
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 23, 1993                   TAG: 9306230263
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

NOT A SETBACK, A STEP FORWARD

ONCE AGAIN we have been served another cluster of sour grapes in Paxton Davis' June 11 column, "A GOP swing to lunacy." Since the convention, this paper has bemoaned the failure of "moderate Republicans" to capture nominations for lieutenant governor and attorney general.

Davis' column is an ill-informed, cliche-ridden harangue against the conservative mood of Virginia Republicans. Either he wasn't at the convention or wasn't listening. About the only thing he got right was Mike Farris' statement that "public education is not essential to the preservation of democracy."

During the nation's formative years, there was no such thing as public education. Educational choice produced an unparalleled literacy rate in 1800. Rather than "set the cause of reason and enlightenment back another five centuries, or more," we would be content with a mere two centuries that would return us to the constitutionally limited government, individual freedom and self-determination espoused by Allen, Farris and Gilmore. PATRICK L. McCUNE MEADOWVIEW

by CNB