Forman: It really does go back to individual responsibilities. I would put the emphasis on responsibilities rather than on rights It goes back to the fact that we are living in a community, that we have responsibilities to treat others in certain ways, in non racist ways, that by living in the state that does things....we have a responsibility to do things in return.
Crimson: The Salient, generally has had a warm reaction to President Reagan's policies What is your assessment?
Higgins: The President definitely has values, does have definite ideas about what a good policy is for the long run. He has stuck to them rather faithfully. The thing that I find most alarming, and I think you could call it the Jim Bakerization of the government; that wing of the party has to a very large extent taken over the White House. The Ronald Reagan wing is not in control....Main Street may have won this election, but unfortunately to a large extent. Wall Street is taking it over.
Forman: In general, I think Reagan is a very kindhearted, well-intentioned man. He's not out to get anyone: Blacks, poor, whoever....At the same time I think he's a fairly simplistic man Jimmy Carter was a very intelligent man, and we saw where he got us. But I quoted the remark the Reagan made to [U.S. Arms Negotiator] Paul Nitze: "Well, you know, communists are communists, no matter where they are." And it's just not true, and in a way it's dangerous.
Crimson: On liberal campus activism.
Higgins: The so-called issues of the Left are like hemlines. They go up and down and change every year. Last year, the crucial issue was El Salvador. The previous year, the crucial issue for all time was nuclear power. The spring before that, the crucial issue for all time was South Africa. You have to question just how deeply concerned someone is with an issue when he's talking about it as the most important thing today, when next week or six months from now something completely different is the most important thing.
Sauter: Let's talk about substantive issue. I meet with my Vietnamese friends and they say. "The Left has not learned a lesson from Vietnam in this country"....I'm willing to say that most people who marched against the war in Indochina were well-intentioned, most, not all....but what lessons have they drawn? Have they drawn the lesson that their actions affected millions of lives. Harvard student actions have affected millions of lives. They are indirectly responsible, but responsible nonetheless, for millions of dead Cambodians and for hundreds of thousands of people in internment camps in Vietnam, for a general disintegration of law and order, democracy, and human rights in Indochina.
Crimson: On the peace movement, specifically:
Sauter: We're convinced that the peace movement will drastically increase the chances of nuclear war....It does not put into perspective that people who believe in producing more nuclear weapons believe in producing more nuclear weapons to avoid a nuclear war....They talk about a nuclear freeze, and [what] they never give reference to is [whether] a freeze [is] possible; if there is an imbalance now between the forces of the Soviet Union and America, would a freeze he more or less likely to create an imbalance and a greater potential of nuclear war? Also, it never deals with the very basic question of, is there anything worth risking, and I say risking, a nuclear war for?.....I think there are things worth risking a nuclear war for.
Higgins: You have to look at the relationship between increasing the number of nuclear weapons and the probability of having nuclear war. it's not simple and direct, as the Left would like us to believe. Left-wingers, particularly around here, are very big on simplistic cause-and-effect chains, in the South Africa tradition, for instance Does it ever occur to them that divestiture from South Africa might not be the best thing, that having U.S. investment in south Africa because of the foreign policies or the job opportunities made by American companies might he the best peaceful means to undermine apartheid.
Crimson: On campus politics:
Forman: We have got plenty of liberalism on campus, and I have stated all along that my purpose in the club and our purpose in the club and our purpose with the paper is to provide some balance, is to put forward some arguments on the other side just in order to raise consciousness, to get people thinking.
Higgins: To get people thinking about things as issues that they originally thought of as settled facts.
Saute: It's amazing how many people we convince when we speak to them....I find that when I speak to people about issues or I write about them, they will say. I never thought about that that way. "And then they'll say. "That point has a lot of validity," and then they'll think about it further.
Crimson: Is there a rising tide of conservatism on campus?
Sauter: I think so. While we were organizing rallies about Afghanistan a year ago. Reagan was out campaigning, and the people were just growing sick, morally sick, over the consequences of having liberal Jimmy Carter in office, over the consequences of having liberal policies, leftist policies that were not really helping poor people who are not dealing with the threats of the totalitarian movement. It was giant wave, and of course this wave is going to come over campuses; it came over during the elections, and even the little trickle that's come onto Harvard....
Higgins: Yeah. You have to break it down into several components. There are an increasing number of hard-core conservatives, people who are converts. There are also a number who are coming out of the closet. Now I've been in the minority ever since I've had a political viewpoint, and I'm used to being called a "fascist." A lot of people don't like to be called "fascists." Two and three years ago they wouldn't have come out and admitted that they were conservatives.
There are also....people who while not necessarily hard-core Reaganites, would be very skeptical and very dissatisfied with the liberal orthodoxy and are willing to listen to some of our viewpoints and agree with some of our viewpoints but in many cases just didn't know what that they were there. Then there is the real red herring what a lot of people point at and think is rising campus conservatism, this rising, this nauseating preppydom. Those people aren't conservatives, Those people are drunks.