contacted the Islamabad government on the young woman's behalf.

A letter of support is circulating on Capitol Hill. There are other signs of disillusionment within the Reagan administration. U.S. conservatives' ardor for Zia was based on the belief that he was a reliable anti-Soviet ally. It cooled when they realized he was an Islamic fundamentalist.

In short, he wasn't the reliable ally for whom conservatives were willing to tolerate human rights abuses. Jack Anderson's investigative column appears daily in The Daily News. Yours We'd like to know your viewpoint Send your letters to Letters to the Editor, The Daily News, 651 Boonville, Springfield, 65801. Please include your signature and full address. Letters of 250 words on subjects of topical interest will receive priority.

Let Africa find its own solutions Regardless of what opinion one may hold on apartheid (I personally think it is wrong) it is time for America to stop getting involved in the situation in South Africa. If we don't stop getting involved, I fear the issue is going to divide the blacks and whites in America and lead to a revival of the riots of the 1960s. Both the conservative evangelist Jerry Fal-well and the liberal minister Jesse Jackson (both preachers of quality) should mind their own congregations at home and stay out of the situation in South Africa. DAVID SHIPP El Dorado Springs Good comics dropped In middle of stories We're disappointed in the morning comics. If we wanted to read gossip, we'd buy one of those magazines at the check out line.

their vile actions can be placed in the same simplified category as the school bully. Over 50 years ago I was a grade school student in a small town in central Missouri. I was in the fifth grade. I was different from the other children in that I was a foster child. As I recall I took a lot of flak simply because I was "different" I had no real parents I was a foster child.

I remember to this day the school bully and his taunts and insults as we walked to school; "Ya, ya, you ain't got no folks" "You ain't as good as me." Now this bully was a year older than me and a head taller and reveled in giving smaller kids a hard time. I wasn't really afraid of that kid but his actions made me hate him. I kept thinking he'd knock off his stupid play and leave me alone wrongo! He kept itup. Well, one day I saw red I turned on that bully and I'm real proud to note that I cleaned his plow! I bloodied his ugly nose I blackened his eye. Know what? As I walked away I knew in a flash that what I did was the end of the school bully.

FREDDIE BOOHER Forsyth Alexander didn't travel to Brazil all by himself I noted your article of Sept. 6 about Rep. Bill Alexander with a headline "$56,364 'solo' trip to Brazil aboard Air Force plane," and also your editorial of the same date. I read a number of similar articles In papers in Arkansas and Missouri. They all tend to give the impression the Rep.

Alexander was the only person to make the trip. However, I understand that a number of people were on the trip including the director of alcohol reserach at the University of Arkansas. There have been many published accounts but nowhere have I read what actually occurred on this trip. How well were Alexander and his group received in Brazil? Did they, actually obtain information about alcohol production? I challenge you to report what happened. You could have a "scoop" since no one has yet reported what occurred on the trip.

JAMES LOWE Mountain Home, Ark. We enjoy reading comics because of the serials, especially Spiderman and Steve Canyon. These were taken out in the middle of good story lines, and we're left wondering what happened. Put some life hack into the comics and bring back the Webslinger! MIKE AND CHANA BURNEY Springfield Fite merely trying to aid South African blacks In reply to a letter by Mrs. David Bedell about Jerry Fite using words that were obnoxious to her "pickaninnies," etc.) Fite used these words in his column to better relate to a majority of the readers in a lan guage they would understand.

The message he was trying to convey was that the Rev. Jerry Falwell had rather videotape for American television viewing uneducated blacks. Fite was only trying to help overcome the plight of the blacks in South Africa and in my opinion, has much talent and one of the best columns in Springfield Newspapers. CLARENCE SEAMON Springfield U.S. should get tough with world terrorists The U.S.A.

seems to be confronted by various terrorist groups. What to do? I think terrorist groups and I i. A.