A few apostates of common sense

Oh, have the apostates of common sense been busy the last few weeks. Some of the recreants, of course, are the usual miscreants - liberals. Common sense's other recanters, however, surprise me a mite; rockribbed Republicans should know better. Let's take a look:

The president of the U.S. Student Association, a 3 million member-strong student union, is upset. Ali Fischer told the Trib this month that denying grants and other publicly subsidized perks to students who fail to disclose criminal convictions for possession of trafficking of illegal drugs is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Why, why, why• Because the application question seeking that information is ''racist and classist.''

Come again•

''It's bad for low-income kids because rich kids can get arrested all they want, but they don't need financial aid,'' said Ms. Fischer.

Now, I understand that the original intent of this requirement was to apply to those already receiving such aid. The idea was to prevent money intended for education from becoming a party kitty to buy drugs.

But, Ali, here's a novel idea: Perhaps - just perhaps - poor kids seeking to advance their educations at public expense can show up those rich kids doing the same and beat 'em at their own game in the process. How• By behaving themselves and not doing drugs !

Urban growth boundaries, or UGBs, are making the news again in Oregon. And never have the markets of state so nonchalantly been allowed to masquerade as free markets.

Two-hundred-fifty-seven of the Beaver State's municipalities now have rings drawn around them to delineate where ''growth'' can occur. Development inside the ring is OK; outside the ring, the diktat goes, development is verboten . Then Gov. Tom McCall, a Republican, first proposed the idea in 1973.

Of course, as any callow economics student knows (or should know), it's not nice to fool Mother Markets; you usually get slapped pretty hard.

Oregon, in general, and Portland, to be specific, routinely are held up as the poster children for ''smart growth.'' But both have become among this nation's best contemporary argument against such interventionism. Housing costs keep rising, traffic congestions has only gotten worse, and citizens are being denied fundamental property rights, not to mention another fundamental of liberty - choice.

Mike Burton is the executive director of Metro, the eight-member board that rides herd over ''The Border.'' ''It's not the great wall of Portland,'' he told a reporter, noting that Metro decides if, when, and where to redraw a line that is reconsidered every five years and, if thought ''necessary,'' moved. ''It moves and it was supposed to move, but it moves in a rational way.''

Mr. Burton and his colleagues are victims of classic Hayekian ''fatal conceit.'' The only ''rationality'' to the free market is when the free market moves, powered by the synergies of free choice - not when governments plan the moves. The Oregon experiment is, and will continue to be, a failure.

Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill is floating a rather curious plan. We'd all be better off if it sank.

The New York Times reports that the former boss at Alcoa Inc. of Pittsburgh hints - he apparently didn't say it outright - that it would be possible to keep the Treasury market alive by issuing new debt even when it was no longer necessary, then give the proceeds back to the public as tax cuts.

Huh•

The idea, reporter Jonathan Fuerbringer divines, is to preserve the Treasury market and the bonds it deals in as the benchmark for interest rates. Because large government surpluses are reducing the government's need to borrow, the very Treasury ''market'' could be rendered moot.

Hence, to preserve a government contrivance (one of the central bankers, actually) that the marketplace has rendered as an archetype of debt days past, Mr. O'Neill seeks to keep it on life support. By• By indebting taxpayers to underwrite a tax refund.

Is this a great country or what•

And the next time you're honked off over a neighborhood development, we suggest you do what a group in Camden, N.J., did: Claim it violates your civil rights. For there's now a federal court case that, if affirmed, likely could be used to argue that anything anybody does, in one way or another, is a civil rights no-no.

U.S. District Judge Stephen M. Orlofsky in Newark, N.J., this month halted, with a preliminary injunction, the opening of a $50 million cement additive plant in a poor black neighborhood, already home to a variety of other industries and several Superfund sites. The New Jersey Environmental Protection Agency, he said, violated permitting rules established under Title VI.

Never mind that the state EPA concluded the plant's emissions would not exceed federal EPA emissions standards, Judge Orlofsky said New Jersey's environmental watchdog agency failed to consider the neighborhood's racial and ethic makeup. He called it ''disparate impact discrimination.''

Attorneys for the plaintiffs say it's a first-of-its kind ruling. No wonder - it's about as wacky as they come. And, oh, the possibilities.

Are the purveyors of this illiberal jurisprudence in the name of ''civil rights'' prepared for the unintended consequences that always comes with liberal ''compassion''• Expect Title VI now to be applied virtually anywhere and in any place to halt virtually anything .

It is, in a word, nuts.

The sad irony of this ''victory,'' as the plaintiffs call it, is that a badly needed new industry that would increase Camden's tax base and provide at least 15 jobs (all the while meeting federal environmental standards) could be mothballed.

Now that's what I call ''community-building.''

And finally, switching gears from lack of common sense to overflowing nonsense (and with all due apologies for imperiling the digestion of your Sunday breakfast), the subhead from the home page of Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy's re-election Web site reads as follows:

''Tom Murphy listens to the experts - the people.''

Since when•

Colin McNickle is the Trib's editorial page editor. Ring him at (412) 320-7836. E-mail him at: cmcnickle@tribweb.com